This is a surprise

Ex-General Stanley McChrystal supports public broadcasting. He writes that it "makes our nation smarter, stronger and, yes, safer". He feels that it's especially valuable for young children, particularly those who are not in day care. Another quote: "I’ve seen articles that say PBS and its member stations are ranked first in public trust among nationally known institutions. Why then would we degrade or destroy an institution that binds us together? We need public media that acts as our largest classroom. We need broadcasting that treats us as citizens, not simply as consumers. We need a strong civil society where the connection between different people and groups is firm and vibrant, not brittle and divided. We need to defend against weaknesses within and enemies without, using the tools of civil society and hard power. We don’t have to pick one over the other."

General McChrystal, a human being

And like most human beings he has done some good things and some bad things. It appears that since he has left the Army he has done more good things. Some examples: advocacy of gun control; espousing his belief that "every city and town needs to be at risk" in wartime; questioning our excessive use of private military contractors.

Today in an article entitled ‘You Don’t Have to Wear a Military Uniform to Serve Your Country’, he is pushing the idea that our young people should spend a year "teaching, tutoring, and mentoring disadvantaged students; cleaning neighborhoods in need of renewal; renovating homes in blighted areas; and helping veterans reintegrate into their communities".

Reneging

In our efforts in Afghanistan we got a lot of help from a lot of Afghans, particularly as interpreters. Sure, many of them did it for the money, but all of them put themselves and their families at risk to help us. Even now they are in trouble. They and their families are being hunted down by the Taliban. Some have been killed and wounded while waiting for an American visa. Many are scared to leave their homes, shop in open markets or take their children to school. 

We did establish the Special Immigrant Visa program to allow Afghans to seek refuge here. These visas are given to those who undergo rigorous screening and can demonstrate at least two years of faithful and valuable service to the United States. More than 9,000 Afghans have taken advantage of the program.

But now legislation is on track to stop this program while there are still 10,000 or so Afghans currently trying to come here. If the legislation is not changed, why 
would anyone agree to help the United States if we have a record of breaking our promises and abandoning those who assist us? Petraeus and McChrystal realize this and have urged that the legislation by changed.

A surprise proponent of gun control

General Stanley McChrystal has a strong article in today's NY Times. It is entitled "Home Should Not Be a War Zone". He properly labels it a national crisis. 

"From 2001 to 2010, 119,246 Americans were murdered with guns, 18 times all American combat deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.... I believe we need a national response to the gun violence that threatens so many of our communities." 

He wants the loopholes closed and this can only be done on a national basis. "In my life as a soldier and citizen, I have seen time and time again that inaction has dire consequences. In this case, one consequence of our leaders’ inaction is that felons, domestic abusers and suspected terrorists have easy access to firearms. Some opponents of closing these gaps in our laws will continue to argue that dangerous people will obtain guns in our country no matter what, and therefore that taking steps to make it harder for them is fruitless. That is both poor logic and poor leadership."

More "inappropriate communication"

Our generals and former generals are having a hard time in the 21st century.  In 2010 we had only one incident: McChrystal berating Obama.  In August of this year we learned of Ward's spendthrift ways.  In October there were tales of Sinclair's sex problems and O'Reilly's "management by blowtorch".   Who could miss Petraeus this month?  

Now we have General John Allen, our leader in Afghanistan.  He, like Petraeus, is accused of "inappropriate communication".  It seems as though Allen communicated quite a bit -  the FBI has 20,000 to 30,000 documents exchanged between the two - with one Ms Jill Kelley, who, by the way, was the one who complained about Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' 'friend'. 

I think one could question the importance of the allegations against Petraeus, McChrystal, Allen and Sinclair.  Far more important is how well they have performed their jobs as leaders.  I point you to some thoughts on that.

Is it a function of the volunteer Army?

Okay, the 21st century world is different from that of the 20th century.  I can think of Patton slapping the soldier and MacArthur opposing Truman, but I can't think of a general acting as a total ass, which seems to be occurring with greater frequency in the modern age.

Tis true that McChrystal did make the news because of non-military matters.  But the current negative press about three of our generals goes to a more basic level than McChrystal's comments about Barack and company.  In August we learned about General Ward's spendthrift ways.   Today we learn about two other generals - 

• Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, who was removed from his job as the deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, is accused of  forcible sodomy, wrongful sexual conduct, engaging in inappropriate relationships, misusing a government charge card and possessing alcohol and pornography while deployed.  
• Lt. Gen. Patrick J O’Reilly created a toxic atmosphere at the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) by berating staff members. Quoting a witness, the inspector general’s report described his style as “management by blowtorch and pliers.”

