New Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan

When the United States announced its new Rules of Engagement Policy regarding its Conflict in Afghanistan with the Taliban, we, in effect, learned what the old Rules of Engagement were.  It seem that the Obama Administration, in order to persuade the Taliban to go lightly on the Americans, since the Americans were planning on significantly ratcheting down their presence to a skeleton of what it had been, committed to the policy of Fighting Only When Attacked.  Basically it was “If you don’t screw with us, we won’t screw with you”; “live and let live”; “be smart enough to let a sleeping dog lie”.  Such a policy would allow for as much ‘peace’ as could be expected in a Nation where ‘war’ has become perhaps their biggest money making ‘Industry’.  You see, from the Taliban point of view, if the Americans stopped being such a nuisance then they could certainly be tolerated to stay, since they were no slackers in regards to paying their way.   The Americans were spending tons of money in the Country, much of it going to the Taliban as ‘protection money’ ( you see, there were ‘Security Companies’ that were contracted by Afghanistan Businesses, Municipalities and even by the American Armed Forces to ‘protect’ certain areas, roads, buildings, etc.  But these Security Companies merely channeled the lion’s share of the money to the Taliban to persuade them to keep their distance. ), and I would suppose even the Afghan Government, the nominal sworn enemies of the Taliban would divert funds to the Taliban so that they would come out and fight every once in a while, but nothing too severe.  You see, as soon as there is any true and lasting Peace in Afghanistan, America would simply pack up its Billion Dollar War Machine and go home.  After all, America is now sworn to never ever again to engage in ‘Nation Building’ but would be perfectly willing to stay forever as long as there is a Fight.   So if it is a Fight they want, then it is a Fight they’ll get… even if it has to be Stage Played.   Without War Afghanistan would only have the opium and heroin Trade to pay all its bills, and prices there have dipped since the American Pharmaceutical Companies have flooded the American Drug Markets with cheap ‘black market’ opioid pills (if not the work of the Board of Directors, we can well imagine that in any big Pill Factory that nobody can actually counts every single pill that the machines spit out, thousands each second, and if there ARE numbers, that such numbers can’t be played with.  I suppose in each big Pill Factory there must be at least 50 workers and Managers who have gone into business for themselves, carrying home a lunch pail or briefcase full of pills every day.  Oh, and then there could be the Conspiratorial Partnerships, where some middle level Production Manager teams up with a Shipping Clerk to ship complete crates of Pills to some ‘shell company’ address somewhere, while erasing any Paperwork Trail of the bogus transaction.   And then certain foreign Generic Factories probably don’t even have to hide it, except to be careful how they ship the pills in.  You can only imagine how many things that get shipped across the border which are basically hollow and can be filled with pills, and the drug dogs at America’s International Airports aren’t trained to go crazy about ‘prescription drugs’, and the Big Overnight Shipping Companies don’t even wait for Customs Inspections anyway and packages go almost directly from plane to delivery truck… yeah, I wonder how that works, but that’s another story), so with the bottom knocked out of the Opium Trade Afghanistan would go broke without the War.  So I suppose the tacit policy of both the Afghan Government and the Taliban was to fight just enough to keep America interested, involved and reliably reaching to pick up the check and pay the bill.  

 

Now, certainly, there must be Career Government People, Military Leaders and even some Politicians who see what’s going on.  And, yes, there are actually some people who react in repulsion to such a suggestion that the War is largely artificial.  For instance, a few years back when the Fight in Afghanistan was an International Affair, that is, when America was diplomatically ‘twisting arms’ of other Nations to join the Fight, well, there was a situation where the French sent in a few Battalions and they stayed a year, and were to be replaced by a Detachment of Italians.  Well, the Italians were pleased because apparently they were going to be in a Really Quiet Zone.  But the French, before leaving, told the Italians that such Tranquility was no Accident, but that it was relatively cheap to procure.  They wrote out a Name and a Phone Number and told the Italians what they could expect to pay for a Year’s Vacation.  Well, the Italians bulked as such a dishonorable suggestion and swore they wouldn’t give a lead lira for any favors.  The French shrugged their shoulders and left to go home to their Hero’s Parade.  It seems the Taliban were miffed enough at the Italians for their attitude, that they moved their forces around, and though the Region was strategically a nowhere land, it was suddenly the focal point of intense fighting.  So a great number of the Italians died for nothing else but Honor, and they didn’t even save any money.  To rebuild their shattered garrison it cost ten times what the Payoff would have been.   The Americans also reacted poorly in a similar situation when they ‘discovered’ or the Press found out that a Security Company was paying off the Taliban to allow the major supply route road to stay open.  You think the Press would know when to shut up.  So the American’s, knuckling under to He-Man Macho Political Pressure, had to fire the ‘corrupt’ Security Company and actually Fight to keep the Supply Road open.  Well the Road was hundreds of miles long, and suddenly the Taliban was contesting every inch of it.  And the American’s had to do all this Fighting while being strangled for Supplies (duh!).  I suppose hundreds of American’s died because back then the public was still taking the Press seriously.  Now, the Military would just have to call it all of bunch of Fake News and keep with the  Program that’s working just fine. Or maybe it was the case that the Military really  was appalled and decided to Fight instead of Pay.  Yes, it boggles the mind, but there are crazy people like that.  Italians aren’t the only people will to die for nothing better than Honor.

