A LA Times reporter embeds with the Taliban, good info coming
January 12th, 2009, 12:13 pm · 2 Comments · posted by jhogg
These sorts of things inevitably devolve into furious barkings about the media siding with the enemy and yellow journalism, grrrr woof woof. I would point out that flying in and out of Afghanistan is simpler than most realize, and any of the pansies at Hyper-Nationalism Weekly easily could pony up to do a tour as an embedded reporter.
But there are all sorts of juicy tidbits in there — a calm confidence among the Taliban that victory is inevitable (which differs from the pansies at HNW who merely maintain that defeat is unthinkable), the well-supplied and luxurious life of the fighters, and is that a U.S. Army issue MOLLE pouch in the main photo?
Give it a read
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For some good news, Army Future Combat Systems is getting thinner and thinner, and we can only hope it soon will go away entirely.
The Future Combat Systems (FCS) is designed to make the Army lighter and more agile through an intricate web of manned and unmanned ground and aerial vehicles all linked together by a digital network.
This program has existed for so long and promised so much that is now hovers as some potential Olympian god with a penchant for smiting the unbelieving. But what remains a mystery is how a highly complex electronic network requiring extra gear, training and logistics will create a “lighter and more agile” Army.
If the Army wanted to become “lighter and more agile” I would advise them to jam a few people in with the Taliban (see above) and relearn light infantry tactics. Of course, the “lighter and more agile” Army is the secondary mission of the objective, the first being to make Boeing and Science Applications International Corp rich. Cashing in at $160 billion (not yet finished) it would seem it has been a thundering success in at least one arena.
Well, that top article from the LA Times was certainly a disturbing read. One wonders how long Hamid Karzai, the current president of Afghanistan, will remain in power now that American vice-president Cheney is out of office. Karzai was handpicked by Cheney to lead the unification attempt of Afghanistan (turning a land which has always been a confederation of individual provinces into a western style democracy) and has turned out not only to be extraordinarily corrupt, but adept at playing the US for fools. He has increased the poppy harvest by setting up his brother as a drug lord while alienating the normal poppy farmers by turning the NATO bombers on them. He has set up members of his tribe up as province chiefs in areas which do not want them, and their corruption has opened the door for the Taliban to return. He has maintained close ties with Iran, currently a hostile enemy to the USA, meaning that if the NATO nations leave Afghanistan, not only do the Taliban come back, emboldened by their victory, but Afghanistan will then be allied with a nation that we are currently in a “cold war” with.
Common sense says that this man must go, but to remove him leaves a vacuum which will only be filled by extremist Muslims, and the entire point of the Afghanistan adventure was to set up a government that would rid the area of just that. Now we are doing the nation building thing, with minimal oversight, and the corruption is viewed by many Afghans to be American (western) made. If this gets to the point where it becomes a nationalistic thing, it will closely mirror what happened in Vietnam, with the USA propping up a corrupt government with a movement by the very people whom we don’t want in power holding the “hearts and minds” of the very nationalistic and iconoclastic Afghani people. What a mess.
(((Of course, the “lighter and more agile” Army is the secondary mission of the objective, the first being to make Boeing and Science Applications International Corp rich.))) LOL
I don’t know what to make of the second article. The Hill has about as much credibility as the National Enquirer, and General George Casey (how on earth did this FUBAR knothead ever get four stars?………oh yeah, he sucked up to Rumsfeld.) should be cleaning latrines, not making command decisions. Before any permanent plans are made, this man should be removed from the loop.
But it’s probably going to be a moot point anyway, the economy is going to cause massive budget cuts, and programs that are not already up and running and/or experimental will be the first on the chopping block.