Special Ops wearing down Taliban

Fart noises...
This is what alot of people do not understand about COIN. In this fight, we don't really need to give a shit about the families and friends of insurgents. They are already against us, it is not an issue.
What we need to care about is the populace in the areas that are being used as safehavens for shit heads. The Afghan populace needs to see us (along with Afghan Partner Units) crushing the enemy and driving them away from their villages. The Afghan people will never trust anyone other than the Taliban if we do not legitimize the security forces and the aid of the U.S. Government. This is how COIN works. Provide saftey, security and legitimacy for the populace. In order to do this we must utilize a strong counterterrorism strategy, which is what our commanders are doing presently. Killing is very much a part of COIN and must continue until the Afghan people have confidence enough not to support the Taliban out of neccessity.
As for the original report, those numbers are grossly overstated. Success is clear in recent months, but this report is ridiculous.
So what about all those voices I hear about 'you can't kill your way out of an insurgency" ? Or should I understand that killing the bad guys is part of winning the hearts and minds ?
I remember reading on another board that a SFer wrote that "its not a door-kickers war".....

Btw, every time I log in here I learn something new - thank You :)
 
So what about all those voices I hear about 'you can't kill your way out of an insurgency" ? Or should I understand that killing the bad guys is part of winning the hearts and minds ?
I remember reading on another board that a SFer wrote that "its not a door-kickers war".....

Btw, every time I log in here I learn something new - thank You :)

It is not a door "kicker's war". I am not saying that we should focus on killing at all. I am saying that it is a neccessary evil and that we should not be afraid of destroying senior leadership in order to degrade networks and provide examples of success for locals wo crave security. Senior Taliban leadership and AQ turds have already made insurgents out of their family members. There is nothing that we can do about that. That is the point that started this side bar conversation, which has spun a bit out of control in my opinion.

Listen, backpacks and handshakes don't work on fuckheads... bottomline. They need to die. We cannot just keep recycling these assholes through the prisons, catch and release style, and expect to make any progress. Things haved changed dramatically since McChrystal was canned. Assholes are dying and being rolled up at an alarming rate, certainly not at the rate that was initially posted in this thread, but quite a few. This commander is the author of the COIN manual that everyone loves to quote on this site. He is directing the deaths of commanders and networks and pressing the kinetic fight. Hmmmmmm..... I wonder why. At the same time, he is managing an effective non-kinetic effort, which is the other side of COIN. Somewhere we got off track, this COIN business is not about not killing. That is absurd. It is about choosing your targets more carefully and killing those that would cause great harm to the enemy's capabilities and morale and sparing the bottom feeders who are fighting only for money and security (those we can turn). I think what Pardus was discussing was intelligence value, which I cannot agree with more. Rolling these jugheads up and getting information is great and has led to alot of successful follow-on missions. Nevertheless, if they have been rolled up three times before and gave up jack and shit, then fuck 'em. Hollow out their brain housing group.

I have never changed my position. Counterterrorism (CT) is an integral part of conducting counterinsurgency warfare. No where have you ever heard me say that we should not use our CT forces for what they are intended for. Others may have preached that but not I, my friend. I am all for degrading metworks through high ordinance.
 
Good post JJ.

I want to clarify also, that I was not advocating not killing, fighting and killing is an essential part of COIN. Like JJ said, it just needs to be done carefully.
 
What sends me into a down spiral about all of this is that everything is being wrapped up under the COIN doctrine. CT, FID, CA/PSY is all part of COIN (everyone keeps saying), but yet they are all different doctrines that require different rules and policies to be effective. I fully agree with what JJ posted, but the way I am reading this is not as just a COIN doctrine/strategy but as multiple “different” operations, doctrines and strategies being used. Why I am so caught up about this, is b/c most commanders cannot tell the difference between these different doctrines/strategies and once they are told the ROE is this, they take it full retard. Instead of being fluid in their doctrine and strategy, observing the enemy and the threat. Instead they say “we are doing this men” and leave your ass in the wind, and this is not a tactical or even operational level issue. It’s an issue at the highest levels…

I have always stood by the fact that in Iraq (in my A/O) we were not fighting an insurgency. We were attempting to control a civil war and conducting counterterrorism (at a much dumber level) going after IED makers, taking out HVT’s and deny and disrupt patrols. We then shifted roles to more of a FID mission, while helping CA/PSY people do their thing all while listening to this “insurgency stuff” being jammed down our throats when there were no insurgents in our A/O. We had scared Iraqi’s, pissed off Shia Muslims and foreign fighters. The Shia Muslims were engaged in a civil war with the Sunni Muslims where the middle of the road Iraqis were caught in the middle of civil war and terrorism. The foreign fighters were attempting to gain support and raise an insurgency, but the Iraqis did not want that either and in most cases were terrorized into keeping quiet. Mean while we had HVT’s that were either Iraqi (former regime) or foreign fighters and a few IED makers for hire.

