RC/CA

Jul 2nd, 2009 @ 7:49 am

Roadside bombs remain a major threat in Afghanistan, but the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles first fielded in Iraq often proved too heavy for Afghanistan’s primitive roads and mountainous terrain. The military wanted a lighter, more nimble truck that would still provide serious protection for troops.

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@ 6:55 am

"We're doing this very differently," Nicholson said to his senior officers a few hours before the mission began. "We're going to be with the people. We're not going to drive to work. We're going to walk to work."

The most encouraging Afghanistan news. All in on this strategy.

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@ 6:50 am

I spent 20 months in Iraq, including 2006 as the political adviser to Gen. Peter Chiarelli, then operational commander of U.S. forces in the country. I traveled to nearly every outpost, talked to commanders at every level, from Tal Afar to Baghdad to Fallujah. Upon returning to the Pentagon in 2007, I grew increasingly uneasy with the disconnect between what I saw and knew of U.S. strategy in Iraq, and the way it was characterized and interpreted back in Washington.

U.S. forces are being increased, top aides to President Obama are said to be advocating a “civilian surge,” just as in Iraq, and counterinsurgency doctrine is again the proposed answer. But to what question? Washington’s ultimate objectives in Afghanistan remain unclear. The United States has spent six years, more than 4,000 American lives, mass quantities of psychic and political energy, and untold billions on the effort in Iraq — a project that has to date yielded little in a strategic sense. Iraq had an urban, educated population, infrastructure and bountiful natural resources, whereas Afghanistan has none of these. If “counterinsurgency” is merely a more palatable stand-in for “nation-building,” that politically freighted but strategically more illuminating term, then our terminology may be obscuring the true extent of our predicament.

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@ 5:02 pm

“The Hurt Locker hones in on the fatalistic psychology of the Iraqi war zone more convincingly than any other recent film about soldiers on the battlefield.” — Robert Davis, Paste Magazine

Mr. Davis, what on earth could you possibly know about the fatalistic psychology of the Iraqi war zone? 96 Rotten Tomatoes say it’s a great movie, but a bunch of soldiers and sailors gathered one cold night in the rugged Afghanistan hinterlands will disagree.

Since our MRAPs have 110V power outlets, I decided to bring an LCD projector, laptop, speakers, and the finest bazaar bootleg DVDs $2 will buy along on a two week mission (We had a coffee maker and microwave, too—Napoleon’s want and privation be damned). After running an extension cord and 550-cording a plastic Rosomak cover over the security wall, I fired up possibly the first-ever armored vehicle drive-in movie theater. Our EOD team had already seen Hurt Locker and decreed it unwatchable. I suppose the rest took that as a challenge.

There’s some psychosis that occurs when you are actually afraid of something and simultaneously annoyed at the inaccuracy of your fear’s presentation. Maybe like confronting a giant spider wearing a top hat?

A few brave men stayed through the whole movie (masochists are overrepresented in the Army). I stayed because I brought the projector and didn’t want it damaged. The implausibity of the story and the un-real EOD tactics didn’t do any favors for the lame character direction. This IED movie bombed (ha!).

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@ 4:47 pm

FAREWELL TO ARMS A U.S. Army soldier from the 37th Engineer Company stood by the Crossed Swords monument in Baghdad’s Green Zone Wednesday. The Iraqi government declared a public holiday to mark next week’s withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Baghdad. (Karim Kadim/AP via the Wall St. Journal)

Reblogged from BLOGGING via TYPEWRITER..

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Jun 28th, 2009 @ 10:40 pm

With a nationwide election only weeks away, the paradox of President Hamid Karzai has never seemed more apparent: he is at once deeply unpopular and likely to win.

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Unfortunately, I doubt the election here will garner the kind of feverish worldwide notice that Iran’s has. The irony of this is that, unlike Iran, it has been easy for journalists and NGOs to expose voting fraud here, because the election process is more transparent. By showing the world these irregularities, there is some (small) hope that the criminality can be brought to heal. But only if people are paying attention.

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@ 8:48 am

The taliban claim to have killed 103 and wounded 715 'invaders' (as they call the coalition soldiers) in May alone - whereas in reality the coalition suffered a total of eight casualties during that period. Additionally, 207 'puppets' were reportedly killed - members of the Afghani police and armed forces and Afghanis working for the coalition.

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@ 8:48 am

“The problem is that the Surge succeeded tactically and improved security, but none of the basic problems facing Iraq have been solved. How do you share oil revenue? What is the relationship between Sunni, Shia, and Kurd? What is the disposition of the city of Kirkuk? What’s the role of Iran, I think the biggest winner in the war so far? None of these questions have been solved. All of them have led to violence in the past, all of them are likely to lead to violence in the future. As in Afghanistan, I think you’re going to seen an increase in violence in Iraq this summer.”

Tom Ricks, on Charlie Rose

[via SWJ]

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@ 8:48 am

ambivalence:

[via Not My Priorities - U.S. Budget Priorities]

“This chart represents the U.S. discretionary budget - for last year. It does not include the bailout or the massive increase Congress voted overwhelmingly to give the Pentagon for this year.”

Not my priorities. Replace Pentagon with Environment and Iraq with Transportation.

Reblogged from Underpaid Genius.

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