Monday, December 24, 2012

24 December 2012 Ain’t no easy exit




Steep U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan brings substantial risks
The Afghan National Security Forces, now 352,000 strong, have made considerable strides, but they remain heavily reliant on U.S. help for air support, logistics, intelligence, route clearance and other key “enablers.” The Defense Department’s newReport on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan noted that only one of 23 Afghan army brigades is able to operate without coalition help. The report also “anticipates that the [Afghan army] will continue to require assistance with logistics and acquisition processes beyond December 2014.”
Afghanistan is not expected to have a functioning air force before 2017, so Afghan forces will remain especially dependent on U.S. help for air support and aerial medevac. But it is doubtful that U.S. commanders would call in airstrikes without having U.S. advisers embedded with Afghan units — and under the rumored plan, no such advisers will be available. Afghan security forces will be on their own to face an entrenched insurgency, which has been degraded by the surge but remains a major threat in southern and eastern Afghanistan, thanks in no small measure to its havens in Pakistan.
It is hard to imagine how anyone in the Obama administration could conclude that a force of just 6,000 personnel would be sufficient after 2014 when, even with 68,000 troops today, the United States cannot prevent the Taliban and Haqqanis from operating openly an hour’s drive from Kabul. Such a precipitous drawdown vastly increases the risk of a Taliban takeover”
.Cassi Creek:  the planed draw down is inherently dangerous to any and all U.S elements serving in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater.  As a reference point for calculating the impact upon our troops, recall the Vietnam War in the period called Vietnamization.  As the combat units, their attached logistics, and other support units were rotated to the CONUS, by simply not replacing troops who had completed their tours of duty, the operational capabilities of those units was degraded to the point that they were incapable of defending and supporting their assigned troops.  What developed was a pattern of units retreating into support bases where security duties were officially shifted to ARVN units but which were actually covered by U.S. troops.  The level of trust in the ARVN units was politically announced as high.  Every trooper I knew regarded ARVN units as riddled with intelligence leaks and incapable of supporting their selves.  The Special Forces units and some of the U. S. advisors may have found ARVN units that were reliable and effective.  They worked at a much closer level of mutual need. 
          The article above makes no attempt to whitewash the level of capability resident in the Afghan armed forces.  The cultural and social differences that have already manifested as reasons for increased danger to our troops will only become a greater problem as the Draw down continues. Remember the photos and films of the 1975 evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Saigon.  Complicate that clusterfuck with the longer distances that evacuees must cover to safely leave the theater.  The best thing we can do for our troops is to formulate plans to affect their exits now.  We need to remove as much of our hardware, transport, ordnance, and other ancillary systems as possible.  The time for us to engage in nation building in Afghanistan is over.  The Afghans must either pick up the tools and begin to create and defend their own nation, or watch the Taliban resume where they left off ten years ago. 
         
Weather or not:  The NWS has indicated that there may be severe thunderstorms with the risk of long-lasting, long-line tornadoes along the Gulf Coast States and into the Southern Appalachians.  The potential threat is documented by the Storms Prediction Center in Oklahoma. 
If the forecast zone shifts, it may very well put us into another after dark storm pattern.  The weather underground maps and radar interface that worked so well for warnings in 2011, has been modified by the programmers so that the real-time capabilities have been degraded and eliminated. 






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