Mission Impossible

 --The bloom's off the rose 

 His stop-loss odyssey 
went Kabul, morphine, 
   Ramstein, Stateside, 
and back—round-robin   
desert wrestling,
tag out, tag in 
--Welcome Home, Troops! 
 Amit Majmudar

 Cause I gonna make you see 
There's nobody else here 
No one like me
 I'm special, so special
--Brass in Pocket,
The Pretenders

One step forward and two steps back
 Nobody gets too far like that
 One step forward and two steps back 
This kind of dance can never last 
--One Step Forward, 
The Desert Rose Band    
___________________

Let us do a check-in on the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) at lucky year 13, as President Obama sends more advisers to Syria in what looks very much like JFK's adviser gambit in the early years of the Vietnam War, the poster child counterinsurgency (COIN) failure.

First, a review: After the initial conventional invasion stage, the PWOT© became a COIN war, for lack of a better term. General Petraeus and his post-Vietnam thesis guided our participation, as if this time, we would really nation-build and win hearts and minds.

Hearts and minds, as if Vietnam could be redeemed and made into something of worth. COIN theory redux would modernize Galula, make what they tried to bury count, make it relevant for a new day.

But then the New COIN started looking like its own danse macbre. We forgot that it wasn't a war, and we were fighting the very people we came to democratize. COIN  really isn't a very good way for the U.S. to win a war, or to help a people.

You cannot both fight people and nation build concurrently. Probably, we still do not realize that it is possible to nation build and to fight insurgents, but the process must occur consecutively. It is impossible to fight, kill and destroy while also attempting to build; the concepts are mutually exclusive.

The luster fell away from the erstwhile Golden Boy, General Petraeus, and his vaunted COIN theory has been folded and put back under the trundle bed, like an old Mission Impossible VHS tape. So where does that leave hearts and minds and nation building, as the United States trudges on in the quagmire that is the Not-Arab Spring?

The mask of nation-building has fallen away, as the U.S. realizes that was merely pretense for our frenzied occupation of places in which the U.S. had no legitimate reason to be. "Asymmetrical warfare" has also died a protracted death on the trash heap of a failed policy.

The U.S. is currently yoked to a slug-fest that makes less sense than did the tarted-up, new-and-improved COIN of once-wonder boy, Vietnam vet-manque, Mr. Petraeus.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Asymmetrical Numbers

Welcome to the jungle we've got fun and games
We got everything you want honey, we know the names
We are the people that can find whatever you may need
If you got the money honey we got your disease 
--Welcome to the Jungle, 
Guns 'N Roses    

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly,
I gotta love one man till I die 
--Can't Help Lovin' That Man of Mine, 
Porgy and Bess     

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine? 
Could you be mine? 
--Would You Be My Neighbor, 
Fred Rogers
 _______________________

While the topic of the Islamic State (IS) is perversely fascinating, we will instead look just at our reaction to the group, a reaction which violates the principles of war, diplomacy and logical thought. A reaction not equal in reason to the actions of IS, which are clear, evident and understandable, if not grotesque.

The United States has killed both the No. 1 and No. 2 leaders of IS to much fanfare, but to what end? No military or political objective was accomplished in the execution of this very costly project; the U.S. Homeland is no safer. As such, our effort is wasted, and our violence just as criminal as theirs.

Reports indicate that 15,000 IS troopers have been dispatched to the next life, hurried along by ~5,500 U.S. airstrikes. This equates to a success rate of 2.73 kills per strikes. Parsing the cost of each airstrike, are they cost-effective if they do not achieve a military objective?

Are these casualties worth the expenditure, or could our dollars be better spent on social programs here in the U.S.?

Further, the U.S. has trained and equipped only 54 moderate Syrian rebels thus far at a cost of $36 million USD. The goal is to recruit 3,000 fighters by the end of 2015; 4,500 in 12 months. That amounts to a cost of $666,666.67 per recruit. [For that outlay one could buy a bona fide (somewhat) Hollywood sniper and reap a higher entertainment value, at that.]

Aside from the crack 54 -- each earning a cool $400 per month-- one must wonder whose pockets are being lined by the overflow. Someone is benefiting from this egregious expenditure, and it is not the average U.S. taxpayer.

The U.S. pays big bucks for questionable proxy-quasi-allies to fight against people who pay nothing for theirs. So who is winning this asymmetrical war?

Choose any field you wish on which to apply your metrics.

[cross-posted @ Milpub.]

