A Bridge Too Far?

Posted on 3 March 2010 by SJPONeill

On Facebook, Michael Yon continues to raise concerns regarding the security on the Bridge near Kandahar that was the target of a suicide bomber attack a couple of days ago, and the disproportionate emphasis given to rear area comforts in the base itself…

Turns out the commander in charge of the bridge is General Daniel Menard (linked inserted by me). Have sent questions to his office. Receipt has been acknowledged. Meanwhile, missions continue to be cancelled due to failure to secure that bridge. While troops were glued to the Olympic Hockey, the enemy was closing in on the real goal: That Bridge.

While some troops were wasting time fixated on the Olympics, 10 minutes away a major target was left vulnerable. If we can persuade the Taliban to play Hockey, or if we can learn to play their sport — Guerrilla Warfare — maybe we can score some points.

Our combat operations have been severely hampered. Confidence in this General cannot be high. If he cannot protect nearby targets of obvious significance, what next?

(to date 79 comments)

Fire the Task Force Kandahar General

Yesterday at 0735 local, a suicide car bomb attacked a US convoy crossing a bridge only about ten minutes from the major base called Kandahar Airfield. The car bomb blew an MRAP off the bridge, killing a US soldier and injuring several others. Another bomb had been planted under the bridge. This bridge is easily defensible and of great significance.

Yet while some troops go weeks or longer with no showers, fighting in rough conditions with no amenities, many troops on this base play hockey or, just the night before, had stopped nearly everything to watch the Olympics. Meanwhile, a bridge of strategic importance sat thinly guarded just minutes down the road. And so now, the bridge is damaged and large military vehicles and fuel trucks cannot use it. There is no reasonable way around.

Today we talk about an offensive in Kandahar, yet there is a General here who cannot guard a single bridge just outside the gate. That bridge is our LINK TO KANDAHAR. Meanwhile, soldiers who are doing six month easy-tours complain about R&R and morale boosters, while many soldiers who serve full-year combat tours don’t take showers.

Why are live bands streaming into here? What is this, an Amusement Park or a War?

That General needs to be fired. Dead weight at the top cannot be tolerated.

(to date 76 comments)

This is interesting…here we have am embedded reporter publicly criticising the Canadian one-star responsible for security around the Kandahar Base. This is the third post on this topic that Michael Yon has made in the last 24-36 hours yet it does not appear that the US forces with whom he has been working have taken much, if any, action to curb his comments. One might wonder if there is a more subtle IO plan being executed here, that the US simply don’t care, or that this is an indication of a new maturity in the US military’s engagement with the information militia, in that they are comfortable with this style of robust discussion as opposed to the more traditional Public Affairs-fed party line…?

The whole Starbucks, Olympics, BK, etc etc issue really begs the question: is this a War, or merely a war….?

Calgary Herald journalist Michelle Lang with Chief of Defense Staff Walt Natynczyk in a military vehicle in Afghanistan on Dec. 25, 2009. Photo by Gary Lunn. Michelle Lang was among the casualties that marked the deadliest day for Canada in Afghanistan since 2007.

In Bing-ing for some more information on BG Menard, I came across an article Death of an Embed on blogs.aljazeera.net…some interesting comments on Canadian involvement in the w(W)ar and the conflict itself… [PDF]

Understanding Islam

Neptunus Lex carries a link to an interesting read [PDF} explaining apparent hypocrisy in the application of Islamic values, specifically “Is it inconsistent for Muslim “holy warriors” to engage in voyeuristic acts of lasciviousness?”

It concludes”…in this context, the problem is not Muslims frequenting strip clubs, but misplaced Western projections that assume religious piety is always synonymous with personal morality…”

Once again, we need to understand the environment and our adversaries if we ever hope to be able to manage them – not blindly seek to inflict Western culture, values and systems onto environments in which they are alien…

Getting it together?

Posted on 2 March 2010 by SJPONeill

Afghan police officers and the U.S. soldiers, bottom, gather at the scene of a suicide attack in Kandahar south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday, March 1, 2010. A suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy Monday outside the major southern Afghan city, killing one NATO service member and four Afghan civilians, officials said. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)

On Michael Yon’s Facebook page this morning:

Sad and Sickening: A General Officer should be fired.

This morning, we lost a soldier to a suicide bomb on a bridge just a short drive from this massive military installation called Kandahar Airfield. The bridge, which is important to us, was badly damaged and remains impassable to military traffic. Meanwhile, on this bustling base, under-employed soldiers from various nations crowd around hockey games, live bands, and coffee shops. The damaged bridge is just a bicycle ride away from soldiers who are too busy celebrating Olympic medals to safeguard this bridge. The bridge is so close that I felt the explosion and saw the mushroom cloud. Our mission, and no doubt others, was cancelled because we could not get over the bridge.

The General in charge of security for this bridge should be fired.

Coupled with another attack in Kabul involving NZSAS troops, one wonder if there might not be something to the idea of secondary effects of the surge in Afghanistan?

On ‘science’

Coming Anarchy discusses the ‘science’ of global warming, a topic that has also been slammed by Neptunus Lex. Portable Learner while covering another example of misapplied science, “…In an interview for On The Media, The Lancet’s editor Dr. Richard Horton weighs in on the state of open scientific debate:

We used to think that we could publish speculative research which advanced interesting new ideas which may be wrong, but which were important to provoke debate and discussion. We don’t think that now. We don’t seem able to have a rational conversation in the public space about difficult controversial issues without people drawing a conclusion which could be very averse….The 19th-century days where you could sit in the salon at the Royal Society and have a private conversation amongst your fellows just doesn’t exist anymore. So I think yeah, too much information in this particular case is a bad thing, which seems to go against every kind of democratic principle that we believe in. But in the case of science, it seems to be true.

