May
11
2010
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 11 May 2010 |
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Jules C. is starting a running series of reviews of two Iraq War memoirs--Rage Company and Kaboom.
I've thought about writing my own memoirs and even had conversations with literary agents, but I think I need to be finished running around the wars before I write a memoir about my adventures running around the wars. (Speaking of which I'll be jetting off to Afghanistan soon.)
The challenge with my memoirs would be utter idiocy of what I have done...imagine the blurb description on Amazon.
"JD Johannes quit a good job as a political appointee and campaign operative, bought a TV camera and ran off to Iraq with his old Marine Corps unit as an embedded reporter. He was pretty good at the work, combat didn't bother him much, so he kept doing it for five (or more) years. When the wars ended he got some dude elected to a down ballot state-wide office and resumed his mundane life. He also writes silly workout books."
Okay, maybe I could come up with something flashier than that but those are the basic facts I have to work with.
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Apr
19
2010
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 19 April 2010 |
[Preface: This article is going to get me in trouble with people who do not read it and slowly and digest it.
Gunmen, fighters, insurgents--whatever you want to call them--are not complicated people to understand. Understanding them will go a long way to determining success or failure in Afghanistan and other war torn regions.
I have bumped into several insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan over the years and understand their motives.
I understand them because in a few ways I am like them.]
"It is the best life on earth!"
Omar Hammami, Somali Insurgent
It was an exhileration I dare not try to match. I was driving down the interstate way too fast, the music playing way too loud as I headed toward home. The thrill was not from being back in the United States, but the realization I had just survived the most improbable adventure.
Less than 24 hours earlier I had been in Kabul, Afghanistan. In the previous weeks I went from trudging around the mountains with US Army Infantrymen to staying in a five-star hotel.
I lived the life described by Omar Hammami to his sister and published in the New York Times magazine .
"Sometimes I live in the bush with camels, sometimes I live the five-star life. Sometimes I walk for miles in the terrible heat with no water, sometimes I ride in extremely slick cars. Sometimes I’m chased by the enemy, sometimes I chase him!”
“I have hatred, I have love,” he [Hammami] went on. “It’s the best life on earth!”
Hammami was raised in Alabama and joined the Somali muslim insurgents where he found his identity and embraced the lifestyle of the gunman, the fighter, the insurgent.
War has a powerful effect on the psyche. The Hebrew military theorist Martin van Crevald writes of the effect, "By compelling the senses to focus themselves on the here and now [war] can cause a man to take his leave of them."
It is an exhilerating nothingness that is addictive to some.
"Just as it makes no sense to ask 'why people eat' or 'what they sleep for', so fighting in many ways is not a means but an end," van Crevald writes in his book 'The Transformation of War.'
"For every person who has expressed his horror of war there is another who found in it the most marvelous of all the experiences that are vouchsafed to man, even to the point that he later spent lifetime boring his descendants by recounting his exploits."
A fighter like Hammami finds a narcotic reality to war that cannot be found in any other form.
I have felt that powerful narcotic as well in the dusty villages of Al Anbar, streets of Baghdad and valleys of Afghanistan.
Asking an insurgent who is hooked on it to quit is like telling an addict to 'just say no.'
For many insurgents, the fight is a step-up in the world from subsitence farming or urban poverty. It also brings with it the most powerful force in human nature, the top of Maslows Heirarchy--self actualized identity.
“Out there I’m a useless guy, unemployed and cursed by my family,” one militant said. “Here I’m a commander. My words have weight.”
Pakistani counterterrorism officials say memebers of the Taliban describe the fight as "an addiction, a habit that made them feel powerful in a world that ignored them."
A young man from Peshwar, or Khandahar or Jalalabad with few prospects finds not only employment as a fighter, but purpose and status.
This is what van Crevald is referring to as as fighting as an end in and of itself.
This is also where my similarities with the insurgent end. I have experienced the dark elixer of combat and all-in adventures. When they are placed in front of me it is impossible for me to say 'no.' But for me being in harms way is not an end to itself.