 

Oh, wait!  Remember General Petraeus and the Iraqi Surge.  Basically, the Key to his Strategy was to pay off the Sunni Tribes to stop fighting against the Americans.  He even armed them so they could offset the Shia Militias.  Now that is a Guy who would have had no qualms about paying the Taliban to keep the roads open.  I wonder how much he would have paid them to ‘take’ certain Provincial Towns so that the American’s could pretend to Win Battles taking them back again.  If Petraeus was no real hero, he certainly knew how to act like one.  A real John Wayne.   But was Petraeus uniquely cynical or are they ALL like that?  Interesting question.  But it’s not simply a question of being either Honorable or a Scoundrel, but also of either being either Smart or Stupid.  This is not Morally or Intellectually just a 2-dimensional Picture.      

 

Anyway, the New Engagement Policy will roll back the Old Engagement Policy and go back to the ‘Fight to Win’ Policy that was utilized back when Americans had upwards of 100,000 Troops in the Country, that they would admit to, and who know how many Foreign.  You have to wonder what the heck the American Generals are now thinking.  If America with its International Allies could not suppress the Taliban with such a huge super Army, how do they think they will do with just a tiny fraction of that number?  There are only 13,000 Troops in Country right now.  The Trump Administration has alienated any possible Allies.  You know, what Foreign Soldier from anywhere in the World would want to serve under the current American President, and no Nation’s Public would sit quietly and allow its Sons and Daughters to be taken up to fight under the command of the current American President.  Adolf Hitler during the mid-1930’s was more Internationally Popular than Donald Trump is today.   

 

Then we must consider that the Taliban has only grown stronger.  It’s been 7 years since the last serious fighting, and that means that Taliban boys who were 9 years old back then are now 16.  In America these kids would be playing High School Foot Ball, and it would be a pretty good game.  And these Kids would need minimal Military Training to fight alongside their fathers.  Just think about who they are and where they come from.  The Taliban have been at War almost constantly since 1980.  Every night when they sit down to family dinner they hear stories about the glorious bravery of those who died, and the cunning cleverness of those who lived.  From mother’s milk on these kids have heard every detail of every Battle ever won or lost.  From the time they were three years old, every stick on the ground was a Toy and that Toy was some kind of Gun or Grenade Launcher.  These Kids will go up against American who go through an 8 Week Boot Camp, and then business as usual Field Training when they go out to their units.  That’s okay as Modern Developed Nation Armies go, but the Taliban Kids were born and raised to be Fighters.  And they have learned all the lessons of Modern American Warfare.  Hmmmm … unless the Americans have something new up their sleeves… well, Drones are relatively new and can be mighty pesky.  But Drone Technology now is too limited and spotty to weigh in significantly in any full scale battle campaign.  A Concept that would Work would be Artificial Intelligence Drones that would simply go out and identify and kill Taliban Fighters and do it night and day, around the clock.  They wouldn’t have to be very big either.  I don’t know why they make Drones so large.  They are virtually the same size as the planes they are replacing.  Well, Planes were designed big so they could carry human pilots and big heavy old ‘dumb’ bombs.  But with Artificial Intelligence Weapon’s Systems and Targeting, a killer drone wouldn’t have to be much larger than a seagull or an eagle.  You could even have one big Mother Drone (half the size of small single engine Cessna, so the “Big Mother Drone” would be kind of small too) circling high above which could refuel and rearm its Baby Drones.  The Baby Drones, with fixed wing, and not those noisy slow helicopter things that the Taliban could swat like flies, could identify a target from up high (or use Targeting Info from the Mother), cut power and go into a silent dive where it would buzz close enough to shoot one small caliber bullet into the head of its target (the accuracy of its aim assured by using the same Image Stabilization circuitry that steadies the video in almost every cheap camera sold today), then  the Baby Drone would rev back up and climb back up to ‘Mommy’ to dock and take on another load so it could make another pass.  You don’t need a 2500 lbs. drone carrying 250 lbs. missiles that price tag out at two and a half million dollars in order to kill somebody when a 20 cent 22 bullet from a $2000 Baby Drone could do the same thing.   It would kill somebody just as dead.   But so far I haven’t heard that the Americans are fielding any such Weapon’s Systems.   It seems that   Generals are generally slow and stupid when it comes to adopting Innovations.  Only during Major Total Wars where Nations are Fighting for their Survival do the Generals seem to allow themselves to be influenced by Technologies and that is only because they see themselves running out of bodies that they can through into the Battle (for instance, in World War I the British had prototype Tanks almost from the very start of the War but resisted the very idea of them, that is until they suffered so many losses that by 1917 they were entertaining the idea of bringing tanks onto the Battlefield to replace the men they no longer had, but then America came into the War with the promise that there would be thousands of new bodies to toss into the Mauls of Death, so the Tank was again put on the strategic backburner.)

