Mourning Lake George family attacks Obama administration’s “flower child leadership”
The Glens Falls Post Star is reporting today that the family of Army Spc. Benjamin Osborn — killed in combat on June 15th — is blasting the Obama administration for its leadership in the Afghanistan war.
The family is critical of what it calls Obama’s “flower children leadership,” which includes restrictions on when US forces can fire on enemy combatants.
The rules of engagement — part of the military’s anti-insurgency strategy — are designed to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan.
But Bill Osborne says the rules are too restrictive. This from the Post-Star.
“We send our young men and women to spill their blood and we won’t let them do their job,” he said from his Queensbury home. “Winning hearts and minds is wonderful, but first we have to defeat the enemy.”
The engagement policy was developed by two top military commanders, Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, both of whom are seen as experts on fighting against guerrilla resistance movements.
It’s unclear whether the restrictions contributed to Osborn’s death on June 15th. He was killed in a firefight with insurgents in northeastern Afghanistan.
The death toll among US forces in Afghanistan is rising, with 76 NATO and allied soldiers killed in June alone.
Meanwhile, international criticism continues over the number of Afghan civilians who are dying each month because of US and other allied combat missions.
The military says it’s new efforts to reduce “collateral damage” are working, according to NATO. This from the New York Times:
A spokesman for NATO, Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz…said civilian casualties caused by the coalition over all dropped by 44 percent compared with the same period in 2009, while those caused by the insurgents increased by 36 percent.
Perhaps more significant, the number of episodes involving civilian casualties caused by the coalition dropped 7.8 percent, General Blotz said. This suggested that fewer civilians were being killed in each encounter as well.
So what do you think? Is the current approach in Afghanistan workable? Does it leave our soldiers in harm’s way? Or is it a necessary risk, as we seek to enlist local support against the Taliban?
Of course it leaves our soldiers in harm’s way….it’s a war!
As for workable strategy, I don’t know. Is it worthwhile to keep having our men and women die for the cause of Afghanistan’s democracy? Al Qaeda isn’t centered in Kandahar or Marja, they are in the mountainous border region. So it isn’t like we’re fighting against our declared enemy.
To me, if we stay, we have to keep these restricted rules of engagement, or else we alienate the very people we are trying to help. If this causes excessive casualities for us, then declare victory, pull up the tent stakes, and get out.
I feel for this mourning family… but :”Winning hearts and minds is wonderful, but first we have to defeat the enemy.”
WHO is the enemy? Without winning their hearts and minds, the entire population may become the enemy.
Our enemy doesn’t fight like a soldier. They hide in the civilian population. In the old vernacular, they don’t fight like men, they are cowards. (substitute in some gender-neutral word for men, but don’t get all worked up about it)
I don’t believe the civilians in the countries where the enemies hide are all sympathetic to the cowards. They will release the cowards who hide among them once they realize we are will to go in after them.
“Our enemy doesn’t fight like a soldier. They hide in the civilian population.”
Maybe that’s because they ARE the civilian population. You can talk and talk about enemy cowardice but it’s not even relevant to the issue. They are what they are, and we are what we are. If you were to listen to an average Afghan, they would say Americans are the real cowards, hiding behind their drone attacks and superior armature. Afghan fighters don’t have access to the superior technology that we do, and whether you like it or not, it’s a given that the people feel that way.
I think it’s important that we approach problems like this rationally. How can we achieve stabilization of the country with the lowest loss of lives and wealth? Death in war is a given, but more killing does not automatically mean a swifter victory.
Isn’t it time for the Afghanis to step up and take charge of their own country and destiny?
As a veteran, I know it’s not easy to determine who the enemy is in combat like this. The rules of engagement are meant to curb, as much as possible, events that can lead to losing the trust of the entire population and then creating a very unstable situation on the ground. Obama relies solely on his commanders, all the way through the chain of command. Many of them are pulling on experience learned in Viet Nam, Somalia, etc. While my heart goes out to the families of all the fallen, simply opening up on possible threats would lead to chaos and many, many more lives lost.
Jon R
Many muslim civilians may disagree with you that they are the enemy.
Certainly the ones who live here in the US would take issue with it.
Steve, great comment. I appreciate hearing from someone who has been there.
It is a terrible tragedy for the family and it is understandable that they would be angry. I have to agree with Steve though, and Meteo.
