Why We Flight
Greg Sheridan's backgrounder on John Howard's decision to send a thousand more Australian troops to Afghanistan speaks volumes. Australia had to struggle against European objections to allow the Diggers to fight.
There are two separate Allied operations in Afghanistan right now. There is Operation Enduring Freedom, led by the Americans with British participation. And there is the International Security Assistance Force, which is a NATO operation and manned mainly by Europeans and Canadians.
The Howard Government wanted to deploy its special operations group as part of Operation Enduring Freedom because it has a more robust mandate and stronger rules of engagement. But this was opposed by the Dutch. Overall the Dutch have more than 2000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Australians, who form a 400-strong Reconstruction Task Force in Tarin Kowt in Oruzgun, work intimately with the Dutch. The Australians have a high respect for the Dutch. But the Dutch are in Afghanistan as part of ISAF, not as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
ISAF has a long list of Taliban personnel it is prepared to target. These are the so-called high-value targets. However, at times the restrictions on its rules of engagement are ridiculous. If ISAF coalition forces discover a house with two Taliban high-value targets, and four other Taliban fighters who are not on the list of ISAF approved targets, it cannot attack the house. This is not a scenario of protecting civilians but of protecting Taliban targets who are just not specifically on the list.
The Australians were not interested in this kind of handicapped engagement. Sending soldiers into harm's way is a serious and profoundly consequential business. Canberra's view is you either send them in to do the business, or you're better off not sending them at all. However, in The Netherlands, as in most European countries, the troop deployments to Afghanistan are highly sensitive and contested issues. Canada, which has done magnificent work in Afghanistan and taken a serious number of casualties, faces the situation where its political Opposition - though it dispatched the Canadian troops to Afghanistan - now opposes their deployment.
Most European nations that do deploy in Afghanistan do so in the much more relatively peaceful north , rather than the violent south where the Australians are. ...
Because the Dutch are more numerous in Oruzgan than the Australians, that operation is under their leadership and they could not politically tolerate an Australian deployment, with them, under Operation Enduring Freedom. ... In the end, Canberra agreed to send its special forces group as part of ISAF but insisted they would remain under Australian national command and interpret their rules of engagement in an Australian way. They are partly reassured because the present head of the ISAF force is an American general who is extremely unlikely to complain about the Australians being too robust. ...
They will start with small, long-range patrols to build up the deepest possible picture of the province. They will move with speed and stealth and great lethality, and at times they will pursue their quarry relentlessly. They will be there, probably in rotations of a little less than six months, for at least two years. They will not give up. They will be the most formidable force in southern Afghanistan. They will make a huge difference. And they will take huge risks.
But not so great as the risks run by those for whom war is a costume party; to whom victory is a dirty word. The Australians know what the Europeans should soon rediscover: the danger comes from within one's self; that there are none so lost as those who have misled themselves.
posted by wretchardthecat at 4/14/2007 04:47:00 AM
37 Comments:
There is an Anglosphere - and thank God for humanity it exists. I suppose the Brits will come around again soon. Anglo Saxons didn't spend the last 1,000 years fighting to keep French speaking twerps from lording it over Britannia to give in so easily now.
I follow Deutsche Welle, DW radio and on the net. If you read some of the German concerns about what their military, including air force, is allowed to engage in, you do wonder why they bother.
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 04/14/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
This is the Weekend Edition of the Web Reconnaissance it is updated periodically throughout the weekend as time and family permits.
European governments appear to have a death wish, in dealing with global jihad.
In a democracy, any group that can breed the fastest, and make the most ruthless threats, can steer a government controlled by weaklings.
Only the Danes still appear to possess backbone, in all mainland Europe.
I posted this on the last topic, but it applies here again (sorry)
"But still more evil than terrorists are those who help them in projecting a moral inversion."
Every day I wake and check in on the war. The whole war. Mainly I read my favorite blogs and a few conservative Brit papers and Spengler.
The extent of the moral inversion of which you speak dumbfounds me. The left, the MSM, our academic elite, the Euros have seemingly sided with evil....and each day I keep waiting for the event that will shake them awake and back to our side.
