Tanks in Afghanistan

November 19, 2010 8:56 AM

The U.S. military is sending a contingent of heavily armored battle tanks to Afghanistan for the first time in the nine-year war... Although the officer acknowledged that the use of tanks this many years into the war could be seen as a sign of desperation by some Afghans and Americans, he said they will provide the Marines with an important new tool in missions to flush out pockets of insurgent fighters.

"Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?" a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.

Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

posted by Joe Beese (92 comments total)

And someday we'll get our very own version of this picture.
posted by jedicus at 9:02 AM on November 19, 2010 [11 favorites]

By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. This war is being run by complete morons.
posted by enn at 9:03 AM on November 19, 2010 [5 favorites]

Heavily armored, you say? That is a welcome change.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:04 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Joe Beese: "Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said."

I can't wait for this tactic to be used at home. No more low voter turnout!
posted by charred husk at 9:05 AM on November 19, 2010 [10 favorites]

Funny, if you had asked me if we had tanks in Afghanistan since the start I would have simply assumed we did. Were they busy in Iraq or what?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:05 AM on November 19, 2010

...Or we could have people travel through fields like these
posted by Postroad at 9:05 AM on November 19, 2010

Yeah, I got nothin'. We should have left 6 months after the Taliban fled. I don't understand why we are still there.
posted by empath at 9:05 AM on November 19, 2010

Perhaps they need to be reminded of the Soviet experience with tanks in Afghanistan.
posted by Despondent_Monkey at 9:05 AM on November 19, 2010 [4 favorites]

Idiots.
posted by odinsdream at 9:06 AM on November 19, 2010

Curious, does anyone know if Warthogs are deployed and heavily used in Afghanistan?
posted by nomadicink at 9:06 AM on November 19, 2010

Curious, does anyone know if Warthogs are deployed and heavily used in Afghanistan?

They are certainly there, my brother in law is an A-10 pilot who has been over there a lot, not sure how many and how much they are used though.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:08 AM on November 19, 2010

The Canadians and the Danes have been using tanks in Afghanistan for a while - didn't the Marines notice? ;)

Seriously on this part:

By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

couldn't a case be made for, I don't know, a government official coming out to the people to connect?
posted by MILNEWSca at 9:10 AM on November 19, 2010 [4 favorites]

Yawn. This is not a major escalation.*

It's pretty much just a hiccup with good PR.

From the article: The initial deployment calls for about 16 tanks

This is a single company deployment -- about 100 Marines. A full tank battalion is about 50-60 tanks.

* Yet.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:14 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Hahaha the "connecting the government to the people" is great.

Its like a movie where the coach is a hardass to everyone so the jocks and the nerds band together in hating him. Who knew you could run a war on pop-psychology from after school specials.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:14 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

I think want he meant to say was "flush out the pockets of the American taxpayer."
posted by dobie at 9:16 AM on November 19, 2010 [4 favorites]

Saw this today: Afghanistan: can aid make a difference?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:16 AM on November 19, 2010

> By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

"We have to destroy the village. Save your expense claims."
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:17 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't understand why we are still there.

Catch bin Laden Destroy al Qaeda Keep the Taliban out Make Afghanistan a non-corrupt democracy (Check your preferred news source for breaking updates.)

Or, you know, project what's left of our military power in the region of the world that will be running things in the 21st century.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:18 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Does anyone remember Osama Bin Laden? Have we just given up looking for him? I thought that was kind of the point of going to Afghanistan. What exactly are we doing over there now? Just fucking with people?
posted by dortmunder at 9:18 AM on November 19, 2010 [9 favorites]

Unfortunately, as Matt Yglesias points out, the real target of the strategy in Afghanistan is Washington, D.C. The military is desperate to prove that the counterinsurgency works and that Gen. Petraeus is worthy of being elected President. Actual improvement in the lives of Afghans is not important.
posted by JackFlash at 9:19 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Funny, the thing I read right before this was about how NYC is laying off 6000 teachers and shutting down firehouses at night.
posted by hermitosis at 9:20 AM on November 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

@jedicus -- think our press and media have enough control to ever keep americans from seeing that picture. it would just be on al-jazeera and thus quite easy for 'real americans' to dismiss it
posted by lslelel at 9:21 AM on November 19, 2010

Perhaps they need to be reminded of the Soviet experience with tanks in Afghanistan.

Pictures of Soviet tanks in... Kabul? The Marines are fighting in Helmand Province in the south. The terrain is very different there.
posted by lullaby at 9:24 AM on November 19, 2010

IIRC, furiousxgeorge, most of the tanks used in Iraq have long since been pulled back home.

Just a guess, but the United States has probably been reluctant to use tanks in Afghanistan to date due to a combination of tactics (heavy tanks are considered counter-productive in a counter-insurgency) crazy logistics (an M1 burns a gallon a mile when on the go and 12 gallons an hour when idle), crappy roads, geography (too many mountains), and psychology (tanks do seem desperate...).
posted by notyou at 9:31 AM on November 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

project what's left of our military power in the region of the world that will be running things in the 21st century.

