Where Did My Country Go and How Do I Get Back?

I'm not going to pick on the transgendered, honestly, I have nothing against them.  When my wife and I either practice baby making or actually take a shot at it, I just really don't think it's anyone's business how we go at it.  The same can be said for every other American and non-American in America, I believe in equal rights, I believe in remembering history and we all know that no good can come out of one group discriminating against another.

I just finished Marcus Luttrell's "Lone Survivor" BOOK (not the movie with Marky Mark which is very, very different) and while I found myself shaking my head at the horrific writing, I got his point about how our media and our government can almost be considered traitors in the war on terror.  For whatever reason, it appears that our elected officials think that they know more about war than the warriors we send over to fight it.  I completely understand that while politicians may THINK they understand absolutely everything and that their actions are what's best for the country and their constituents, that the only people who should be calling any shots are the generals and military tacticians we have in the Armed Forces.

I’ve read a lot on the subject and I’ve come up with the following conclusion in regards to the Rules of Engagement (ROE) in Afghanistan:  You can’t win hearts and minds AND a war at the same time.  George S. Patton once said that “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”  With the exception of the famous quote “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” nearly every quote related to war indicates that it's a pretty negative situation.

In the book “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell notes that the Taliban and Al Qaeda NEED the support of the Pashtun communities to cross over the tribal mountain paths between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  In his case, he was afforded the custom of “Pashtunwali” which grants sanctuary and protection to a person seeking refuge.  So, if you’re Marcus Luttrell or someone who just saw Lone Survivor, that Pashtun protection seems like a great thing right?

Not if you’re an American serviceman who is hunting combatants and is virtually unable to distinguish the Taliban member who is going to put 3 AK rounds into your face from the common villager who is herding his goats, doesn’t really care much about Islam so much as his tribal beliefs, but has been instructed by his village elders to apply the same “Pashtunwali” to the Taliban members who are inside his village, are hiding along the paths his goats are walking on and who are getting in position to ambush American troops.  Hence, a new proverb needs to be applied to the war in Afghanistan: “You lay with dogs, you get fleas.”  

Who knows who the Taliban are comprised of?  Raise your hands if you do, and if you don't, read the book "The Kite Runner."  Marcus Luttrell gets it very wrong in his book when he says that the Taliban needs the Pashtuns because in reality, the Taliban ARE Pashtun.  During the Soviet war, when the Northern Alliance (aided by the Mujaheddin like Bin Laden) were fighting the Soviets, a lot of the Pashtuns were crossing into Pakistan and attending Madrassas funded by the US and Saudi Arabia that taught nothing but extreme Islamic Fundamentalism.  That is NOT to say that every Pashtun who left came back as a fundamentalist, but it is to say that once the Soviet Union was driven out of Afghanistan, the warlords feuding for territory for the rights to produce and sell opium and would gladly bomb a school if it meant that they might hit an enemy created a need for a force to bring calm to the country.  That force was the Taliban and by the time the dust had settled and the Taliban had driven the Northern Alliance out of power, they implemented stone age fundamentalist ideology onto the people of Afghanistan.  And to few people's surprise, very few Afghans wanted their country to be like that.

*I could be wrong.  I'm still confused by how the Taliban was formed, who did what and why the tribal regions suddenly became involved.   I think I'm right but it doesn't matter to the subject which is the military ROE that's causing this war to be drawn out and American lives to be lost.*

Luttrell also notes that the Taliban had surrounded the village where he was being afforded help by the Pashtun tribe under Pashtunwali.  That they actually came and beat him for several hours, defying the word of the village elder who was the one who kicked them out.  The Taliban threatened the village, but could not afford to attack it lest they lose the support of the Pashtun tribesmen.  The key words there are “The Support of the Pashtun Tribesmen.”  If you support the enemy, you are the enemy.  Harboring the enemy has to have consequences, especially if it is what

Here’s an uncommonly known fact, Mullah Omar (leader of the Taliban) did NOT LIKE OR WANT Bin Laden or his organization in his country.  Bin Laden had a lot of sway with the Northern Alliance since those were largely the guys who were the Mujahedeen from the prior war with Russia, the same guys who went to war with each other for control once the Soviets had left the country.  If not for granting Bin Laden “Pashtunwali” Mullah Omar could have easily avoided the destruction of his organization and the loss of control of “his” country by handing him over.  The custom would not allow him to do that.