The Defense Department’s inspector general reviewed 38 cases of alleged wrongdoing by senior officials in 2011, and substantiated the accusations in nearly 40 percent of the them, up from 21 percent in 2007. The total caseload this year is on track to exceed last year’s.

I agree with Gen. McChrystal

At the Aspen Ideas Festival, McChrystal said, “I think if a nation goes to war, every town, every city needs to be at risk. You make that decision and everybody has skin in the game.” Tom Ricks has some ideas as to how a different kind of draft might work.  In some ways he would reinstate the WPA as some of the draftees would perform non-military tasks.  Ricks thinks that this "new draft that maintains the size and the quality of the current all-volunteer force, saves the government money through civilian national service and frees professional soldiers from performing menial tasks would appeal to many constituencies".

His plan would provide three options for high school graduates:

1. Serve 18 months doing basically menial tasks that are currently outsourced: paperwork, painting barracks, mowing lawns, driving generals around, etc. Pay would be low but benefits (including free college tuition) great.
2. Perform civilian national services like teaching in low-income areas, cleaning parks, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, or aiding the elderly for two years.  Again low pay, but good benefits.
3. Decline to serve in any capacity but pledge to take no government aid such as Medicare, subsidized college loans and mortgage guarantees.

Off the Record

Would you ever expect that the notes you took in college could not be shared with anyone who was not a member of the class?  Yet, if you were in Gen. McChrystal's class at Yale, that's the situation you'd be in - you would have signed a non-disclosure form stating that you would not discuss class matters with any outsider.

Absolutely bizarre!

The Press and The Wars

Michael Hastings, the author of the article that led to the termination of General McChrystal, has just issued what appears to be an interesting book on our 'work' in Afghanistan, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan".  This interview with Robert Greenwald focuses on the role of the press in that 'work'. Some excerpts:

Marja must be controlled in order to eventually control Kandahar. Kandahar must be controlled to control Afghanistan. Afghanistan must be controlled to control Pakistan. Pakistan must be controlled to prevent Saudi Arabia terrorists from getting on a flight at J.F.K. Airport in Jamaica, Queens.

...when was the last time anyone at the Pentagon broke a story that wasn't pre-approved? It's very, very rare. And the reason why it's so difficult -- and this gets to the information operations and the public affairs -- it's a very difficult story to tell because you're lifting up the curtain on what have become very common practices for journalists to do.

This is not just normal public relations -- there are entire operations in the Pentagon whose goal is not just to influence the enemy's population but in fact the more important goal is to influence the U.S. population. And the line that used to be, or was supposed to have been the red line between public relations and information operations, meaning one you use on Americans and one you use on the enemy, they are tearing that firewall down. So you have generals with public media handlers and they have these contracting companies that are collecting data on who's tweeting what and they have different Twitter “sock-puppets” that they've put up to try to manipulate all these different social media.

I would guess American news organizations spend maybe 10 million a year, maybe 20 million to cover Afghanistan. The Pentagon itself is spending 5 million just to have one information operations unit there, and they have hundreds of them. So the actual military in Afghanistan is putting hundreds of millions of dollars of resources into manipulating the media. And the media is spending $10 -20 million.

But I would also call out a group of very influential national security reporters who work at most of the major media outlets. And if you look closely at their resumes, they all belong or have been paid by, or have worked for very influential think tanks. Now again, what's the big deal? These think tanks -- Center for New American Security is sort of the most egregious example -- are funded by defense contractors. These think-tanks also employ a lot of retired generals. And,, more importantly, they are promoting very specific pro-war policies.

McChrystal Redux?

Rolling Stone has another blockbuster about a general in our 21st century all-volunteer army. This time it's Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who is in charge of training the Afghan troops so that they can take over when we leave (if we ever do). Basically, Caldwell directed a psy-ops group that was supposed to work on our enemies to work on us. The job of the group according to Caldwell was to convince visiting dignitaries, such as senators and congressmen, to give Caldwell and his forces more money and support. Essentially, Caldwell wanted the group to use propaganda on their fellow Americans, something that has been prohibited for years and years. Fortunately, the group rebelled.

Time Wasting

I guess Obama has a lot of time on his hands. Otherwise, why would he waste it by having McChrystal in for a sitdown about 'the article'? Actually, the main thrust of the article is how poorly things are going in Afghanistan. Yes, there are a few somewhat nasty comments about Washington functionaries, but are the egos of those mentioned so fragile that the conduct of the war has to be interrupted?

While the article does talk about McChrystal's not necessarily polite behavior throughout his career, it raises three fundamental issues:

• Is the COIN strategy working and can it work in Afghanistan?
• The soldiers in the field feel their power slipping away and resent it.
• What are we doing in Afghanistan?