But it is not. I can’t help but wonder if we had had this conversation, in public, ten years ago when the study was still “speculative research” we may well have averted the flawed decision to publish it in the first place. We need more information, not less, and more inclusive conversations, not narrowly confined to the medical community. The public may well have to engage the medical community in the public space “difficult conversations without drawing a conclusion that could be very averse…“

I tend to agree – far better to have the discussion early and draw out all of the available information out to make as informed a decision as possible than to disregard potentially relevant stakeholders and abdicate responsibility what may be perceived as an overly-elite group.

‘The people’ can be really dumb at times…

The Strategist comments on the ignorance and stupidity of those who opted to ignore tsunami warnings along New Zealand’s coast after the earthquake in Concepcion. One might argue that this is only natural selection in action and I might have agreed if it were not for the risks implicit to those who might have to attempt to rescue these losers and to the children they took to the beach with them; at best, it is wasting Police time, at worst, manslaughter. An interesting discussion at NZ Herald here and I wonder if this naivety and complacency is linked to the questions asked in the Timings paper mentioned above? Are we a nation that only learns the hard way…after a punch in the nose…?

People ignore tsunami warning at Mount Manganui. Photo/ Christine Cornege.

A good way of doing business

Peter also has an interesting item on the Byzantine Lessons Learned process…1500 years ago, the Byzantines developed theatre-specific handbooks for each of their current and likely mission spaces…if they could do it then, it really makes you wonder why it appears so hard today. I’ll have more on this when I complete my paper on GEN Mattis’ comments re obsolete thinking.

Progress

I made my first pastry ever yesterday afternoon and my first all homemade pies last night…some tuning still required but very YUM!!!

Take the blue pill

Posted on 20 February 2010 by SJPONeill

It must be blue pill day.

A friend in the US is undergoing cancer treatment at the moment and commented on her Facebook page yesterday that the blue pills she has to take as part of her chemo have a very “blue pill” side effect…

This morning while sifting through comments in the blogs spam trap, I followed up one trackback to an interesting site that harvests articles and posts relating to Afghanistan – it is chock-full of advertising but had some links to interesting articles….including this anti-Olympic rant. While the guy does note the irony that 30 years ago we used the Moscow Olympics as a platform to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; and points out at great length the gross over-commercialism of the Olympics the total loss of the ideals they once represented. But often more is less and this article would be way more effective if it was half the length.

Another site I followed from the spam trap took me to this great item from the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, based on an article in the Washington Post in 2008. The CIA found that Viagra was a great form of incentive payment for informers in Afghanistan, especially those who might be feeling the effect of advancing years and numerous young wives…certainly it shows that someone is thinking a bit out of the square over there.

The usual bribes of choice — cash and weapons — aren’t always the best options, Afghanistan veterans say. Guns too often fall into the wrong hands, they say, and showy gifts such as money, jewelry and cars tend to draw unwanted attention…“If you give an asset $1,000, he’ll go out and buy the shiniest junk he can find, and it will be apparent that he has suddenly come into a lot of money from someone,” said Jamie Smith, a veteran of CIA covert operations in Afghanistan and now chief executive of SCG International, a private security and intelligence company. “Even if he doesn’t get killed, he becomes ineffective as an informant because everyone knows where he got it.” Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, December 26, 2008.

Viagra is probably allowed under Islamic law. A book I read (can’t remember who or what) a couple of years back commented that while alcohol was specifically forbidden in the Koran, along with a great many other pleasures, tobacco is not mentioned and therefore generally accepted:

The general underlying principle of Islamic law is that everything is permitted, except that which is explicitly prohibited, and since there is no direct mention of tobacco smoking in either of the primary sources of law (the Koran and Sunna), jurists have historically regarded tobacco smoking as an acceptable sociable activity. www.tobacco.org

While there have been various calls for smoking to be banned under Islamic law, the majority of these have been from the medical profession and a number of Islamic nations have implemented anti-smoking laws similar to those in effect across the Anglosphere. The British Medical Journal has interesting study on the influence on smoking in Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities in the UK which concludes “…Although there are some culturally specific contexts for smoking behaviour in Bangladeshi and Pakistani adults—notably the influence of gender and religion—there are also strong similarities with white people, particularly among younger adults. Themes identified should help to inform the development and appropriate targeting of smoking cessation interventions…” However this study does identify that “…the Koran does prohibit intoxicants and addictions…” and tobacco certainly qualifies as the latter. What would the effect be upon the nutjobs and troublemakers of the Islamic world is smoking was declared haram (forbidden) under Islamic law?

Getting back to our blue pill, perhaps there is scope for this ‘aid’, being neither intoxicating nor addictive (never proven in court) to become a key enabler in the hearts and minds programme in Afghanistan…after all, we are trying to fight a nice war and what could be nicer than spreading the ‘love’…? New Zealand’s next PRT contingent has just commenced predeployment training – perhaps a couple of pallets of NZAID blue pills should accompany them when they deploy…?