Good luck. The Himalayas lie between Afghanistan and China. Tanks won't be much use there.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:33 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Funny, if you had asked me if we had tanks in Afghanistan since the start I would have simply assumed we did. Were they busy in Iraq or what?

It was probably based somewhat on the tactical lessons of history.

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with tanks - the problem is that the topography of the country is fundamentally unsuited to tank warfare, and the Mujaheddin exploited some fundamental design flaws in the Soviet armor that allowed them to easily destroy the tanks with cheap RPGs.

That's why the USSR began moving away from tanks in the later phases of the war and migrating to attack helicopters. The change in tactics was fairly successful until the US-supplied Stingers inundated Afghanistan and the Mujaheddin started using them frequently.

Now, if the US leadership had more thoroughly studied history, they would have presumably come to the general conclusion that attempts to occupy Afghanistan have been largely unsuccessful.
posted by Despondent_Monkey at 9:37 AM on November 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with tanks

Yeah, but we know what we're doing.

We're not blinded by ideology like those Soviet fools were.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:40 AM on November 19, 2010 [20 favorites]

The military is desperate to prove that the counterinsurgency works and that Gen. Petraeus is worthy of being elected President

It's weird to me how prevalent through American history this idea of elevating a General to President is. I mean, sure, it's happened a couple of times (what, Washington, Eisenhower, and Taylor? Jackson and TR, at least sort-of?), but it seems to be thought/worried about a lot more than it actually happens. I mean, McClellan was supposed to be an electoral threat to Lincoln, MacArthur was supposed to be a threat to Truman, people took Wes Clark seriously for some goddamned reason, Fremont seemed to hang around the periphery in annoying Bob Dole fashion for several cycles, and so on. Not sure where I'm going with this, except that the military doesn't seem to be the Presidential incubator some people seem to think it is.
posted by COBRA! at 9:42 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Funny, the thing I read right before this was about how NYC is laying off 6000 teachers and shutting down firehouses at night.

Well, I can hardly see how equipping educators and firefighters with tanks would do them much good.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:44 AM on November 19, 2010 [11 favorites]

Pictures of Soviet tanks in... Kabul? The Marines are fighting in Helmand Province in the south. The terrain is very different there.

Terrain was only one of the factors behind the failure of the Soviet tank war in Afghanistan.

This is a desperation move - the initial tank deployment is too insignificant to do anything tactically, the tanks themselves are entirely unsuited to dealing with guerrilla warfare, and they burn up fuel like motherfuckers. This is just more money down the drain in the failing US campaign in Afghanistan.
posted by Despondent_Monkey at 9:46 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

...Gen. Petraeus is worthy of being elected President.

Oh Jebus, I just had a grim vision of the future.
posted by DU at 9:47 AM on November 19, 2010

I don't understand why we are still there.

Catch bin Laden Destroy al Qaeda Keep the Taliban out Make Afghanistan a non-corrupt democracy (Check your preferred news source for breaking updates.)

Actually, the Canadian government has been quite clear on the mission in Afghanistan, for it is a very noble one. It is "to achieve progress in three critical and interrelated areas of activity for the period 2006-11: security; governance, including the rule of law, human rights and tackling corruption; and economic and social development."

Now, this might need some translation from the original Canuckistani. By "progress," the Harper government means "gain enough in the polls to call an election and win a majority, or else at least not suffer any significant losses in those polls." This is the definition of progress until 2011. After 2011, progress on secuirty, governance and economic and social development is defined as training the Afghans to run their own professional military to pursue these goals, where "training" is understood to mean leaving an indeterminate number of advisors in the country to conduct classes in being good officers for a couple of years, because that is all that remains in the project of building a professional volunteer military and establishing the rule of law in Afghanistan, both of which will lead inexorably to a stable, peaceful, democratic Afghanistan, and if they don't we never said they would.

It should be further understood that the Canadian government never suggested that its own mission would end in a stable democracy in Afghanistan. That's preposterous. The mission was always and remains a process of becoming, a Zen foreign policy where the journey is the destination.
posted by gompa at 9:48 AM on November 19, 2010 [11 favorites]

We never should have gone in.


It's like swatting at flies with a sledgehammer over there - we miss what we want to hit, break a bunch of innocent stuff, and the fly just buzzes over into the next room.
posted by r_nebblesworthII at 9:48 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

What exactly are we doing over there now? Just fucking with people?

Winning hearts and minds.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:53 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but we know what we're doing.

We're not blinded by ideology like those Soviet fools were.

I've always thought that the reality of the situation is that it's never been about 'winning' (if such an amorphous condition is even possible) in Afghanistan. Fundamentally, the war boils down to three things: resources, politics, and China. Afghanistan is a boon for the national security apparatus and the war industry, and it provides great political cover for the government to implement more security theater.

The US national security elite want to portray China as the great new enemy of the US so they can justify their own continued existence. From that stems their desire to 'contain' China, and they've cooked up this inane strategy of 'encirclement' that they think will succeed. They think that if they can just 'project' US military power in Asia, that they can counter China's rise as a regional and global power.

