Meanwhile, U.S. Intelligence in Afghanistan Gets A Failing Grade

Michael, have you ever read Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner? The list of CIA failures is truly staggering.

Happy New Year Michael. And, a very good post. One with some real questions and balance, unlike the regurgitated talking points that Klein so often offers up for reading.
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So how does all of this also reflect on the inept handling of the recent “Undie-Bomber” / TERRORIST?
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Is our whole intelligence community nothing more than an Elmer Fudd impersonation in a Bugs Bunny cartoon?

Unfortunately rusty what it says is that the Bush/Cheney paradigm was so detrimentally singularly focused that allowed them any ability to see anything other than exactly what their assumptions told them should be there. This is the root of the problem and while this is something that can be identified and targeted for repair, it is incredibly frustrating to be reminded that 8 years were wasted, even though we knew it already. Moreover, while we knew the previous administration was inept, the pervasiveness of their ineptitude is staggering and realistically we might be digging out from under their colossal blunders for the next decade. I know that you tire of everything going back to the previous and frankly I can’t blame you for not wanting to be reminded daily of your party’s inadequacies. However,the reality is such that we can’t afford to cut the GOP a break in this instance. The GOP has been riding on a reputation of military and national security prowess for decades and apparently now it is common knowledge that the reputation was not only undeserved, after unearthing a more realistic portrayal of their prosecution of the so-called war on terror it has occurred to most of us that campaign claims about their security expertise amounts to an unmitigated fraud.

If nothing else this shows that our “intelligentsia” are too single-minded to focus on anything other than one country’s problems at a time. We coulda avoided being eight years behind except for the fact that we dropped Afghanistan and went to war against Iraq….
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For you, Rusty: “That diwector wubs me the wong way!” –EF

wanr intell, just listen to any GOP Senator or congressman, capture a few Afgans and TORTURE them.

Should be want not wanr,

As you can tell we don’t take off for spelling ’round here.

I we did, I’d be deep in negative territory. Having at least one typo per post has pretty much become my signature.

Dee I can understand your concern, and need to also go back to the “previous administration”, but please tell me how that is going to make any difference now?
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How will simply blaming the previous Bush Administration going to keep us safe in the skies flying to our various destinations? Right or wrong so far as Bush was concerned, his administration did I am confident, prevent any further attacks killing hundreds or even thousands of Americans. You have to at least credit him for that.
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I know that you are super protective of Obama, but you at the same time are making the same mistake that I and other Republicans made by not being more intuned with what the Bush Administration was doing.
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However, moving forward, can you make a pledge to now look at this through the eyes of an American citizen, and simply hold the current Administration in power accountable? I will from this point forward. If nothing at least for the sake of anyone who potentially may die from the lack of anything but the best intelligence possible.
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We do not owe anything to our elected officials, they owe it to us.

Interesting Digress, but this article has nothing to do with administrations, it has to do with focusing our Military Intelligence.

I beleive this is more of a failing of Congress in providing the personnel needed, and the RnD required to develop, maintain, and analyse data nessacary to properly combat Insurgents, Revolutionaries, or whatever other audiences are out there that have an input in the success of our endevors in Afghanistan.

With the limited available resources given to our Armed forces, and the ever changing political landscape that forces them to consistantly shift focus; It’s not at all suprising that they have chosen to focus almost exclusively on those enemy targeting our Soldiers. The less deaths splashed on CNN, the less political turmoil regardless of president. That is the Military Intelligence Communities primary job and focus. Send some Geographers, Sociologists, and other focused personnel to Afghanistan if you need to understand the people that are just trying to go to work every day.

The ground commander’s typically know what’s going on in thier Neighborhoods, because that’s how they keep everyone safe. It’s not something before that was required by our MI to feed.

Rusty,

In response to early posts on this thread, I think it is a mistake to point fingers at either Bush or Obama as this is a question of the competence of people at the lower level.

Clearly, the SNAFU with the undie-bomber dealt with intelligence. Unfortuately, the only reforms will come with airport security, though I don’t think that was the problem. Going through my underwear may give me a thrill, but it won’t stop the next person from trying to bomb an airplane.