Such was the case with the 60-year-old chieftain who received four pills from a U.S. operative. According to the retired operative who was there, the man was a clan leader in southern Afghanistan who had been wary of Americans — neither supportive nor actively opposed. The man had extensive knowledge of the region and his village controlled key passages through the area. U.S. forces needed his cooperation and worked hard to win it, the retired operative said. After a long conversation through an interpreter, the retired operator began to probe for ways to win the man’s loyalty. A discussion of the man’s family and many wives provided inspiration. Once it was established that the man was in good health, the pills were offered and accepted. Four days later, when the Americans returned, the gift had worked its magic, the operative recalled. “He came up to us beaming,” the official said. “He said, ‘You are a great man.’ And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area.” Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, December 26, 2008

Scooped

Posted on 19 February 2010 by SJPONeill

But in a good way.

Like 14,691 others, I have been following Michael Yon’s Facebook page as he reports from Afghanistan and had intended to promote him again yesterday as a great example of the Information Militia in operation – Tom Ricks beat me to it with Learn how to be a war correspondent. His website is Michael Yon Online. I’ve commented on him a couple of times before in Doing the Business, following an item on Neptunus Lex on pararescue teams operating in Afghanistan; and slightly later when I thought he was a well-intentioned meddler pressuring US DOD to release a Haitian-born Army officer from service in Afghanistan to deploy to assist in Haiti.

So who is this guy, Michael Yon?

Michael Yon was born in Florida in 1964 (a good year for writers) and joined the US Army when he was 19. He remains one of the youngest soldiers to pass the Special Forces selection process. He left the Army in 1987, after only four years. This is not that unusual and is somewhat typical of what many young men were doing at the time in joining the Army and leaving once they had gotten it out of their system, and/or to take advantage of other opportunities, many of which may have resulted from that military service. I saw many good soldiers in the same period who joined up, completed basis recruit and infantry corps training, spent 6-12 months in 2/1 RNZIR before deploying to 1 RNZIR in Singapore for two years. Many of them left the service at the conclusion of that posting, older, more mature and with much broader horizons.

He drifted through various activities until he began writing in the mid-90s. However it was not until the War in Iraq began that his name came to the fore as a correspondent in December 2004. from that point he has gone from strength to strength as an embedded reporter although his relationship with the military has not always been that smooth. He “…supports embedded journalism over traditional reporting, believing that the closer writers are to events the less likely they are to repeat military public relations spin…” and this one of two common themes in his writing today. The other is an extremely strong compassion for soldiers and this comes through very strongly and effectively in his reports.

“Happy news for the Left was that U.S. soldiers were demoralized and the war was being lost… Happy news for the Right was that there was no insurgency, then no civil war; we always had enough troops, and we were winning hands-down, except for the left-wing lunatics who were trying to unravel it all. They say heroin addicts are happy, too, when they are out of touch with reality.” Moment of Truth in Iraq, Michael Yon, 2008.

The War in Afghanistan has truly begun. This will be a long, difficult fight that is set to eclipse anything we’ve seen in Iraq. As 2010 unfolds, my 6th year of war coverage will unfold with it. There is relatively little interest in Afghanistan by comparison to previous interest in Iraq, and so reader interest is low. Afghanistan is serious, very deadly business. Like Iraq, however, it gets pushed around as a political brawling pit while the people fighting the war are mostly forgotten. The arguments at home seem more likely to revolve around a few words from the President than the ground realities of combat here. ~ Michael Yon Online

His 2006 article in The Weekly Standard, Censoring Iraq summarises his views well although it led to a major falling out with the US military. He has been criticised often for an apparent naivety in some of his releases, which I think could be attributed to his short period of personal military service, his habit of launching into text-based upon misleading or incorrect information (hence my comments re Haiti), and releasing the names of casualties before next of kin have been properly notified. This last point is interesting as Michael Yon has been accused of doing this during the current operations in Afghanistan however has come back strongly, supported by others, stating that the in-theatre information has been that notifications had been completed.

There is some confusion within the military regarding timing of releasability of names of the fallen. This confusion stems from apparently contradictory sentences within the embed guidelines. The guidelines are being clarified to avert misunderstandings with media, and within the military…Yes. This stems from the Garcia episode. The PAOs, through no fault of their own (other than Garcia blowing a gasket and talking publicly), have some confusion about the embed papers. CPT Adam Weece showed me the sentences and I agreed that the sentences are confusing and seem contradictory. Insofar as my release, I was completely cleared and broke no rules. Was well within the guidelines and what’s right, but the episode revealed some rough spots that need to be ironed out. And so the military is on it and will get it fixed. Should be good soon. ~ Michael Yon Facebook, Feb 10.

This latter point is interesting as it may have uncovered a lag between what happens in the theatre and the actual notifications in the US. While casualty notification is not an easy nor a pleasant task, it has to be sharp – quite simply there can be no fumbles or ball drops – and possibly this is an area that could be put under the Lessons Learned spotlight to make sure we have got it right. One would like to think that the process has come a long way from the Western Union telegrams in We Were Soldiers….Like so many things in the military, this is a function that must be regularly wargamed to ensure that we have it right – and it IS one of those areas where metrics CAN be set to define the standard e.g. family notification in XX hours by XX means by XX individual(s), media release(s) in XX time (relative to family notification) by XX individuals, etc etc.