But they are too stupid to realize that China knows this game and isn't playing it.

Barring significant domestic instability, all the Chinese have to do is sit back, develop economically, and watch the US implode - and that's precisely what they are doing.
posted by Despondent_Monkey at 9:54 AM on November 19, 2010 [8 favorites]

I found a copy of Mao's little red book in the library not long ago, translated by a US Army General back in 1950-something. The copy I found was the third edition, with a new forward written in 1976.

His new forward was essentially an extended "I told you so but you wouldn't listen" citing Vietnam as a perfect example of his point. It seems that he was something of a visionary back in the 1950's and realized that guerrilla war was the coming thing. Per his later forward he was roundly ignored by the entire military establishment which was then enchanted with atomic weapons.

At the time of his 1976 forward he was convinced that conventional war was futile in the face of the development of guerrilla war. He said that his analysis showed that a properly conducted guerrilla war could wear down any occupying military unless that military was willing to commit genocide. The guerrilla forces couldn't, he said, actually win as long as the occupying military was willing to keep spending blood and treasure, but they could prevent actual victory by the occupiers and force them to continue spending blood and treasure until they got sick of it and left.

I see no reason to believe that the situation has changed significantly since 1976. The US military is the most expensive that exists, we spend more on our military than every other nation on the planet combined. And that very expensive military has been completely unable to conquer two poverty stricken nations.

There is no victory to be found in either Iraq or Afghanistan, not without genocide.
posted by sotonohito at 9:56 AM on November 19, 2010 [14 favorites]

Gen. Petraeus is worthy of being elected President.

With a name like an imperial Roman, who needs elections?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:56 AM on November 19, 2010

Winning hearts and minds.

In related news -- Study: Few Afghans know about 9/11, reason for war -- "92 percent of men in key province are unaware of 2001 attacks on U.S."
posted by ericb at 10:00 AM on November 19, 2010 [4 favorites]

What exactly are we doing over there now? Just fucking with people?

New mission, same as the last.
posted by yeloson at 10:02 AM on November 19, 2010

Sounds like job one, ericb, ought to be building more schools.
posted by notyou at 10:05 AM on November 19, 2010

It's funny how much supposition is going on as to the "real motives" of the military in bringing in 16 tanks. Of course, it couldn't have anything to do with the stated aims of providing more accurate artillery (thereby killing fewer civilians accidentally) that's faster to deploy than airstrikes.

Lessee, limited information plus bias means speculate, right?
posted by klangklangston at 10:13 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

cf. The Beast.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:14 AM on November 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders — the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia"
posted by Prince_of_Cups at 10:29 AM on November 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

(Maybe NSFW)
posted by dirigibleman at 10:33 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm surprised they hadn't deployed tanks as well. In any event, the folks the Marines are after would do well to steer clear of the M1 Abrams, as it has proven almost impossible to destroy and incredibly lethal. The Soviets deployed T62s and T72s in the Afghan war, and both were vulnerable to RPGs and relatively primitive anti-tank missiles. You can knock the track of an Abrams with such weapons, which effectively immobilizes it. That, however, won't stop it from killing you forthwith.
posted by MarshallPoe at 10:39 AM on November 19, 2010

Canada has had a tank squadron --- about 16 from Lord Strathcona's Horse from Edmonton---in Afghanistan since 2006. Most of the Canadian deaths in Afghanistan have been caused by IEDs during vehicle transport. The LAV IIIs most of our troops use for transport have proven to be vulnerable to roadside bombs. The Leopards 2's are not (no one has died in one in our deployment there that I can tell, the only death associated with the tanks was one Corporal Hornburg who was killed while fixing one). Canadian troop deployment was switching to helicopter rather than ground supply, but ground capability is always necessary, and having a vehicle capable of going over stone walls and over dry gulches has been very effective compared with the wheeled LAV IIIs.

The surprising thing to me is that the US forces haven't had tanks there before now. They know how vulnerable the Striker LAV is from Iraq. Whether or not you think it's a good idea to be prosecuting a war there or not, my view is that I'd like them to have the proper tools for the job and to minimize my fellow citizens' risks while they are there.
posted by bonehead at 10:44 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Lessee, limited information plus bias means speculate, right?

There is no military reason to use tanks now that did not exist 9 years ago.

If you believe that this is militarily advised, you must perforce conclude that the conduct of the war has been bungled to date.

Or, you know, you could just assume that the military's stated positions are lies. Is there a significant episode of Pentagon truth-telling of which perhaps I'm unaware?
posted by Joe Beese at 10:46 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

There is no military reason to use tanks now that did not exist 9 years ago.

Couldn't that just mean that there should have been tanks in use 9 years ago?
posted by shakespeherian at 11:10 AM on November 19, 2010

There is no military reason to use tanks now that did not exist 9 years ago.

If you believe that this is militarily advised, you must perforce conclude that the conduct of the war has been bungled to date.

