Thursday, November 5, 2009

War Notes: November 5, 2009


Major Jim Gant, a Green Beret decorated with a Silver Star for his service in Iraq, has published a 50-page manual, One Tribe at a Time. The radical, but perhaps brilliant hypothesis calls for U.S soldiers to embed themselves with Pashtun tribes that are hostile to both Karzai and the Taliban, and win them over. There are several obvious problems that come to mind, some of which Gant readily admits. First, embedding small units with remote tribes exposes them to danger, without hope of back-up. There will be casualties, some of them gruesome. Second, where does he expect to find soldiers who will live amongst these tribes for years at a time, as he proposes? I don't doubt that he would do so, but the assignment is about unenviable as it gets for a soldier on a government salary, away from his family. I will read the manual and give my analysis in a full post.

Apparently, the Pentagon is just not good at handling the funds. Reuters reports that despite the record-breaking $680 billion defense budget and the $130 billion supplement for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon will need more money to fight the war in Afghanistan, and may ask Congress for an Emergency Supplement. The Pentagon is currently basing its need on a cost of $500,000 per soldier, which their spokesman called, "an extraordinarily rough guess." These people make your head spin. Stir the blood. No other agency or corporation would be permitted to blow a tenth of this money without serious repercussions.

Following the death of another British soldier, the 35% of all Brits now support an immediate withdrawal. A substantial majority have favored a gradual withdrawal for some time now, but the immediate withdrawal numbers are up 10% from just two weeks ago.

Quote Of The Day: Recent insurgent attacks in Afghanistan "probably show that Obama's policies are working well enough that caused the enemy to strike harder because they are losing."
Washington Think Tanker, Thomas Sanderson

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