Jan
13
2009
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Tuesday, 13 January 2009 |
|
Updated Jan. 14 4:45pm & Again 10:20pm
Just got off the phone with Roger L. Simon of Pajama's Media.
Evidently I've stirred a few things up.
Roger's spoken with Joe and assures me that Joe's not in favor of a blanket ban on reporters on the battlefield and embeds. I trust Roger's statement and Joe.
Roger gave me some background on what spurred Joe's initial comments on the street and his comments during an on-set segment on PJTV.
Here is what Joe said that made my jaw drop:
WURZELBACHER: you don’t need to see what’s happening every day,
that’s my personal opinion, you don’t have to share it. But, you know,
okay, you don’t have to see, you know, 800 dead, 801 dead. It’s like
they drill that in your head. … They want you to sit there saying there
are so many people dying. You know these are large, these are numbers,
you know I don’t want to take away from that. Let me, uh, think about
how to say that again. Just essentially, they keep drilling it into
your head, newscast after newscast after newscast.
I think the military should decide what information to give the
media and then the media can release it to the public. I don’t believe
they need to be in the front lines with soldiers, I don’t believe they
need to, uh, you know, be bothering the military for information or for
access to certain areas. (Emphasis added)
I saw that on PJTV during an on-set interview. I nearly fell out of my chair. I generally agree with the first paragraph, but the second one is a bad idea.
The first remarks like that were made on the street and off the cuff which I gave him a pass on. On the street comments are so fast I'll give anyone a pass. But when he said it on-set, in a sit-down interview in such a blanket way, he was advocating yielding the media battlespace to the enemy. He didn't realize it, but that is what that statement is. There is really no other way to read his statement than to think he means no reporters on the front lines. No elaboration, no caveats.
Roger gave me the back story. If the backstory had even been hinted at, I would have given the blanket statement a pass.
Joe caught a glimpse of the sausage being made.
As I stated below, embeds with an infantry unit are at the discretion of the commander.
Sometimes this almost resembles lining the reporters up and picking teams--except some people don't get picked.
If you were to suddenly be an infantry officer and had to pick a reporter to embed with your unit on an operation, would you pick Michael Yon or Glenn Greenwald or Al Jazeera or Reuters?
I would pick Yon. Which would make Greenwald and the rest throw a fit.
An observer who is unfamiliar with the media battlespace would probably throw up his arms and say screw this, none of you should be here, unaware of the reprecussions or that preventing even handed reporters like John Burns, Brian Bennett and others would actually increase the power of the enemy within the media battlespace.
Unfortunately, that got caught on camera on the street and then he repeated in an on-set interview.
I've been there when those selections are made. I've been there when I was allowed to go on the mission and another reporter had to stay on base.
Roger says some the little dust up will addressed and we both had a great laugh how this got spun out of control. Roger is a friend and I trust him.
Roger also gave me a preview of some upcoming reports and they are what Joe does best and what I have enjoyed about his coverage.
I hope this never gets lost in the translation: Joe is wonderful when he is relating the story of regular working people in a dire situation.
As a child-less bachelor who has spent the better part of the last few years in a war zone, the things that Joe picks up on would never occur to me. Which makes him better than I or others who ply the nuts and bolts combat reporting trade.
The ultimate irony in all this is that Joe became famous for asking Obama a question that resulted in an off the cuff remark that people pounced on.
-----------
Previously in this space I remarked that PJTV's sending Joe The Plumber to Israel felt like a shark-jumping publicity stunt and it was a risk that could put PJTV's credibility at risk.
After watching a few reports , I felt Joe was fine, when he related things as the average Joe that he is. When he expereinces a rocket attack, then walks past a playground, he thinks in terms of a suburban father. This is a very good angle and plays to his strengths.
Where Joe gets into trouble is every time he moves beyond that angle, specifically in a long report where he says reporters should not be out in the battle with the troops.
That means Joe thinks Michael Yon, Michael Totten, Bill Roggio & his team, myself and others should not be running around with infantry units.
PJTV, the first majorly funded new media venture of its kind, hired, as its first star middle east reporter, a man who thinks the U.S. Military and IDF should yield the media battle space to the enemy.
I don't know what fantasy world Joe lives in, but the media is going to cover a war however they can get access to it. If the U.S. military or IDF doesn't allow access, you can bet the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaida, Jaish al Mahdi, etc. will become the primary distributors of information. Heck, they already are.
Luckily General David Petraeus sees things differently and in the counter insurgency field manual stated clearly that the media should be encouraged to embed with infantry units for long stretches of time.
And this is the hazard of sending Joe to be a media organization's star correspondent.
Far from being a burden, the media is an important compenent of modern 4th Generation Warfare.