(Former distinguished armor technician AKA dumb-ass tanker here)

Well, yeah, it has been to a certain point. This is basically a repeat of what happened in Somalia - we didn't deploy tanks there because we were concerned about the negative image they imply. Infantry can be used for lots of things, like humanitarian missions, guard duty, etc. Tanks can be used for two things: destroying tanks (their primary design purpose) and destroying other things. They can't save people or stand guard - they need infantry support in the field.

But if a military mission involves combat, tanks are very useful for providing support to the infantry. They're for all intents and purposes indestructable. The Taliban doesn't have anything that can destroy an M1A1. They can accompany mechanized infantry on patrols, and they can suppress resistance very quickly - there's nothing like a 120MM HE round to make people want to be somewhere else.

The military sent a single tank company. A company consists of about 20 or so tanks (in the US Army at least) so we're not talking about a major projection of force here - these tanks are going to be split up in platoons or pairs and used to accompany motorized infantry.

If you think there's a valid reason for us to have troops in Afghanistan in the first place, this is a good and perfectly justified bit of news. If you don't, it doesn't change anything anyway. It does mean that there will almost certainly be a lower percentage of US casualties. I think it makes it likely there'll be a lower percentage of Afghan casualties (no matter which side they're on) as tanks are better directed at specific targets than artillery or aircraft.
posted by me & my monkey at 11:14 AM on November 19, 2010 [10 favorites]

Not sure where I'm going with this, except that the military doesn't seem to be the Presidential incubator some people seem to think it is.

If you're only talking "generals," as in "leads massive numbers of troops," then I think there are 6 presidents, and a slew of also-rans, who fit the bill:

1. George Washington (Revolutionary War)
2. Andrew Jackson (New Orleans, Seminole Wars)
3. William Henry Harrison (Ohio Indian Wars)
4. Zachary Taylor (War of 1812, Indian Wars, Mexican American War)
5. Ulysses S. Grant (Civil War)
6. Eisenhower (World War II)

This is just *generals*. Many presidents, especially in the 20th century, can point to military service of some sort. Teddy Roosevelt and the volunteer Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, Taft was military governor of the Philippines, Truman fought in World War I, John F. Kennedy made quite a reputation for himself in WWII, Johnson was commissioned into the military during WWII despite being a sitting congressman, Nixon also fought in WWII, as did Ford and Bush I. Carter was a naval submariner, but did not fight.

So: Of 43 men to hold the office of the President, 14% held some position of high command prior to their election. However, 15 of the 43 (35%) held military rank prior to election. So, what, 1 in 3? Maybe not an incubator, but certainly doesn't hurt, especially when you compare those percentages to the percentage of the general population that served.

If you look at ONLY the 20th century, it's even more stark. Starting with Roosevelt in 1901, of the 18 men elected to the office, exactly half (9) held military rank of some sort.

So, I think the idea that a successful military career aids one's election chances is born out by reality, especially in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras.

I might be forgetting some, since I'm relying on memory and the Presidents of the US display in my classroom.
posted by absalom at 11:16 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, I can hardly see how equipping educators and firefighters with tanks would do them much good.

You lack vision. I can think of few better ways to solve the many problems facing America's educational establishment than to give them the advanced military weaponry and logistics support necessary to invade and occupy a major city.
posted by Naberius at 11:35 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Fair enough, absalom. I do think there's a difference between military rank of some sort and hgih command; you can't really say that Truman and Eisenhower, for instance, had much in common as far as military prep for the Presidency.

I do feel like a grade-A moron for forgetting Grant.
posted by COBRA! at 11:39 AM on November 19, 2010

But if a military mission involves combat, tanks are very useful for providing support to the infantry. They're for all intents and purposes indestructable. The Taliban doesn't have anything that can destroy an M1A1. They can accompany mechanized infantry on patrols, and they can suppress resistance very quickly - there's nothing like a 120MM HE round to make people want to be somewhere else.


I'm guessing that this is the Marine Corps "hacking" the rules of engagement in Afghanistan. They want to be able to call in air support or artillery in close support on some compound they are raiding but have too go too far up the chain of command. If they attach a tank to the platoon then they can just park it a mile away and send in the shells when requested...

but maybe I'm wrong. If that's so, it says a lot about the success of the current US 'counterinsurgency" strategy if the opinion on the ground is "if we just had a bigger hammer..."
posted by ennui.bz at 11:41 AM on November 19, 2010

Q: Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?
A: Because they're there.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:43 AM on November 19, 2010

If you look at ONLY the 20th century, it's even more stark. Starting with Roosevelt in 1901, of the 18 men elected to the office, exactly half (9) held military rank of some sort.


That's not really surprising. Since WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam all had a draft, it seems pretty likely that most of the presidents of the 20th century would've seen some military service.
posted by electroboy at 11:48 AM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm guessing that this is the Marine Corps "hacking" the rules of engagement in Afghanistan.

That's a very apt ... and likely true ... observation. The Marines really like the idea of not having to rely on anyone else.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:55 AM on November 19, 2010

It's funny how much supposition is going on as to the "real motives" of the military in bringing in 16 tanks. Of course, it couldn't have anything to do with the stated aims of providing more accurate artillery (thereby killing fewer civilians accidentally) that's faster to deploy than airstrikes.