In Running the War in Iraq, MAJGEN Jim Molan discusses how he and his staff had to meet very tight times lines to be ‘first with the truth’ or, if not, counter dis- and mis-information from any source. I think that the same onus rests with the public affairs staffs everywhere. Embedded media like Michael Yon offer great potential to conduct our own information operations – a function we have historically be very weak in – but they come with risk. Michael Yon’s great attraction is that he comes across as ‘the truth’ and not as PA-spin – if you try to take away the ‘on the edge’ ‘right here, right now’ pulse of his work, you defeat the whole purpose of having an embed. Yeah, sure, there’s this OPSEC thing but I’m not sure how far you can go down that path when the official mouthpieces are telegraphing pinches a week ahead of time. One of the strongest criticisms of the current wars is that ‘truth has become the first casualty’ again – pragmatic shepherding of embeds like Michael Yon can go a long way to mitigating this perception…

A crew from the United States Air Force spent Saturday night and Sunday morning airlifting different groups of wounded soldiers from Kandahar to Camp Bastion to Bagram, back to Kandahar, then back to Bagram, and back to Kandahar. These patients were from Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Here, an Air Force nurse caresses the head of a wounded, unconscious Canadian soldier while whispering into his ear. (c) Michael Yon Online 2010

Don’t make me angry

Posted on 25 January 2010 by SJPONeill

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…

The Willy Apaiata story has received quite a bit of coverage since the NZ Herald’s publishing faux pas last week:

there is now a Facebook page Boycott NZ Herald for publishing Photos of SAS in Action

My old mate, Dusty, from 2/1 RNZIR Sigs Platoon days, back when Reagan was in charge and someone else was getting their rocks in Afghanistan, discusses some of the implications in Those Photos! Dusty concludes “Time for the country to wake up & grow up.“

Neptunus Lex in the US has picked up on the story in VC Willie and makes a comparison with Prince Harry’s abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan after a similar action by UK media.

The Strategist, unusually, loses the plot and misses the point entirely: there is little connection between a tactical action in Afghanistan and the strategic defence of New Zealand and its environs, certainly not the way it is written here.

On Facebook, some loser wannabe mouths off “…Lets be clear on this Apiata’s NZVC is just that an NZVC not a VC his was the first ever issued the last ever Victoria Cross ever issued to a Kiwi was at the end of WW2. He served with me in 6 Hau i didnt think much of him then and it doesnt sound like he has changed much since then. Just because he has been awarded this honor everyone thinks he’s a saint well a lepord doesnt change his spots because he gets an award. He did a brave act, But just read his citation and then compare it to Beharry VC or any other VC for that matter it just doesnt stack up. To me it was an political award look at how the Army media swang into action, Reluctant hero? my god he has a DVD, Kids book, Adults book and was and is highly publisised it just doesnt stack up does it? just my opinion tho...”

I would love to know John Birmingham’s thoughts on the subject but Cheeseburger Gothic has blown its bandwidth cap and is down for the moment – too much action in the Birmoverse over the weekend…? Oh no….

The latter two bullet points did get me thinking though…on the deeper issues surrounding the award of honours like the Victoria Cross and Medal of Honor…I think we must take it at a given that not all acts of comparable gallantry will be recognised in the same way, much as we might like to thinks so. This would have the effect of either diluting the recognition to the point where it becomes meaningless…or…we end up with the perception, faced by UK special forces in 2002, where only posthumous awards might be considered: anything else reflects, in some warped way, a lesser bravery…

That there may be political factors surrounding awards is neither new nor unusual…11 VCs were awarded to the defenders of Rorke’s Drift following the disastrous (for British forces) engagement at Isandhlwana – this in no ways takes anything from the valour of those men on that day; two Delta Force snipers, Master Sergeant Gary I. Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall D. Shughart, were awarded the Medal of Honor for their parts in the action in Mogadishu in october 1993, captured in the book and movie Blackhawk Down – any spin attached to their posthumous awards takes nothing away from their sacrifices that day.

In thinking about Willie Apaita’s VC award, there is a bigger picture to be considered on a number of fronts…Kiwis are known and great tall poppy slayers, when we punch above our weight, we tend to get all shy about it and play the issue down, to and past the point of rudeness at times.

We are not good at recognising those of us who do well and exceed expectations. From Vietnam until East Timor the New Zealand had not been involved in combat operations – operations, yes; combat operations, no. In East Timor, NZ troops were again active, although not a great scale, in the two-way range. The NZSAS deployed to Afghanistan under an opsec veil for good reasons – in some ways, however, it is unfortunate as it obstructs the public of New Zealand from any great awareness of the feats these troops are capable of. The contact with Taliban forces that resulted in New Zealand’s first VC since WW2 was one such feat. The description of the action in the citation reads as well any of those from WW2, WW1 and the Boer War, and is on a par with similar citations from our friends and allies.

Good on Chief of Defence Force (at the time) Bruce Ferguson for recognising Willy Apiata’s actions for what they were and taking the original recommendation a lot further. Were there political considerations? Undoubtably but this award could not have been used to help popularise an unpopular deployment to Afghanistan for the simple reason that this deployment wasn’t that unpopular, if at all, with Joe New Zealander (apart from the Minto nutjob minority out on the fringes of reality).

Was there a strategic effect from the action or the award? Obviously a massive national pride in a local lad doing well and if those actions can be used as role models and inspiration for ordinary New Zealanders, then great!

But what of impact in the geopolitical arena? Not really – because Willy Apiata acted as he did – but just think for a couple of seconds on what the implications may have been had he NOT acted as he did…What effect might one or more combat casualties, and from our most elite special troops, had upon the Government, its commitment to overseas alliance and coalitions, the people of New Zealand and the NZDF? Maybe this guy actually did more than ‘just’ run across 70 metres of bullet-swept ground with his mate his back, see him OK, and then get back into the fight…? By acting as he did, although it is most unlikely such considerations ever crossed his mind that night, Willy Apiata’s actions introduced the people New Zealand to combat operations again without the trauma of flag-draped coffins…

But these remain side issues to the one of the moment i.e. the ‘right’ of the media to print/say what they want, regardless of potential consequences – for others. As MaxDamage points out on Neptunus Lex:

Not too long ago, during the Great Concealed Carry Battle, newspapers found it newsworthy to publish the name and address of concealed carry permit holders in several states, it being public information.