All of which are much more important than McChrystal's supposed insubordination.

How this issue can be compared with the MacArthur-Truman controversy is beyond me. MacArthur wanted to escalate the Korean War and told the world so without giving a fig for Truman's contrary opinion.

Not a good start to the day

The news at 7:30 this morning:

• Afghanistan is going down the tubes.
• Iraq can't produce electricity on a continuing basis.
• McChrystal doesn't think highly of many of his co-workers.
• NPR has another fund drive.

A Bigger Surge Needed?

Things are not going well in Marjah. This was the place where we were going to show the Taliban that their day was over. There are not enough troops to make the case. The Taliban is cutting off heads, which may make the natives a little nervous. Kabul has not sent nearly enough qualified police or government workers.

McChrystal acknowledges that there are problems, "What we have done, in my view, we have given the insurgency a chance to be a little bit credible. We said: 'We're taking it back.' We came in to take it back. And we haven't been completely convincing." A tribal elder agrees, "By day there is government. By night it's the Taliban."

Another Vietnam? Another Iraq? It sure sounds that way.

Finally, Someone is complaining about private military contractors

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

And that someone is General McChrystal. He thinks we rely on them too much. There are too many of them. And they cost too much.

Could he have been influenced by this story which claims that the trainers for DynCorp did not adjust the sights on the rifles being used by the Afghans DynCorp was being paid to train? That was why the trainees marksmanship never improved. Despite the shoddy reputation DynCorp has acquired, someone wants to buy the company for $1.5 billion. The buyer is the canny investor Cerberus. You may recall that we, the taxpayers, bailed them out of their investments in Chrysler and GMAC.

Bacevich and Moyers

Andrew Bacevich was interviewed by Bill Moyers last week. Bacevich had some interesting - and dispiriting - comments as to how things stand there. Here are some excerpts:

BILL MOYERS: These civilian casualties that we've been hearing about, they're inevitable in war, right?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Sure they are. But I think that what's particularly important about the incidents that we're reading about is that they really call into question U.S. strategy. I mean, when General McChrystal conceived of this counterinsurgency approach in Afghanistan, one of the, sort of the core principles is that we would act in ways that would demonstrate our benign intentions. We're supposed to be protecting the population. And when it turns out that U.S. forces are killing non-combatants, and there are repeated incidents that have occurred, I think it calls into question the sincerity, the seriousness of the strategy. Or it calls into question the extent to which McChrystal is actually in control of the forces that he commands.

There doesn't seem to be any noticeable change, and any noticeable reduction in the frequency with which these incidents are occurring. So, I mean, were I an Afghan, I think I would not place a whole heck of a lot of credibility on the claims that, you know, "We're here to help."

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BILL MOYERS: General McChrystal himself has said that we've shot - and this is his words not mine—an amazing number of people over there who did not seem to be a threat to his troops.

ANDREW BACEVICH: I think that is—that's clearly the case. When McChrystal was put in command last year, and devised his counterinsurgency strategy, the essential core principle of that strategy is that we will protect the population. We will protect the people. And the contradiction is that ever since President Obama gave McChrystal the go-ahead to implement that strategy, we have nonetheless continued to have this series of incidents in which we're not only not protecting the population. But indeed we're killing non-combatants.

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Well, here in the year 2010, nobody in the officer corps believes in military victory. And in that sense, the officer corps has, I think, unwittingly really forfeited its claim to providing a unique and important service to American society. I mean, why, if indeed the purpose of the exercise in Afghanistan is to, I mean, to put it crudely, drag this country into the modern world, why put a four-star general in charge of that? Why not—why not put a successful mayor of a big city? Why not put a legion of social reformers? Because the war in Afghanistan is not a war as the American military traditionally conceives of war.

It is the longest war in American history. And it is a war for which there is no end in sight. And to my mind, it is a war that is utterly devoid of strategic purpose. And the fact that that gets so little attention from our political leaders, from the press or from our fellow citizens, I think is simply appalling, especially when you consider the amount of money we're spending over there and the lives that are being lost whether American or Afghan.

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ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, we need to assess the threat realistically. Osama bin Laden is not Adolf Hitler. Al-Qaeda is not Nazi Germany. Al-Qaeda poses a threat. It does not pose an existential threat. We should view Al-Qaeda as the equivalent of an international criminal conspiracy. Sort of a mafia that in some way or another draws its energy or legitimacy from a distorted understanding of a particular religious tradition.

A Pivotal Moment?

