Across the River, III

--AP/Getty file photo, 10.6.12

I think we should remove ourselves
from Afghanistan as quickly as we can.
I just think we're killing the kids that don't need to die
--Congressman Bill Young (R - FL) 

The United States will always do the right thing --
when all other possibilities have been exhausted 
--Winston Churchill
 ________________

[Note, per Rep. Young's quotation: Some rare times a Floridian will get things right. Staff Sergeant Matt Sitton wrote his Rep. Bill Young June 2012 about the dire trajectory of military operations as he saw it in Afghanistan (The Soldiers Who Don't Need to Die); he concluded, "Thank you again for allowing soldiers to voice their opinion. If anything, please pray for us."  SSG Sitton was later killed in action, and Rep. Young decided to speak up.]

The above AP photo heading the news item on the most recent two Special Forces troops killed by insurgents in Afghanistan shows another danger area which is a trail or a dirt road.

The troops are bunched up and are a prime target; following normal lines of drift can get you killed.  There is not all around security and the troops are on their knees rather than dispersing and forming a hasty perimeter.  This is a potentially deadly mistake in patrolling technique, reflecting criminally poor training training and execution at squad level.

A shooter with a Dragon Soviet semi auto sniper rifle or (X)M21 system could render this team toast; ditto if the trail is rigged for explosion -- a Claymore or light machine gun would do the same.

This is strange behavior for Special Operations Soldiers; it is exactly the same as that exhibited by a recent group of young, drunk AIT Infantry soldiers on a balcony of a Columbus, Georgia motel.

Except, despite the bars on the businesses behind the motel, the AIT Soldiers were not in a war zone.

Sitting Ducks

We gotta take these bastards.  

Now we could do it with conventional weapons,

but that could take years and cost millions of lives.

 No, I think we have to go all out

I think that this situation absolutely 

requires a really futile and stupid gesture

 be done on somebody's part! 

--Animal House (1978)
___________________

USAToday argued this week that the expensive MRAPS (Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicles) have saved far fewer troop's lives than reported by the Pentagon -- perhaps 2,000 to the military's estimate of 40,000. The Pentagon stated that classified data was unavailable to the author of a Foreign Affairs study which gave the lower figure.

Rather than quibble over a few tens of thousands of lives, the question actually is: Why are our troops tooling around in these death traps at all?

An MRAP, contrary to popular belief, is NOT a combat vehicle; it is just a big truck, up-armored to resist blast damage.  The same is true of the Humvee which it replaced (which replaced the Jeep) -- these are troop-transport or mobility vehicles.  No one would expose either the Humvee or the MRAP to enemy direct fire weapons except in extreme circumstances, yet somehow they have become fixed in American minds much as the horse was for the mounted gunfighter.

The misconception probably began when the TOW anti-tank system was mounted on the Humvee.  This resulted from the MP Corps insistence that they could fight the RAP (Rear Area Protection) battles by killing tanks in the rear.  (Of course, no one explained how enemy tanks could get into the rear without the front either collapsing or contracting.)

This Corps scenario conventional thinking miraculously regenerated in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) when United States Forces deployed Humvees as road-cruising vehicle in threat environments.  The battlefield with clearly-defined boundaries was dismissed as a doctrinal concept, and vehicles were employed as they were never intended.  "Combat" became road-running and detonating Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and hoping to escape the ensuing explosion with the minimum bomb damage.

The question not asked: How or why can armored trucks win an insurgency war?  Why are U.S. forces tasked with this basic support function of keeping the roads open?  Why doesn't the Host Nation secure its own borders?  Why are U.S. soldiers running a daily gauntlet?

The Pentagon has spent $45 billion on MRAPs since 2007, a price tag criticized recently in an article in Foreign Affairs, the magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relations. The trucks do not perform significantly better than Humvees, the cheaper vehicle they replaced, according to the article's authors, who based their findings on Pentagon data.

Former Defense secretary Robert Gates said in a statement to USA TODAY that it was impossible for anybody, including the authors of the article, to determine how many lives had been saved by MRAPs (Tally of Lives Saved by MRAPs Lower).

The discussion over cost and effectiveness of MRAPs versus Humvees is a distraction from the essential question which is: What will troops so engaged accomplish?  

The insurgents -- who have now been re-tagged as "gunmen" in the media, neatly conflating their actions with every other gunslinger out there -- will adapt their tactics to neutralize the MRAP's capabilities, like moving their operations to rough terrain disallowing MRAPs from traversing the terrain.

The Pentagon disputed the article's findings, saying classified data unavailable to the article's authors prove the safety of the vehicles used in Afghanistan. In July 2009, Gates ordered more MRAPs to Afghanistan, including 5,200 of a new MRAP variant specifically designed for Afghanistan called the M-ATV.

Why offer MRAPs and M-ATVs to the Afghanis when they lack the logistical and mechanical capability to sustain the vehicle?  Why is this data classified?  Surely the enemy cannot use these statistics as a battlefield tool.

The U.S. has the best airlift capability, a plethora or support and supply and our weapons systems are the most sophisticated  ever seen on the battlefield.  But we will still lose, regardless of the superiority in materiel.  Money and sophistication will not trump the advantage of a people wearing shower shoes and toting AK-47s on Vespas.

It is their country, a fact that MRAPs nor any of its next generation can alter. 

I Spy

--High-tech British explosive, ca. 1942
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

I think the people have gotten dumber

Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D)

We can teach these barbarians a lesson

in Western methods and efficiency

that will put them to shame

--The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

___________________

Ranger will now be the fly in the punchbowl.

A recent cheery announcement says "Spy Planes Cut Roadside Bomb Deaths":

"Spy planes that capture images of insurgents carrying explosives from Pakistan and sensors that detect wires that trigger the bombs have helped to mitigate the No. 1 threat to U.S. troops in Afghanistan -- roadside bombs -- over the past year.

"The Pentagon has filled the skies over Afghanistan with high-tech sensors, and the effect has been measurable. ..."

When bombers are using wires to detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), this indicates a low level of sophistication. If they were using advanced techniques they would be using detonators WITHOUT wires. Further, this indicates the ISI is probably not supplying the bomb makers as we would see an elevated level of sophistication.

The U.S. is wasting precious time and money on sophisticated 21st century devices tracking pre-technological improvised explosive devices using cord, often not even worthy of the word "bomb". How smart -- or necessary -- is that?

The article describes insurgents stuck somewhere in a World War II movie, like Bridge On the River Kwai. Moreover, how is the denial of insurgent bomb makers in the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan making us here in The Homeland any safer? When was the last roadside IED detonated here in the United States?

What exactly are the soldiers doing whom the drones are protecting in Afghanistan? The threat to Afghanistan by insurgents is not the same as the threat to the U.S. by radical Islamic terror groups like al-Qaeda.

Until we realize this glitch in our military raison d'etre, we will continue to roam the earth seeking wires in the sand.

World Power

For him, to bend is to break
(Stubborn weakness he calls strength)
He's got it made, make no mistake
(Hide the rust beneath new paint)
His smile is his most sinister feature
Profit proves his point of view
(Talks so loud it must be true)
--Paper Tiger, All
_______

If the U.S. is the most powerful nation on earth, then why are simple weapons like IEDs controlling the tempo of operations in Iraq?

If the U.S. military can't handle or neutralize this threat, then how would they handle nuclear issues caused by, say, the disintegration of Musharrif's Pakistan?

While we throw precious resources away on GWB's pipe dream, the U.S. stands unprepared to handle a larger threat. U.S. leaders are pushing the American public down a primrose path.