That it might place these folks at risk was side-stepped. Public information, freedom of the press, they’re simply reporting.

Name and addresses of the editorial board were stapled to lamp posts shortly thereafter. A matter of public record, you know.

That shut them up.

I’d suggest the same with reporters embedded — their pic goes out on every submission, and if they want to send directly they wear the same uniform everybody else does. If they want to send uncensored they wear their civvies. If they want the protections of being a civilian they dress as such and military gets censorship privs over the transmission if that is too harsh an occupational hazard.

I’ve nothing against the press reporting a story, I simply refuse to place others at risk for their supposed right to tell the tale.

I guess it’s a different story when the boot is on the OTHER foot…NZ Herald editorial staff take note…

Holy Lessons Learned, Batman!

Steven Pressfield introduces a new series this week with Tribal Engagement Tutorial which will focus on providing soldiers and Marines practical, battle-tested information, which can help them on the ground. Sound familiar? Full kudos to Mr Pressfield, Maj Jim Gant, William S. “MAC” McCallister and Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai for sharing their knowledge and doing what mainstream militaries seem to STILL be struggling with…getting the right information to the right people at the right time – and ensuring that they know what to do with it….blending the knowledge (lessons, intl, doctrine) with the training and command system instead of treating the information as an entity in its own right.

Would WE recognise them?

Like, you know, if a military fleet from 80 years in the future just popped out of a wormhole, helped us out with an immediate problem e.g. takfiri jihadists of all sorts, and then started to throw their moral and cultural weight around the place…wanting to have the same rights that we have in our timeline? Or would we draw a line in the sand somewhere? The battle for the Birmoverse, specifically the post-WW2 Presidency, continues – personally I think that Sweet Jane Says hits the nail right on the head with her stance on “No Sky People!” No people from the future of a different timeline should have any influence on our timeline.”

Direct from a dank dark cave near you

Osama Bin Laden claims credit (finally) for the Undies Bomber…sorry, dude, it’s old news now – next time use a faster camel…

In the ‘Ghan

Posted on 22 January 2010 by SJPONeill

NZ troops in Kabul – the soldier on the left is correctly dressed in issue Special Operations sunglasses.

The NZ news media has covered itself in glory again – NOT! When will they learn that sensationalism and short-term rating gains actually have real effects on peoples lives. I refer of course to the NZ Herald’s publication of images showing NZSAS VC winner, Willy Apiata, on the job in Kabul in the aftermath of the Taliban attacks on Monday. Because you can, because Cpl Apiata is already newsworthy, or because someone else will do it anyway are not adequate reasons – they are weak excuses. The images in question portray a soldier nothing like the clean-shaven well-groomed soldier portrayed in the media at the time of his VC investiture. Even the fact that he is in-country is not for the NZ Herald or any other national media to trumpet to the world. It’s my understanding that the NZDF goes to great lengths to educate media agencies – with considerable success – on what the Defence Force does and, perhaps more importantly, WHY it does some things so the Herald doesn’t even have a defense of ignorance. This is media ignorance and corporate arrogance at its worst. If the Herald had any product worth boycotting, I’d boycott it but will have to satisfy myself with flicking them the finger.

It is significant however that the NZSAS have been noted as key players in repelling the Taliban attacks in Kabul and I think this goes a long way to getting New Zealand some serious street cred (outside the Spec Ops community) as for-real contributors in Afghanistan. Although NZ has deployed Special Forces to Afghanistan on several occasions, their activities are, for good reason, kept behind an opsec shield. The first real inkling that the New Zealand public had of the level and intensity of their activities in Afghanistan was Willy Apiata’s VC citation in 2007. This street cred is possibly even more important due to recent proposals to draw down the number of troops in the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamiyan province

The Government is working on an exit plan to pull all New Zealand troops out of Afghanistan.

Dr Mapp visited the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamiyan, and said he believed New Zealand had made the right decision in drawing down its troops. He said the province was making good progress.

“The PRT will soon begin its transition towards an increased civilian component, in line with the Cabinet decision of 10 August. It is clear that Bamiyan is ready for the next stage of economic development.“

Is the attack in Kabul a ripple effect of the surge – a sign of the Taliban adopting Whac-a-mole tactics as a counter-measure against the surge in the south of Afghanistan i.e. of popping up and dropping back into their holes before ISAF can reconfigure? Is this attack taking the war to where the surge isn’t…

Hit a Gopher. Click the green ‘Start’ button at the bottom right, then get ready to whack the gophers by clicking on them when they stick their heads out of their holes. Miss 5 gophers, and the game is over!

Hit a Gopher is the equally addictive and frustrating online version of Whac-A-Mole. “If the player does not strike a mole within a certain time or with enough force, it will eventually sink back into its hole with no score. Although gameplay starts out slow enough for most people to hit all of the moles that rise, it gradually increases in speed, with each mole spending less time above the hole and with more moles outside of their holes at the same time. After a designated time limit, the game ends, regardless of the skill of the player. The final score is based upon the number of moles that the player struck.”