After 9 years, eventually 3 trillion dollars, and packs upon packs of lies, it takes a special amount of credulity to keep faith in the DoD.

"We know where [the WMDs] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

"The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks or five months. But it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead." -Donald Rumsfeld

posted by notion at 11:57 AM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Of 43 men to hold the office of the President, 14% held some position of high command prior to their election.

Those guys won decisive victories in (for the most part) popular wars. Military experience--even combat experience--hasn't been an advantage in most of the presidential elections since 1992.

1992: Vietnam-era draft-dodger Clinton beat World War II combat veteran George H.W. Bush.
1996: Clinton beat wounded World War II combat veteran Bob Dole.
2000: Vietnam-era National Guard-shirker George W. Bush beat enlisted-for-Vietnam veteran Al Gore.
2004: Bush beat enlisted-for-Vietnam wounded war hero John Kerry.
2008: Barack Obama, with no military experience, beat wounded Vietnam veteran/POW John McCain.

Kerry and McCain both made their military experience an explicit part of their campaigns.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:02 PM on November 19, 2010

If you're only talking "generals," as in "leads massive numbers of troops," then I think there are 6 presidents, and a slew of also-rans, who fit the bill

No one really cares about the Presidents between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, but, of them, Hayes, Garfield, and Harrison were all generals in the Civil War. Harrison doesn't really count because he got promoted in March of 1865 and (at least if you believe the Wikipedia version of events) was a general just long enough for the victory parade. Garfield and Hayes were both legit generals, though.
posted by Copronymus at 12:28 PM on November 19, 2010

Winning hearts and minds.

Few Afghans in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, Taliban strongholds where fighting remains fiercest, know why foreign troops are in Afghanistan, says the "Afghanistan Transition: Missing Variables" report to be released later on Friday.

posted by regicide is good for you at 12:35 PM on November 19, 2010

So when are we pulling out again? Have we been given a concrete date or are we still playing the bait and switch game?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 1:36 PM on November 19, 2010

The next six months are when we are going to find out whether a decent outcome is possible.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:59 PM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

"July 2011 is etched in stone." -- General Petraeus, June 2010

General Petraeus says US troop exit date 'not set in stone' -- August 2010
posted by kirkaracha at 2:02 PM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

But then Petraeus is a liar:

Inside the Oval Office, Obama asked Petraeus, "David, tell me now. I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in 18 months?"

"Sir, I'm confident we can train and hand over to the ANA [Afghan National Army] in that time frame," Petraeus replied.

"Good. No problem," the president said. "If you can't do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?"

"Yes, sir, in agreement," Petraeus said.

"Yes, sir," Mullen said.

The president was crisp but informal. "Bob, you have any problems?" he asked Gates, who said he was fine with it.

The president then encapsulated the new policy: in quickly, out quickly, focus on Al Qaeda, and build the Afghan Army. "I'm not asking you to change what you believe, but if you don't agree with me that we can execute this, say so now," he said. No one said anything.

"Tell me now," Obama repeated.

"Fully support, sir," Mullen said.

"Ditto," Petraeus said.

posted by kirkaracha at 2:03 PM on November 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

The Taliban doesn't have anything that can destroy an M1A1.

I really hope you don't believe this. Improvised weapons take M1's out of action all the time in Iraq, and they will do so in Afghanistan as well.
posted by hamida2242 at 2:04 PM on November 19, 2010

The next six months are when we are going to find out whether a decent outcome is possible.

Friedman jokes don't get enough love around here, so have a quote in addition to the favorite.
posted by hamida2242 at 2:07 PM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Few Afghans in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, Taliban strongholds where fighting remains fiercest, know why foreign troops are in Afghanistan...

regicide is good for you: We already know that. ; )
posted by ericb at 2:53 PM on November 19, 2010

Which brings us to an Op-Ed today in the International Herald-Tribune written by the president. It is notable because, in contrast to his 2009 remarks, Obama's emphasis is hardly on getting out of Afghanistan.

The section of the Op-Ed on Afghanistan notes the new non-deadline -- "the end of 2014" -- for a "transition to Afghan responsibility." But it emphasizes an "enduring commitment" and "lasting partnership," and promises that the Afghans will not "stand alone."
posted by Joe Beese at 2:56 PM on November 19, 2010

...says the "Afghanistan Transition: Missing Variables" report to be released later on Friday.

The report: Afghanistan Transition: Missing Variables [PDF]
posted by ericb at 2:56 PM on November 19, 2010

I'll just reiterate what gottabefunky commented: anyone curious about 20th century Afghan history really should watch the excellent and under-rated 1988 war movie The Beast, which kinda plays out like a Vietnam-style scenario.
posted by ovvl at 3:31 PM on November 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

regicide is good for you: We already know that. ; )

Oops! Sorry. I did scan comments for the link, honestly.
posted by regicide is good for you at 3:40 PM on November 19, 2010

hey now
posted by clavdivs at 5:40 PM on November 19, 2010

When you're wounded an' left on Afghanistan's plains
An' the women come out to cut up your remains
Jus' roll to your rifle an' blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
posted by clavdivs at 5:45 PM on November 19, 2010

Oops! Sorry. I did scan comments for the link, honestly.