First, in the embedding programs of the Western military, unit commanders have the option to take on an embed. More often than not, the command puts me right in the thick of the action, even putting me in place so I can cover a large operation and allowing me to sit in on classified mission briefings.
LTC Valery Kaeveny, LTC Patrick Frank, General Mark Gurganus & LTC James McGrath put me repeatedly at the pointy end of the spear. (In my upcoming documentary 'Baghdad Happens' the pointy end of the spear chasing down a terrorist was a Captain, a PFC, then me.)
These officers understood that if I was not there--the story would not be told.
In modern warfare, winning or losing has as much to do with polling results, election returns and roll-call votes as what happens on the battlefield. Modern 4th Generation warfare is about turning the voting public against military effort or foreign policy. The public is influenced by what they see in the media.
Clamping down on media access always fails because someone else then provides the content and seizes the battle space.
Which is why back in 2005 I bought a camera and a plane ticket and went to Iraq. There was a part of the story that was not being told and I quit my job and rolled the dice to tell it. In a perfect world, the media would already be telling that story, but we do not live in a perfect world, so I did what I felt needed to be done.
I wasn't on Fox & Friends before I left or any radio shows. It took months of churning out copy and video before anyone in the blogosphere even noticed me. My local paper still hasn't done the "local guy makes movie in Iraq" story yet.
By making a 15-minute-of-fame political media celebrity its point man in Israel, PJTV took a risk and they've now been bitten by it.
Joe is now the face of PJTV. His saying that reporters should not be with front line soldiers undercuts any effort by PJTV to put reporters on the front lines of a war.
If Joe had his way, I could not have filed this report , or this report or made these documentaries .
Joe would make the government the dispenser of information--gee, what could go wrong with that?
The plumber should stick to what he does best as a media personality--relating things as a father and skilled tradesman trying to make a living. When he moves beyond that, he is out of his depth.
UPDATE Wed Jan. 14 1:55pm
"You know, every unit should be set up like you guys are?" Sergeant Hutch said.
"Set up how?" I asked.
"Old experienced NCO's, grunts, and vehicles with optics. And an embedded reporter like you."
The embedded reporter part surprised me.
We were on a long mission. The battalion was clearing Kharmah, again, and the platoon I was embedded with was tasked with hunting down some vile decapitators who called themselves the Green Battalion.
This was the second operation Hutch and his sniper team had been attached to the platoon and I had gotten to know him a little bit.
Hutch was one of the top snipers in Fallujah. A serious operator who looked through the scope and killed insurgents, pulling the trigger betwen heart beats.
Although we personally got along well, I didn't expect that he would care much for a cameraman along on missions. I asked him why he thought more units should have reporters embedded.
"If they are like you," he clarified, meaning former military, or in good shape and not likely to get in the way.
I still didn't get it. So he explained it to me. At that time in the Summer of 2005 the media's coverage of the war was farmed out to stringers who shot video or stills of the daily car bombing. I was the only reporter running around Fallujah. All the public saw of the war was a narrow snap shot, not the full picture and it would take a lot more embeds like me to show the full picture.
Over the years, I've seen a lot of embeds. Some are good some are bad. Some develop close bonds with units and soldiers. The Strykers adopted Maya Alleruzzo. Duce Five adopted Michael Yon. The Regulars of 1-22 adopted Brian Bennett.
What I have found over the years is that units and soldiers don't like parachute embeds, the reporters who drop in for a day and leave.
Sergeants Michael Copney and Kenneth Edwards, who are featured in my upcoming documentary, made that point to me on a hot summer afternoon in Fallujah Bahgdad.
A New York Times reporter did a parachute. Dropped in, rolled around with the Battalion Commander LTC Patrick Frank, then moved on.
They thought it was really cool that I went out on missions with them and took the time to interview them on camera. They also liked movie night, where we watched the video I shot of a successful mission.
I write all of this in response to a commentor on Hotair who said that embeds are a burden and that Joe the Plumber is right--there shouldn't be reporters with infantry units.
The commentor must have glossed over the paragraph where I described embedding.
Unit commanders can decline an embed. If they can't handle one, they don't take one. If their mission is too complicated, they don't take one. I've seen reporters who were just not physically able to keep up with grunts and they are not embedded. I've even heard of them being dis-embedded and shipped to Baghdad and told never to come back.
Embedding is at the discretion of the unit commander, not the reporter.
That said, I've had units that were sceptical at first, until they got to know me.
1st Sgt. Gerald Cornell, of Battle Company was skeptical, but then he told me that once he saw me in action, running across rooftops with his soldiers he knew I was the "real deal."
One Captain, one of the greatest Captains of the war, Brian Ducote, asked me to stay on with Battle Company. His men had started to see me as one of their own. But I moved on.
I make myself move on. It hurts too much to stay with them. I will have to leave them at some point and the sooner I leave, the better it is for all of us.