Bret, I really don’t try to pick on you but come on, have you really paid that little attention to the 30 years of war in Afghanistan?
Knuck, seems to me they, like the Iraqis, have the chance to choose here. I mean, as much as they can given their history and apparent lack of ability to accept the idea of self determination. My fear is that America is truly an exception, that people the world over just can’t handle free will and self determination. Russia for instance…..what a disappointment.
Should I be right, then I’m all for complete isolationism. The heck with the rest of them.
Bret, the people Iraq and Afghanistan had no choice in the wars they’ve been involved in for the last 8 or 9 years. In Iraq Bush/Cheney manufactured an excuse to invade a country that was led by a dictator (our former ally) but was safe and stable with an operating government. Then we destroyed it.
Afghanistan hasn’t had an operating government since about 1992 and has been at war for 30 years with a loss of about 2 million dead, 6 million refugees, and hundreds of thousands maimed by land mines or explosives. The people who were trained to work the levers of government are either gone, dead, or too old. Most of the population essentially has PTSD.
These are not people prepared to step up and take charge in a productive way. A 30 year old Afghan has never seen anything but war. These are people only prepared to live day to day.
I would agree that the human capital is not there right now. The broader question is how can we solve that and should we solve that? The reason that we invaded was because of the terrorists living there who planned the attacks on the US, is that mission complete?
Knuck, you an I will differ on our assessment of the Iraqi mission. That’s okay. But now they have a functioning gov’t. I don’t care how much war they’ve seen, there are people capable of moving to leadership positions, there always are the strong that can do that. But is it even possible in Afghanistan? Is this a country that will have to be occupied for decades to allow a decent government to flourish? I hope not. I hope even more strongly that we haven’t wasted our resources and lives just to have it all fall apart. That would tend to support those crazies that talk of nukes and calling it good enough.
We never worried about winning the hearts and minds of the Germans or Japanese but won the war. You can’t win a war while worrying about the hearts and minds of the enemy and the enemy are those who are not actively on our side.
That said, we probably should never have gone into Afghanistan.
Going back further, we should not have interfered with Russia when they were in Afghanistan.
Bret, there are strong people who have taken control in Afghanistan. We call them warlords and the Taliban. If we want to leave that power structure in place and leave that is one choice but it will have repercussions later.
The other issue is that the US has interfered in Afghanistan before and walked away without establishing a secure environment. If we do it yet again that sends a message to everyone else what America is all about.
Again, the problem of Afghanistan will not be solved through violence. Where are the initiatives to solve the Kashmir issue, Iran, Israel/Palestine, etc. That is what is being fought over in Afghanistan.
Come on now, you know I didn’t mean them. Where are intellectuals and students that always seem to return home from the US and save the day? Is it that hopeless? Are here no dreamers in Afghanistan that aren’t brutal warlords that only dream of power?
Bret, there has been war in Afghanistan for 30 years. The intellectuals are either dead from old age or they returned during one of the previous lulls in fighting to try to re-build the government and were assassinated for their troubles or they were part of the communist regime who asked the USSR to intervene and would be deadmen walking if they returned. There are a few others but many of the elite have gotten good jobs elsewhere (think Zalmay Khalilzad). Karzai might be the kind of person you’re talking about but he was under-cut right from the start.
Remember that most people who had the means to escape Afghanistan did so many years ago most of those people left everything they owned behind . Most lived as refugees in Pakistan or Iran for decades in crushing poverty. Some got out to the west and that is where you may have found many of the elite driving taxicabs or doing janitorial work in the 80’s and 90’s.
Now their children are (mostly) integrated into the local societies. Why, when they grew up in America, or Germany, or Australia would they want to risk their lives to return to a country many don’t remember or might never have even seen?
Still, there are some who ARE working in Afghanistan. Many of these people are working as interpreters for the military or for NGO’s at great personal risk, but also for good pay.
The thing you have to remember is that Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the world BEFORE the wars. There is not a lot of depth to their bench when it comes to trained government people.
So where should we turn Knuck? Who do we turn to? No one I know of in gov’t wants to remain there. Seems most Americans don’t want us there, but we don’t want the effort wasted either. Any ideas?
As I’ve posted previously, the answer is not military though the military is needed in the short term to provide security while diplomatic and economic initiatives are given time to work. Afghanistan itself is not the problem. Pakistan and India and Iran and (yes) Islamic fundamentalists (Christians too) and smugglers and business interests and others are using Afghanistan as a proxy war while also seeking to weaken the US.
