Analyst's note: Absolutely must read. Truth is a beautiful thing to behold. Please read on ... Semper Fidelis
"A charade is defined in several ways but in this case the best definition is an empty act or pretense. Similarly, a Victory simply means winning. I have some questions for our civilian and military leadership today regarding a war that is appearing more and more like an empty act that seems to be losing its character and “raison d’etre”. It clearly does not reflect victory either.
MG Paul E. Vallely, US Army (Ret.)
Since January 2002, there have been few victories for America in Afghanistan that can be celebrated. After a handful of years in Afghanistan, was the endgame to claim victory or was the unspoken mission a commercial enterprise by the elites?
The challenge is to take a broad view at government contractors hired for long-term revenue streams complete with named investors defined as political leaders and lobby groups. Eagles don’t flock, yet political leaders and officers have clustered our forces into cemented ground operations, demonstrating little success under the guise of humanitarian objectives. The best example of this is where a religious ideology our leadership does not understand altered the RoE on the fly for fear of the factual notion that the International Criminal Court law trumps that of the UCMJ.
The COIN principle is not based on winning; it is based on political whims and is not a true tenet of warfare. Great Generals and Admirals of battles past had enough acumen and understanding of the tides of battle to change the strategies and tactics to turn the tide on the enemy.
Winning this specific war against forces compelled by Islamic ideology, calls for unconventional measures; not conventional actions followed by lengthy occupations such as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such an unconventional war doctrine heavily leverages the core capability to break enemy states; target and destroy the enemy’s capability to bring harm to America”.
Panetta addresses dis-armed Marines
The essence of failed “counterinsurgency” (COIN) strategies that has bewitched US military and political leaders has sadly been a matter of natural course. We all want to support our senior military leaders, yet the defining point is to face the realities of this enemy and protect and secure our American troops before we continue sparing the lives of the Taliban and civilians with bizarre, restrictive rules of engagement (ROE). The concept of COIN is as corrupt as the concept of Nation-Building; and Afghanistan was not a good candidate for either."
[....] It is true that not all political goals are achievable through the use of military power. However, “victory” in war appears lost in the world of political correctness and appeasement.
[....] the U.S. must adopt a national military strategy that heavily leverages our core capability to break enemy states, target and destroy the enemy’s capability to bring harm to America. Such a strategy could defeat and disrupt most potential threats the U.S. faces. Instead, we are now seen as paper-tigers, feckless, weak of conviction, and too willing to compromise our values, and our singular place in the history of all nations.
While America’s adversaries today may prefer to engage the U.S. using proxies and develop radical Islamist organizations and jihadists, there is no rationale in declaring to the people of the United States that we are in a long war and accept that as a reason to not achieve a quick and decisive victory.
It is a reality that we fight more in agreement with the so called United Nations, our allies, and the likes of China and Russia, than by standing up for own sovereignty. It is time to relegate these so-called allies to the sidelines, to choose our own time and place to use our force, for our reasons alone. By not doing so, we tell the world they are equal to us in “might and right”, when neither is true.
Many describe our efforts and actions as helping to recruit more fighters and more ideologues, making matters worse. The opposite is true; the only true means to stop that threat is to give them what they respect; pure force of arms.
Instead, our enemies sit in their sanctuaries and count up their moral victories they have achieved; it only proves to embolden their future efforts. However, significant threats to the U.S., ranging from the military capacity of regional powers, to weapons of mass destruction development programs, to significant terrorist infrastructures, each can be targeted and destroyed by conventional and unconventional military capabilities; from “Lily Pads”.
Only when we understand that one objective of Global Jihad is imposition of – by force or by stealth – Shari’a (Islamic law) and the re-establishment of the Caliphate/Imamate), can we even begin to formulate the enemy threat doctrine, and create the strategic concept to DEFEAT THE ENEMY and WIN.