I learned this lesson after spending months with Vengeance Platoon mentioned above. I was not just a reporter, I was THEIR reporter.
On the last day of the last mission, we got hit by an IED. Our interpreter, Ali, lost part of a leg and arm. Everyone was angry, including me.
Ali was sitting in the passenger's back seat. I always sat in the same seat. If the humvee I was in had gotten hit, I would have been the one losing a leg and arm.
The next day Corporal Matt Stillman said something that showed the true inherent danger of embeds, "If that had been you, instead of Ali....it would have been a massacre."
We were all angry about Ali, but we had only known him a few days. I had been with them for months. The anger could have easily boiled over into something horrible.
I will never live with a unit for more than a few weeks again.
My criticism of Joe is not of the segments on PJTV. I enjoy them. He points out things that are never covered. His perspective as a suburban father, a skilled tradesman is great. He sees things I would not. I'm a bachelor and would not be able to put what happens during a rocket attack into terms as a parent.
I've been mortared and rocketed so many times, I would probably just stand there--which is what I've done the past few times it happened in Iraq.
But when he strays into areas he is not an expert, he commits and err we all do.
The strength of the blogosphere and new media is the diversified expertise. Law professors blogging about the Law. Screenwriters and directors blogging about Hollywood.
My expertise is in polling, media rating points, TV News, running political campaigns and warfare.
When you throw them all together, I'm an interesting expert in those areas.
I do not blog often. I do not blog about court cases or most of the passing things in the news. I don't even blog about Iraq much.
I blogged about Joe the Plumber because PJTV's putting him in Israel has established him as the most recognizeable new media foreign/war correspondent and what he does reflects on me.
In my first post I explained why I wanted thim to do well and explained my apprehensions.
Those apprehensions are now being seen as justified as Joe went beyond his expertise.
His comments about embedded reporters shows how little he knows about modern 4th Generation Warfare and how embed programs work.
I understand that in a perfect world the media would be fair and truly balanced and accurate. But we do not live in that fantasy perfect world and never will.
To end embed programs would create a vaccume in the information battlespace. That vaccume will be filled with someone.
The solution to the media, that Sgt. Hutch lamented in 2005 is not to ban embeds, but to get more embedded reporters on the front lines.
The reports of the daily car bombing were not coming from embeds. They were coming from stringers working unilaterally.
Joe's proposed solution to his complaints about the media will exacerbate what he seeks to eliminate and the stories of the soldiers and their daily successes would never be told.
Because he did not think before he spoke and then said it again, he showed himself to be out of his depth.
I would be out of my depth trying to relate what it is like as a father to contemplate rocket attacks. I'm not a father, I'm not even married. Joe as a father, is prefect to relate that part of the ongoing war. Joe should stick to his expertise.
|
|
Jan
09
2009
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Friday, 09 January 2009 |
"How do you defeat an idea? How do you defeat a dream?" Colonel Bob Chase asked rhetorically.
It was the Summer of 2005, a period of stasis in Iraq before the wheels came off in 2006.
I was interviewing him on the side porch of the Saddam era palace in Ramadi that was now the headquarters of the 2nd Marine Division.
Over the Colonel's shoulder was the Euphrates and the city of Ramadi. Eighteen months later, the battle for the city would resemble a slow moving game of tetris, as Soldier and Marines claimed the city block by block, laying down concrete barriers to hold their territory.
In the Summer of 2005, as the Operations Officer of the Division, Chase had the power of life and death. A nod from him made people, buildings and city blocks disappear.
But those kinetic operations were only part of the answer to the question Chase needed to answer.
As I watch the events unfolding in Gaza, I remember the lessons from that Summer in Anbar province--clearing Amiriyah and Ferris twice, clearing Kharmah twice, the city of Fallujah, despite being cleared in the largest set-piece siege since Hue, was slowly being re-infested.
There will be peace in the middle east when, and only when, the Arabs finally accept that Israel will not be destroyed, the Hebrews will not be pushed into the sea and the status quo of this long running conflict is no longer worth it.
The insurgency of Iraq--Shia, Sunni, Baathist and evey hybrid thereof--operated on simple strategic concept: Just get the U.S. to leave.
The key strategic metric for the insurgents was a poll number that asked the American public if the war was "Worth it." The insurgent's only hope was the fickle nature of the American people and politicians in Washington, D.C.
That was how deep they viewed the battlefield.
The tide in Iraq first turned in Anbar when the tribal leaders and their kin accepted that the Marines were never leaving, Al Qaida and their associates could not deliver anything but criminality, the dream could not be achieved and getting on with normal life was the best course of action.
Michael Yon, in his book "Moment of Truth in Iraq" has a very profound statement on war:
"The American soldier is the most dangerous man in the world, and the Iraqis had to learn that before they would trust or respect us. But it was when they understood that these great-hearted warriors, who so enjoyed killing the enemy, are even happier helping build a school or to make a neighborhood safe that we really got their attention."
