Afghanistan airstrikes fall for sixth month

By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jan 6, 2009 20:35:13 EST

For the sixth month in row, the number of bombs released over Afghanistan declined, figures from U.S. Air Forces Central showed.

During December, Air Force, Navy and coalition jets released 84 bombs, AFCent said. That’s down from 120 releases in November and the year high of 646 bombs in June.

Over Iraq during December, one bomb was dropped, the lowest tally since March 2005, when no bombs were released, according to AFCent.

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Over at Heritage, though, where skulls are diamond encrusted, the Ball Gunner has yet to make headway.

Reforming and Revitalizing NATO: A Memo to President-elect Obama

I’ll leave it to anyone interested to read through the above chest beating. It’s the standard Heritage / American Enterprise tooth-baring and woof-woofery.

Sally McNamara, the writer of said chest-thumping, is a member of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. You would think a center named after one of Britain’s greatest prime ministers would be in Britain. Actually, the center is located in Washington, D.C. Such a shame, for if McNamara were to be spending a winter in jolly old England she would be in danger of freezing her royal bottom off. It would seem Russia has decided a bit of cold may dampen the frothing NATO expansion.

Post from: The Ball Gunner

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s two most powerful Shiite clerics on Friday challenged the government’s planned security pact with the United States, undercutting efforts to reach a deal before the U.N. mandate for American troops in Iraq expires Dec. 31.

Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr renewed threats to unleash his militia fighters to attack U.S. forces unless they leave Iraq immediately, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani vowed to intervene if he concludes the proposed agreement governing the presence of U.S. forces infringes on national sovereignty.

Iraqi officials have said they will seek a renewal of the U.N. Security Council’s mandate if the pact, which would allow American troops to stay in Iraq through 2011, is not passed by parliament by year’s end.

Not only has the ever-growing pain in our rear bit Muqtada Al Sadr come out against the arrangement, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has shouted his opposition, too. This coalescing of the moderate and radical Shia in Iraq under one opinion is nothing good for the coalition forces. The balance of power that consisted of Al Sadr’s radical forces vs al-Sistani’s moderates kept things moving forward in a slow, but steady, direction. If the Shia as a whole wrinkle their collective noses at the SOFA then we’re in for a spin.

The other side of this, is that the paralysis of the Shia has meant the Sunni have expanded their power. The Sons (and daughters) of Iraq were intended to be folded back into the country at large. As it turns out, the government has found it easier to keep buying them off.

For “Sons of Iraq,” being paid in U.S. dollars is becoming a thing of the past. Members of the armed civilian groups, credited with helping to curb violence in Iraq, received their pay from the Iraqi government for the first time this week.

The Iraqi government took over the “Sons of Iraq” program from the U.S. on Oct. 1. But only now are the Iraq security forces taking over from U.S. troops the task of paying the members, in Iraqi dinars.

Maybe its just my Ball Gunnie sense tingling, but does anyone else think elevating a sectarian militia to legitimate status is a cockamamie idea? As the Sunni militias grow in political power, it seems they will inevitably begin to demand more from the Shia government. If the Shia government denies their demands then the militias have the power and ability to destabilize sizable portions of the nation. Militias and governments do not play well together. Just ask the Pakistanis how it’s working in the tribal areas.

What the coalition, in specific the U.S., is likely finding is that ideological leaders, al-Sadr and al-Sistani, are a lot more difficult to manipulate than politicians. What it means in the long-term is yet to be figured out. There’s no telling what deals might be cut to keep operations in the clear before the deadline expires. I doubt if the deadline passed that anyone from CENTCOM on up would tell the boys to call it a mission and sleep it off in the FOBs until it’s time to come home. But it could greatly change the nature of the game.

Primarily, it gives the signal that the Shia, the majority of Iraq, are ready for us to go, and to go now. The idea of using Iraq as a base of operations in the Middle East, long unrealistic, has now become a chimera. The U.S. excursion into Syria, launched from Iraq, was widely denounced. Iraq is simply unwilling to be the top rope for the U.S.’ pro-wrestling style atomic elbows, for obvious reasons.

Second, if the Kurds get a wild hair during the power vacuum and make a break for full autonomy the whole region could get sucked into hell.

Admittedly, some of the Iraq demands for the SOFA were simply unworkable from the start. Man will walk on Pluto before the U.S. would allow an American troop to be tried in an Iraqi court, everyone in the Iraqi government knows that. This leads me to believe that these negotiations might have been loaded from the onset.

The U.S. better be preparing to do something else to enact its Middle East peace policy. The current administration’s efforts might unravel before the new guy even plops himself down in the office. As I’ve been saying for some time, if the situation deteriorates there is no political will for a second “Surge.” Any attempts to build support for it could torpedo the shaky support for ongoing operations in Afghanistan. If the U.S. objectives in both nations are left unfulfilled our nation’s credibility will likely never recover. Unfortunately, their failure or success may already be determined and out of our hands.