The issue I found in Iraq was not the issue of an insurgency, but the issue of a terrorized population due to a lack of any government protection. That being caused by our own stupidity of disbanding the entire Iraqi military and police, leaving the door wide open for anyone to come into these communities and terrorize them, kidnap families and force people to participate in attack against coalition forces. I found that our stupidity in not bringing the Shia Muslims to the table sooner, led us into being attacked by Shia militias thus bringing a civil war into full swing, coupled with our inability to pick a winner in that civil war. Most of all I found that a massive majority of the problems we faced in Iraq was purely due to our stupidity to engaging the Iraqi population and providing the things we promised them we would. But that was IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN is a different animal in my not so experience opinion.

Afghanistan has an insurgency (Taliban) and they are in full swing; however the TB were at one time the government of Afghanistan. So in a basic since, by attacking and uprooting the TB we created that insurgency. Al Qaeda is not an insurgency in my opinion; they are an Islamic (Jihadist) terrorist network that is raging a terror campaign against all non-Muslims. So in effect you have two different enemies in Afghanistan (1) a former Afghan government attempting to retake control through UW (an insurgency) (2) a terrorist network aligning its self with the TB and Paki’s (and many many more) to launch attacks against non-Muslims.

Now my big issue about the COIN strategy for all of Afghanistan is that the population is being engaged by the TB (their former government) in an effort to maintain some control of governance. While at the same time there is an enemy (the one that started this war) Al Qaeda that needs to be attacked, killed and destroyed. I am in full agreement that blowing up villages and killing Afghanis is a bad thing for the future of Afghanistan. However I am of the opinion that it is a big mistake to not go after the true enemy, b/c we are bogged down in this COIN, nation building, hearts and minds stuff. The American people cannot afford to rebuild every Muslim country into pro western ideology, the American people do not have the patients for the “long war” and they are too foolish to maintain the friendship that may be established through these long wars.

Mean while we are still countering terrorism attacks all over the world on a daily bases, yet we have not gotten to the root of the problem through global policing or global COIN. Maybe COIN is not going to do it, maybe it’s time to kill their children’s, children’s children and remove the disease from this earth for good. Afghanistan should be a front line for our war on terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, but that is not a war that should be fought through making them friend s and attempting to win them over, it should be a war of annihilation of these jihadists.
 
Actually JAB Al Qaeda is the ideal adversary to use COIN against, because they are foreigners, it would be much easier to separate them from the Afghans.
They are not a group one would put major effort into trying to turn because they have little value (outside of short term intel about their comrades/base etc...) when it comes to the local Afghans.

Whereas the Taliban though much harder (maybe impossible) to seperate from the locals as they are possibly related to them for example, have far greater value alive than AQ because they are part of the tribe/family and therefore have greater influence in getting others on our side.

COIN is slow but has been proven to work.
Local dynamics are vital to it's employment, we must be smart.

Genocidal war would probably work but I don't want to kill women and children nor do most people I'd wager.
 
I'm going to think/ debate out loud here:

JAB makes an interesting point in his first paragraph. Is COIN a true multi-disciplined (Full spectrum?) approach or has the Army maybe tried to make it one doctrine instead of something more fluid and situationally dependent? Have we "dumbed down" COIN to make it something our servicemembers can understrand with little training and did we go a bridge too far with that approach? Quantum physics isn't for everyone and perhaps COIN isn't as well despite a new FM......

----

One thing I don't believe anyone wants to think about is that we REALLY need to get a handle on COIN. The next war could be a massive armored battle or it could be more of what we've had for the last 9 years. When OEF and OIF are behind us we still need that knowledge and moreover, we need to learn from it. Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia/ Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq....throw in the "lesser" conflicts like El Sal, Colombia, a good portion of Africa and I think we can see that these skill sets need to be permanent AND that our leadership in suits and uniforms needs to POP their head out of a certain cavity and learn from history.
 
I think that people are too wrapped up around “COIN” to think straight on this. Doctrine is not the real issue here IMHO, PID'ing our enemy is. We have an enemy, that enemy is global (not just Iraq/Afghan) they want to kill and terrorize our women and children. Our response is to rebuild shit hole nations and win over the populations?