The residents of Gaza, who elected Hamas, may need to learn the very hard way that Israel, with very little effort, could push them into the sea, but would rather sell them electronics and fizzy drinks.
And that is the deeper battlefield Israel needs to fight on.
General Raymond Odierno, the Commander of Multi National Forces in Iraq constantly uses the phrase "passive support." That passive support can be for the insurgents or the coalition and the Iraq government.
It is the passive support that has propped up Hamas. Elimination of the passive support is the only path to a lasting victory.
In Iraq, the coalition eventually had the advantage of fragile Iraqi government for the passive support to shift to.
Fatah is not much an alternative, but there isn't much else to choose from
The seemingly interminable conflict will not be resolved through negotiations. Negotiating with an Arab is a sign of weakness and only emoboldens them.
It will end the way all wars end, decision by the losing combatant that his goals, his idea, his dream, is lost, cannot be achieved and it is no longer worth it to fight. Some people come to this conclusion quicker than others.
When the residents of Gaza see that Israel will not stop and that no can or will stop them, and that Hamas has been selling them a fantasy, then the passive support can shift. If, at that moment, Israel can turn on a dime and offer the alternative, maybe peace can finally be had.
A dream, an idea, is defeated by showing that it cannot be achieved or the effort to achieve it is just not worth it.
In the Middle East, this is compounded because the dream is intertwined with religion and personal identity. Renunciation of the dream is on a level with renouncing the faith--and we know how apostates are treated in Islam.
But, I have seen enough Al Qaida and Jaish al Mahdi affiliates flip sides to know that it is possible for all but the most fervent to accept a different interpretation of allah's will.
|
|
Jan
08
2009
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Thursday, 08 January 2009 |
I don't understand the whole "Joe the Plumber" thing.
Perhaps because his meteoric rise to political celebrity happened while I was running around Iraq with a camera.
When I left for Iraq, Joe was a guy who randomly bumped into Obabma when the cameras were rolling and asked a really good question. Obama then uttered the famous words, "spread the wealth around" and conservatives pounced.
When I get back just in time to vote, and am recovering from another bout of 'Saddam's Revenge' (which is the Iraqi variant of Montezuma's Revenge,) Joe is a full blown media personality, has been out on the campaign trail for McCain and subject to all kinds of un-authorized/illegal background checks.
Joe has a Publicity agent, endorsement deals, book deal and who knows what else--truly a storyline that could only happen in the USA.
Now Joe is headed to Israel as a correspondent for PJTV and I find myself asking, why not wall-to-wall Michael Totten instead? Why not Michael Yon, who, if he could sneak into sector for a few hours, would be able to give a thorough prognosis of the battle.
Because, even after years of grinding work in the middle-east, churning out brilliant essays and original reporting, Michael Totten is not a media celebrity. Same with Michael Yon, who, despite being one of, if not the most prolific chronicler of war in this young century, lacks the celebrity status of Joe The Plumber.
Announcing that Totten will be the point man and Yon will be providing battle-field updates does not warrant a splash of media coverage.
By opting for celebrity over substance, PJTV is following the well-worn path of other news media--and we know how that has turned out.
As one who left a normal career to become a war correspondent, I'm all for Joe and anyone else getting in the trenches. And I'm all for anyone making a few bucks and travelling to Israel on someone else's dime--that is the American dream.
But I am sad that the first well funded libertarian/conservative new media network, when given the opportunity to compete with majors, has opted for what feels like a publicity stunt.
I have always felt that news is important. The rise of the blogosphere was fueled by news junkies who felt that the news was too important to be left to the media. Now PJTV is treating very important news--the ongoing battle for the survival of Israel--as an opportunity for publicity.
But maybe I missed something while I was in Iraq. If Joe turns out to be the communicator needed to tell the story, then Mr. Simon and PJTV made the right call and my time in Iraq produced a blind spot in my understanding. And I hope he is good, because if he fails, the whole enterprise will fall flat. If PJTV has jumped that shark this early in its existence, it will be difficult to take it seriously in the future.
PJTV represents a great platform for independents out covering the hot spots. Yes, I do some work for the majors, but see PJTV as the next logical step for the new media. I would love to be PJTV's man in some hell-hole.
Which is why despite my questioning of PJTV's news judgement, I need Joe to succeed. If the viewer's brought in by the publicity are satisfied with Joe's work, PJTV will be successful. If it comes off a publicity stunt, the enterprise will have taken a big hit.