Andrew Bacevich thinks that we are at such a moment. How Obama, the Nobel Peace Price Laureate, comes down on our role in Afghanistan will determine whether change will, in fact, become reality in 21st century America. If Obama buys McChrystal's argument re the need for more troops, he will be agreeing that we are essentially a war machine. We wage a war on terror. We use the military to get our way, no matter the effect of the world. In other words, Bush was right.

George wants to know

George Wilson, a reporter of the old school, has some questions he'd like to ask our leaders about Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Gates:

• Would you agree that today’s rela­tively small Army would be stretched to the breaking point by sending thousands more soldiers to Afghanistan on top of the 68,000 due to be on the ground there by year’s end?
• How many troopers within that 68,000 will be on their sec­ond and third tours to the region? How many of them are being held beyond the time they signed up for under stop-loss author­ity? How many of them are National Guardsmen and from what states? Where is a governor to go for backup if his state is hit by a terrorist attack, his police and firemen are overwhelmed and there is no Guard to call up because it is deployed overseas?
• What is your personal opinion of how many U.S. troops should be deployed to Afghanistan? How long should they stay there? What is your definition of victory or success in Afghani­stan?
• You have talked about the need to send more anti-bomb spe­cialists to reduce casualties from improvised explosive devices. It takes 11 months of intense training at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base to train a soldier, sailor, marine or airman in the intricacies of finding, disarming and destroying an IED. These explosive ordnance disposal specialists are already in short supply. Where are you going to get additional ones for Afghanistan?

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

• What is your personal opinion, not the administration’s party line, of how many U.S. troops would be required to pacify Af­ghanistan and protect civil affairs workers who would be in re­mote villages digging wells, building schools, providing health care? How many non-U.S. NATO protec­tors can you count on getting and where are they willing to serve in Afghanistan? How long would pacifying and protect­ing forces have to stay in Afghanistan? How would you meet emergencies else­where in the world with so many troop­ers tied down in Afghanistan? What is your definition of suc­cess in Afghanistan?

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, new field commander in Afghani­stan.

• What is your personal opinion on how many U.S. troops would be required to beat back the Taliban and al-Qaida and pacify Afghanistan? How long would the American force have to stay in Afghanistan? How many civil affairs workers would you need to improve life in Afghan villages? Where are they going to come from and in what number? How many armed Afghan sol­diers and police would you need to protect the villagers and the people digging wells, building schools and running health clin­ics? Do you trust the Afghan protectors or would you salt their units with U.S. soldiers and Marines to train the Afghans and keep them from getting out of line? Do you have the authority to pursue the Taliban and/or al-Qaida into Pakistan? Would the Pakistani government allow you to wipe out their base camps in Pakistan? If not, how can you hope to win?

Secretary of State Clinton:

• Do U.S. ground forces have the right to pursue the Taliban and al-Qaida into Pakistan? To wipe out their base camps? If the Taliban and/or al-Qaida moved their bases into Saudi Arabia, what could we do about it? Is that a possibility? Do you think Afghan villagers feel a loyalty to their central government or to warlords who can protect them? Many of your employees said “Hell no, we won’t go” when asked to go into the Iraqi countryside. What will you do if they refuse to go into Afghanistan?

After trying to win hearts and minds in South Vietnamese villages, the Marines wrote this in one of their many learned reports: “One overriding fact continually presented itself about the success or failure of civic action in rural construction pro­grams: No success was possible without adequate security. The peasant in the rural areas, who must live with the VC (Vietcong) both night and day, is reluctant to overtly support any program that does not provide adequate security for himself and his fam­ily against VC terrorist tactics.”

• Madam Secretary, if you agree that Afghan villagers do not trust their central government or its forces, where is that kind of security going to come from? Do you agree that the follow­ing statement by one of your predecessors, Colin Powell, about the Vietnam of yesterday applies to the Afghanistan of today? “When we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support. … In Vietnam we had entered into a half-hearted, half-war with much of the nation opposed or indifferent while a small fraction carried the burden.”

It would be nice to hear the answers.

Another Moyers Interview

Here are excerpts from an interview with Jeremy Scahill (emphases mine):

BILL MOYERS: How do explain this spike in private contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I think what we're seeing, under President Barack Obama, is sort of old wine in a new bottle. Obama is sending one message to the world, but the reality on the ground, particularly when it comes to private military contractors, is that the status quo remains from the Bush era. Right now there are 250 thousand contractors fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's about 50 percent of the total US fighting force. Which is very similar to what it was under Bush. In Iraq, President Obama has 130 thousand contractors. And we just saw a 23 percent increase in the number of armed contractors in Iraq. In Afghanistan there's been a 29 percent increase in armed contractors. So the radical privatization of war continues unabated under Barack Obama.

