Unity of Command in Afghanistan
There are at least three different commands running foreign military in Afghanistan. ISAF is under NATO command. U.S. troops in the south are under U.S. CentCom command and U.S. special forces running all over the country are under Who Knows' orders. (Additionally there are CIA units working with Afghan army freelancers, warlords and contractors.)
The result of such a disunity of command is stuff like this:
In a separate incident, foreign and Afghan forces killed a man and his two children and during a raid near Kabul, police and witnesses said. Angry men gathered at the victims' house in the Utkheil area east of the capital, where the three bodies were displayed inside a mud-walled compound. The man's wife was wounded in the operation, said Yahya Khan, a cousin.
...
The raid in the eastern outskirts of Kabul was conducted by U.S. troops backed by Afghan intelligence agents, said police officer Qubaidullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name. He said the raid killed a man and two of his children and wounded his wife.
...
U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said no American troops took part in the operation. NATO-led forces said they had no information about the raid and could not confirm their troops participated either.
So neither NATO nor the U.S. regulars have any idea what happened a few miles from their headquarters? (BTW - since when is a 1st Lieutenant allowed to be a official spokesperson on such a sensitive issue?)
This again seem to be some special operation folks who work together with Afghan special operation folks on 'special' targets and regularly screw up. Nobody who matters in the overall Afghanistan endeavor is informed of what they did.
Note that the recent bombing that killed 90 civilians, confirmed by the UN and is still denied by the U.S., was also a mixed special operation mission.
While I think that all foreign forces should leave Afghanistan, even the folks who think otherwise must see that such a disunity of command and hodgepodge of various operations is a recipe for disaster.
'Unity of command' was hammered into the heads of junior officers and NCO's as sine qua non when I was in the military. Any other structure leads to chaos.
But the U.S. is blocking any effort to achieve command unity in Afghanistan. Why any non-U.S. country's politician and senior military officer submits forces to Afghanistan unless that point is solved is beyond me.
Posted by b on September 1, 2008 at 18:52 UTC | Permalink
The dead man's brother was interviewed on Al Jazeera/English a while ago. He had been sleeping in an adjacent room when men burst in with weapons and lights, awakening him. He heard English spoken. A grenade was tossed into the next room and shots were fired. He said that he would now welcome the Taliban.
Posted by: Hamburger | Sep 1 2008 20:15 utc | 2
Good point, b. But I don't see the advantage of uniting the commands, if that were possible, unless one wanted the coalition to "win" in some way. From the Afghan point of view, the various commands are united, simply the "enemy". And they will win or lose on that basis. Changing the command structure is nothing for them.
Posted by: Alex | Sep 1 2008 20:57 utc | 3
Alex,
I'm a bit bothered by the implication of what you're arguing. If the NATO/US/other foreign military forces in Afghanistan keeps barging around like a blind bull in a china shop, a lot of Afghans and others will continue to be killed or maimed. The bull may eventually leave the shop or impale itself on something and die, but that will be after so much damage had been done. As much as I decry the fact that the bull is in the china shop, I can't bring myself to hate the bull so much that I'd want to see the china shop blown apart in the process of getting rid of the bull.
Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | Sep 1 2008 21:49 utc | 4
They're invaders recruiting for the Pashtun resistance, who'll eventually kill and expell them.
Posted by: Pvt. Keepout | Sep 2 2008 3:03 utc | 5
An interesting new twist:
President Medvedev of Russia offers to help train the Afghan police - Times Online
Russia is planning to send members of its security forces to train their counterparts in Afghanistan for the first time since the Soviet Union withdrew from the country in 1989, The Times has learnt.
At a meeting with President Karzai in Tajikistan last week President Medvedev offered to send 225 Russian police officers to help to train the Afghan National Police (ANP), according to Afghan officials. Mr Karzai, who met the Russian leader at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on Thursday, accepted his offer and the details are being discussed, the officials said.
The Afghan Interior Ministry confirmed that there was a verbal agreement, and an official at the Russian Embassy said that there could be more information later this week.
Posted by: Fran | Sep 2 2008 4:46 utc | 6
@Alex - But I don't see the advantage of uniting the commands, if that were possible, unless one wanted the coalition to "win" in some way.
The advantage, as kao_hsien_chih points out, that there would be some control over rouge behavior especially of those special forces. These are now totally out of control and operate in areas where others are supposed to be. The attacked people near Kandahar without informing the Canadians even while Kandahar is supposed to be under Canadian command. There wer more such cases, recently in the German area of operation in the north.
Any attempt by the coalition to act less bloody and a controlled retreat is hampered as long as such freelancing is allowed.
Unified command is not to "win" - winning is impossible in Afghanistan - it is to lower losses on both sides.
I guess one reason to keep the command separate is that it allows the US to blame the eventual failure on ISAF/Europe, and their lacking dedication to the cause.
FkD
Posted by: FkD | Sep 2 2008 18:24 utc | 8
I guess one reason to keep the command separate is that it allows the US to blame the eventual failure on ISAF/Europe, and their lacking dedication to the cause.
keeping separate commands is an advantage in the plausible deniability factor. even outside the realm of blaming ISAF/Europe the individual commands can each evade transparency w/multiple commands in a way they couldn't w/one.
Unified command is not to "win" - winning is impossible in Afghanistan - it is to lower losses on both sides.
assuming lower losses on the afghan side is any priority for the US designers. am i being too cynical?
I can't bring myself to hate the bull so much that I'd want to see the china shop blown apart in the process of getting rid of the bull.
but what about people that hate the china shop?
Posted by: annie | Sep 2 2008 19:55 utc | 9
The comments to this entry are closed.
May I suggest that following the, erm, progress/performance of Afghan civilian police force from now on should also prove to be, at the very least, a bit of a double "duh!"
Posted by: TOB | Sep 1 2008 19:43 utc | 1