 

Anyway, I wonder whether the American Generals genuinely realize what they are getting into.  Maybe they think that what fighting they have seen from the Taliban in these last few Slow Years has been everything they got, and so they suppose that it wouldn’t take much more to knock them over completely.  Maybe they don’t realize that Obama’s Engagement Rules actually served to encourage the Taliban to cut way back, and to hold most of their material and personnel assets in reserve in order to consolidate, rebuild and re-arm, probably for the eventuality that when America does leave, the Taliban can quickly pounce on Kabul Puppet Regime and return Afghanistan to the 2001 Status Quo.

 

America could be unloosing on itself an avalanche of the best insurgent fighters in the World today (a mix of salty old ‘unkillable’ Vets and zealous young athletes) who have behind them warehouses (or ‘warecaves’) full of new weapons, stockpiles of ammo, and enough high explosives to place an Improvised Explosive Device on every other square inch that America wishes to step on or near.  And it wasn’t some stupid Trump idea, either.  These are Career Generals we are talking about!  But, on the other hand, Trump did use his Presidential Powers to reshuffle the top levels of the Chain of Command at the Pentagon.  I suppose the Moron might have put the Block Heads in charge.  Maybe all the Big Thinking is being done by a guy called Mad Dog.

 

If I were a Ground Pounder in the American Services, I would be nervous right about now.  When you kiss your wives goodbye it’d probably be a good idea to tell them that it’s okay if they make plans without you.  And then with as much peace of mind as you can muster, jump up on your horse and ride off to your own Little Big Horn.   

Successful Negotiations with North Korea

Certain Presidents of the United States are continuously repeating the notion that Negotiations with North Korea have been “failing” for the last several decades and that it is time to take a new tact.

 

Well, we need to ask ourselves “What constitutes a Successful Negotiation?”  If we want Peace then we can say that Negotiations are “Successful” as long as Peace is maintained.   Well, the President said it himself, that nothing has changed for decades with North Korea.  Well, we have been At Peace that whole time, haven’t we?   And President Trump seems set on the Idea of ‘changing all that’.

 

Yes, I have heard that the President feels that our Negotiators have been humiliated because they have not gotten all that they have asked for.  Well, I can see that Political Appointees might be subject to ‘feelings’ such as ‘humiliation’, but seasoned professional diplomatic personnel are above such pettiness.  I suppose it is like Professional Pig Farmers not taking the Squeals personally.    