Great minds think alike! ; )
posted by ericb at 5:49 PM on November 19, 2010

A large enough IED or an RPG29 will take out an M1. They've got to know how dumb this is.
posted by longbaugh at 7:48 PM on November 19, 2010

Fuck, it would be cheaper and more effective to just buy out the Taliban. We should be sending lobbyists over there.
posted by Xoebe at 9:13 PM on November 19, 2010

How many RPG-29s do the Taliban have? Are they going to be able to get appropriate training? The big IED is a similiar problem. Can they get it in place to be effective.
posted by humanfont at 9:25 PM on November 19, 2010

How many RPG-29s do the Taliban have?

A lot. But that doesn't even matter.

Improvised bombs can easily damage a tank or even just throw a track (then the Taliban can blow up the recovery vehicle too, when it comes to tow out the damaged tank). Ask the self-described "dumb-ass tanker" (not that tankers are inherently dumb- I've known some pretty smart ones) in this thread how much maintenance those tanks require, and how many long muddy hours he's spent putting a track back together or un-fucking a tank that got caught on some unexpected terrain feature. Hunting rifles can blow out the aiming scopes, to say nothing of heavy-duty anti-armor rifles. Ask the tanker what a mobility-kill or a mission-kill is, and how easily those are accomplished compared to a C-Kill (catastrophic kill, usually involving the turret being blown completely off the tank).

The tanker even admits it: the main function of an M1 tank is to blow up a Soviet tank coming across the Fulda Gap in some impossible Clancy scenario. The secondary function is to blow up other things. And he so much as admits that anything worth blowing up in Afghanistan can be done much easier and cheaper with a missile from a jet or a drone-plane. So, what will happen with 20 tanks being set to Afghanistan? Well, the third of them down for maintenance at any given time will enrich the contractors fixing them, and the other contractors making the spare parts. And some more Americans will die- this time in tanks rather than Hummers- and quite a lot more Afghans will die as well. But the right people will get rich, and lucrative contracts will be written to produce "battle-tested" technology to be sold or given to the Israelis.
posted by hamida2242 at 10:54 PM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

If only we could find some Hessians to drive the tanks for us.
posted by surplus at 6:47 AM on November 20, 2010

...the main function of an M1 tank is to blow up a Soviet tank coming across the Fulda Gap in some impossible Clancy scenario. The secondary function is to blow up other things.

Spencer Ackerman:

Behold the U.S.’s new counterinsurgency tool in Afghanistan: the M1 Abrams tank, your ultimate in 30-year old precision firepower.

Increasingly distant are the days when Defense Secretary Robert Gates worried aloud about replicating the Soviet Union’s failed heavy footprint in Afghanistan. Under the command of General David Petraeus, the military’s leading advocate of counterinsurgency, an unconventional war is looking surprisingly conventional. ...

In April 2009, Gates cautioned in a CNN interview, “The Soviets were in there with 110,000, 120,000 troops. They didn’t care about civilian casualties. And they couldn’t win." ... But now NATO, all combined, has 130,000 troops in Afghanistan. The numbers of civilians killed in the war is at an all-time high, despite a U.S. strategy predicated on protecting Afghans from violence. And starting today in Lisbon, NATO will endorse a strategy that will keep troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014, even while it holds 2014 out as the new date for foreign forces to cease combat.

If the purpose of repurposing tanks, missiles and air strikes for unconventional conflict is to pummel the Taliban into suing for peace with the Afghan government, Mullah Omar still rejects any negotiations with President Karzai. From his safe haven in Pakistan, can he really be “awed and shocked” into changing his mind? It’s almost as if a different superpower has tried this before.

posted by Joe Beese at 7:52 AM on November 20, 2010

Yeah, I'm not sure what that link was supposed to do, aside from provide the same basic glib assertions that you make all the time. I mean, like, start with the assertion that the numbers of civilians are at an all-time high. The most recent data that I've been able to find is from the UNAMA, who say that while civilian casualties were up during the first six months of the year 31% from the previous year, that those aren't the highest ever — which was in 2002, and that the 31% increase follows four solid years of decreases. You could always argue that the number (not numbers) of civilian casualties is at an all time high, but that's true everywhere and about everything: the number of people who have died in the United States is always at an all time high, just like the number of people born.

Even Ackerman realizes how thin his argument is:

In April 2009, Gates cautioned in a CNN interview, “The Soviets were in there with 110,000, 120,000 troops. They didn’t care about civilian casualties. And they couldn’t win.” Sixteen tanks do not remotely approach what the Soviets sent to occupy Afghanistan. And the proportion of civilians killed by the Taliban vastly dwarf those killed by NATO forces.

At a certain point, it just gets to be that many anti-war activists are against war in all its forms. Therefore, any point about the war will always support the argument that war is bad and we should stop fighting. Anything that disagrees will be dismissed as lies from the military-industrial complex.