I have a life and an identity in the United States aside from the war. I do not wholly define myself by my overseas adventures. They are a part of my identity, but they are not my sole identity.
The insurgent cadre define their identity by being a fighter. To them, there is no better life or option and if they become addicted to the exhilerating nothingness, very little of civil life will hold much appeal to them.
Many of the low-level fighters can be peeled off with simple options like a job. In Iraq, being paid by the coalition to staff a check point was a better option than being an insurgent.
The upper level commanders and leadership are more difficult if not impossible to mollify, but the mid-level leaders are the key.
The mid-level leaders will not go back to the farm or the urban poverty of Khandahar or be satisfied with standing around at a check point. But they may trade positions , like former members of the Lords Army in central Africa who have joined with the Ugandan military.
The mid-level cadre will want similar positions to satisfy their ego and maintain their identity. They will want to maintain their status and occasionally get the exhileration of the nothingness of combat.
Those who are truly devoted to the cause of Islam will never be peeled off, but most fighters, even those who are devout muslims, can be flipped. The die-hards, those committed to the cause or whose identities are fully invested in the cause, can only be slowly hunted down an eliminated.
Understanding the insurgent is not difficult. They are human and respond to the same motivations as every other human.
Flipping insurgents is just one line of effort among many and to flip an insurgent you must understand his motives for being an insurgent.
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Apr
18
2010
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Written by JD Johannes
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Sunday, 18 April 2010 |
Jules has a good review of the '2K' phenomenon , the obsession with the closing of the distant outposts in the Korengal and the build up around Khandahar.
If you ever get the pleasure of closely examining a tribal map of Afghanistan's Eastern mountains, you will see blotches denoting the primary Pashtun tribes and other blotches marked, Pashai.
Pashai, in the hard Pashtun dialect of Eastern Afghanistan means "hill billy."
If the Pashtuns are calling you a hill billy, you are probably too far gone to ever be brought into the fold.
Many of the distant outposts recently closed out were in Pashai territory and it was pretty common knowledge on the ground as early as August of 2009 that those Company sized outposts were going to be closed out.
Does closing them out give a free hand to the enemy in those distant mountain valleys? Yes.
But in Iraq the Coalition handed to open desert over to AQI. Given the open border between the distant valleys and the Pakistan Tribal areas that the Taliban already have as safe havens, the net effect will likely be marginal.
The allocation of force we are now seeing in Afghanistan is similar to the British tactics in the Malayan Civil War. Regular infantry worked the population centers with standard population centric counter insurgency. The SAS went deep into the jungles.
The Battle of Khandahar will not look like the Battle of Fallujah. It probably will not even resemble the slow moving block-by-block battle of Ramadi of 2006-2007.
It will most likely be a lot like Baghdad in the late Summer of 2007--US Forces out walking the streets 24/7 conducting census missions and precision raids as the opportunities presented themselves.
For those fretting about how long it is taking us to move on Khandahar, they would be wise to recall that the Surge was no real mystery. The Counter Insurgency Field Manual, the game plan of the surge, was published online by the Army. In Counter Insurgency you can tell your enemy exactly what the macro strategy will be.
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Dec
08
2009
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 08 December 2009 |
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| JD and LTC Ahmed on October 21, 2009 |
LTC Ahmed, the commander of an elite
police unit in Salah ad Din province, was assassinated on by a
suicide bomber on Dec. 4th in central Tikrit, Iraq.
Ahmed was among the first to step forward
in 2003 and 2004 to work with Coalition forces in Tikrit.
From the powerful Jabouri tribe centered
North of the city, he quickly gained a reputation for being brash, fearless
and willing to whatever it took to eliminate terrorists.
I met him a few times this past October
while embedded with 2-32 Field Artillery, the US Battalion that worked
side-by-side with Ahmed.
And he lives up to the quotes about him.
"He was controversial, flamboyant,
brave, and effective," U.S. Col. Walt Piatt told the Associated
Press . "He single-handedly disrupted numerous enemy plots
during the last election - He was the go-to-guy in the province."