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But, ultimately, I think that we have to look to what Jan Schakowsky, the congresswoman from Illinois, says. We can no longer allow these individuals to perform what are inherently governmental functions. And that includes carrying a weapon on U.S. battlefields. And that's certainly not where President Obama is right now.

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BILL MOYERS: But many people will say of course, the truth, which is he inherited a quagmire from the Bush administration. What's he to do?

JEREMY SCAHILL:Well, there's no question that Obama inherited an absolute mess from President Bush. But the reality is that Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan right now. And is maintaining the occupation of Iraq. If Obama was serious about fully ending the occupation of Iraq, he wouldn't allow the U.S. to have a colonial fortress that they're passing off as an embassy in Baghdad. Bill, this place is the size of 80 football fields. Who do you think is going to run the security operation for this 80 football field sized embassy? Well, it's mercenary contractors.

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JEREMY SCAHILL:Well, I mean, we have two parallel realities here. We have the speeches of President Obama. I'm not questioning his sincerity. And then you have the sort of official punditry that's allowed access to the corporate media. And they have one debate. On the ground though, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, you hear the stories of the people that are forced to live on the other side of the barrel of the gun that is U.S. foreign policy. And you get a very different sense. If the United States, as President Obama says, doesn't want a permanent presence in Afghanistan, why allocate a billion dollars to build this fortress like embassy, similar to the one in Baghdad, in Islamabad, Pakistan? Another one in Peshawar. Having an increase in mercenary forces. Expanding the US military presence there

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JEREMY SCAHILL:No. It doesn't surprise me. Because this is increasingly turning into a war of occupation. That's why General McChrystal is making that statement. If this was about fighting terrorism, it would be viewed as a law enforcement operation where you are going to hunt down criminals responsible for these actions and bring them in front of a court of law. This is turning into a war of occupation. If I might add about General McChrystal, what message does it send to the Afghan people when President Obama chooses a man who is alleged to have been one of the key figures running secret detention facilities in Iraq, and working on these extra judicial killing squads. Hunting down, quote unquote, insurgents, and killing them on behalf of the U.S. military. This is a man who's also alleged to have been at the center of the cover-up of Pat Tillman's death, who was killed by U.S. Army Rangers.

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The fact is that I think most Americans are not aware that their dollars being spent in Afghanistan are, in fact, going to for-profit corporations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These are companies that are simultaneously working for profit and for the U.S. government. That is the intricate linking of corporate profits to an escalation of war that President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address. We live in amidst the most radical privatization agenda in the history of our country. And it cuts across every aspect of our society.

Where you turn war, essentially, into a videogame that can be waged by people half a world away. What this does, these drones, is they it sanitizes war. It means that we increase the number of people that don't have to see that war is hell on the ground. And it means that wars are going to be easier in the future because it's not as tough of a sell.

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When the United States goes in and bombs Farah province in Afghanistan, on May 4th, and kills civilians, according to the Red Cross and other sources, 13 members of one family, that has a ricochet impact. The relatives of those people are going to say maybe they did trust the United States. Maybe they viewed the United States as a beacon of freedom in the world. But you just took you just took that guy's daughter. You just killed that guy's wife. That's one more person that's going to line up and say, "We're going to fight the United States." We are indiscriminately killing civilians, according to the UN Human Rights Council. A report that was just released this week by the UN says that the United States is indiscriminately killing civilians in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world. That should be a collective shame that we feel in this society. And yet we have people calling it the good war.

He doesn’t like McChrystal

Tom Englehardt calls McChrystal, our new leader in Afghanistan, the general from the dark side because that’s essentially where he has been for the past five years when he commanded the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which did things we don’t want to know about.

Englehardt sees the recent Obama moves in “Af-Pak” as an all around expansion of the conflict: more troops, more drones, more interference in internal affairs (i.e., Khalilzad as CEO), more war (in Pakistan), more dead and injured civilians, more anti-Americanism.

His conclusion as to where such expansion will take us:

For those old enough to remember, we've been here before. Administrations that start down a path of expansion in such a war find themselves strangely locked in -- psychically, if nothing else -- if things don't work out as expected and the situation continues to deteriorate. In Vietnam, the result was escalation without end. President Obama and his foreign policy team now seem locked into an expanding war. Despite the fact that the application of force has not only failed for years, but actually fed that expansion, they also seem to be locked into a policy of applying ever greater force, with the goal of, as the Post's Ignatius puts it, cracking the "Taliban coalition" and bringing elements of it to the bargaining table.