There Ain't No Good Guys

 --Middle East Countries, 
Arend Van Dam

 So let's leave it alone 'cause we can't see eye to eye.
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy,
There's only you and me and we just disagree 
--There Ain't No Good Guys, 
Dave Mason 

Isolation is much less dangerous than the dangers
of being dragged into wars that don't concern us
--Lord Salisbury

 --How old are you? 
--Twelve... more or less
 --Let the Right One In (2008)
______________________

The first thing a young military leader learns is that the choices in most situations do not follow a simple algorithm to a good outcome. This is especially true when the problems are multi-layered and entrenched, often in place long before you arrived on station. Like the hostilities in Iraq, for example, which are not "twelve (years old) ... more or less," but more like 600 years old.

The choices are rarely between good and bad, but rather, bad and worse. Leadership instruction omits this critical point.

Witness Iraq, Syria and the muddle that is United States foreign policy in Asia and the Middle East, or what passes for policy. One principle of leadership says great leaders outstrip the power curve and anticipate, so as to mitigate the negatives presented by a scenario.

Looking ahead, the U.S. in June 2014 has two choices:

1) It can bomb, reinforce and support the al Maliki Shia government, or

2) It can abstain from action, letting the situation develop locally.

If we choose #1, we are admitting the failure of nation-building, Counterinsurgency theory (COIN) and the entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) Why, even COIN poster boy Gen. David Petraeus is saying, don't go back into that briar patch. “This cannot be the United States being the air force for Shia militias, or a Shia on Sunni Arab fight.” No, no.

Our policy is then revealed to be the sham it is in thought, spirit and action.

However, if we choose #2, we are admitting the intellectual deficiency from which the PWOT© emerged. This choice verifies that al Qaeda, et, al -- include the Taliban -- never were a major threat to the U.S. homeland as the nation had been led to believe; if it were, we would have chosen #1 instead.

It is futile to say the unspooling situation is the result of our elective invasions, erroneous assumptions and illogical command choices following the attacks of 9-11-01. Whatever choice the U.S. makes now is "bad" or "worse"; there are no good choices.

Do nothing, and the region is destabilized with ethnic combat the outcome. National entities will breakdown as the nations revert to being tribes with flags. The Iraq the U.S. built was not a nation-state, but merely a pale facsimile. The effort is like suturing a ruptured organ too tattered to hold, and reinforcing it will be another hoax committed upon the American taxpayer.

Iraq is neither a U.S. friend nor an ally, because there IS no Iraq -- just a bunch of radicalized tribes. If we bomb in support of al Maliki's Iraq, then we are killing the same people that we have been supporting in Syria. Despite this obvious fact, we are fed the lie that U.S. policy supports "moderate" fighters there.

Uh, "moderates" don't usually carry out armed activities. In fact, all the fighters in Syria are extremists in thought and action. There are no "good guys" here, and it is a pathetic charade to say otherwise. If neither the Syrian opposition nor the Iraqi's are our friends, why support either?

Another deception being perpetrated by the press is that al Qaeda now has an army in Iraq which poses an existential threat to Europe and the U.S. Strangely, some Americans believe the lie, but the Europeans do not fall for this canard.

The U.S. wants its cake and to eat it, too. It wants to call Saudi's "friends", as well as the Iraqi's which we have created. But it is impossible to befriend two countries that are irreconcilable foes. The U.S. maintains the same fiction with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We pretend that these countries are our friends and allies, when in reality they do not share any of our strategic interests.

Ranger believes that the U.S. has been outplayed and out-classed by the Arab leaders like those of Saudi Arabia. We have been flanked, and they are rolling our lines. The man in the Arab street is not pro-American, nor will he be.

As we used to say, will the last man out please bring the flag home and turn out the lights. There is only one good we can see: the World's Largest Embassy, costing over a $ Billion and bigger than The Vatican, will make a great hotel for Iranian tourists visiting the sacred Shia sites in Iraq.

Why Is Fallujah Lost?

The sun shines
People forget
 Come and join the party
Dress to kill
Dress yourself to kill 
--Eminence Front, The Who

 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed 
--Amazing Grace, John Newton 

'fore they get ya chainsmoking;
pistol loaded
'fore they get ya chainsmoking;
You can go with this
You can go with that 
--Weapon of Choice,
Fatboy Slim
_____________________

Why was Fallujah won, than lost? It is a fallacy of conceit. Let us see it through the lens of the Geneva Convention (GC), that noble effort to instill rules of conduct into the act of war.

The GC's are not a quaint relic of bygone days but rather the most evolved effort to separate man from beast in perhaps his most brute undertaking. If we ignore them out of spite or expeditiousness, we have taken a decided atavistic turn. If we fail to comport ourselves according to basic standards, then we must ask why we fight in the first place, and we must surely not hide behind a notion of "helping the people." When what we say differs from what we do, the people understand this.