 

Besides, Trump is being a bit simplistic about the History of Negotiations with North Korea, even when taken on his own terms.   I can suspect that Trump ignores all his Official Briefings on the Subject, if he permits himself to be briefed at all, but opens his mind only to what he gets from FOX TV.   And what I don’t expect he would ever hear from FOX TV is that the Clinton Administration successfully negotiated a Treaty with North Korea which put an end to their program for uranium enrichment – they actually shut down their one and only reactor and it was indeed verified that they filled the entire installation with concrete.  But there was a change of Administrations from the Clinton to the Bush, and a new Republican Dominated Senate refused to abide by the Stipulations of the Treaty.  You see, the United States had agreed to build or have built several Oil Burning Power Plants and to supply the Oil.  Bush and his Senate, arguing only that the North Korean’s “couldn’t be trusted” were actually the ones to renege on the Treaty.  Yes, maybe details were found that North Korea was not complying with, but history apparently found them so insignificant as to forget what they were.  Besides, the Devil in many of these Treaties are the Small Details.  If you look hard enough you can always find some violations somewhere.   It is sort of like a 55mph speed limit on a Las Angeles freeway.  The Cops could really just pull over anybody, couldn’t they?   It reminds me of one of Iraq’s ‘Compliance Failures’ prior to Baby Bush’s Invasion.  A certain DD Form was not filed.  Iraq argued that they did not even use that DD Form (an American Department of Defense Form) but the Bush State Department, eager for War, was able to point down in Subparagraph aaa.211c on page 578 that such a DD Form was indeed specifically required.  “There!  We caught you!”

 

Of course, this suggests the notion that the American Diplomatic Corps is actively deceitful.  However, in my heart of heart, I only suspect deceit from the Political Appointees.  The Career Professional Diplomatic Corps is probably less likely to lie, cheat, deceive and play clever Lawyer Tricks with the Truth then are Politicians and their crony Appointees.   

 

Oh, and the Trump Administration may offer an instance were no Diplomats are involved at all, or not significantly involved.   You see, Trump has surrounded himself with the Military.  In all previous American Administrations there was a clear separation between the Departments of State, which dealt with the Diplomatic Relations among other Nations, and the Department of War, which was subsequently euphemized into being called the Department of “Defense” even though the great majority of American Military Adventures are not defensive at all.  But my main point here is that diplomats have been largely removed from the equation.   America relies on it Military People to Negotiate Peace.  But I do not see this Task as anything that would come easily to any American Military Man.  You see, America has too long a tradition of demanding Unconditional Surrenders.  You see, if you examine History you will find that Demanding Unconditional Surrenders prolongs Wars.  After all, how can you REALLY ask anybody to surrender and put down their arms unless they have Some Idea what they are Surrendering to?   An Unconditional Surrender essentially implies the understanding that the Victor can slaughter every man, rape and then kill every woman and child, bulldoze every building, and then salt the earth.  You know, sort of like Israel would like to do with Gaza.   Considering such a serious drawbacks, one could then wonder why the Idea of Unconditional Surrender became so dominantly popular among the Militarists.  Well, we need to ask ourselves “who gets to Negotiate ‘Conditioned’ Surrenders?”   It would be the Military Field Commanders who would make the deals in order to secure the Surrenders of a City here, an Enemy Commander there, or perhaps even an entire Nation.   For instance, when Napoleon Bonaparte was still just a General he had secured the subjugation of Italy not just on the Battlefield but through Negotiations arrived at largely on his own Terms.  The Italians laid down their Arms because Napoleon offered ‘Conditions’ they could live with.  But back in Paris the Politicians felt that Napoleon had failed to say “pretty please”.  

 

So America, spoiled by Easy Wars where they come in at the end of brutal conflicts between other Nations to finish off crippled and weakened foes (such as with both of the World Wars), or tiny little Nations whose Military Assets are dwarfed by America’s casual Military Might (such as Iraq and Serbia), has Normalized the Habit of insisting always on Unconditional Surrenders.  Generals are simply supposed to Fight to Win and to let the Politicians and State Department do all the Heavy Lifting were THINKING is concerned.  THAT has been part and parcel of American Military Culture now since the Civil War in the 1860’s, from the days of Ulysses S

. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant”.   So this inflexible American Military way of dealing with Conflicts not only prolongs and protracts Wars but makes Negotiations impossible as the Generals seem to insist upon Unconditional Preconditions even before the very first Talks can commence.   This is also how Israel has avoided Peace for so long.  Israel insists that the Palestinians refuse to Talk when actually they mean that Palestine refuses to Unconditionally Surrender;… that if the Palestinians want to be able to “talk” about how many men, women and children won’t be put to the sword; how many buildings won’t be bulldozed, and how much earth won’t be salted then they need to concede that Israel has the perfect right to do all that if it really wants to. 