During a Joint Security meeting I sat
in on he puffed on double corona cigar and then joked that I should
be paying him for the privilege of having a picture with him.
"Angela Jolie wants her picture
with me," he joked.
We then talked about how after I finished
up my work with the Army I should spend a few days embedded with him.
(I have been known to take off my body armor and jump in a pick up truck
with an Iraqi officer to go for a drive around town .)
I took down his cell phone number and
told him the serious Inshalla--I'll spend a few days with you on this
trip unless Allah prevents it. I ran out of time on this trip
to embed with Ahmed but toyed with extending a few days to embed with
him. If I had, I could have been with him on Dec. 4th.
As I travelled around the province I
inquired with other Iraqi police about Ahmed and his reputation.
From Bayji to Dujayl, he was a legend.
The reports of him personally killing
250 plus insurgents/terrorists are not puffery. The number of
terrorists killed by men under his command is much higher.
Ahmed had a lot of enemies. The
conventional wisdom is that Al Qaida killed him. But the facts
are probably murkier.
Someone or some group didn't just want
Ahmed dead--they needed him dead.
Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal, friend, warrior,
servant of a free Iraq--May peace be upon him.
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Dec
06
2009
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Written by JD Johannes
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Sunday, 06 December 2009 |
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I just returned from Iraq and people have started asking me what I think of the Afghan Surge. (I spent some time in Afghanistan this Summer.)
The Afghan Surge can work if Battalion Commanders on the ground fight the war correctly and if it lasts longer than one troop rotation.
As of this morning I am lacking in confidence on both counts.
Via Jules Crittenden I read about operation "Cobra's Anger."
As the headline to Jules' blog makes clear, it is a classic Hammer & Anvil operation and destined to be a waste of time and resources.
I participated in a dozen such operations in Iraq--sometimes clearing the same areas twice!
But don't take my word for it. In late 2005 I was introduced to the book that became the game plan for the Marines 'The Long Long War: The Emergency in Malaya 1948-1960' by British Brigadier General Richard L. Clutterbuck. Reading Clutterbuck is like reading the history of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but written in 1966.
Here is a telling quote:
"Initially, because of their previous training and experience, senior army officers were inclined to launch their units into the jungle in battalion strength--either in giant encirclement operations when a[n] [insurgent] camp was known to be in the area, or in wide sweeps based on no informatin at all. Neither of these types of operations had any success.
"The predilection of some army officers for major operations seems incurable. Even in the late 1950's, [near the end of the war], new brigade commanders would arrive from England, nostalgic for World War II, or fresh from large-scale maneuvers in Germany. On arrival in Malaya, they would address themselves with chinagraphs to a map almost wholly green except for one red pin. 'Easy,' they would say. 'Battalion on the left, battalion on the right, battalion blocking the end, and thena fourth battalion to drive through. Can't miss, old boy.' So a thousand long-suffering lieutenants, sergeants and privates would be launched on an operation described by some name as 'hammer and anvil' or 'splitting the disc' or 'rabbit hunt.'"
The Hammer & Anvil came up in today's New York Times as well.
"Ever since Osama bin Laden escaped American forces in December 2001, crossing the mountains of Tora Bora from Afghanistan into Pakistan, American strategists have spoken of a “hammer and anvil” strategy to crush the militants. Until now, the border has proven so porous, and Pakistani governments so squeamish about a fight, that the American hammer in Afghanistan was pounding Taliban fighters there against a Pakistani pillow, not an anvil....
"“We finally have an opportunity to do a real hammer-and-anvil strategy on the border,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who follows the Afghan war. “We’ve never done it before because we’ve had insufficient strength on both sides of the border or insufficient political will on the Pakistani side.”"
The Hammer & Anvil operation at the street level requires the Taliban to be stupid enough to actually get into a stand-up gun-fight with US Marines. The enemy, with the exception of a few morons with an extreme desire for martyrdom, usually gets smart, drops the AK-47 and fails to cooperate rendering the whole operation a waste of time and diesel fuel.
At the Strategic, country-wide level Hammer & Anvil analogies are absurd.
