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Title: In Afghanistan, the Loudest Sound Is the Clock Ticking
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/a ... ion/28fron.html?ref=television
Published: Oct 28, 2008
Author: GINIA BELLAFANTE
Post Date: 2008-10-28 23:53:19 by richard9151
Keywords: None
Views: 377
Comments: 19
GINIA BELLAFANTE Published: October 27, 2008 In early September Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House Armed Services Committee on the difficulties American forces face in Afghanistan. “It is my professional opinion that no amount of troops, in no amount of time, can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan,” he said. “Frankly, we’re running out of time.” To watch “The War Briefing,” a “Frontline” documentary to be shown on Tuesday on most PBS stations, is to feel vividly the ticking of the clock. Rigorously reported and somberly produced, “The War Briefing” is both a diagrammatic explanation of everything that has gone wrong over the past few years and a grim visual tour of a landscape that nature itself seems to have made impervious to the ambitions of outside occupiers. Factually the film reprises recent news reports (and includes commentary by journalists like Dexter Filkins of The New York Times) but at the same time it palpably delivers a sense of our narrowing options. The film begins with “Frontline” reporters embedded with the Bravo Company, an Army unit battling assaults nearly every day in the Korengal River valley in northeastern Afghanistan. The territory is so vast, rugged and labyrinthine that Churchill, traveling with the British Army as a reporter in 1897, wrote it off as unconquerable. Soldiers live the horror and frustration of the maze, often unable to see the enemy. “You can’t really pinpoint them,” one soldier says. “You just got to keep on scanning, keep your head on a swivel.” The chilling effect of “The War Briefing” is to make American efforts in Afghanistan seem at once essential and futile, at least within the next few years. Military resources have been diverted from the war in Iraq — a country smaller than Afghanistan with four times the number of troops — but while both presidential candidates have committed to sending more forces to Afghanistan, commanders and analysts tell “Frontline” that extra support alone won’t sufficiently reduce violence or curtail the growth of terrorist strongholds in the region. The government of President Hamid Karzai has been weak and largely ineffectual in expanding infrastructure and economic opportunity, the documentary points out. The border with Pakistan is porous and unmanageable, and it is in the tribal regions of Pakistan where Al Qaeda sanctuaries are thriving. Footage of the tribal violence in the border territory is gruesome (the results of a beheading are in full view) and more harrowing still, given the absence of bloody images of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as regular features of the evening news. Moreover, the film makes it clear that seemingly sound tactical strategies in Afghanistan have only had the effect of belying larger goals. The terrain has made a heavy ground war next to impossible. But the air strikes mean heightened civilian casualties that, in turn, breed distrust, which makes necessary humanitarian efforts harder to achieve. “I don’t think that even the little kids like us,” one American soldier says in the film. “We try to help them out.” The past year has been the deadliest yet for coalition forces in Afghanistan since the American-led invasion in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Emboldened by a flourishing opium trade, Taliban fighters have regrouped with the aid of Arab, Chechen and Uzbek militants traveling to the Afghan-Pakistani border and guiding the Taliban in advanced command strategies. And suicide bombings and roadside killings have increased, making once reasonably safe parts of the country outside Kabul now unviable. As Michael Scheuer, a news analyst formerly with the C.I.A., puts it in the film: “We now have a country that’s infested with everything from the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the insurgency side, to bandits and warlords and narcotics traffickers. So you’re really fighting a beast with 100 heads.” And apparently we are fighting it with fewer than a handful of swords. FRONTLINE The War Briefing On most PBS stations on Tuesday night (check local listings).
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#1. To: richard9151 (#0)
(Edited)
As Michael Scheuer, a news analyst formerly with the C.I.A., puts it in the film: “We now have a country that’s infested with everything from the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the insurgency side, to bandits and warlords and narcotics traffickers. So you’re really fighting a beast with 100 heads.” And apparently we are fighting it with fewer than a handful of swords. Obama is full of sh*t about re-deploying troops to Afghanistan and "winning" the WOT there. Afghanistan is where the peoples like to play soccer with human skulls. Get the picture, Barry? And now thanks to our meddling efforts, there's opium and gun running and what have you. Best we call it a day, and get our butts out of that Third World netherland and use the $ we are wasting with those primitives to fix our roads and bridges and to build a moat and 50 foot high fence on our southern border like we paid for Israel to build. Imo, Obama is every bit as dangerous as McCain.
The US has been defeated in Afghanistan. It did not have to be that way, but the Pentagon was going to be gung ho,"kick the sand niggers ass". And as a resultant has created a population that will smile at you in the restrurants and kill you in the streets.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Every nation in modern history that has taken Afghanistan on has been defeated. You'd think the Pentagon would have been aware of that well known fact. Honestly.