Joe--don't screw it up. Don't jump the shark, do what the Fonz should have done when confronted with the California Kid--be the real Fonz from the early seasons and punch him in the face.
|
|
Dec
31
2008
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Wednesday, 31 December 2008 |
|
In a previous life--the one in which I was a political operative--New Years Eve was always a busy a stressful day as I furiously raced around collecting the last contributions that had been pledged to the campaign.
A tradition developed between myself and one a key donor in which I had to physically track him down, make a few social and business calls with him, then go to his office get the checks (which were already made out) then have an early evening dinner with his family.
I then raced to the last bank branch open and made the deposit.
A new holiday tradition has developed to replace that.
For the past three years, in early December, I drive out to Home Office in Ottawa County, KS and drop off a large hard drive with the new documentary digitally encoded on it.
My friend and business partner David Chavarria then cleans up the audio, graphics and does a bunch of other things I swear are magic to turn it into the final DVD.
Here's a little snippet of the new movie, which is unlike any Iraq documentary ever made:
As for predictions, I am a horrible prognosticator, but a few of these are dead certain, which will bring up my average:
--I will release another documentary
--I'm going to publish a book that has its roots in my work in Iraq, but is actually about something else entirely
--Michael Yon will find himself in the most precarious situations imaginable and live to blog about them
--The SOFA agreement with Iraq will be broadly interpreted to keep US Forces in most Joint Security Stations
--I will finally beat 'Redacted'
--Glenn Reynolds will use the term "heh"
--Uncle Jimbo of Blackfive will not get married
--More media companies, especially newspapers will flounder
--Advertisers will discover that most advertising does not convert to sales, which, when combined with the recession, will be death of many media companies
--In the cattle markets Steers and Heifers will bottom out at sixty-five cents
--Oil will creep up to $65/barrel
--Kansas State, under the leadership of the returning Bill Snyder, will make it to the Alamo Bowl
--Leftwing groups like ANSWER, MoveOn, CodePink, etc., flush with electoral success and without an enemy will suffer mass psychosis
--I will not get shot at in Iraq, but I will get shot at in Afghanistan
--Blackfive actual will declare that I am nuts
--In December 2009 I will drive out to Ottawa County and drop off a hard drive that contains what will be my last documentary
|
|
Dec
27
2008
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Saturday, 27 December 2008 |
This is a first for me, the 'hear-say' quote. Actually the 'hear-say' quote is common, it is just the first time I have been part of it in a major publication.
In today's Wall Street Journal , Paul Mulshine quotes Glenn Reynolds quoting me.
Here's the graph:
"Now we're hearing the same thing about the blogosphere. 'When enough bloggers take the leap, and start reporting on the statehouse, city council, courts, etc. firsthand, full-time, then the Big Media will take notice and the avalanche will begin,' Mr. Reynolds quotes another blogger as saying. If this avalanche ever occurs, a lot of bloggers will be found gasping for breath under piles of pure ennui. There is nothing more tedious than a public meeting."
The preceding and succeeding paragraphs take a few jabs at the amatuer pundits of the blogosphere which are to expected.
The whole column is essentially a rewrite of the hundreds that came before and would not be worth noting except the hear-say quote is from a blogger who actually goes out and, in Mulshine's own words:
"...is performing a valuable task for the reader -- one that no sane man would perform for free. He is assembling what in the business world is termed the 'executive summary.' Anyone can duplicate a long and tedious report. And anyone can highlight one passage from that report and either praise or denounce it. But it takes both talent and willpower to analyze the report in its entirety and put it in a context comprehensible to the casual reader."
Supposedly that 'talent and willpower' is found wanting in bloggers. Like I said, the whole op-ed is nothing new.
Except in that the quoted but un-named blogger used to reinforce his points is none other than me--JD Johannes.
Most recently I produced, shot and edited video reports for TIME Magazine's website and my video was aired on WCBS-TV New York, KWTV-TV Oklahoma City and KOTV-TV Tulsa.
I've made TV shows, dozens of customized "sweeps pieces" for local TV and produced five documentaries.
The subject of the quote from Glenn's book, Army of Davids , was about how someone who actually understood the law and legislative process would make a better State House reporter than a recent college graduate with a journalism degree. In other words, an expert in law and legislation should be covering the State House. I even explained to Glenn how the business model would work--old fashioned syndication.
I do not know why Mr. Mulshine did not give my name. If he had, it would undercut many of his statements. A news man of his esteem would have surely googled me and found that I was doing exactly what he says bloggers are not doing and nearly beating a major Hollywood director and billionaire .
(Or perhaps he did google me and for some reason thought I was not the type to read the Wall Street Journal.)
The hear-say quote, and this particular usage by Mr. Mulshine, is one of the reasons why blogs have succeeded--the core news consumer does not like hear-say quotes and does not want bland executive summaries for the "casual reader." The core news consumer wants hard news without bias and expert opinion.