Any Company, Battalion or Brigade commader in Afghanistan would be well served by reading Lt. Colonel Jim Crider's paper published by the Center for a New American Security.
(I embedded with Crider's unit in 2007 and recently bumped into him in Iraq. He is now the G3 (operations officer) of the 3rd Infantry Division. Although he is doing important work in Iraq, I feel his experience and talents could be put to greater use in Afghanistan.)
There is no way to Hammer an isurgency to death. The best way to beat the Taliban is to strangle it to death by conducting a detailed census, building a huge database so you know who lives in each mud hut then going out and confirming the census data daily. The census data prevents the Taliban from hiding in plain sight forcing them to move on to another area or be slowly suffocated, cornered and then, finally engaged and killed or captured.
In Iraq, most of them just gave up or switched sides.
Squandering time and resources with Hammer & Anvil operation is bad enough--but the real flaw in the Afghan Surge is the lack of time.
For this lesson we go back in time 130 years and learn a lesson from another Brit, Sir Robert Warburton whose book "Eighteen Years in the Khyber" is essential reading to understand the tribal areas of Afghanistan/Pakistan.
Warburton writes about discussions he had with the leaders of the tribe around Jalalabad and their skepticism.
"Sahib, when Major Cavagnari first came here we joined him and threw in our lot with the British government, thinking you were goin to remain here for good. But you cleared out on the first opportunity and left us to our fate. For six months we lived with rifles in our hands, dreading every moment that our last day had come--not that Amir Yakub Khan oppressed us, but that our real enemies, our cousins, heirs to our landed property, were hounding on the Mullahs to attack and kill us because we had been friends to the Feringhi, [outsiders, non-muslims] so that our cousins might get hold of our houses, lands and possessions. You have come again, and we have once more joined our fortunes to yours. Tell us now what your government intends to do in the future. Are you going to forsake us once more, and leave us in the hands of our enemies?"
The Afghans are asking us the same questions they asked Warburton and when we say that the Surge is temporary what motivation is there to help NATO and US forces?
The Afghan Surge can work with the application of proper tactics and time--a lot of time.
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Nov
26
2009
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 26 November 2009 |
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Nov
24
2009
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 |
The blood debt is a custom in many cultures, but unknown to many Westerners.
In Iraq the tradition of the blood debt helped fuel the sectarian killing sprees that nearly plunged the country into a civil war.
In it is purest form, as described by Edward Gibbon in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it is truly an eye for an eye a life for a life debt.
Everyman, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of his own cause...the interest and principle of the bloody debt are accumulated; the individuals of either family lead a life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may sometime elapse before account of the vengeance be finally settled.
But that is the most base understanding of the blood debt.
In Iraq and Afghanistan tribal leaders often negotiate the blood debt to a cash or property settlement. The family and tribe of the deceased agree to not seek blood if they are compensated.
Just yesterday I witnessed a highly formalized negotiation about the blood debt by the nascent Tribal Union in Dujayl, Iraq.
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| Dujayl Tribal Union meeting in a school auditorium |
The goal of the Tribal Union is to unify the tribes in this agrarian community so to have a unified voice before the civil government.
To do that, the any disputes need to be resolved quikcly and equitably. The leadership of the Union is proposing standardized procedures to resolve grievances.
Meeting a school auditorium and sitting on plastic chairs, more than 100 Sheiks took part in the open meeting of the Union.
The Tribal Union is a relatively new creation in Dujayl. In the early years of the war, US forces went looking for anyone and everyone who would cooperate with them.
In Dujayl a man who spoke English was the first to shake the hand of US forces. He said the right things and put on a good act. But he was not a real Sheik and had no real influence.
He did make a lot of money off the US though.
During the Surge and after, it became obvious that the Sheiks Council of Dujayl was populated by scoundrels. The US officers began to follow the tribal roots back to the real Sheiks. The fake Sheiks fled, the Council was dissolved and the Tribal Union formed.
US Army CPT Justin Daubert sits on the stage during the meetings, as a representative of the strongest and richest tribe in Dujayl, but does not take an active role in the open meetings.
