Pech Valley Dco 1-32 10th Mountain
Wretchard says:
A video captured from the Taliban in Afghanistan illustrates the power of electronic warfare. The enemy is using a cell phone to trigger an IED on American convoys. But the Americans have their own wizardry. Their vehicles are blanketed by an electronic jamming bubble. Watch as the Taliban try to blow up American vehicles traveling along the strategic Pech River road without success. Not even praying to Allah helps.- - - - - - - - -
A road is the pathway to civilization and the battle to upgrade and secure the Pech river road is one of the more interesting but unsung stories of the war. The Pech River road is now well along in its construction. The Taliban have lost to civilization -- for now. Road-building has been a strategic counterinsurgency weapon since ancient times.
Wretchard then uses a long quote from David Kilcullen from Small Wars Journal to explain why the control of roads are strategically important. What was of particular interest to me was Dr. Kilcullen’s experience as a trainer in counterinsurgency, using geographical points in northern Britain from which to observe, only to find that the ancients had been there long before him.
Part of Wretchard's quote from Kilcullen:
As a tactics instructor in the mid-1990s, teaching British platoon commanders at the School of Infantry, I spent many weeks on extended field exercises in the wilds of south Wales and on windswept Salisbury Plain. Both landscapes are studded with Roman military antiquities, relics of ancient counterinsurgency campaigns - mile-castles, military roads, legion encampments - as well as the Iron Age hill-forts of the Romans’ insurgent adversaries. Teaching ambushing, I often found that ambush sites I chose from a map, even on the remotest hillsides, would turn out (once I dragged my weary, rucksack-carrying ass to the actual spot) to have Roman or Celtic ruins on them, and often a Roman military road nearby: call me lacking in self-assurance, but I often found this a comforting vote of confidence in my tactical judgment from the collective wisdom of the ancestors.
Having been reading Bernard Cornwell of late, the quote gave me a frisson of connection to “the collective wisdom of the ancestors”, also.
I suggest you read Wretchard’s whole post, in order to get all his links. And click on Small Wars Journal, which has a much longer explanation of the importance of roads in Afghanistan.
I don’t know why that You Tube video haunts me, but a week later I’m still thinking about those fervent, ultimately-in-vain prayers echoing from that captured film.
9 comments:
The terrorists are speaking English and very good English at that. That's scary to me.
Thank you for the post.
Thank God for our troops and for their protection.
But their prayers aren't in English...
You've got that right. :-)
So glad that you're "filling in" with such great posts.
I guess they're going to have to go back to the old-fashioned method of actually sitting in the vehicle and setting off the bomb and themselves.
Or don't they want 72 virgins?
Then Caesar from the Julian stock shall rise,
Whose empire ocean, and whose fame the skies
Alone shall bound; whom, fraught with eastern spoils,
Our heav'n, the just reward of human toils,
Securely shall repay with rites divine;
And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine.
Then dire debate and impious war shall cease,
And the stern age be soften'd into peace:
Then banish'd Faith shall once again return,
And Vestal fires in hallow'd temples burn;
And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain
The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain.
Janus himself before his fane shall wait,
And keep the dreadful issues of his gate,
With bolts and iron bars: within remains
Imprison'd Fury, bound in brazen chains;
High on a trophy rais'd, of useless arms,
He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms."
While the parralel to the roadbilding activities of past EMPIRES is an interresting and relevant one,it is also important to note the basic differences.
The pressent military effort in Irak and Afghanistan is,to a high degree of probability, a TEMPORARY one.
The most likely EMPIRE -equivalent to include these countries in the future would be an ISLAMIC "empire" ,the exact nature of which it is not easy to guess,but it probably won't be friendly.
Therefor big investments in these countries INFRASTRUCTURE might very easily end up as investment in a future enemy's develpment.
This does not mean,that it can't be a good idea to build some roads in Afghanistan.
Only we shouldn't suffer from any naive illusions that these infrastructure projects can ever diminish the urgent necessety of developing more independent,more hard-hitting and more hard-to-hit infantry units.
ole--
There is much being done in Afghanistan that does not make it past the MSM template.
There is, for example, the Afghan Military College (Institute? I forget the exact name). It was drawn up by Afhghan leaders in cooperation with West Point. There is advantage to both sides in starting up this school. Each side is learning a lot about one another.
As far as the roads go, it is important for us to keep the existing ones open, just as the video shows that the Taliban finds it essential to block them whenever possible.
Some time in the future, we may have a guest contributor who has been studying closely the situation in Afghanistan.
Before he reports I will ask commenters for their questions so I can submit them to him.
The learning curve in counter-terrorism is a long one. If ignorant politicians looking for the short-term advantage for themselves don't interfere, things will stabilize.
That's a big "if" when it comes to the US Imperial Congress. In fact, it is they who have become our monarchy.
Dymphna: a week later I’m still thinking about those fervent, ultimately-in-vain prayers echoing from that captured film
The more I am obliged to ponder Islam's defeat, the more I am convinced that there must be a large-scale and incontrovertible demonstration of Allah's—and by default, Islam’s—fallibility. Just as those jihadis’ prayers went unanswered, so must the massed prayers of this world’s Muslim population be shown to fall upon deaf ears as well.
