War correspondent, Lara Logan, of CBS's 60 Minutes, addresses a Chicago organization on the lies being told about the war in Afghanistan. Her words need to be heard. They're powerful. I'm shocked they made air, frankly. Before you hear them, here's an explainer. My thinking on Afghanistan is that the current rules of engagement deprive us of the ability to kill bad guys, break things and WIN a war. We have to use bullhorns and find guns on people in order to engage them. The bad guys hide the guns with their women or store the guns in their arsenals and live to fight another day. When caught, the bad guys nearly have to be Mirandized. The first question they're asked is, "were you abused?" The bad guys know the system. It's idiotic. Read "No Easy Day" and then tell me if you think our ROE make any kind of sense in a war.
AND if our soldiers continue to get picked off by the (*&%*(^ we're 'training' over there, then bring them home. Yesterday. That is the situation now. It's untenable. Obama's head should be on a platter for this alone. (BTW: Secret Service: "head on a platter" is a benign metaphor).
The fact is, the President's political time table is the only reason we're being forced to rush this training and put our troops at risk. I wished we'd left the first time we wiped out the Taliban.
Al Qaeda is back in force in Iraq. We have no troops there because of this amateur in the White House's decision to pull them all out. Treachery.
That said, Logan makes several points in her recent "blistering" speech.
- Al Qaeda is actively fighting along side the Taliban in Afghanistan
- Pakistan is supporting the terrorists with funding and is cheerleading the "insider" attacks.
- She says there's no such thing a kinder and gentler Taliban.
- She says anyone who equates this war with Vietnam is a fool.
Money quote:
"Every once in awhile you'll read someone in a British newspaper or an American newspaper say that 'they've been talking to the Taliban and the Taliban want to go to peace talks and they're ready to renounce their links to Al
Qaeda.' Really the theory is, 'if you pack up and go home from Afghanistan that the problem is over, the Taliban just want their country back, they've got no problem with you and we can just stop wasting billions of dollars and American lives in Afghanistan and we can turn our backs on this war that has really been a waste of our time.'
"That's amazing to me that that's where we are today because not only do I remember the promises that were made, which is fine, if you don't want to keep your promises, well, I guess that's politics; but to think that there's any similarity between this and Vietnam is ridiculous.
"The Vietcong didn't care what you did when you went back to America. The Vietcong weren't fighting for an Islamic Caliphate. The Vietcong didn't have a global struggle. And it's amazing to me that we constantly ignore what Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Haqqani and all these groups, tell us everyday, in their own newspapers, in their own statements... They share something. They share an idea. Al Qaeda is not an organization, you don't have to have a membership card, or a badge or something that we recognize in our society. This is terrorism. It's a completely and utterly different fight from anything we have faced in our history and that's why we chose to do this story. Because what's the one thing in Afghanistan that's going to come back to haunt us? What we have done there in the last eleven years, our role in the middle east, our role across the world--our way of life -- is under attack. And if you think that's government propaganda, you think that's nonsense, you think that's war mongering, you're not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance you think you write the script. But you don't. There's two sides and we don't dictate the terms."
A friend of mine, who is a Tampa court reporter for Orange Legal showed me this post. Logan's speech was pretty devastating for those who perceived the Taliban to be subsiding. I couldn't believe that this rumor would even be perceived as true. It really is amazing to see how fast propaganda about the war effort can spread in this country.
ReplyDeleteHi Victoria,
ReplyDeleteThere is the old saying that a conservative is a liberal that has been mugged. Ms Logan seems to have undergone a similar journey after the crimes committed against her in Egypt. She's realized that just isn't a struggle over religious or political differences between similar cultures with a common basis of understanding. I think a better historical example in terms of the difficulty dealing with cultures with disimilar values is Japan at the end of World War II. By August of 1945, Japan had been totally defeated in every meaningful sense of the word. Despite 44 months of war, with most of her major cities firebombed, and two atomic bombs having been used, it took a week for the Japanese government to surrender after teh second bombing at Nagasaki...and only then after an unprecedented intervention by the Emperor. They were willing to fight on because despite the veneer of western culture since 1853, underneath you were dealing with a feudal social culture from the 1200s. The Talliban and Al Quaeda represent similar cultural values and outlooks.
Al Quaeda and the Taliban are not looking for some agreement over territory or power sharing with the current government. They have the larger goal of imposing their values on everyone else. The execution of that 14 year old girl in Pakistan the other day demonstrates their lack of limits and determination to do whatever it takes. It will take a similar effort on our part to defeat to them.
Her points are salient and reflect how war aims can shift as time passes and other dynamics take effect. Our intial plan was to defeat Al Queada in Afghanistan, the source of the 911 attacks. Part of that was riding the country of their Taliban enablers. Once that was done, we then tried to build a stable government to manage the situation and prevent Al Quaeda and the Taliban from moving back in.
That strategy has clearly unravelled.
As a former soldier, I understand completely the frustration at restricted "rules of engagment". A central tenet of counter insurgency warfare is the theory is that if we demonstrate restraint and accept risk to lower the loss of innocent life, then the people will rally to us. The old phrase "winnning the hearts and minds". Unfortunately, there is no infrastructure to support such a strategy and educate the populace and it seems much of the population supports the Taliban.
A withdrawal from Afghanistan is inevitable and a plan to be able to strike at reforming Al Quaeda camps that threaten America will need to be in place. The failure to defeat the Taliban will be born by the people of Afghanistan unfortunately, but it's their choice to live as they choose.