‘Jesus’ sights

You try and you try and you try…but nutjobs exist on all sides – you really have to wonder what sort of fundamentalist takfir arrogance exists in Trijicon management to so arrogantly and blatantly cast marking with clear Christian connotations on each and every one of their products – does some guy in their PR department also moonlight as a cartoonist for the Danes?? How would we take it if every barrel of crude (yes, I know it doesn’t really come in barrels) we imported from the Gulf was tagged ‘Death to the Great Satan and all his friends‘? Of course, no one, including NZ, is going to withdraw their ACOG sights despite demands from other nutjobs that this occur – one almost wonders if Trijicon is batting for the other side as home goals like this are too good to be accidents…

2 Peter 1:19 — “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

John 8:12 — “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

Kriss Super V

Paper Replika has just released the Kriss Super V – no subtle divisive inscriptions on this baby although who would blame them if they did…?

Resuming normal services

Posted on 20 January 2010 by SJPONeill

I, even if no one else has, have enjoyed my three days dedicated to the Birmoverse…however now it’s back to this time line, which does have as many cool toys but nor has it been liberally sprinkled with anthrax and radioactive dust…

Lay the old divisions to rest…

I got some more homework from my visit to the Air Power Development Centre last week…a copy of the latest RAF Air Power Review (Autumn 2009)…I see that each issue back to 2000 is available online so will have to add them to the library when I next visit broadband land. I’ve just read the first paper on the Future of British Air and Space Power by the current Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton and am looking forward to working through the remaining six items…I do like the way Sir Stephen thinks (I’m sure that he is very relieved to hear this!) but his views are still very air-centric and I believe that this is a lesson that has yet to be learned…just as we need to cast off any perception that there is such a thing as a solely military option to a problem and embrace this Comprehensive Approach concept, we also MUST forget about any one service (or branch of service if you want to take it down a level) that has primacy over the others – there is just military power as a blend of capabilities from air, land, maritime, SF, etc operating under a broader Whole of Government/Comprehensive Approach construct. It’s easy to talk the talk and adopt the doctrine but less easy to shake off the blankie of the Fulda Gap and decades of interservice sparring and competition. This message is further borne out in this article from the UK (courtesy of The Strategist) as Defence chiefs square up for a bit of biffo over who needs the best toys

The thing that the Brits (especially) need to realise is that playing in the big kids world costs real money e.g. as per the example yesterday about the evacuation chain for a British casualty from Afghanistan. They bleated, cried and sniped at the US all through the Iraq War – til they bailed rather ignominiously – and realised that perhaps instead of dumping on the Yanks, they should have been following them around, notebooks at the ready, hanging off every word and taking copious notes…because…the Americans have it together…like it or not…warts and all…they have it together. and in comparing their treatment by the US to that of Portugal, they only insult the Portugese…I’m not specifically Brit-bashing as these lessons apply to some degree to all of us…the world has changed, certainly since 911, probably way earlier but we just didn’t really notice…

Clean your room!

Neptunus Lex discusses obstacles to true democracy in Iraq – I think that it is high time that ALL of the Coalition of the Willing stand up and accept responsibility for the mess they created in Iraq. As I commented there, it was a decade before Germany and Japan were allowed to take off their democratic training wheels after World War 2 and that was without the internal divisions that tear at Iraq AND, in both cases, where THEY started ‘it’. ‘We’ started ‘it’ in Iraq and thus have a responsibility to see the clean-up through. Ironically Iraq under Saddam was less a threat to the world that Iraq as it is now post-intervention. Even more frustrating is that the US wrote the book(s) on COIN in FM 3-24 and then JP 3-24 but does not seem to have spent much time reading them:

Counterinsurgents Should Prepare for a Long-Term Commitment. Insurgencies are protracted by nature, and history demonstrates that they often last for years or even decades. Thus, COIN normally demands considerable expenditures of time and resources, especially if they must be conducted simultaneously with conventional operations in a protracted war combining traditional and IW.

For some reason the WeRead app on Facebook keeps resetting my status on Accidental Guerrilla from ‘Read It’ to “Reading It’. In trying again to fix it once and for all (yes, I do tear my hair over minutiae, don’t I?), I noticed a review by ‘Sharif’, in particular, these words:

“…Fits well into the perspective of Sir Edmund Hillary: “slowly and painfully we are seeing worldwide acceptance of the fact that the wealthier and more technologically advanced countries have a responsibility to help the underdeveloped ones, not only through a sense of charity, bu also because only in this way can we ever hope to see any permanent peace and security for ourselves.” Detail oriented, thorough and succinct. A must read to gain perspective of the challenges ahead…“

Ultimately it’s all about stability. Countering Irregular Activities is a bit of a mouthful and Countering Destabilising Activities strays into double negativity – what they are is fact and in essence are stability operations conducted under the broad umbrella of the Comprehensive Approach. If you truly want stability, then go clean up your mess. If you truly want stability, follow the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in Haiti with a stability programme to address the real problems there – you could probably start by kicking out, or at least reining in, the cargo cult do-gooder NGOs. Even encourage Bill Clinton to run for President (of Haiti!!).

On NOT profiling

An interesting comment last night on the failing of profiling as a technique and discussing methods of identifying people at risk and potential threat – there is some food for thought on the Aggression Management website and I would be most interested to hear supporting and dissenting comments…

Flying fingers (all both of them!)

I have decided that it is well past time that I taught myself to touch type as even though fingers can rely fly now, then just don’t go fast enough and when I’m on a roll I tend to lose ideas because I can’t get them down fast enough. I’m dead keen on exploring open source software at the moment and so I am starting off with TypeFaster. Today is Day One and so far I can type words only using ‘f’ and ‘j’ at 28.6 words per minute…I’m also becoming quite partial to PDF XChange Viewer as a faster more powerful alternative to Adobe’s Reader: the free version allows commenting and comment export on PDF files without (so far as I can see) any watermarking or other promotional material to ‘encourage’ an upgrade to the Pro version.