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We’ve got the Wa Po saying the Pentagon wants a long pause in post-surge drawdowns, at the same time Barack Obama is claiming the Surge “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” and without missing a beat we have “top military officials” saying we’re going to haul 7,000 troops out of Iraq early next year.

The long and short is that no one really has a clue what is happening, and nobody wants to make promises they’re likely going to be eating later. The Republicans really, really want to get some meat on the table before November to shore up their victory credentials. Given that one month and three days before the election the Shia government is going to take control of the Sunni Awakening Councils, there is probably a good amount of puckering going on over at the GOP campaign headquarters.

To make matters a bit worse, everyone watching Afghanistan can see things unraveling quickly. Hamid Karzai himself visited and appealed to a village that was hit by a U.S. led strike. There are variety of numbers out there, the U.S. said we got 30 bad guys and 7 civilians, the villagers and the United Nations say it was more like 90 people including 60 children. I’m inclined to believe the number is somewhere in between the two claims, but it still plays to the Afghans, who are increasingly able to castigate the U.S. as a technological goliath whom everyone should fight.

This is compounded by the fact that U.S. troops are now conducting cross-border raids into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Pakistani politicians realize things are at a boiling point right now and wisely negotiated a ceasefire during the holy month of Ramadan. The U.S. moving in with a contingent of Tajiks and Uzbeks to start shooting and bombing during that ceasefire could potentially blow the top off the situation. It goes without saying that Pakistani politics are currently at a dangerous level. The ruling coalition has collapsed and there are a lot of power struggles going on in a nation with nuclear weapons. If the U.S. comes across as a physical and not just moral and political aggressor against Pakistan we could easily find ourselves with a hostile government in Islamabad. There is always the possibility of putting in another tin pot to beat the country into submission, but the U.S. desperately needs an image as the arbiter of democracy to continue support for its current operations. 

The Ball Gunner, for one, is wondering what in tarnation is happening at Centcom that made them suddenly toss the counterinsurgency manual out the window. Especially when you consider that the guy who wrote the fricking thing is getting ready take command, you’d think who ever is getting all airstrike and raid crazy might take a step back to reconsider exactly what the hell they’re hoping to accomplish.

It’s looking more and more like a comedy of errors at this point. There are way too many plans at this point and each plan depends on the one before it working before it can go into affect:

• We need the Surge to work so we can reduce troops in Iraq
• One we reduce troops in Iraq we can send them elsewhere
• Elsewhere largely being Afghanistan
• Once there we can use the same tactics used in the Surge
• But first we need the Surge to work

As any private that has spent a week in the field can tell you, no plan survives contact with the enemy and whatever can go wrong will. There are lots of rabbits waiting to be pulled from lots of hats at this point and as things cool off in Afghanistan and everyone proceeds to bed down to reequip and retrain for the winter there are any number of wires that could come loose.

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But let’s take this pill with a bit of realism.

The last CENTCOM commander just got patted on the head and shuffled off somewhere nice and quiet and away from the media for being rather blunt about his disagreements with the Heap-Biggest in Chief who resides in the White Teepee in DC. Admiral William Fallon didn’t mince many words about the powers rooting for attacking Iran when he said ”This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful. [...] I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for.” (USA Today) This didn’t sit to well with the democr-issars, partly because rumors have been floating around for some time that either we’re already set for a bombing strike into Iran or we’re already set to act shocked when the Israelis execute a bombing strike into Iran.

Given CENTCOM’s dirty laundry flapping gently in the breeze for the world to enjoy, President Bush nominating his shining champion of Iraq to take up the banner is about as shocking as sand on the beach. But this also represents a pretty big tossup for the big military command. Petraeus made his bread and butter during the surge. Everyone’s lined up to pat him on the back, but the long and short is we don’t know if the tree is going to bear good fruit or just those crappy apples the squirrels knock down before they’re ripe. If Iraq winds up good to go as the Surge forces decline (not looking likely as agitations continue in Basra and Sadr City) then our new CENTCOM commander can ride is as the hero who saved the day. But if Iraq continues circling the bowl we’re going to be dealing with a powerful military commander whose face has been thoroughly egged.

If the latter turns out to be the case it will likely appear that Bush the Junior (just like Clinton the Male-er) packed up a military full of administration-friendly commanders. The military can afford infighting in the post-November maelstrom like I can afford a Ferrari.

Petraeus’ legacy as a counter-insurgent strategist won’t be fully played out for a few year. But as the chief of CENTCOM his ability at politicking will be judged much quicker.

He might find that he enjoyed Iraq better, if you lose there, all they cut off is your head.

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