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How’d you spend your day? Here’s how I spent mine: reporting on the two most influential players in Obama’s Afghanistan debate you’ve never read about. They’re two Special Operations leaders, JSOC commander Vice Adm. William McRaven and Vice Adm. Robert Harward, who was a deputy to McChrystal back when McChrystal ran JSOC. Exclusive from the Washington Independent:
Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, the deputy leader of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., are attending and informing the strategy meetings that the White House began in September to refine its approach in Afghanistan. Both men have deep ties to Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the war. They are said to favor large infusions of U.S. troops to Afghanistan for performing counterinsurgency operations in select population centers, but they also advocate marshalling forces to pursue terrorists across Afghanistan’s rugged, mountainous terrain — a task in which McRaven plays a key role.
Debate about a “purely counterterrorism strategy” advocated by Vice President Joseph Biden was “bounced around at one point, but that has been cast aside,” said a National Security Council staffer who attends the meetings and who asked for anonymity because the debate is still ongoing, “mostly because JSOC has said ‘We’re going to do this anyway.’ And it’s not like they’re going to be in a supporting role.” Biden’s advice, which had practically no support from the armed services, was that the military should shy away from protecting the Afghan people and helping build Afghan governing institutions, and instead focus on the JSOC specialties of going after terrorists directly.
There’s a ton of additional reporting in there and I worked really hard on this, so if you don’t click through and read the whole thing I’m going to take it personally. It’s hard to break news about the Obama Afghanistan strategy review and it’s really hard to break news about anyone related to JSOC so, you know, please read this.
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So how did these guys end up in the JSOC? Do they have SEAL backgrounds or are they regular navy types?
Ok. 2 questions come to mind immediately.
First, how comfortable should we be having American Strategic National Security Policy established by the leaders of the “nether regions”? I gotta say, that would concern the hell out of me. People whose focus is tac ops cannot be expected to make good decisions on a nation-to-nation or strategic basis.
Second, yes, of COURSE “they’re doing it already” (counter-terror ops in a counter-insurgency environment). But c’mon, nobody seriously believes it looks the same within the framework of population security and nation building as it would if it was the PRIMARY doctrine. And if it does then the different commands are working at cross purposes. So it’s more than meaningless, it’s intended to obscure the fact that a decision to double down in support of the Afghan government is going to impact the flexibility and effectiveness of the US counter terror program in country…
mikey
Legendary 74 year old Billy Waugh, a Special Forces warrior turned covert operator in Afghanistan has a very low opinion of Navy Seals. He thinks they are hairy knuckled neanderthals with no finesse, language skills or cultural awareness. They like to kick in doors, blow things up, kill everything that moves then go home and brag about it. Much as I admire Billy Waugh I have a feeling he may be wrong about Admirals Harward & McRaven. I am starting to feel slightly less apprehensive about President Obama’s take on the situation in Afghanistan.
I read the piece and found it to be great as usual. I am of course just a regular guy who is trying to figure this out rather than someone with a military background but the one reason I keep coming back here is because for as much info as you cram into your posts, they just seem to be easier to understand than a lot of other folks.
Having said that I was reading this piece and a light bulb kind of went off for me about the thing that I don’t think myself or most other regular folks are really getting a good idea of when it comes to this Afghanistan strategy. Regardless of how many more troops are sent over there, where will they be and what will they be doing?
Here is my thing, people keep saying stuff like to do the job right we really need hundreds of thousands of troops because of how expansive Afghanistan is. BUT if we aren’t really trying to hold/conquer/colonize the whole country but instead are just focusing on the population centers then I could see us not needing all those troops. But then the question is won’t the insurgents/terrorists/Taliban just move operations to the non population centers?
I have from day one agreed with our need to be there and that fact hasn’t wavered at all in my mind but I have to admit that the picture is getting really hazy for me. I think we screwed the pooch so bad to begin with that we probably need to do a lot more than just look out for just our interests and have to “fix” some of the things we broke over there. However where is the limit to that?
Let me put it in an analogy. Right now over here we have a pretty substantial fringe group of people who don’t believe President Obama is an American citizen let alone the rightful POTUS. Many of them have made death threats and are advocating armed insurrection. I don’t think any of us believe that anything of the sort will come close to happening but it is what it is. Now over in Afghanistan its all but acknowledged that Karzai stole the election there and a substantial section of the country doesn’t seem him as legitimate. But they actually WILL take up arms and try to if not take back the whole country at least assert local dominance and reject Karzai’s government in favor of the Taliban or some other group. And if that is the case, should we really be the referee for that?
I don’t know man, this stuff is all very confusing to me at this point. And I have a strong suspicion that most people, even those who advocate for a pull out or those who advocate for “listening to the Generals” are just as confused as I am whether they will ever admit it or not.
I read the article and recommended it to other people. It was very informative and gave me a different perspective. Many thanks.