For me, that's where a lot of the conversation breaks down. When you disagree on goals, it's hard to agree on tactics, and the question of tanks is a question of tactics. If you start out with the presumption that the war is bad, of course sending tanks over there is bad. Doing anything more in Afghanistan is bad. And I can understand and respect that position, but in that case the tanks are immaterial.

In this case, the tanks really do seem immaterial — their impact for conversation is entirely ideological. Sixteen tanks just don't matter all that much, and if their stated aim is to decrease civilian casualties and allow the US troops to be more effective against the Taliban, fine, in six months we can see whether that was true. I don't think that the 16 tanks will have much of a measurable effect either way.

But Ackerman's argument basically can be paraphrased as The Soviets did this and the Soviets lost. But the goals of the Soviets were different in pretty significant ways from the goals of the US and NATO, and the reasons that the Soviets lost in Afghanistan have just as much to do with Soviet agricultural policy in the steppes as Afghanistan. It's just as silly as when right-wingers want to argue that the USSR had universal health care and see where it got them!
posted by klangklangston at 11:43 AM on November 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

hamida2242, I believe you have seriously misunderstood me & my monkey if the point you took away was that he "so much as admits" that air support is better for grunts than a M1A1/2. You will not find a combat infantryman anywhere who would rather have air support for the kind of ambush attacks we encounter in Afghanistan. Your information about the reliability and vulnerability of the Abrams class tank is inaccurate. The suggestion that tracked vehicles are highly vulnerable in that theater runs afoul of a lot of practical experience with Leopards, Warriors, Marders, CV90s and of course Bradleys. Can they break? Sure. But your image of the broken down tanker in the mud changing his track is, ummm, dated.

Contractors will certainly continue to get rich in Afghanistan and we probably should get the hell out of there post-haste, but anyone who intends to stop an M1 with a RPG-29 is almost certain to have a very bad day. It is certainly theoretically possible that an RPG round could stop an Abrams from close enough, but isn't the most likely outcome by a long shot. Lots and lots of RPG rounds have been bounced of MBTs. Tanks are most vulnerable from above -- IEDs are not going to bring down a modern tank and are almost as unlikely to even do any significant damage. We know a ton about what armored vehicles can take from IEDs.

I guess the bottom line for me is that if we are going send our brothers and sons and increasingly daughters to fight a war, we should provide them with the best tools we have to do the job -- not reserve some weapons that have bad PR value. If we are concerned about the PR risk of sending a tank, we should probably consider about the PR risk of sending an entire fucking army.
posted by Lame_username at 2:25 PM on November 20, 2010 [4 favorites]

For me, that's where a lot of the conversation breaks down. When you disagree on goals, it's hard to agree on tactics, and the question of tanks is a question of tactics. If you start out with the presumption that the war is bad, of course sending tanks over there is bad. Doing anything more in Afghanistan is bad. And I can understand and respect that position, but in that case the tanks are immaterial.

OK, but the troubling thing is this war has outlasted any other we've fought. That's not to say we couldn't get involved in another 100-years war, but the drain on resources and the goodwill of the public is significant. Eventually, given enough time, war will turn everyone into a peace activist. We don't have a draft, of course, but how much longer can the nation support purely conscripted troops, financially and morally?

I think a big problem now is that even modest goals might be out of reach, and we may have to cede control rather than leave peacefully and gently guide development after. This means we may very well continue to have a similar relationship to Afghanistan as we always have, rather than a new one based on shared goals and values, and the longer we're there the less we relate to the local people's sense of values, who have not wanted us there for most of the span of this war. Afghanistan is a fairly significant piece of land from a strategic POV, both military and economic, but not if it endlessly drains resources and if staying becomes an entrenched position due to the necessity to save face. I honestly thought Bush would have claimed victory and brought the troops back before the end of his 2nd term, just because the image of his accomplishments seemed more important than the reality to him- but it could be he did care about the conclusion in reality and simply was in way over his head and could not find a graceful exit, mostly for listening to the wrong people's advice. In contrast, I know Obama wants a decisive victory and meaningful conclusion with Afghanistan as our newly westernized ally, but I am not sure that's possible, if it ever were.
posted by krinklyfig at 4:38 PM on November 20, 2010

but how much longer can the nation support purely conscripted troops, financially and morally?

That was supposed to be mercenary troops, or non-conscripted.
posted by krinklyfig at 4:40 PM on November 20, 2010

Improvised weapons take M1's out of action all the time in Iraq, and they will do so in Afghanistan as well.

Out of action != destroyed. A thrown track doesn't mean crew casualties. And, frankly, that's why tanks operate with infantry support.

how many long muddy hours he's spent putting a track back together or un-fucking a tank that got caught on some unexpected terrain feature.

Not as many as you seem to think, and my experience was within ... significantly worse terrain. The dust is a problem there, but the terrain isn't as bad as it is in Europe - I doubt anyone will completely submerge an M1A1 in mud, for example.