In the first Gulf War, soldiers gave themselves up willingly to the U.S. hoping that they would be accorded the general civilities which the U.S. Army has generally been known to bestow. This perception changed absolutely in our recent Gulf War expeditions, and that law's detour figures into the current response in Iraq.

The GC's require certain basic humanities be recognized. For example, soldiers -- more specifically, the chain of command -- must mark and identify graves and individual enemy dead whenever possible. This is both military and civilized behavior. However, in recent wars from Korea on, the United States has buried enemy dead with bulldozers and little concern for the GC constrictions concerning the dead. Ditto in Fallujah.

Additionally, we barricaded civilian hospitals and denied medical facilities to the insurgents, also a violation of the GC's. The Red Cross has always maintained a space separate from that of the combatants. Hospitals are not to be militarized, targeted  or denied to any wounded person. Once a fighter is severely wounded that person becomes protected, the same as if he were a non-combatant.

By way of background, when Ranger and his fellows were training as SF officers deploying to combat in the Republic of Vietnam, they received a one-hour block of instruction on the GC's, and a GC card to carry on our person, which basically amounted to squat. No one I knew received anything but eyewash training on the subject.

Why is the government of Iraq destroying one of its own cities? Why is the U.S. providing the money and weapons of mass destruction to facilitate these operations?

How is the Iraqi government's suppression of their citizens different from the Syrian government's treatment of their rebels? Why does the U.S. aid the rebels in Syria, yet kill them in Iraq? They are indistinguishable in a police line up. It is a paradox, a bit like a Zen Koan.

--Jim and Lisa

Moral Double Standard

--You probably won't see RAW fronting words
from Sarah Palin again
__________________________

Four months ago (3 May 2013) The Week Magazine quoted from the Russian press following the Boston Bombings, presaging the Syrian question:

(Moskovsky Komsomolets on the Beslan Chechen terrorist murders of 330+ school members): Maybe now the Americans will correct their "hidden belief that terrorists who strike them are bad, while terrorists who strike Russia are good."

Yet the Americans have a similarly skewed attitude about Syria, said Nzavisimaya Gazeta in an editorial. The Boston bombers are extremists Wahhabis. They share Jihadist fanaticism with some 3,000 Arab militants fighting with the Syrian opposition. The Americans say they are fighting al Qaida, and strongly condemn the terrorism of the Tsarnaev brothers, yet they send help to the Syrian rebels. That reveals a "moral double standard" that "continues to divide terrorists and extremists into friends and foes."  Until we agree that all terrorists are the enemy of all states, we will never be able to wipe out this scourge.

Tell the People What They Want to Hear

 You don't have to drag me down
I descend 
--Trouble, Shawn Colvin 

I'm Winston Wolfe. I solve problems
 --Pulp Fiction (1994) 

The trouble with this country is that there are 
too many people going about saying, 
"The trouble with this country is ..." 
--Sinclair Lewis
___________________

Egypt and Syria are convenient sops to sidetrack the discussion from America and Americans. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarek is back like the Ghost of Christmas past. Remember the passion you saw on the You Tubes at his deposition? Yeah, that guy, and those people. You are watching a Mobius Strip in real time.

You are told that social networking platforms which consume your lives are enabling the flash mobs of liberty to go forth, except it is just not so. Wildly entertaining, until you realize it is another crazy cat video in another guise -- and where did your precious hours go?

The truth is, the events in Syria or Egypt do not affect our national health and welfare, though they are a convenient distraction. How repulsive to realize that your country is enabling the military takeover of an elected government in one country (Egypt) and attempting to overthrow another by means of rebel proxies in another (Syria). In the meantime, we have fought two wars to impose democracy upon Afghanistan and Iraq -- nations in which we opposed rebellion and Civil War. It's all good of course, if you don't mind being Janus-faced.

Pity to see former Winter Soldier of conscience John Kerry suck up so badly in Ms. Clinton's shoes, but that is what power does according to Mr. Machiavelli. Secretary Kerry is naught but another guise of the disgraced Colin Powell, in another uniform. Is anyone vetting the source of the attacks? What is the sense for the Assad regime to use gas at this time? Will this be John Kerry's "roving vans of WMDs" moment? We can see Powell and Kerry bemoaning their fate as stooges on the same rung of Purgatory now. Two stooges ... who will be the third?