Maybe it is like WWII, where the left only got fired up about Hitler when he attacked the Soviet Union. So maybe if the terrorists do have a spring offensive in Europe....or carry out a second 9/11 when a Democrat sits at 1600 Pensylvania Avenue...or another Beslen....
The people of Rohan did, in the end, so wake and join the beleaguered defenders of Gondor at the gates.
Godspeed
W,
Part of the genius of this blog originates from the fact that you are "on fire" periodically. You are now and have been for several days. Thank you.
As to the Euroweenies, every time the subject of their hesitation in the face of evil comes by the townspeople in the film "High Plains Drifter" come to mind.
2164th,
If you have an indicative link, I would appreciate it.
It is appropriate to restrict actions to such a high degree when the mission is a policing, peace-keeping and law-enforcement one in a nation with an inherent, functioning, but in-need-of-assistance government. And when that society itself is unwilling to tolerate the depredations of radicals and willing to back such stances up with votes, taxes, and personal individual effort in building a robust internal capacity to deal with such problems on their own, who merely need assistance in the short term until their own indigenous capabilities are matured.
But to enact such restrictions in a war zone? How do you "peacekeep" when the opponent holds a war mindset? There's no peace to keep!
Is it just me, or is there a severe disconnect between how many governments view war-torn societies and how such societies actually are? And thus how to be effective in such an environment? As just one example: There's a difference between "prescence" and "enforcement", and the mere prescence of a police or, in the case of Afghanistan, a military force is not the same as expecting enforcement of peace. Even in the West, you cannot guarantee a lack of low level violence (i.e. rioting, looting, non-organized, non-firearmed fighting) with the presence but inaction of police; anyone seen the aftermath of a controversial soccer game in Europe, or the result of a national collegiate championship in the States? That's in a peaceful society. How are you supposed to guarantee peace in an open warzone, even a "relatively peaceful" area of a warzone?
Too many Eurpean governments carry peacetime sensibilities into war-torn areas, and enact rules of engagement and conduct based on those sensibilities. The end result is a restriction to mere reaction most of the time, with only the occasional but exceptionally limited offensive, initiative-gaining efforts. You can get away with doing that in a policing environment, but not a combat one. You cede all the initiative to the enemy when you do that, and end up strictly reacting to him, instead of working towards your own goals. And as any military leader would attest, and has in the past attested to: Ceding initiative is no way to win a war, no matter how limited your goals are.
Note that Belmont Club was recently cited by Mark Steyn in weekly conversation with Hugh Hewitt.
But yes!-- we who have no bananas depend on Wretchard for pushcart provender. Whatever affects Europe and certain partisan segments of the West will either subside within a generation, or inflict a desert from whose bourn no traveller returns.
With Tennyson's Ulysses, "Smite the sounding furrows... strong in Will to strive, to seek, to find-- and not to yield."
I know this will sound ridiculous, but I don't care:
I thank God for Australia every time I read about them in the news.
Australia has been the best friend of the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Period. Not even the Brits went to Vietnam with the US, but the Aussies did. My father, who fought in Vietnam, said they were the best soldiers he ever served with.
Australia has the courage to take a stand and do things like send more troops to Afghanistan, as well as stand up to bullies in the Pacific. All with a population of only 20 million.
May Australia remain wealthy and grow to a size of 200 million. And may their politics never shift leftward.
I second Renico. Long Live Oz.
The Europeans are so ridiculously effeminate that they cringe from battle. The Dutch may have some semblance of cookies but they do not escape entirely. Their rules of engagement only allow them to engage Taliban targets who are on a special list.
I have recently begun reading, re-reading Western political thought starting from Plato's Republic. I am happy I have because it places today in such clearer perspective. European leaders and the American Left are a bunch of sissified small furry felines not only not deserving neither our respect nor our allegiance, but our outright condemnation and contempt. They take all things ancient and holy placed in their trust and treat them the same as would vulgar adolescents.
Three cheers for the Aussies. I salute you Australia!
These are the kinds of ROE that are detailed in "The 9/11 Commission Report" as reasons why we didn't attack bin Laden in Afghanistan:
If ISAF coalition forces discover a house with two Taliban high-value targets, and four other Taliban fighters who are not on the list of ISAF approved targets, it cannot attack the house.