CPT Daubert does his work behind the scenes with key leaders to steer them through the bureaucracy and encouraging the Sheiks to keep working on unification.
After a prolonged session of hand-shakes and kisses on the cheeks, the Sheiks took their seats and got down to business.
The first issue to be tackled--the blood debt.
A motion was put forward that if a member of one tribe kills the member of another tribe, the standard, the killer or his tribe or family should pay the victim's family 20 million dinar--about $20,000 US dollars.
Many of the Sheiks seemed to think the number was fair. There were proposals for a higher payment, up to 50 million dinar or for a sliding scale is the killer's family was poor.
The main topic of debate was who and how the case would be judged.
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A room full Sheiks
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Proposals were made on how Sheiks would be selected to ensure they would be impartial, who could represent the accused and the deceased and the mechanism to ensure that once a judgment was issued it was carried out.
All these matters were discussed in the presence of the Mayor of Dujayl, the Chief of Police and two members of the City Council. The Mayor even took part in the deliberations.
How the law of the government would interface with tribal law was barely touched on.
People are arrested, prosecuted and convicted for murder in Iraq. The blood debt is tribal version of a wrongful death suit that also prevents inter-tribal violence.
After the usual rounds of passionate sounding debate the issue was tabled and at some point in the future a committee will prepare proposals for the Union to vote on.
The next item taken up by the Union was all the bad drivers the need for traffic laws in Dujil.
All agreed that the young kids drive like maniacs and something needs to be done about it. When an Iraqi says you drive like maniac--you are truly a hazard to everything on the road.
The meeting adjourned, hands were shook, cheeks were kissed, the US Army officers were pressed by the Sheiks for more development projects.
The Tribal Union fills a gap between the rural population and the civil government providing some type of representation and voice.
In the upcoming elections, tribal groups could be the deciding factor whether there is a strong unity slate elected from Sala Ad Din or if they will continue to take their local arguments with them to Baghdad.
Once the US Army leaves, the tribes will become stronger. Tribal groups that are organized will be in position to negotiate directly with Baghdad and the provincial government.
The long term goal of the Union is to become the equivalent of a powerful lobbying group and voting block. Together, the tribes represent a lot of voters who could punish or reward politicians.
The success of the Union will be based on its cohesion and ability to deliver votes.
If the open list is used in the upcoming elections, then the single non-transferrable vote system will be in place. The groups that can turn out the most votes in the most organized fashion will be the ones to hold power in Iraq. The Union is on track to do that. But first it has to resolve all the tribal disputes and standardize the payment of blood debts.
JD relies on viewer support to help reporting from the war zone. Please hit the tip jar or buy a dvd.
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Nov
19
2009
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 19 November 2009 |
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In the lexicon of Iraq, few words carry
as much meaning as Samarra.
This city on the Tigris river north of
Baghdad was the source of the sectarian slaughter of 2006 and 2007 and
the scene of some the most violent fire fights of the same era.
Even as late as 2008, it was city to
be by-passed when traveling north or south on Highway 1.
The city is peaceful enough now, but
still struggling with an identity crisis. It is a Sunni city but
home of a holy Shia shrine that draws millions of pilgrims a year.
It was once the leading city of Sala ad Dihn province, but during Saddam's
regime, the seat of government was moved to Tikrit. The Sunni
tribes fought with the coalition to rid the city of Al Qaeda, but the
Shia security services from Baghdad dominate the old quarter near the
Golden Mosque.
And it was the second bombing of the
Golden Mosque in 2006 that was the catalyst of the sectarian upheavals
and rampant murders of 2006 and 2007.
The Golden Mosque is being rebuilt, the
city is very safe by Iraq standards and the pilgrims are returning in
force.
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Read more...
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Nov
13
2009
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Written by David Chavarria
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Friday, 13 November 2009 |
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Last night the local grade school performed their Veteran's Day program titled "Americans We". I was very moved by the first song and wanted to share some grade school kids singing something worthwhile.
If you would like a copy of the complete program, please contact us and I'll let the school know if there's enough interest.
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