Mr. Kerry made his emotional appeal to do something based on the content of videos uploaded to YouTube by rebel supporters in the early hours of 21st August -- You Tubes! Well, this is what it has come to for the once-mighty Department of State, as former Foreign Service Officer Peter Van Buren often highlights at his site (Gangnam-style being the most faddish though already demode.)

All of the Islamic countries are one step away from chaos at any given time. The effects of World War I continue to haunt the region, and WWI did not resolve the prior entrenched volatility. The British, French and other European powers stepped off when colonizing the natives of Africa, Middle and SW Asia became a too-costly proposition, so why is the U.S. stepping into the chaos? We are self-appointed "Fixers", but we do not operate with the elan of Harvey Keitel's character Winston Wolfe in the film Pulp Fiction, but rather the buffoonish duo of Jules and Vincent. And what do we stand to gain?

If this is so momentous a moment, why does Congress not reconvene to debate the wisdom of intervention and vote on it? Who is considering the worst-case scenarios: What are the potential reprisals from launching U.S. cruise missiles, and what if our roulette wheel chooses to support the wrong brand of rebels? And what if they lose?

Since there is no overt logic to our current amebic actions in these Islamic entities that are difficult to call "states", there must be a meta-rationale which has not been made public by either the President or the Congress.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Being John Kerry

  I've been very lonely in my isolated tower 
of indecipherable speech
 --Being John Malkovich (1999) 

Show me the Money! 
--Jerry McGuire (1996) 

The best is yet to come 
And babe won't it be fine 
The best is yet to come 
Come the day your mine 
--The Best is Yet to Come,
Frank Sinatra
_____________________

[NOTE: Robert Fisk addresses this well in his 7 Mar 13 piece, Which Rebels Should We Support?]

It is hard for Ranger to formulate a clear understanding of the Syrian revolt and the rules for supporting or not supporting such events.

Why would the United States support any revolution?  Why did we rearrange the societies of Iraq and Afghanistan, and what was the result?

In Afghanistan, the Taliban is supported by Saudi Sunni sectarians. Initially, the U.S. invasion pitted the Northern Alliance (NA) against the Sunni alliance.  The NA were and are allied with the Iranian "bad guys". So who are the good guys in Afghanistan?  If the Afghan government and its forces are the good guys, then the definition of "good" and "bad" must be a fungible construct.

In Iraq we imposed a tyranny of democracy on a country which imposes a Shiite, American-backed majority -- one which marginalized the Sunnis. (As for the Kurds, not much can be said other than they are the Kurds.) The present government of Iraq is largely Shiite; Iran is a Shia power -- so who benefited from the Afghani and Iraq shake-ups?

The Syrian government is supported by the Hizbollah, associated with the Iranian Shiites.  So is our current policy in Syria simply a slap at Iran?  If so are we now allied with the Sunni forces that we once fought in Afghanistan and Iraq?

If Syria is overthrown, to whom will the power transfer?  A Syrian government defeat will be a Sunni victory, no?  If Syria falls, who will benefit?

Why does the U.S. support the anti-Sunnis in Afghanistan and Iraq, while supporting the Sunnis in Syria?  The entire Middle East - Southwest Asia gambit eludes Ranger; what is America hoping to gain by throwing in our chips with the Syrian opposition?

Jihadists in Libya and Syria got their combat experience fighting U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.  They are the Islamic equivalent of the Lincoln Brigade of the War on Terror; they are mercenary insurrectionists. In Iraq and Afghanistan they were trying to protect the existing order; now, they are trying to overthrow the existing order.

Where do their loyalties lie and who pays them?  There are linkages to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain. Why do Americans arrogantly presume all rebels are looking for a freedom day like that of 1776?

Ranger is hoping someone of a higher pay grade can clarify his thinking here.

Only Militias Need Guns

--Ayeh ... maybe 

Now it is not good for the Christian's health

to hustle the Aryan brown,

For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles

and he weareth the Christian down;

And the end of the fight is a tombstone white

with the name of the late deceased,

And the epitaph drear:  "A Fool lies here

 who tried to hustle the East." 

--The Naulahka,Rudyard Kipling

 ____________________

While gun control mania grips the United States, your government has been busy arming Libyan and Syrian terrorists (Mideast folly: U.S. arms find their way to Islamic extremists):

"[T]he Obama administration decided instead to provide arms, or money or other materiel translatable into arms, to the Libyan and Syrian oppositions through third parties.

"The instruments chosen were Sunni Muslim Persian Gulf monarchies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates"

In a Catch-22, the U.S. has been opposing radicals for the last decade (in Afghanistan and Iraq), except where we support them (in place of, "Libyan and Syrian oppositions," put, "Islamic militants often affiliated with al-Qaeda".) We want stricter background checks and copious paper trails when selling guns to American citizens, while in the Middle East handing out assault rifles to any open hand claiming to be an insurgent.