The fact that this guy’s dad went to the American embassy and told the CIA about his son should have sent a clear signal. Not to mention the buying of a one way ticket in cash along with no luggage.

It seems old habits die hard.

Furthermore, we need to get over the blame game. While the Bush administration deserves blame for diverting our attention on Iraq instead of Afghanistan, most of the other “gotcha” claims against the Bush administration does not stand up to scrutiny. At the same time, you can be sure that if we suffer from a successful attack, Conservatives will be quick to point blame at Obama, whether his administration is at fault or not.

The problem of trying to infiltrate a tribal or family-based network is that you have to get someone already a member to change sides and these guys don’t wear those long curved knives for show. And those white guys from the CIA or who only speak with an American accent stand out like a sore thumb. And they don’t use that many cell phones or radios so all the millions that we spend on those fancy “toys” don’t help a bit.

I know we probably already have one or two satellites tasked over Afganistan and Pakistan but maybe we need more eyes reviewing these on a “real time” basis in addition to “real time” translators of messages. Maybe we could get some of those “don’t ask-don’t tell” military members who were translators and put them to work in intelligence. It didn’t seem real smart to kick out translators when we were also having problems recruiting translators.

Didn’t you hear? Gayness does more damage to the military than actual ability.

The intelligence community – the brains behind the bullish might of military forces – seems much too mesmerized by the red of the Taliban’s cape. If this does not change, success in Afghanistan will depend on the dubious premise that a bull will not tire as quickly as a Russian bear.
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-linked paper

Unfortunately Congress is too concerned with keeping items like the unnecessary F22 fighter plane in production than trying to see that the Defense budget is spent where it would actually do some good. I suspect that some people in the home district might even get over the closing of a plant or base if it could be proven that the money was being moved to an area that would get results.

We coulda avoided being eight years behind except for the fact that we dropped Afghanistan and went to war against Iraq…. -nfl
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I disagree, Bush didn’t drop Afghanistan. Judged by our ability to “disrupt and dismantle al Qaeda”, Bush did that. We didn’t get all the terrorists, but we stopped their ability to operate from that country. The problem arose, IMO, when we started building mil infrastructure and puffing Karzai. We provided fixed targets to indigenous people (and foreign jihadis) who resent our presence and the “illegitimate” Afghani govt . When attacked, we focused on retribution, understandably. Our retribution begat more attacks and so-on. Now, apparently, we do little more than kill bad guys. Soon everyone’s a bad guy.
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Having focused the overwhelming majority of its collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade.
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The Taliban are part of the “people (we) seek to persuade”.

response to #2.2

Actually the F22 is a valid purchase, you have to realize that the military is charged with not only fighting our current battles, but to develop the technology, skills, and strategies needed to fight other possible conflicts.

The military cannot simply focus exclusively on Afghanistan here and now. It is also charged with protecting us from FUTURE conflicts as well. So to say that Congress is remiss in funding the F22 is to sacrifice our future for the present.

Obviously our government has no qualms about doing just that. I would hope that they are not so near sighted that they would jeopardize our future security and ability to project power. Not when you consider how little that extra 20billion would gain in the current theaters.

That’s what our Intel is focused on (finding and killing, disrupting bad guys). Do not mistake this article for being inclusive in our Military’s over all ability to work counter-insurgancy. This is just one Military Intelligence Officer and a dusty desk jockey’s opinions about a small small peice.

I concur that we have failed in our pick of government. I honestly feel that we should have gone in, disrupted both countries, and left. Letting them fight it out within thier borders, and come up with a government that worked for them. The problem is that there is no chance of it being a favorable government, and without our interferance it would likely be anti west.

So we are stuck with needing to secure a country, without having the authority or political will to OCCUPY that country, long enough that it develops a government friendly to ours. The problem with that is it takes generations. Not a few years, to do properly. It takes commitment, not wishy washy changing policy every 2yrs as the political climate thousands of miles away changes. Low visibility, High pay off, STABLE, Consistant support, strategy, and agreements will help far more.