The Taliban is not who attacked us on 9-11, they were the dumb shits that allowed Al Qaeda to build a base in Afghanistan. Why are we focused on the TB and rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, when Al Qaeda is right across the border? Why are we not attacking AQ on a global scale, meaning find them and kill them?
 
JAB, answer your own questions, why do we try and build nations? Why do we not invade/raid every country on earth where Al Qaeda have elements?
Think about it, it's a no brainer.



I think that people are too wrapped up around “COIN” to think straight on this. Doctrine is not the real issue here IMHO, PID'ing our enemy is. We have an enemy, that enemy is global (not just Iraq/Afghan) they want to kill and terrorize our women and children. Our response is to rebuild shit hole nations and win over the populations?

The Taliban is not who attacked us on 9-11, they were the dumb shits that allowed Al Qaeda to build a base in Afghanistan. Why are we focused on the TB and rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, when Al Qaeda is right across the border? Why are we not attacking AQ on a global scale, meaning find them and kill them?
 
JAB, answer your own questions, why do we try and build nations? Why do we not invade/raid every country on earth where Al Qaeda have elements?
Think about it, it's a no brainer.

I don’t think you truly understand what I am talking about.

The Taliban want to defeat the “Invaders” where Al Qaeda wants to kill the “infidel”. The TB is attempting to fight an unconventional war to kick us out of Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda is a global threat attacking/planning to attack every non-believer in every country. Al Qaeda is everywhere, they are “global” they are a network of jihadist using terrorism to fight a genocidal war against all non-believers. How do we fight AQ? We do it through global intelligence, FID (training other countries to fight them/ share intelligence) and we do it through locating and capturing or killing them. That is not counterinsurgency that is Intel, FID and counterterrorism.
 
I would agree with JAB on this occasion, for what that's worth. The Taliban, as themselves, aren't a threat per say to anyone outside of Afghanistan. They were providing a safe haven, this is true, but Al Qaeda were moved out of Sudan we should remember without a lot of force, just pressure. Perhaps the Pakistani government could have been convinced to put pressure on the Taliban to expel AQ, I don't know.
 
I don’t think you truly understand what I am talking about.

The Taliban want to defeat the “Invaders” where Al Qaeda wants to kill the “infidel”. The TB is attempting to fight an unconventional war to kick us out of Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda is a global threat attacking/planning to attack every non-believer in every country. Al Qaeda is everywhere, they are “global” they are a network of jihadist using terrorism to fight a genocidal war against all non-believers. How do we fight AQ? We do it through global intelligence, FID (training other countries to fight them/ share intelligence) and we do it through locating and capturing or killing them. That is not counterinsurgency that is Intel, FID and counterterrorism.

I get this post and agree 100%

AQ should be declared an illegal organization, an organization that membership of earns you a mandatory death penalty.

I would like to see acts of terror and being a terrorist as crimes that have a mandatory death penalty.
Then buried with their ass facing mecca and a strip of bacon in their mouth.
 
I would agree with JAB on this occasion, for what that's worth. The Taliban, as themselves, aren't a threat per say to anyone outside of Afghanistan. They were providing a safe haven, this is true, but Al Qaeda were moved out of Sudan we should remember without a lot of force, just pressure. Perhaps the Pakistani government could have been convinced to put pressure on the Taliban to expel AQ, I don't know.

I don’t believe that the TB would have expelled AQ, however the aftermath of removing the TB and hunting down AQ is where I think we got twisted. We continue to put too much effort into pro western ideology in the reconstruction of countries we conduct operations in. Instead I feel we should allow the natural process of civil differences to work themselves out. Meaning we should have not played nation building through selecting leaders and empowering people to take control of the government of Afghanistan and Iraq. We should not have pushed democratic beliefs on these people; we should have let them conduct their own process of building their countries and used CA/PSY to establish a pro western society in whatever government they chose to have. If and only when we have been asked for our help, we should offer FID through a very small foot print (SF) to allow a non-US involvement look to the general population.

If we remove our selves (westerns) from the picture on the ground and put a pure host nation picture, we in effect remove the insurgencies that we are creating. Yes there will probably be some form of rebellion or civil war process, but that is a natural part of a nation developing itself. We can see that through our own national history. We fought the Brits to gain independence and build the United States, we had more fighting over small bullshit, and we had a civil war due to differences within our own governance. The confederate states lost b/c of one major influence; the British stopped buying confederate cotton. Thus causing the Confederate states to lose the financial resources it needed to beat the United States; a very small foot print by the British decided our nations future.
 
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