It’s Only Paper

On Paper Modelers today there is a note that noted Hollywood special effects artist, Hilber Graf, has just died aged 54. He worked on The Abyss, and was also an author, screenwriter, paranormal investigator, Halloween haunted house creator and noted plastic/resin model builder. Some years ago he published an article on Paper Modelling “It’s Only Paper” that is a good intro to anyone considering having a crack at this art form – and having seen some of the Paper Replika free-to-download models in Playing with Knives the other day, who wouldn’t want to try it in the privacy of their own home…?

What’s up with all this Birmoverse stuff?

Posted on 20 January 2010 by SJPONeill

Good question.

First up, is that John Birmingham has asked via Cheeseburger Gothic for thoughts on what a post-WW2 world might look like in the Axis of Time (AoT) universe, with especial interest in Great Britain. It is rare for an author to do this and I think that it provides JB an opportunity to add a real richness to his books in adopting this approach.

If you hadn’t figured it out already, I like his alt-history after buying World War 2.1 Weapons Of Choice while stuck in Changi Airport in 2005 on my way home from CLAW 1 – it was an act of desperation as it was the only book on the shelves that even remotely appealed. Over two years, I managed to seek and devour 2.2 and 2.3 and then was pleasantly surprised to find Without Warning in the Taupo Whitcoulls mid-last year. I was less impressed to find on completing it that, it was Part One of another series – there was not a single clue on the cover to indicate this which really hacked me off. Normally I won’t buy a book in a series unless I know that the whole series is published AND available – a lesson learned from War Against the Chtorr and Janissaries.

In thinking about the questions posed and subsequent dialogue on Cheeseburger, I am finding that I am able to view our current environment through a slightly off-centre perspective. By considering those things that we might want to do in the AoT universe that we didn’t get right in the real world, it is possible to divine perhaps some relevance back this way. As an example, I proposed that, in dissolving the Empire, that Great Britain establish India as a strategically-influential region power from the beginning instead of letting it muddle its way there over the decades as has actually happened. My thought at the time, was that,by doing this, we might be able to head off much of the instability in the Pakistan/Afghan area for the AoT universe. Thinking about it later, this also ties in with my belief that we have the wrong force composition in Afghanistan and they what it really needs is for the regional powers, namely India and Iran (might as well accept it and stop the name-calling), to pick up the burden of maintaining regional stability. Some thoughts on greater Indian involvement here

It’s an example of one writer harnessing the horsepower of the Information Militia.

It’s fun thinking about what-if, whether at the geo-strategic or micro-tech cool toys level; even more fun when there is a possibility that some of those ideas might actually be taken up into the storyline for the next book or form the basis for perhaps some fan fiction in the AoT universe. Nothing wrong with a bit of fun…

In other news…

Airmen from the 105th Airlift Wing's Logistic Squadron load cargo aboard a C-17 bound for Haiti early Saturday morning. (Photo: Tech Sgt. Michael O'Halloran, 105th Airlift Wing)

It’s also been a bit slow in the real world this week. Yes, lots of angsting over Haiti in just about every blog site on the planet with some interesting points being raised:

Humanitarian issues aside, at what point do we decide that it is simply just not worth it to keep saving these failed ‘nations’ from themselves? Here’s a couple of interesting threads from the Coming Anarchy side of the house: The Latest Battlefield of the Monroe Doctrine and A Bit Of Realism Please? Our constant reinforcement of Third World cargo cults comes at a price and, sooner or later, it is going to become untenable unless we start to address the root issues. Step 1 would be to rein all these meddling NGOs that address the symptoms but actually only foster more suffereing in the long run…

Whoever owns the control tower, owns the airfield. Apparently the US forces are inflicting control over the chaos and refusing to let the airlift follow the same path. Three lessons here:

- Have a plan and impose control.

- Blindly sending in supplies, aid, etc is a waste of time if the resources don’t exist ont he other end to do anything with them. Ditto for all the well-meaning dogooders who just want to arrive in Port-au-Prince to ‘help’.

- If you are a ‘once-were’ nation, like the UK and France, then get with the programme and be thankful that someone is getting out there and filling the vacuum (and fixing the messes) left when you dumped your colonies. If you don’t like the new rules, then YOU rock up with the necessary capabilities and force structures to do the business. Here’s a subjective but interesting item on what a real power can bring to the party Do Americans Care About British Soldiers?

It’s funny how the US gets caned for even thinking about interfering in these rock show wannabe countries but then gets caned when something like this happens for allowing the country in question to decline to such a state in the first place. Same thing happened in Myanmar – why won’t the US make the government open up to accept aid? You really have to wonder sometimes why the US doesn’t just pack it all up and go home…?

The current operation in Haiti is a classic example of humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, stability operations and countering irregular activities – the earthquake could not be predicted and it is unrealistic to expect Haiti to construct quake-proofed buildings, so many of the current problems are unavoidable. However it will be interesting to see what follow-on activities are conducted to maintain stability in Haiti and address the core problems within the country.