The reason in the 9/11 Report: the Bad Guys might respond and then we'll get blamed for it.
A variation of "What did we do to make them so mad at us?"
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As for the Aussies, I second the above compliments. I had the pleasure and privilege to live there for a couple of years, and after traveling overland through about 40-50 other "countries" I must say I felt the most at home in Oz, even though I was of course a Septic, a septic tank, a wooden plank, a bloody Yank.
The egalitarian nature of Aussies and Americans is as close at it gets in shared social politics, and the fact that the girls don't wear the tops of their bathing suits is not bad either.
Things got a little rough between US and Oz troopers once upon a time.
I'd never heard of this until yesterday, re-reading William Manchester's "Goodbye Darkness".
Seems the debarking Yanks were telling the embarking Oz troops what they intended to do about their now-unprotected women --and the jive got a little out of control.
Manchester related the story among several told to impart the hair trigger mood of going into combat against the EOJ (that book is in the very top tier of Pacific War lit, imho).
Canada recently commemorated the anniversary of the Vimy Ridge battle, where it lost the US equivalent of 35,000 men in two days to take a key -- and "untakeable" -- German position. Canada is also, unless memory serves, the only allied country to fight the Second World war without requiring conscription. The men stepped forward of their own accord. The Canadians are awesome.
The Dutch were the devils of the sea in the age of sail. And during the Second World War they had one of the most active resistance movements against Hitler. Many Jews were spontaneously hidden from the SS by Netherlanders. Nothing wrong with the Dutch.
But there is something wrong with the politicians, perhaps not so much in Canada, but in certain countries as a whole. They seem to believe that the appearance of defense equals defense. They promise to protect their citizens and leave them sleeping among the wolves, calculating perhaps, that it is better not to provoke the wolves. Europe deserves better than this. It has had its share of Baldwins and Chamberlains. They don't need any more.
A Sarkozy win would be a big, big step in the right dierection. As big as Merkel's was next door. Very soon now we'll have a gigantic clue to the future of Europe.
My job has taken me all over Western Canada, i.e. central and northern Alberta and B.C., for close to 20 years. Spent a lot of time with tradesmen of all kinds. They are, as a whole, a pretty rugged lot, just the sort of folk you'd want along in a pinch. Ditto on the Aussies.
Echoing peterboston, thank God indeed that the Anglosphere exists. May its influence ever grow.
Some of you commentors are surprised the "Left is not on your side"?
I would ask you, when have they ever been "on your side" in battle.
The brain clenches thinking of their fond thoughts of Hitler at the beginning of WWII...(I'm speaking "Left", as opposed to "Liberal")...?
The Cold War?
Thinking of their support during Vietnam before and after the Killing Fields?
The "Euros have seemingly sided with evil"...
Where have you been?
Sorry for such a disjointed post...
But Jeeeeeeezzzzzz...
For the Germans, they make the trains run on time? You forsake us now Germany, You have forsaken forever.
Musical Patriotism Canadian style
Musical Patriotism Australian style
Canada did indeed have conscription, though only about 10 or 15 thousand conscripts were sent overseas, starting in late 1944.
Conscription was incredibly divisive, with Ontario demanding it as early as 1940 and Quebec viciously opposed. Opposed as in 80% against, as in riots, as in threats to leave Canada. Quebec's English population were the only ones favouring conscription.
Prime Minister King manoeuvred and delayed and avoided conscription until pressure from English Canada became overwhelming.
The conscription crisis led many young quebecois towards the whole maitres de chez-nous movement -- "masters of our own house."
One such was Pierre Trudeau, who almost single-handedly (and intentionally) destroyed the Canadian military.
The Anglosphere hasn't given up. It looks like the US will provide full funding and support for its troops, as the Democrats are caving in on war funding.
GOP eyes success on war funding
GOP eyes success on war funding
Senate Republicans yesterday said Democrats are weakening in the war-funding standoff with the White House, citing party infighting and the capitulation of its leaders to meet next week with President Bush.
"They are very divided on the issue," said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the Republican Conference. "The Democrats are all over the board on this."