 

Anyway, America needs to bring back its Professional Diplomatic Corps.  If Just Talking can stave off War, then Just Talking would be a wonderfully effective tactic, wouldn’t it?  Of course, here again, America, under Trump, has been stymied.   You see, the present Secretary of State, while more sensible than most of Trump’s cronies, is still seriously suffering from a career spent engaged in a self-deluding state of tunnel vision and wishful thinking.  He was CEO of a Big Corporation where things are not run on the Basis of Information Intelligence but on the basis of CEO hunches and guesses which are supported by a multilevel cadre of Yes Men and Butt Kissers.  That is how Capitalism Works.  They claim it to be very successful, but this is only because Capitalists of the same stripe largely monopolize ALL the Big Corporations, so they really simply don’t have any Intelligent Competition to compare to, or at least not in America where they control who gets funds from the Big Corporate Banks.   So, America now has a Spoiled Rich-Brat Hunch Artist as Secretary of State who has marginalized his Career Diplomats, and even Downsized his own State Department, guaranteeing that his own Power to Accomplish Anything would be eviscerated and marginal.    He effectively presided over the poisoning of the well he would be expected to drink from. 

 

So, looking objectively at it all, I would say that prospects for Peace are rather dismal if one were relying only upon America.  I suppose the World will have to cross its collective fingers and hope that North Korea, China, Russia and perhaps Europe can pull together enough influence to keep America from rashly jumping into a needless and perhaps catastrophic War.   But, even the World seems to be behaving irrationally here.  It seems that the World’s Solution is to implement a colossal framework of draconian Sanctions designed to totally strangle North Korea’s Economy and make them Totally Desperate.   Yes, Economic Sanctions worked in bringing Iran to the Peace Table, something that  the Trump Administration now so little appreciates.  But Iran has a huge Politically Active Business and Middle Class which even their Hard Liners need to recognize and placate on occasion.  And Iran actually does have Elections.  But with North Korea the World seems to want to commit a Genocidal Slaughter using Starvation, Disease and Civil Discord as their Weapons (three of the Horseman of the Apocalypse to save us from the fourth which is War, which would probably ride in anyway).   The World’s hope with these Sanctions is to be able to leverage the policies that come entirely from only One Man (“kill the Snake’s Body and the Head will die too”).  Or maybe the World hopes that there will be a Rebellion before everyone dies.  However, in the Real World, we know that one can Maintain Order simply be feeding the Order Maintainers.   For instance, if we look to some very unfortunate occurrences in History, we can discern a number of clues as to how the Nazis ran their repressive and murderous Concentration Camps.  They could not afford to commit a great many Military Personnel to maintaining these Camps, so they set up a Privilege System among the Inmates themselves.  The Privileged Inmates got fed only so long as they were able to maintain order.  So maintaining order is what they did.   Perhaps this could raise questions about all the Holocaust Survivors we heard and know about.  How was it that THEY survived when everyone else died?  And of course to know the Truth about it we have only the word of the Survivors – the “Truth” is whatever Story they decide on, isn’t it?   The Dead can’t argue, can they?   It is probably much like Battlefield Survivors, were the Courageous and the Heroic who exposed themselves to Enemy Fire and are Killed, but those who dodge and duck and manage to keep their heads down survive.  Heaven only knows what ‘Lone Survivors’ do, or don’t do, in order to stay alive, and we could expect that few would freely admit to deserting and waiting back in the Woods, tucked under a log, until all the firing stopped.    In such terrible and unfortunate circumstances we can almost certainly be sure that the Dead are much more noble than the Living, and so it is a shame that they were the ones who had to die.   It seems to be Evolution working in Reverse – the Survival of the Least Morally Fit.  But to get back on point, from a Regime as sophisticated and Worldly Wise and free of Sentimental Illusions as the North Korean Regime, we could expect that even a significant proportion of the Population could suffer and die while the Regime would still be able to struggle on.  And if the Regime is ever confronted by the situation where its Armed and Well Trained Army becomes desperate and can no longer be placated and relied upon, well, then What Would the Regime Lose by Going to Nuclear War?

 

Hmmmm.  I better keep thinking about all of this, because from where I see it now, I honestly don’t believe there is any hope.  It’s like every player on the Field is doing their utmost best to screw it all up.  Maybe it will be good for Wall Street – using Short Contracts they can effectively Sell High, right before the World Cataclysmic Apocalypse, and then Buy it all Back REALLY Low.  Not much will be left, of course, but at least they will be able to say they own Everything… oh wait, they already do.   As I said, it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all, does it?