Travels with Shiloh is running a series on the implications of MAJGEN Flynn’s paper on what’s wrong with intel – of course the shorter option to write might have been ‘what’s right with the intel world’ – while I don’t agree with all the points made, I think it is important that someone is raising them to get the discussion going…

The Information Militia

I’m coming to the conclusion that Michael Yon is a well-meaning but meddling journo who probably does need to slow down and consider his place in the universe. I like his website and think it is some great material – please check it out – as photojourno, he is very good and sends some very strong and often poignant messages. His Facebook page on the other hand is an example of the down side of the Information Militia – he is a guy who has, just this week, publicly bypassed the US military chain of command by inciting his fans to pressure CENTCOM and the Pentagon to release a Haitian-born officer in the US Army, current posted to Afghanistan, for duties in Haiti. Yes, sure, members of this officer’s family have died so there IS a compassionate case to be made and his cultural and language skills would definitely be employable BUT…BUT…do you not think that perhaps the DoD has its own processes to this to occur and that there might also be broader implications in releasing him from his current theatre? Michael Yon also posted an item critical of Starbucks and its relationships with the US military which was subsequently proven to be both incorrect and old news as covered in this story from 2004 – as HoaxSlayer points out, even when a retraction is released, it never gets the same degree of airtime as the original accusation.

Doing the Business

Posted on 13 January 2010 by SJPONeill

Neptunus Lex has a great link today to a story covering the work of pararescue crews in Afghanistan – take the time to read it and perhaps just reflect for a moment on the work that these people do…That Others May Live is their motto…one really does wonder what greater protection a Red Cross offers over a minigun when operating against an adversary that has made it crystal-clear that it does not and will not respect those laws and rules by which most of the rest of the planet lives…the journalist author has a Facebook page that I think will be worth following while he is in-theatre.

Also on Lex is an item entitled Overload on the growing mass of video data from UAV operations, currently at about 23 YEARS worth of continuous viewing and growing by the minute – the follow-on discussion on how to deal with this from an analysis point of view is worth thinking about. I, for one, am not a proponent of the belief that all analysis must be done by trained analysts especially those in a centralised reachback system because a. it takes too long and b. they are too removed from the situation on the ground. I once heard an experienced and well-thought-of operator get lambasted by the intel weenies at a conference when he said that all he wanted was to be able to review past and current imagery of a route himself before he conducted a patrol. Apparently HE didn’t understand what it was all about and why all imagery analysis had to be undertaken by specialists before the product got to him (in a few days).

Try him or just shoot him?

On Coming Anarchy, discussion rages over the fate of the Undie Bomber. Should he be treated by a criminal and tried according to due process, or simply squeezed dry of any information he may or may not have and discarded? From a domestic point of view, is there any difference between a criminal and a terrorist? The Brits would say no, and I guess that we would as well based on our experience with French terrorists in the mid-80s – eight years after 911, the US still doesn’t seem able to make up its mind.

On Influence

Still working on some comment re the Mackay/Tatham paper – my problem is not the paper per se but that I keep getting more and more information support the shift of emphasis from kinetics to Influence. I am able to say that I don’t think that Gian Gentile has ‘got it’ in his rebuttal to Behavioural Conflict – From General to Strategic Corporal: Complexity, Adaptation and Influence when he says “War is about killing and destruction, it is not armed social science“. In fact, reading his comments yet again, I wonder if COL Gentile actually read the UK paper any further than the cover page? Perhaps it is fitting that he is currently teaching history at West Point because he seems somewhat stuck in the past, maybe has a nice little (sandbagged) cottage near the Fulda Gap, and appears blissfully unaware that the world has moved on from the kinetics of the Cold War – perhaps he lives in a far happy place than that which the rest of us are stuck with. The world we are in now requires decision-making and other responsibilities to be devolved far lower down the hierarchical food chain than every before in a further evolution of the strategic corporal and conversely an exponential increase in the level of detailed awareness at the other end of the chain, in the development of tactical general. The US Army’s own future capstone document (note to self – this still links to the draft – must chase down later to release version) identifies this as the key enabler for developing and maintaining credible and relevant land capabilities out to 2028.

To implement this fundamental shift, US TRADOC released the new version of FM 7-15 Army Universal Task List. It did so because there was a clearly identified need for change: not so much change in what armies do but a change in the emphasis of what they do. This change was reinforced in the new FM 7-0 Training for Full Spectrum Operations and the updating of the Soldier Manuals of Common Tasks (levels 1-5). I understand that the new version of FM 7-1 Battle Focussed Training is due out soon as well to further reinforce this doctrine.

Those who don’t think like us, can leave anytime

Posted on 10 January 2010 by SJPONeill

1930s Germany or 21C Britain?

Wootton Bassett is a small town near RAF Lyneham through which the bodies of soldiers killed overseas are driven on their way to the morgue at Oxford. It is now becoming a centre for ‘grief tourism’ in the UK but not only for loyal and partiotic Brits. An organisation called Islam4UK now plans to march through Wootton Bassett apparently to protest UK involvement in wars against Islam. If you are on Facebook, you can see the furore as it unravels – if you thought that the only nutjobs were on the Islamic side of the fence – think again…

There are a bunch of issues arising from this proposed march and the reaction to it. First and foremost, the outpouring of anti-immigrant emotion from opponents to the march can only serve to further any extremist cause as ‘a clear indication of the racist nature of white Britons’ – that’s how it will be portrayed anyway when 700,000 people join what can be easily portrayed as an anti-Islamic FB page. I think that if I was Facebook, I would just kill the whole page and be done with it. So far as the march is concerned, perhaps UK authorities SHOULD let it proceed: very possibly no one will turn up anyway and it will be a non-event; if rowdies on either side do turn up they should be treated equally by the law just as are hooligans from opposing footy teams – because that’s all they are…

On the moral outrage front, Neptunus Lex has an article on Iran’s response to the killing of Neda Soltan. It’s disgusting but a great example of taking the truth i.e. what really happened, and totally twisting it to suit your own purposes. Once again, we choose to take a back foot in the information battle…