He said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi looked "embarrassed" when they snubbed a White House invitation but then turned around and agreed to the talks on the war-funding bill Mr. Bush vows to veto.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Democrats are having "a debate among themselves" and he sees cracks in support for a troop pullout from Iraq.
"The first dam that is going to break is going to be on the other side after they see a presidential veto," the Kentucky Republican said...
Democrats throughout the Senate ranks say they will refuse to withholding troop funding -- a tactic advocated by Mr. Reid.
Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat up for re-election next year, said she would not block war funds and opposes withdrawal timetables, although she joined the 51-47 vote to pass the carefully worded "goal" of a complete pullout by March 31.
"We must set clear goals and benchmarks for success in Iraq. ... But I cannot support timetables that call for redeployment based on an arbitrary calendar date," Mrs. Landrieu said, stressing she supports full funding for the troops...
Opposition to blocking war funds also has been voiced by Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Charles E. Schumer of New York, vice chairman of the caucus.
I decided to add "Herr" to my handle to show that I am an American with German ancestors. Many people assumed I was from China based on "Wu Wei", and I don't want to pretend to be something I am not.
It would seem that the Australians have a greater interest in winning this war than European countries like France and Germany. Strange, since Afghanistan is a NATO led venture, is it not. But then, that may be the real problem for them. They may be saving their troops for the European Union Rapid Reaction Force over which they have more direct control. By the way, I wouldn't count on the U.K. as a part of the Anglosphere. I think they are in the process of losing sight of their heritage and history.
Peace is breaking out in Iraq!
I wondered if the attack on their parliament would be their 9/11, something that unites them, and it looks like it is.
This is not just Anbar Sunnis opposing Al Qaeda any more. Religious scholars, resistance groups, and political organizations in Iraq are renouncing Al Qaeda, saying they reject the Islamic state / caliphate it is trying to create, and they are declaring a cease fire with & on each other!
Supposedly this includes Shiites and Kurds as well as Sunnis. One of the articles below lists nine resistance groups which have agreed to this, and says that four other groups which have signed will be announced at a later date.
IMPORTANT The insurgents specifically say they are not ceasing fire on "occupation" forces, even though they say the "Iranian occupation" is the bigger problem. Peace amongst the Iraqis would eventually lead to a cease fire for us, but we aren't there yet.
Iraqi group 'splits' from al-Qaeda
Iraqi Sunnis set up fatwa body to combat al Qaeda
Iraqi groups establish "moderate" resistance coordination bureau
Islamic Army of Iraq splits from Al-Qaeda
Appeasement is pure folly
Mathias Dapfner in Die Welt:
"[A] crusade underway -- an especially "perfidious" crusade -- consisting of systematic attacks by extremist Islamics focused on innocent civilians, and directed against free, open western societies and its end intention is nothing less than the total destruction of western civilization."
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: 'Science' and predetermined outcomes
"Fortunately, none of this matters, because we don't live in a dog-eat-dog world where nasty bearded enemies are currently running around screeching their hatred of us, ready to lop off our heads if we frivolously throw away our hard-won advantages in wealth, freedom, and technological progress, the way armed "barbarian" invaders promptly took advantage of the mincing decadence and mindless self-destruction of the Greeks, the Romans and the Mayans."
“I am OZ!”
I see Baum’s tale a little differently and can’t help but think of John Howard as an ordinary man behind the curtain pulling levers, projecting power and accomplishing the extraordinary for both OZ and the right cause for these times. He’s being immensely helpful in trying to get us back home, again. If we’d only all wish for it, as we’re supposed to, and as he reminds us.
"Home" being where we recognize ourselves through better core values, but from where cultural equivalence, collective cowardice, action-paralysis and self-loathing have taken us on an unsettling journey.
a senior U.S. official says the invite to el-Katatni was "cleared" by the State Department and represented the highest-level contacts with the Brotherhood since 9/11. "This doesn't mean we are embracing the group," the official says. "It means we recognize that we have to listen to a wide range of voices." The meeting was also a "subtle, smart way toexpress concern" over a recent crackdown in which Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government has arrested other Brotherhood leaders and charged them in secret military courts.