The supposedly manifest destiny that the vast majority of Muslims prescribe to is what makes this so important. To date, little has happened to shake their preposterous arrogance. I say “preposterous” because the entire MME (Muslim Middle East) is poised on a razor thin knife-edge of survival. The MME is wholly dependent upon the West for its very existence. Even as it stabs at us with terrorist fury, the MME can be hamstrung in a handful of different ways that would render it impotent, if not entirely barren.
Consequently, there needs to happen some sort of undeniable event to shake that ridiculous arrogance for once and all time.
One would think that such a thing had already happened. Consider how Iran and Iraq slaughtered 500,000 Muslims in a protracted eight year war, only to draw to a blood-soaked stalemate. Then witness how the United States overthrew Iraq in less than one month. It defies imagination that Muslim military planners seem equally able to blithely ignore the foregoing example of Western military dominance, much less the far more gruesome specter of nuclear annihilation. Both of which outcomes Islamic nations continue to hurry along with unparalleled haste.
When considering these outcomes, one merely need examine the near ONE BILLION dollars spent between Afghanistan and Iraq to be assured there is little chance that similar conventional warfare awaits the remaining dozen or more hostile Muslim majority nations. Given that victory is not an option, how shall the West make its displeasure known in no uncertain terms?
It is this intransigence in combination with Islam’s utterly vicious barbarity that increasingly erodes my opposition to any first-use of the West’s nuclear arsenal. Even now I cannot—in good conscience—advocate the nuclear bombardment of Islamic population centers. Such destruction can be accomplished just as thoroughly with conventional weaponry and done without sacrificing the moral authority or moral high ground that would happen were nuclear weapons peremptorily unleashed.
At day’s end, it becomes increasingly clear that Islam needs a massive warning shot across the bow. It must be a shot so devastating and irrefutable that every single Muslim on earth is given pause to reconsider their hostile ideology.
Therefore, be it in answer to yet another Islamic terrorist atrocity or simply a unified declaration that the West will no longer allow Islam’s treachery to go unpunished, the time is soon approaching where destruction of Mecca and Medina may be necessary.
The ruination of Islam’s shrines must be so comprehensive that there is absolutely ZERO chance of any rebuilding, repopulation or even in situ worship at these locations. The one way of assuring such a turn of events is through the use of nuclear weapons.
Again, I still oppose first-use of nuclear weapons by the West. However, if there is going to be any first use, I think the shrines should be our first targets. There is no clearer message that Islam could be sent. I am unable to identify who first said it but the fact remains that the world’s Muslim population would begin to feel a bit silly bowing five times a day to a plain of hot smoking glass.
ole: The pressent military effort in Irak and Afghanistan is, to a high degree of probability, a TEMPORARY one.
The most likely EMPIRE -equivalent to include these countries in the future would be an ISLAMIC "empire", the exact nature of which it is not easy to guess,but it probably won't be friendly.
Therefore big investments in these countries’ INFRASTRUCTURE might very easily end up as investment in a future enemy's development.
This is something that has already been proven. By allowing Afghanistan and Iraq to re-adopt shari’a law, we have—on a de facto basis—conceded our investments to the enemy. Only by killing off Islam’s clerical, financial and scholastic aristocracy can we begin to make sure that our expenditures will not be turned against us. Anything less literally guarantees that it will. Our foreign aid to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia stands as glaring proof of this.
Dymphna: Before he reports I will ask commenters for their questions so I can submit them to him.
I would most certainly enjoy hearing even the most scanty rationalization for having allowed Afghanistan and Iraq to re-install shari’a law. I’ll offer in advance that any squawking about “it’s their right” or “they democratically chose it” doesn’t cut any ice.
All sane people must know by now that shari’a law is one massive violation of human rights, just as Islam is also an ongoing crime against humanity. Much like how the Palestinians’ democratic election of Hamas in no way changes that party’s terrorist status, neither does democratic enactment absolve shari’a of its essential immorality and outright evil.
The learning curve in counter-terrorism is a long one. If ignorant politicians looking for the short-term advantage for themselves don't interfere, things will stabilize.
Sadly—be it here or abroad—nothing of the sort is happening. Few other terms than “short term advantage” can better describe the actions of most Muslim politicians. Short term gain has long been the Islamic world’s byword and its total economic and societal stagnation is a direct result. What’s more, the recent Z Visa end-run attempted by BOTH of America’s political parties shows that “short term advantage” is the dominant mindset here as well.
Speaking as an eternal optimist, never have I felt so cynical about this planet’s prospects. Islam has ellicited the most craven behavior imaginable from Western political leadership even as this world’s Muslim population hurries—in lemming-like fashion—towards the precipice of nuclear annihilation.
"When considering these outcomes, one merely need examine the near ONE BILLION dollars spent between Afghanistan and Iraq"
Duh! That would be ONE TRILLION dollars spent. Carry on.
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