When soldiers are engaged in combat, it’s not only unfair, but it’s ridiculous to tell them to put down their guns until they’re shot at.  As stated by Luttrell, the Taliban thinks that it’s hilarious that they can take pictures and run to Al Jazeera and have our bravest warriors pulled out of battle and tried for murder by the same people who sent them into the mountains to win a war.  We allow our enemy to use every available opportunity to get our politicians to look down in shame when the French denounce the United States as a barbaric country that is using savage tactics in Afghanistan.  What good is it to be a superpower when any semi-educated enemy combatant realizes that we have the big guns but can’t use them?  In times of war, which this certainly is, we NEED TO USE SAVAGE TACTICS especially in the face of savage tactics in order to end the war.  

In my humble opinion, we don’t want to be at war and we owe our servicemen more than the chance to be shot or arrested.  We need to be able to use our superior weapons, to use our superior training, to use our Seals and Rangers and Green Berets, the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force to bang out missions that will disrupt, destroy and ultimately defeat whomever it is that we’re fighting over there.  We’ve played cozy with the Saudis for too long and not only do we Americans have a right to be angry with our government for bending to the wills of the Royal family, but the guys we’re fighting have a right to be angry too.

So, when it comes to the Rules of Engagement, it really comes down to third grade logic, which is not what you want to be using when determining strategy for a war.

If many Pashtun people are Taliban, and all Taliban are enemies of our troops, are all Pashtun people enemies of our troops?  The third grade answer is no.   But the answer in military strategy is, unfortunately, yes they are.

It seems to me that this is how we’ve determined our ROE, which I consider to be phenomenally stupid.  For example, when the 4 Navy Seals allowed the goat herders to go which ultimately led to the death of 3 of them, plus another 19 in the helicopter meant to provide help.  Luttrell recalls that every book on military strategy would state that they had to kill the goat herders to avoid detection by the Taliban.  Why?  Because most of the people in that area were aligned with the Taliban.  Just because they weren’t armed didn’t mean the direct threat to the Seals was not present.  

The unfortunate fact is that enemy villages have kids, enemy villages have women, there are always going to be non-combatants living among the enemy ESPECIALLY when the enemy doesn’t distinguish itself from the non-combatants, don’t have military bases and aren’t purposely separated from non-combatants.  The “hide in plain sight” technique is a technique that should not be rewarded, it is a technique that should carry repercussions so extreme that non combatants will not allow the enemy to use them for shelter.  Our Rules of Engagement should be to be particularly vicious when bombing the crap out of villages that the Taliban are hiding in.  That way, perhaps the next village won’t be so receptive towards hiding the enemy in plain sight.  

Our military is so superior to theirs that this war should have been over and done with in a matter of days.  The only thing holding us back from victory, the inevitable saving of many, many more lives (both US and Afghani) and the prevention of more attacks on our soil by faceless groups and terrorist entities that are emboldened at the American weakness which is on display daily are the people that pull the strings in the worlds lone superpower who pay too much damn attention to what others think about how we conduct a war.  

A real Patriot wouldn’t choose enemy lives over American lives.  Yet our elected officials do that every day.  Leave the war to the war machine that such a large percentage of my taxes go to and screw the international media.  The countries and people that will hate us will hate us anyway.  But let’s see them think twice about going to war with us.

My office was on 50 Pine Street (2 blocks from the WTC, within spitting distance of the stock exchange and the Federal Reserve building.  I remember everything about 9/11, I remember the hangover from watching the Giants on MNFk,  I still smell the smells of 9/11 and dream about the people I took the subway to work with every day having the last choice of their life being the choice to burn or jump to their death.  We're talking about nightmares (and I'm far, far, FAR from being alone)  that nearly 15 years after the event are shared by nearly everyone in proximity to the WTC.  I doubt it’ll ever change.  What should change is the idea that we might leave a stone unturned in going after anyone involved.  What should change is the idea that for some reason we feel the need to explain ourselves to anyone during the war effort against these cowards. What should change is our overwhelming inferiority complex in the face of countries like France.  What should change is our near-apologetic global stance on our alliance with Israel.

Our country needs to believe in itself again, that we're truly the land of the free and the home of the brave.  It's hard to do that when our leaders are owned by multinational corporations who are afraid of offending anyone and who look away when another country offends us.  I've heard the words "ugly American" one too many times.  I like the way we look and for the sake of our future as a country, for the sake of our collective self esteem, we should not be the fat kid in the playground who gets embarrassed when the other kids make fun of us.  We should be defending our troops and when Al-Jazeera puts up a story about how an American unit bombed "an innocent farmer" we should hold up a picture of Daniel Pearl and shrug.