Rivalries in Iraq extend to separate spy agencies
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Shiite officials wary of the CIA-funded, Sunni-led official intelligence service have built a parallel, "shadow" organization boasting 1,200 agents
Al Sadr just pulled out of the Iraqi government
No surprise and no big loss. Other Shiite groups have recently said that Al Sadr is no longer necessary. Interestingly, Al Sadr's aides said he is leaving the government to help Maliki who is "hamstrung by political parties in his government pulling him in different directions"! Al Sadr knows he will be listened to anyway, and this lets him play the tough guy who stood up to the "occupiers".
Quotes:
Two other Sadr officials confirmed the intention to pull out of the government but stressed the movement would continue to give "cautious" backing to a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital. The Sadrists will remain in parliament...
A senior official in Sadr's movement, Abdul-Mehdi al-Muteyri, said Sadr had also ordered the pullout, saying Maliki was hamstrung by political parties in his government pulling him in different directions.
"We don't believe in partisan quotas. Under the direct orders of Moqtada al-Sadr we have decided we are going to leave the government in order to give the prime minister the best possible options so that he can run his government," Muteyri said.
The Real War:
Gore's Global Brain Trust:
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"Demonstrators want Congress to pass laws that would lead to reducing carbon emissions in the United States by 80 percent by 2050.
"We have to take action now," said Karissa Centanni of Troy, an education coordinator with Honest Weight Food Co-op of Albany who organized Step It Up"
"An army of rabbits led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a rabbit." Napoleon Bonaparte
Iraq Militants Dominate City, and Attacks Surge
Baquba has emerged as a magnet for insurgents and, perhaps, the next major headache for the U.S. military.
“They were firing from every direction, trying to get us to concentrate on one spot while the other guys were maneuvering,” said Cpl. Bill McGrath, who said the M-240 barrels glowed cherry red and had to be swapped out a half-dozen times. “These were well-trained military types, not like the guys who shoot tanks with AK-47s. A lot of these guys we never saw. We’d just see muzzle flashes.”
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The Iraqi soldiers fretted that the insurgents had better equipment compared with their two clips and rickety Kalashnikov rifles. Like Baquba’s residents, they are intimidated. An Iraqi, Sgt. Raad Rashid, said his countrymen would flee if Americans abandoned the outpost. “Twenty minutes later we’d be gone,” he said. “They would surround this place and kill us.”
The insurgency’s remarkable ability to terrorize residents, killing those who help Americans while coercing others, is undeniably one of its biggest weapons. It appears to be well financed, too.
“Some guys will give you $300 to put this in a hole in the ground and attach a wire,” said John M. Jones, head of the provincial reconstruction team in Diyala, explaining how insurgents recruit bomb emplacers. “Where are the other incentives?”
With the combination of threats and money, Mr. Jones said, the insurgents’ offers are hard for residents to refuse. “You might not agree with the philosophy of what he’s saying, but he’s got the big guns, and they live in the same neighborhood. It’s you, your wife and kids. What can you do?”
Such intimidation makes progress impossible. “We are not able to make even baby steps,” he said. “I hope we’re laying the framework for future baby steps. Right now, I’d say we are pretty much frustrated.”
"An army of rabbits led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a rabbit." Napoleon Bonaparte
...provided the lion can tell seasons....
Grapes of Wrath: America's Recipe for al-Qaeda's Victory
The US State Department Supports All But Somalis in Somalia
Why can’t the United States (read: State Department) ‘vow to support’ the Somali Transitional Federal Government who, unlike other theaters in the Long War, has wanted to both install a representative secular democratic system of government and fight al-Qaeda on their own soil? As one will clearly see, we choose instead to let the willing and almost able wither on the vine like forgotten grapes in a vineyard that sees too few of them to begin with.
I'll Fly Away - Allison Krause
>The people of Rohan did, in the end, so wake and join the beleaguered defenders of Gondor at the gates.
Do not forget, however, that the only reason Rohan "woke up" is because Gandalf the White came and overthrew the thrall of Wormtongue. Where is our Gandalf to wake up those progressives currently under the thrall of their ideology?
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