And he so much as admits that anything worth blowing up in Afghanistan can be done much easier and cheaper with a missile from a jet or a drone-plane.

As Lame_username points out, that's not my admission at all. I guess maybe things can be blown up easier from the air, but my point is that it can't be done as quickly or precisely from the air. A tank's main gun is a direct-fire weapon - the world's biggest sniper rifle, if you will. It has several machine guns that can be fired without any crew exposure. It can drop smoke covering a wide area, and has thermal sights that let it shoot through the smoke it just dropped. On the other hand, a tank isn't going to accidentally kill everyone at a wedding ceremony.

And all this about RPG-29s - well, I could find two incidents in Iraq where they were successful against Western MBTs - one M1A1, one Challenger - and that's in urban combat where tanks don't do so well anyway. Afghanistan is not the same as Iraq.
posted by me & my monkey at 5:25 PM on November 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Xeobe: "Fuck, it would be cheaper and more effective to just buy out the Taliban. We should be sending lobbyists over there."

Why is this not an idea worth considering? If one outcome of the direct application of force is a stronger Taliban, what is there to lose by trying to sell (educate) them on the idea of becoming a responsible political entity?
posted by sneebler at 1:38 PM on November 21, 2010

Yeah, that doesn't really work because the Taliban have a fairly nihilistic view of democracy. It's like asking why we can buy the foxes out of the henhouse.
posted by klangklangston at 4:30 PM on November 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

I don't know how they feel about democracy - they're a group of religious fanatics with a hierarchical organization reflecting the traditional Islamic societies where they function.

They are poor. Afghanistan and Pakistan are poor countries. Poor people fighting the imperialist oppressor need help from... Why hello there Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It's not a stretch to think that some kind of generous deal (don't ask me what kind would sell back home in the US) might get the Taliban thinking that it might be not such a bad idea to get some support via less-than-obvious channels from The West.

The principle is that once they've invested in any kind of relationship, they're more amenable to working towards a stable food supply (American-style democracy might be a few steps further down the road). But that's better than the likely future of the current situation: fight until the war becomes unsupportable back home and then pull out, leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban. Kind of a waste of effort, but even that seems like one of the more optimistic outcomes, at this stage.
posted by sneebler at 9:43 PM on November 21, 2010

First off, the US history of buying off warlords has had some pretty assy results, even right exactly where we're talking about. Second, we're fighting a bunch of different groups in Afghanistan, who are only "the Taliban" for narrative convenience. The actual Taliban, and their ideological brethren in the Osama bin Laden branch of Al Qaeda, don't regard democracy as a legitimate way of establishing a government. They're radical in the same way that the Bolsheviks under Lenin were radical, or the Nazi party. Their idea of participating in government is dismantling democratic and liberal institutions. In order to be a functional state, Afghanistan needs democratic and liberal institutions.

We're already buying off warlords and providing development aid, but because of the nature of asymetrical warfare, it's always going to be easier for the Taliban to control the news cycle with attacks than it is to point to any preventions.

And something else that's missed in a lot of these discussions is that the Taliban is pretty unpopular in Afghanistan. Lately, they've been killing foreign aid workers, the most notable ones being the eye doctors. The aid workers are the only way that a lot of Afghans get basic services, since the government isn't able to provide them, especially rural Afghans.
posted by klangklangston at 12:20 AM on November 22, 2010

On the plus side, I understand the Army's locked in a dynamite cast (inculding Nick Cage!) for The Beast 2: The Beast Is Back & they're negotiating with Burger King & McDonald's for merch deals. It may not pay for the entire conflict but it should be a nice revenue stream all the same. So there's that.
posted by scalefree at 8:21 AM on November 22, 2010

The Afghan Government and ISAF are trying to cut a deal with the Taliban. That deal could include cash payments to certain warlords. The Taliban arn't strong enough to act alone anymore. The insurgency is actually a coalition of the Traditaional Taliban under Mullah Omar (and Bin Laden), new local taliban / al qaeda affiliated groups and Hisb e Islami under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani leader of the Haqqani network. Recently Hekmatyar gave an interview to German television. ISAF forces have been targeting the Haqqani network with air strikes and raids. Traditional taliban strong holds in Marjah and Khandahar are under direct attack. We hold a number of Hekmatyar's people in Gitmo which gives us some leverage. He's also seen as the weakest since he has flipped sides many times during the last 40 years (he started as a communist IIRC, then was a Mujahadeen, and was even PM of Afghanistan under the Northern Alliance before the fall of Kabul, before going Taliban).
posted by humanfont at 10:36 AM on November 22, 2010

But the goals of the Soviets were different in pretty significant ways from the goals of the US and NATO

Um, in what way? Stabilizing a secular government against religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan seems very familiar. One reason the USSR wasn't successful is we covertly gave the crazy fundamentalists billions of dollars in cash and weapons through Pakistan. Now some Saudis are funding through Pakistan, and so are we.

Got to hand it to the Washington planners, though. They can get the same question wrong twice in the same country in less than 30 years from both sides. It boggles the mind.
posted by notion at 5:29 PM on November 22, 2010