History repeats itself.
The army has a "Lessons Learned" outfit somewhere that is supposed to know of these things. Guess the Pentagon lost their phone number. Iskander (Alexander c. 328 )took two years to siege the Sodgians (Khandahar)into surrender, and a few years after his royal guard left, they were sovereign again.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" It really is pathetic. The whole sorry massy.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" i wasn't aware of that.
there is no way in the world that any american should be in that godforsaken place...especially considering that none of the cave dwellers did 911.
i wasn't aware of that. 1. Afghanistan is a country which has defeated alot of Super Powers such as Alexander the Great, Gangez Khan, Persian forces, Moghual Forces, British Forces and Soviets. 2. A country that has been never defeated or conquered by any nation. 3. All of these wars and battles were not won by a regular Army, Almost all of those battles were fought by normal people. 4. (2004) a country that is currently under contruction , because of its many wars. 5. a cool country located in Central Asia. 6. A country that has hot summers and cold winters. 7. Official languages are pashtuh ,persian .but they do know a little english. we better not mess with them or else they will kick our asses! "those soviets were dumb for trying to conquer Afghanistan , i mean didn't they learn from its unbeatable record of kicking Super-Powers asses." thanks, 2012.
We can't defeat Taleban, says Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith "The brigadier’s grim prognosis follows a leaked cable by François Fitou, the deputy French Ambassador in Kabul, claiming that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador, had told him the strategy for Afghanistan was “doomed to failure”. In the cable, Mr Fitou told President Sarkozy that Sir Sherard believed “the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption and the Government has lost all trust”. He said Sir Sherard had told him Britain had no alternative but to support the US, “but we should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one. The American strategy is doomed to fail.”
The real pathos is that in 2002, IF WE HAD AN STATE DEPARTMENT WORTHY OF IT'S NAME the USG would have known how to approach the 85% of the Afghan population that was, at that point in time, happy to see the US calvary come into Afghan nation and rout the Taliban. The US Army seems to have been able to learn NOTHING from their past experiences of counter insurgencies. Now 90% want us out and is willing to kill all foreigners in the dark allys of their towns.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" i wasn't aware of that. I am not aware of any power that has occupied them successfully, ancient or modern, for any meaningful period of time. The Kings of Persia may have, but they were lax in their rule and may have left these peoples alone, as long as a minimal tribute was occasional made The Great Powers made them submit and left them alone, as long as the tribal powers kept the Silk Road passage free from brigands. (Thanks by the way for bringing up a subject concerning me to type "brigands". Their racial identity has, so I have read, as a population has been there from the time of Moses.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Well, if the objective is to keep the pursuit of an evil boogie perthun alive, and to feed the military contractors who supply everything from pre-enlistment physicals to bug spray, and to make certain that centuries old opium supplies aren't interrupted (otherwise institutions such as Skull & Bones wouldn't be able to gift new initiates with fancy cars and healthy bank accounts) then the war is doing just what it's intended to do. The goal of containing "turrizm" is an endless profiteering scheme and is no more intended to be won than a greyhound is intended to catch the rabbit. Like the war on terror, if the gummint couldn't go out of the country and make new drug deals to keep the supply strong, they'd be forced to go looking for a phantom "Uri" in the inner cities who is "responsible". *Sgt Stadinko* "Okay men, who wants to guess how much this next shipment is worth? Wrong! It's at least 300 lbs and the estimated street value is 40 quintillion dollars! And, remember, the bigger the bust the better the boost!" Fortunately, the federal reserve bank launders the funds from worldwide drug sales and that keeps things running smoothly. In fact, we could enlist the services of a pro like Manuel Noriega (Wanna give the govt nite sweats? What about The Noriega Commission?) and he could shut down the American end of the Diamond trapezoid (not Golden Triangle) in a matter of weeks. But, no, it's better to keep thousands of LEOs kicking doors and hosing old ladies to death with phony warrants based on phony tips from non existent CIs, and countless folks sitting on curbs handcuffed while cops rip their upholstery looking for seeds....otherwise Senor Big couldn't fly overhead in those Beechcrafts passing suitcases of freshly laundered and sweet smelling cash to The Bush/Clinton Crime Family, US Senators, Border, Customs and Immigration bureaucrats, defense attorneys, judges and career climbing prosecutors. It's also ironic that the IRS has whined incessantly about Switzerland's banking confidentiality laws because some legit business man may be defeating some tax, while every Monday morning a caravan of armored cars line up at Miami airport to transport tons of tax free cash from offshore banks. It's only a problem when other than American banks receive funds of questionable origin. In an honest world that much cash every Monday would have to coincide with major oil, gold or mineral strikes or major pops on public offerings. (which wouldn't be taking place on some tiny island known for it's laxed banking regs, of course) Every Monday is like Casio or Microsoft went public, but there's no explanation for the regularly scheduled windfalls that cause airport traffic jams and strained backs from tossing bag o' cash. I despise the crooks who've carved up America as their own Thanksgiving turkey and who feel entitled to enslave us all to make the profitable prohibitions work for them.