Mr. Mulshine's use of a misleading hear-say quote explains well the demise of his beloved newspaper.
|
|
Dec
19
2008
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Friday, 19 December 2008 |
Normally the projectiles you have to worry about in Iraq are AK-47 rounds, shrapnel from a bomb, molten slugs from an EFP and Rocket Propelled Grenades.
If they are down to loafers, sandals and lace-ups, well, that in itself is a sign of progress.
As one who has spent quality and quanitity time in Iraq, I understand the shoe insult. But it is just that, an insult.
The Code Pink types do it verbally. Some prefer puppets and burning in effigy.
The declaration of a 'Shoe Intifada' shows that the opposition forces in Iraq have moved from lethal projectiles into tactical irrelevance.
An irrelevance only the media could misunderstand.
|
|
Dec
18
2008
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Thursday, 18 December 2008 |
The just released Army Field manual on "Training for Full Spectrum Operations" has a recurring theme of innovation, agility and adaptation.
This theme is summed up in paragraph 2-69 of the manual, Educate Leaders to Think. (Page 28 of the PDF file.)
The best way to "Educate Leaders to Think" may be outside of the military and far outside of what is normally considered training.
In my travels through Iraq I have watched hundreds of Non-Commissioned Officers operate outside the wire. I have followed dozens of platoon leaders and company commanders through the daily grind of warfare. I spent significan time with four batallion commanders in diverse environments.
I have intentionally focused on the company and battalion level and below. In any level of conflict below force-on-force general warfare, the weight rests on the company commander.
General Raymond Odierno, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq, made that point in an interview I recently taped. Odierno described how company commanders have been given a set of tools to use in reconciling former insurgents. Odierno called them, "confidence building measures."
During my years in Iraq, I have seen company commanders go from engaging in full scale Hammer & Anvil operations to something akin to Victorian era territorial administrators and defacto mayors.
And I have seen them toggle back and forth, sometimes several times a day.
Sometimes the units were well prepared for the mission sometimes not.
Marine 1st Lieutenant Sean Gobin who commanded Vengeance Platoon, a company sized Heavy Combined Arms Team, in Fallujah summed it up best:
"We trained for the battle of Stalingrad, but wound up being the Sheriff of Fallujah."
Vengeance was not well prepared for the full spectrum mission when they arrived, but were still successful.
What allowed Vengeance to successful was two things: First, they were tactically proficient and highly lethal, they had mastered the basics. Second, was the adaptability of Gobin and his two Platoon Sergeants.
Vengeance platoon was hybrid. One half active duty, on half reserve.
Lt. Gobin was all about the mission and not afraid to take risks. His First Sgt., Gunnery Sgt. Rodriguez was straight out of central casting. His two Platoon Sergeants, Gunnery Sgt. Brad Pollock and Staff Sgt. Tony Rider were reserve Marines who were on their second tour.
Moreover, Pollock and Rider were successful entreprenuers. Rider owned franchise restaurants and Pollock was an engineer who ran a waste management company. They were used to uncertainty, taking risks, solving problems, dealing with complexity and scale.
Gobin also had a leg-up on most 1st Lieutenants. He was prior enlisted. He had more experience than his peers and quality experience as an RTO. He was next to a company commander for two years before he went to college and Office Candidate School.
In the modern Full Spectrum war, the training should also encompass a full sprectrum of experience or as many varied experiences as possible. The full variation needed can not be had in each individual, that would be improbable if not outright impossible, but a within a battalion it could be possible.
The military of Victorian era Britian could be a loose model on how to obtain this range of experience.
In my prepration for my Afghanistan expedition--it will probably be my last I have been reading voratiously. Much of the reading is from books written by British officers and administrators like Caroe, Elphinstone and Warburton. It is mixed with a healthy dose of histories of the Great Game.
In this era it was not uncommon for officers to take extensive leave where they would become correspondents for the leading newspapers of the day, travel through foreign countries and take part in expeditions sponsored by the Royal Geographic Society.
These leaves allowed officers to gain experience outside the staid and formal regimental system of the British military of the time.
In the U.S. military, officers will often leave the formal military to pursue a graduate degree or take a fellowship or assignment in another governmental agency.
To prepare officers and staff ncos for the ongoing full spectrum enviroment, I propose this be expanded and almost universalized.
It is not uncommon for officers and staff ncos to pursue an MBA. A degree with more application to warfare than one would imagine at first blush. But why not let them take a year or two to test the skills earned in the classroom in the business world? Let an officer try his hand at starting a business or working for a medium sized company. That officer would be in a great position to help build an economic activity in a city in Iraq. The lessons in decision making, leadership and analysis would transfer well to the military.
Instead of having Foreign Area Officers based out of an embassy, give Lieutenants a plane ticket and some cash and ship them off to any country outside of North America and Western Europe and force them to live by their wits for year. They will return as subject matter experts in a culture and speaking the language almost fluently.