We are against anti-government militias in the U.S., while supporting the same abroad in their activities against our once, erstwhile friendly regimes, like Qadaffi's Libya and Assad's Syria.  It's all so 1776, unless one wakes up and realizes what that actually implies.

Our friends and foes alike know one truth: the U.S. speaks with forked tongue.

Boobytraps ≠ a Win

I am sure there are people that have
a bigger understanding of the war than us little guys.
But at my level. it seems so stupid.
--Pfc. Dillon Guillory, 
Babysitting Afghanistan 
___________________

Today Britain recognized the newly united Syrian opposition as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Syrian people and promised it new assistance in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad. (Britain now joins France, and a more moderate European Union.) 

The desperation of Bashar's regime was evident to Ranger in an earlier news story on Syria's recourse to a "modern dirty trick": "salting ammunition supplies of antigovernment fighters with ordnance that explodes inside rebels’ weapons, often wounding and sometimes killing the fighters while destroying many of their hard-found arms." Booby trapping is an act of desperation, as the results are so minimal.

The article also noted "some booby-trapped ammunition may also have entered Syria from Iraq, where during the most recent war the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency secretly passed doctored ammunition to insurgent groups, several American veterans and officials said." (Syrians Place Booby-Trapped Ammunition in Rebels Guns).

Ranger's unit, MACVSOG ("Studies and Observations Group") also planted doctored ammo and munitions in 1970's RVN.  Since SOG used AK-47's, the solution to keep from shooting contaminated ammo was to secure commercial ammo for the AK from LAPUA in Finland (at the time, the only source of commercial ammo.)

Lesson: U.S. troops should never use anything but U.S.-issued firearms and ammunition.

To give the reader some additional inside-the-(cartridge)beltway knowledge:

This article overstates the explosive power of the rigged rifle cartridge.  Ranger doubts the cartridges can be booby-trapped to blow up in a lethal manner.  The rounds will blow a rifle, take out an eye, and maybe take out a shooter now and again, but this would be the exception, not the rule

Placing squib loads in ammo would perform the same function.  The squib load would push a projectile down the barrel to lodge in place.  If the shooter fails to clear the weapon, the next round will blow the bolt -- an easy, cheap and lethal alternative.  Similarly, booby-trapping mortar and RPG rounds would be instantly lethal.  The mortar rounds would eliminate the entire crew and sympathetically set off the rounds near the gun.

The ultimate FB defriending.

A Tale of Two Cities

All is for the best in the best
of all possible worlds
--Candide, Voltaire

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness

--A Tale of Two Cities,

Charles Dickens

__________________________

It is through the lens of war that we now view our place in the world. Let's view two recently destroyed cities -- Homs (Syria) and Fallujah (Iraq).

The destruction of both cities came courtesy the counterinsurgency (COIN) handbook. We will conveniently elide rebellion and insurgency, since everyone else in government does.

In the 2004 Fallujah offensive, the United States Marine Corps cordoned off and blockaded an entire city, and systematically converted the landscape into a Stalingrad-like moonscape. This was not an action after hearts and minds, but rather, the eradication of insurgents. The U.S. affixed the name counterinsurgency to this death and destruction to make it more palatable to those not there.

Of course, unlike a true rebellion-suppression in which the government acts against its own, the Marines were mercenaries, sub-contracting their violence to a Shi'ia government which was suppressing a Sunni insurgency. This was not a proud battle for proxies for the ostensible forces of freedom.

Turn the page, and today substitute Homs for Fallujah, and yet . . . everyone is condemning the Syrian actions. The Syrian government is suppressing a rebellion in its midst -- the very thing governments are charged with doing. Think of our own Rebellion, a pretty bloody thing, and one of those one-off events in which the rebels actually won. But that is the risk a rebel takes: They might take your head before you take theirs.

So what are the Syrians doing that the U.S. did not do in Fallujah and on countless other map sheets in our Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)? Is it not a little hypocritical or blind to accuse the Syrians for using the same tactics to which the U.S. sought recourse? In fact, the Syrians are more justified as they are operating in their own country.

Ranger's opposition to the PWOT is based on policies that are based in ignorance and arrogance, lacking any intelligent guidelines or purpose. The killing lacks direction and does not lead to anywhere of merit. In the annals of justified killing, actual rebellion suppression by a functioning sitting government qualifies.

Killing for no quantifiable goal is an unjustifiable military exercise.