What I did here is to read through the good General’s report and statements, and bring out some of the quotes of stuff I thought was cool. The first quote came from a question that Petraeus answered in regards to private security contractors in Afghanistan. This quote only reconfirms the idea that contractors will continue to be used in the same way, and until Afghanistan can square away their project. The statement hints to this concept of an ‘Afghan public protection force’ through the Ministry of Interior. We will see how that goes?
The other quotes speak for themselves. The bottom line assessment basically states that the Taliban momentum has been halted in Afghanistan. That is awesome, but it also mentions how fragile this is–which is a common theme with many of Petraeus’ assessments during war time. Always giving a cautionary thumbs up…
I was also intrigued by the Afghan Local Police Initiative, and it seems like this is an area that Petraeus is really enthused about. It would make sense that this is working, just as long as it was being done correctly. If villages have the ability to protect themselves, then the Taliban is limited in using their default mechanism of control–and that is fear and intimidation. We just have to make sure that we are not giving up any moral or mental ground, strategically speaking, when it comes to this battle over the local populations. Thats fine that we arm them, but we still need to be working on keeping them on our side. Good stuff though.
And along those lines, the Taliban reconciliation efforts sound promising. With ‘turned enemy combatants’, we have the ability to possibly create some pseudo-operators? I would have to think that out of the 700 or so turned Taliban, that there would be a few that we could use to penetrate into Pakistan and get bigger fish? Progress in Afghanistan is great, but I say use these guys to go after the big prize called Osama Bin Laden and his irhabist scum bag friends.
Under the purchases quote, the thing that I clued in on were the blimps and aerostat towers. Lots of eyes in the sky, to include the drones, really help in our decision making loops or OODA. (the observe portion) With blimps and tower systems, you don’t have to depend upon fuel or electricity to keep it constantly flying. You just put it up in the air or raise it, and put eyes on the areas of importance. This observation capability is a night and day operation, and that is a huge advantage on the battlefield.
I also liked the mention of the CERP or Commander’s Emergency Response Program. This was used to great advantage by commanders in Iraq, and it is great to see that it is useful in Afghanistan. It is simply using money as a strategic asset to local operations. A commander could pay for a ditch to be dug, or pay some blood money to the parents of a lost child. They can do all sorts of interesting things with this money to positively impact relations between the locals and that military unit. The Taliban uses money to impact relations with the locals as well, and this is just one area a commander can compete in and even dominate in, to deny the Taliban any advantage.
The way I see it, is that this is a ‘all politics is local‘ issue, and you could frame this as the foreigner versus the local thug (with emphasis on local). CERP at least allows a commander to be competitive, and help to make him a better idea than the other guy. –Matt
Private Security Contractors
(In regards to a recent agreement that would allow the Afghan government to continue to use private contractors for a specified period.)
“My deputy commander e-mailed me this morning right before this and said there had been an agreement on the ability to continue the use of private security contractors for a specified period, as a bridge to achieving what, I think, President Karzai understandably wants to do – which is to bring these kinds of forces underneath the oversight of the Afghan public protection force, an element of the Ministry of Interior, so that they are not in a sense armed elements that may be working for a former warlord or another,” he said.