The idea would also apply to the non-combat arms specialties. Logistics and supply could work in transportation, import/export and distribution companies. JAG officers could work in District Attorneys offices, or as Public Defenders or any firm that would have them. Public Affairs officers and NCOs would gain valuable experience as general assignment reporters for local TV stations and small daily papers.
It would not be a fellowship or glorified internship. It would have to be a sink or swim experience. Since the military loves to quantify and measure things to standards, the rating of the performance of the sojourn tour would establish the degree of difficulty of the sojourn and compare the success or failure to the degree of difficulty. Working for an established company is not very difficult. Starting a business from scratch is very difficult.
The sojourn tour would not be a one-time tour. In the infantry track it would fit nicely between platoon and company command then another while on brigade or battalion staff.
Full Spectrum warfare requires officers and NCOs with a full spectrum of experience--real life experience.
The only way to get that experience is to get outside the military, government and university. Soldiers need to placed where organizations and individuals are forced by the market and circumstances to to adapt, be agile and innovate.
|
|
Dec
16
2008
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 |
Are you a libertarian/conservative millionaire frustrated by the bias of the media?
Are you looking for a business opportunity that may or may not make money?
Then I have a deal for you. How would you like to buy your own ABC affiliate?
That's right. You can be the proud owner your own TV station in Topeka, KS. Forget Twitter Tweets, and blogs, and streaming video, you can have your own broadcast signal and have a direct impact on North East Kansas.
More importantly, you can have a larger impact nation-wide.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Dec
13
2008
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Saturday, 13 December 2008 |
Sayyid Ahmad Shah is the original modern Mujahidin leader.(1)
Born Ahmad Brelwi in the tumble-down village of Bareli, he was, in teenage years, a follower of the notorious War Lord Amir Khan.
When Amir Khan's forces broke up after the war, Ahmad adopted the title 'Sayyid' which means he is descended from the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The newly identified Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi's fervent religious beliefs, piety and charisma gained him a following. He denounced many supposedly corrupt forms of worship in Islam and urged a return to the Quran.
Sayyid Ahmad then went on the pligrimage to Mecca, the Haj, and spent four years studying at the Hejaz where his thoughts were reinforced by the Arabian Wahibi school of thought.
He returned after his sojourn and called upon the faithful to wage war against kufars--the non-muslims.
He visited his old War Lord leader, then journeyed through Khandahar, Ghalji and eventually found his largest body of loyal followers in the Yusufzai and Khatak.
The Yusufzai and Khataks, ablaze with tribal pride that demands the expulsion of foreigners and a large dose of religious zeal, followed their new leader who took the name Sayyid Ahmad Shah.
This was the first modern Mujahidin movement. The foreigners were not Americans, or NATO troops, or the Soviets or even the British.
The foreign unbelivers to be expelled and exterminated were Sihks of the Kingdom of Ranjit Singh. The year was 1828.
One hundred and eighty years ago, in what are now known as the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas of Pakistan, the banner of Jihad, the Mujahidin, was raised.
I was reminded of Sayyid Ahmad Shah by the semi-coherent ramblings of the 'New Thought Movement' guru Deepak Chopra and his son Gotham Chopra as they sought to explain the root causes of Islamic terrorism.
Gotham cannot see past the CIA's involvement in the Soviet/Afghan war of the 1980's. Deepak cannot go past the partition of India and creation of Pakistan in 1947.
This rather shallow view of history is convinient for many as it allows them to ignore the fact that violence under the banner of Islam is nothing new and not caused by anything Western.
For more than 1400 years, Muslim warriors have been offering the same bargain orginally made to the Persians and Romans by Khalid bin al Wahid:
"Now then, embrace Islam so that you may be safe, or else make a treaty of protection for yourself and your people and agree to pay the jizyah. Otherwise, do not blame anyone but yourself, for I have brought you a people who love death as you love life." (2)
Khalid was not waging war through Mesopotamia and the Levant in response to poverty and lack of educational opportunities in Dar al Islam.
Sayyid Ahmad Shah was not waging a battle against Western Imperialism. His service under the War Lord Amir Khan was as a mercenary paid for by the British.
Sayyid Ahmad, as a Mujahidin, rallied the faithful "against the tyrant [Ranjit Singh] who was represented as an unbelieving idolator." (1)
The only difference between the Taliban and Sayyid Ahmad's 'Hindustan Fanatics' and Khalid's armies and Al Qaida is weaponry. The AK-47 has replaced the matchlock and the bomb has replaced the sword.
The root cause of Islamic violence is and always has been Islam.