We just don’t want to do that. Since no one has the political brass balls to tell everyone that if we don’t want to do it right (meaning occupy for 20-50yrs) then we should just cut our losses and leave immediatly. No guilt or blame outside of our own for not bothering to listen to our military leaders who explained this to CONGRESS ( don’t blame the president, he doesn’t declare war, or have the authority or money to run one without Congress)

Blame the public for thier ADD and inablity to grasp that if a totally defeated Germany takes 25years to stabilize enough for federal government, a place like Iraq or Afghanistan will take even longer.

I pretty much agree with everybody here. Novel experience. I even tip my hat to Bush, in his last year in office and since his departure. His only mistake, but it was fatal, was allowing his VP search chairman to select himself. Bush would have done better asking his daddy. Anyway, he seems to be a class act now, in stark contrast to his VP. The name escapes me. Traumatic stress syndrome.

“Anyway, he seems to be a class act now, in stark contrast to his VP.”

The soft bigotry of low expectations?

Shadow, how sure are you about the efficacy of the F22? I happened to read this recently by Navy Cmdr Huber (link):
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The key to (the F22′s) success was not its stealthy airframe, however. Its impressive kill ratio came as a result of its sensor, communication, and weapon avionics. Those same avionics can be screwed into the still-in-production F-16, which at under $20 million per copy is still the most maneuverable fighter airplane ever made as well as a genuine dual-role combat jet that turns into a full-time bomber once an enemy’s air defenses have been destroyed.
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Advance generation components and design were supposed to make the F-22 a low maintenance jet. It has, instead, posted a miserably low mission capability rate, largely because of the effort involved in maintaining its stealth features. It’s not only history’s most expensive fighter, it’s history’s most expensive fighter to maintain. It provides little enough combat effectiveness in the air. It’s even more worthless when it’s grounded for repairs.
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and later calls it a useless, self-defeating weapon program.
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BTW, the F22s cost nearly $400 million a pop.

Shadowfox, I think that the Iraq/Afghanistan plotters are not only fine with “20-50 year” commitment, they designed it that way.
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Many suckle the teat of our mil budget.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/

Understanding the Long War
By Tom Hayden
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The concept of the “Long War” is attributed to former CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid, speaking in 2004. Leading counterinsurgency theorist John Nagl, an Iraq combat veteran and now the head of the Center for a New American Security, writes that “there is a growing realization that the most likely conflicts of the next fifty years will be irregular warfare in an ‘Arc of Instability’ that encompasses much of the greater Middle East and parts of Africa and Central and South Asia.” The Pentagon’s official Quadrennial Defense Review (2005) commits the United States to a greater emphasis on fighting terrorism and insurgencies in this “arc of instability.”…
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The implications of this doctrine are staggering. The very notion of a fifty-year war assumes the consent of the American people, who have yet to hear of the plan, for the next six national elections… Most Americans living today will die before the fifty-year war ends, if it does. Youngsters born and raised today will reach middle age. Unborn generations will bear the tax burden or fight and die in this “irregular warfare.”
(link)

Is there anything that the government is GOOD at?

[...] http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/01/05/meanwhile-u-s-intelligence-in-afghanistan-gets-a-failing-… [...]

Very valid, it’s hard to commit to such a long protracted conflict. That’s why you should always clearly define your goals as a nation before commiting. If our goal was to destabilize and oust Saddam, great, go in, knock him out, two years later all done. Leave the theater, you’ve won because you met your objectives.

Same with Afghanistan.

The bottum line is “what is our goal?” If our goal is peace, stability, and a pro west nation, it’s going to take a huge investment. If our goal is simply to remove a hostile regime, then that’s fairly simple. If the new government is worse, just take it out. Eventually we’ll get the government we want without the continual commitment, allowing our changing government/public a chance each bad regime to make a choice.

Once we stop wanting peace, prosperity, and the the love of the World these things will be easy, because we’ll leave before an “insurgency” begins. If we intend to Occupy, making a conquered country our own, then we must take it by force, invest in counter insurgancy, and rape it of resources to fund building thier Peace and Prosperity. Not pretty, but by far the more cost effective solution to rebuilding a nation. It sure beats squandering resources with no clear measurable gain to our Nation outside of possible warm fuzzies.