If it were not for outside interests sending money and weapons to the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the numerous warlords this war would dissipate very quickly.
If there is a criticism of Obama it should be that he is not putting enough effort on the diplomatic side to dampen this war down.
As long as they grow good poppies and as long as we in the West like our opiates there will be outside money flowing to that region. In addition Islam is part of that society not imposed on that society.
At some point the problems and issues are far too great for any outside nation to solve. I didn’t think Vietnam would sort things out, but they did and today although not perfect by any stretch, they are doing relatively well. Maybe our military efforts should be focused on creating a space for Afghani’s to solve their own problems and decide what kind of a society they really want and can have; versus trying to decide that for them.
The answer may be an Islamic theocracy or it may be low level civil war or it may be a narco-state, who knows, but it really should be up to them as long as they do not threaten our national security, which indeed the last government they had did threaten.
mervel, you miss the point. Afghanistan in and of itself is really of little concern to us. Even the Taliban weren’t really our enemy. They were not the ones who attacked us. But allowing a completely lawless zone in central asia becomes a threat to everyone because it was used as a training ground for terrorists or separatists who are spread worldwide.
Consider this question; Afghanistan is landlocked, how do all the terrorists, narcotics and munitions get in or out of the country?
Let me spell this out more explicitly.
Afghanistan is bordered by Iran, Pakistan, Kashmir/pakistan/India, a tiny bit of China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Pakistan wants to control Afghanistan or at least for it to have a weak government because if Pakistan were ever invaded by India they want to be able to fall back into Afghanistan. Pakistan and India are also involved in a long running dispute over Kashmir.
India wants to influence the Afghan government in order to keep Pakistan busy on two (three if you count Kashmir) fronts.
Iran was initially helpful with the fight against the Taliban but instead of thanking them for their help Bush declared them part of the Axis of Evil and started another war this time on Iran’s western border. Being surrounded by a hostile US Iran started messing around more vigorously in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, making life difficult for the US.
China is worried about the problems it has with the Islamic ethnic minorities it has in the west including Uighurs some of whom have been training in Afghanistan. China seems to be playing a very good hand in all of this and is about the only country reaping any benefits from Afghanistan.
Russia still wants to keep its old central asian states in its sphere of influence. Meanwhile we are building bases in some of these countries and that makes Moscow nervous. They aren’t unhappy when we are embroiled in a quagmire.
Saudi Arabia is content to have the fundamentalists focussed on Afghanistan and not focussed on overthrowing the House of Saud.
Virtually the whole muslim world is angry with Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians (at the very least) and by extension at the US for always supporting Israel even when Israel does things that Arabs would be roundly condemned for. Israel is threatening Iran over its supposed nuke program and the US seems to be happy enough with that. So most of the asian Islamic nations are not unhappy while we are stuck in a quagmire in Afghanistan.
Then we get into Shia/Sunni sectarianism.
It gets even more complicated than all that but my head hurts enough. Suffice it to say that there are many many people who are happy to have a war continue in Afghanistan indefinitely and it only costs a few million to keep some small faction busy shooting at our soldiers. When you have dozens of different factions funding small militias it adds up to a huge military problem for us.
Karzai wants to negotiate with certain Taliban factions and bring them in from the cold. McChrystal thought that wasn’t a bad idea but the bosses in Washington don’t want talks with the Taliban. That is part of the friction between MChrystal and Eichenberry and Holbrook.
Enough, I’m tired.
That is a good summary and I also agree with it.
But it does not change my point.
We can’t do anything about those things. Of the options above I would go with either bringing in the Taliban or letting Pakistan provide some control there. The fact is there are lawless zones all over the world; we can’t solve those problems. There are lawless zones right now where Islamic Terrorists may be gaining a foothold, starting with Somalia. In addition the entire nation of Iran is likely supporting terrorist groups bent on attacking us. We are not going to invade Somalia and we are not going to invade Iran. We have accomplished what we needed to accomplish in Afghanistan and the key now is how we are going to leave.
As you know I am not an Obama fan, but on these matters of setting a time line to leave Afghanistan and Iraq I think he is doing a good job.
I will say this, if he gets us totally out of those two places by 2012 I will vote for him and I can barely bring myself to say that as I so strongly disagree with so many other things.