(1) Caroe, Sir Olaf 'The Pathans'
(2) al-Tabari 'The History of al-Tabari Volume XI: Challenge to the Empires'
|
|
Dec
11
2008
|
Written by JD Johannes
|
|
Friday, 12 December 2008 |
Information may want to be free, but the people who collect, package and deliver it need to get paid. The way they will be paid in the future may be an old and well established business model.
Not so long ago, when I was fresh out the Marines, I walked into one of the most profitable and well respected businesses in town--WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas.
The internet barely existed then and though cable TV existed, there were few channels and large minority of the public still watched TV through a crazy metal thing on their roof.
But even then, the signs were showing.
WIBW won the Neilson ratings year in and year out, but the total number of viewers steadily declined.
I worked my way up through the ranks from photographer to producing the 6 and 10pm newscasts. It was then that I became privy to the market reasearch studies offered by consultants who told us what kind of news should be aired.
General Managers and News Directors had been following the advice of consultants for years, but the total number of viewers kept dropping.
In the winter of 1998 I saw the flaw. The consultants were polling a random sample of people who owned telephones and televisions--everyone--and using those results to guide the priorities of news coverage. They still thought of news as a mass market product like soap, gasoline, luandry detergent, toothpaste, cars and deoderant. Things that people have to buy and that everyone will buy.
But news is a niche market. With the rise of cable news and newspapers putting content on the internet the core consumer had options. They no longer needed to tune in at 6pm and 10pm.
If a newspaper is going to put its content online, why on earth would I buy the print edition?
Two things happened at the same time. Options for the core consumer fragmented the model and the cadre of the core consumer contracted.
Everyday the for past few weeks I have been following the drama of two people whose last names I did not know until I finally broke down and googled them. But their faces were on the cover of US Weekly or some magazine like that perfectly positioned at eye level at the self-checkout stand of my local grocer.
I had no idea who this man and woman were and why anyone would pay the cover price to learn more about them. But obviously people do or I would not be treated to the exploits of Heidi and Spencer who apparantly are the stars of some reality show on MTV.
Talk about niche market segmentation. A magazine cover targetted at people who watch a niche type program on a niche network.
While no one needs to know anything about Heidi and Spencer, there are people who want to know and for some reason will pay the cover the price.
The news, important information, like what the Federal Government is doing with $700 Billion dollars is something the public needs to know. Information that will have a direct impact on your life like the amount of crude oil being extracted from Iraq is something the public needs to know. But the market is showing us that they may not want to know.
Responding to market conditions the people and entities that gather, package and deliver information are contracting--gathering less and delivering less.
Information will become scarce. Those who want to know and need to know will pay for it. Information will become a commodity available only to those who pay for it and price will be steep.
A system like this already exists parallel to the dying mass market media. It is common on Wall Steet and to serious investors and commodoties traders. Services like it are already used by major corporations and law firms. It can be found in nearly every state capital in the U.S.
It is the specialized subscription news letter and news service.
In Topeka, the State Capital of Kansas, there is a one-man news organization who makes a tidy living covering the legislature and politics in depth. His name is Martin Hawver. He is the writer, editor and publisher of Hawver's Capitol Report .
Several hundred lobbyists, politicians and political operatives subscribe to his report. The subscription fees have paid Martin's mortgage for two decades.
Martin Hawver sells a particular type of information to a customer who needs it and wants it enough to pay for it.
Hawver's Capital Report is the localized version of Charlie Cook's reports or Stu Rothenburg's reports or the subscription reports of pollsters.
The future of hard news, pure information, will be specialized and by subscription to those who need it enough to pay for it.
That information will be far more accurate and in-depth than the mass market news being given away now for free. Investment bankers and private equity firms are not going to pay for opinion. There will be hybrids, brief summaries that can draw enough clicks to get some advertising dollars, but the full purpose of the site will be to up-sell into another level of information access.
The mass market products that survive will also have to be purchased. They will be magazines like the New Yorker whose lengthy, well written features are more suited to be read on paper than on a screen. Or the Sunday New York Times which can only truly be enjoyed in your hands while sitting on the couch.
These products though, are not mass market. They are for a niche. A niche that will pay for it and for whom advertisers can micro target.
News organizations like the New York Times and Associated Press with contacts infrastructure around the globe will quit giving their information away for free and get out of the mass market business. The people who really need to know what is going on Thailand will gladly pay for it.
The world will then become a black hole for all but a few news purchasers.
In a darker vision, those with large enough interests will hire out the gathering of information to freelance fact finders. There are some companies who already perform this service along with security and risk analysis under the rubric of 'corporate intelligence.'
Those who already really need to know, are already paying for it.
The age of cheap information is over. The only free information that will be available in the future will be heavily laden with opinion, gossip or associated with celebrities or products to be sold.
Those who gather, package and deliver information have to pay the mortgage. And they will find a way to get paid. Information may want to be free, but gathering it is not.
|
|
|
Blog 