"Now I know what Jesus was going through!"__Aileen Wuornos
Post Of The Decade.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" bttt
Can you imagine selling your immortal soul for a military paycheck? I wouldn't do it for Blackwater pay. In the film Apocalypse Now Captain Robert L. Willard had serious mental problems with which he could barely cope as did hit man Arthur Bishop in The Mechanic. What kind of person gets so wrapped up in dirty work that he'd allow his own mind to become his enemy? I'm not talking about low level hillbillies at Abu Ghraib like Lynndie England. (But she shore waz a purty little thang!) I know how and why poor white trash gets sucked into the military. I'm talking about cutouts who leave their phone numbers in case the govt needs problem solvers, preferably people who aren't put off by cannibalism if required to destroy evidence. Or, someone to break a kid's neck and leave him for a train to mangle on the tracks somewhere in Arkansas. I mean, macho self esteem is one thing. But this state of affairs......
"Now I know what Jesus was going through!"__Aileen Wuornos
I strongly disagree. We should never have gone into Iraq, but the Taliban and el Qaeda were derived from our game of brinksmanship with the Soviets who warred there unsuccessfully for years. One thing I learned in Special Forces is that the mission involving low intensity conflict of all kinds is an ongoing one. I don't expect you to know all the missions of SF and other elite units that deal with insurgency and counterinsurgency, but there is allot we can do to create more stable and secure climates for various parts of the world where people are free of fear of harrassment, maiming, beatings and death for merely trying to live their lives and control their own political and economic destiny. I plan on talking more in depth on this after the election. I am working on the Obama campaign and that and work have been taking up most my time and energy. If I have been gone, it's been primarily for those reasons. This is an important election and we really need Obama to win it November 4th. So I've been doing what the man suggests, working like we are behind in the polls. I've already voted of course, as we do it by mail. But I have helped get allot of other ballots to the mail and election drop boxes. It feels nice to make a difference.
but while both presidential candidates have committed to sending more forces to Afghanistan, commanders and analysts tell “Frontline” that extra support alone won’t sufficiently reduce violence or curtail the growth of terrorist strongholds in the region.
#2. To: richard9151 (#0)
#3. To: tom007 (#2)
The US has been defeated in Afghanistan.
#4. To: scrapper2 (#3)
Every nation in modern history that has taken Afghanistan on has been defeated.
#5. To: scrapper2 (#3)
You'd think the Pentagon would have been aware of that well known fact. Honestly.
#6. To: TwentyTwelve (#4)
#7. To: scrapper2 (#3)
Every nation in modern history that has taken Afghanistan on has been defeated
#8. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
The film begins with “Frontline” reporters embedded with the Bravo Company, an Army unit battling assaults nearly every day in the Korengal River valley in northeastern Afghanistan. The territory is so vast, rugged and labyrinthine that Churchill, traveling with the British Army as a reporter in 1897, wrote it off as unconquerable. Soldiers live the horror and frustration of the maze, often unable to see the enemy.
#9. To: christine, scrapper2, tom007 (#7)
Every nation in modern history that has taken Afghanistan on has been defeated
#10. To: TwentyTwelve (#9)
#11. To: tom007 (#6)
It really is pathetic. The whole sorry massy.
#12. To: TwentyTwelve (#11)
#13. To: christine (#7)
(Edited)
Every nation in modern history that has taken Afghanistan on has been defeated
#14. To: richard9151, christine, Jethro Tull (#0)
(Edited)
“It is my professional opinion that no amount of troops, in no amount of time, can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan,” he said. “Frankly, we’re running out of time.”
#15. To: HOUNDDAWG (#14)
I despise the crooks who've carved up America as their own Thanksgiving turkey and who feel entitled to enslave us all to make the profitable prohibitions work for them.
#16. To: HOUNDDAWG (#14)
I despise the crooks who've carved up America as their own Thanksgiving turkey and who feel entitled to enslave us all to make the profitable prohibitions work for them.
#17. To: HOUNDDAWG (#14)
#18. To: TwentyTwelve (#15)
#19. To: christine (#8)
"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power -- he's free again. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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