Four-Star General's Report On Afghanistan: A 25-Year War

As U.S. military casualties mount in Afghanistan, a retired four-star Army general, who just returned from reviewing the six-plus-year war effort, said the country "is in misery" and describes the war as "a 25-year campaign."

In a memo written for the Social Sciences Dept. at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on July 30, Barry McCaffrey, a division commander during the 1991 Gulf War and drug czar under President Bill Clinton, writes that there is "no unity of command" -- either among U.S. and foreign coalition troops, or even among U.S. troops. Political and economic contributions to nation-building efforts are an additional source of disunity. Unity of command, in which all forces report to a single commander, is a basic principle of military strategy, without which military campaigns are rarely successful. McCaffrey writes that U.S. forces have two regional commands: European Command, which is also the NATO military command, and Central Command, which directs U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia.

"A sensible coordination of all political and military elements of the Afghan theater of operations does not exist," McCaffrey writes. "There is no single military headquarters tactically commanding all U.S. forces."

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[rollingdivision]

Those who talk about wanting to "achieve victory in Afghanistan." do not understand it's is a fool"s errand to attempt to achieve victory in Afghanistan. If anyone thinks otherwise he's wrong. There will be no victory in Afghanistan as in the sense of having a central national government controlling the country. Afghanistan has never had any controlling central government at best it has had national governments with control over little more than half of the country and tacit working relationships with the tribal leaders in the outlying areas. There will not a victory in Afghanistan in any conventional sense. What we can hope for is to prevent the Taliban, their supporters or someone equally bad from gaining control of the country and government turning the country into a safe haven for terrorist staging again. The military strategy should be having just enough military in Afghanistan to do this and no more. It may take a very long time.

It's is a fools errand to attempt to do anything else. Fools come from all political persuasions. In Afghanistan all the arguments about why we couldn't win in Iraq actually apply. And now we are a developing a political consensus on victory in Afghanistan, sad so many are wrong.

[gakabani]

The British knew it, the Soviets knew it and now it is our turn to repeat the same mistake.

[alfrede]

Hi,

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, President Bush is in wind down mode now counting the days until he hits the fried chicken circuit (and gets paid the big money).

It will be up to the next President to make decisions about Afganistan. Until then we can only hope that it doesn't fall completely apart.

It is unbelievable that our civilian administrators of the miltiary establishment would underresource our men and women in Afganistan. It is too bad that the civilian administrators don't have any relatives there that we know about or the resources would be flowing.

Will the Democrats make an issue of the fact that Afganistan is now the world's largest producer of opium! We can see the results of this fact on the streets of New York and Los Angeles everyday.

What do U think???

[JUSTME]

In all the time we've been in Afghanistan, I've never read or heard the following: At no time in recorded history has a foreign power been able to occupy the country successfully. Brits couldn't do it; Soviets couldn't do it; hell's bells, Alexander the Great couldn't do it!

I understand that we need to get bin Laden. But, in that case, we need to get bin Laden and we need to get the hell out of Afghanistan. The sooner the better.

[blueshield]

Yeah, well, Alexander, Britain and the Soviet Union didn't have THE SURGEtm or someone like J.ohn Mc.Cain, who KNOWS how to win this war.

Just as soon as he figures out where the borders are, those Taliban are toast.

[theMightyT]

bin Laden is somewhere in pakistan, probably.

[debrouillard]

Benazine Bhuto said Bin Laden is dead. She was a senior Pakistani Politician with very excellent connections through out the country.Her source of information and the credibility of her information about anything about and within Pakistan has an almost 0% margin of error.

CNN interrupted her interview the moment she said it,but its on youtube if u wanna search for it.
Theres a reason why you have 140,000 troops in Iraq where there should be no fighting at all and a relatively smaller country both in size and population compared to Afghanistan,where as u only have 23,000 troops in Afghanistan. NATO is reluctant to get very involve in this wars because,
1)they still dont understand why is America fighting in Iraq
2)they see no reason to commit their forces to help America in afghanistan while America itself doesnt think its important,which will be the reason why America has more troops in Iraq than in Afghanistan

[schicklett3]

Don't worry - John McCain's DRAFT will get things straightened out in no time.

[bigdaddyvike]

Hmmm.... the Soviets tried unsuccessfully for how many years to defeat these people (and shared a border with them) How on Earth are we supposed to win this thing. We breed extremism at every turn. The more we send, the more will show up. And we have the next generation of children all growing up as extremists. Future doesn't look too bright for the Afghans.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

My thoughts exactly. We go in and prop up some dictactor, who at some later date, ticks us off so we have to label him a terrorist or drug dealer and voila!!!! Operation Bulls Hit (or whatever stupid name they come up with) is born!!!!

[Norge]

A number of dictators:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com

Enjoy the read.

[Coinyer101]

maybe we shouldnt have wasted all the time,money,and lives in iraq?afghanistan and the northern alliance deserved more effort on our part.instead,bush diverted our attention,and used 'the war on terror' ,to take control of a country that had more to offer.mainly gobs and gobs of oil.unfortunately,he spent the wealth of our nation on it,and he's one of the 'few' who will benefit by it.in the meantime,afghanistani's have no hope for a better life.obama's policy on afghanistan is the proper way to advance our efforts there.i encourage all to read it,as it shows his real foreign policy expertise.he is a very intelligent man.there are other ways to win wars,the military is just ONE of those tools.

[StevieRae]

Putin has got to be laughing his petard off. While we dig ourselves deeper in war and treasury, Russian with its riches from oil is supplanting the US by becoming one of our creditors for a war in Afghanistan that hastened the fall of Russia.

Here we are committing the same tremendous Russian military plunder in a country, which given its difficult terrain coupled with the porous flank from the Pakistani border, will be a very lengthy war indeed. We'll be posting about events in Afghanistan five years from now.

This will be Bush's legacy for the US, with potential perils to our long-term survival yet to be defined.

And like a stuck record we've heard for six and half years, McCain, tells us, "he knows how to win wars." For those countries trying to surpass our economic might and world influence, who do you think they hope wins the election? Clue: it's not that skinny kid.

[blueshield]

Not to worry.

The Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces is in charge

and sends his encouragement to the troops risking their lives and limbs in Gawdawfulstan

from China

where he's enjoying himself

on vacation

watching other young men and women

play sports.

[dadw5boys]

The General also have protected the precious gays in the USA from service in the military. They are just so senstive should not be exposed to such violence and death.

Hooray to the General for protecting the Precious Gays of the USA. The military will just have toi do without their breat language skills, conputer skills, and war lust.

SEE HERE WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT!

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/gays_too_precious_to_risk_in

[meanguy]

well, thank God our glorious democrat controlled house and senate are on the job...

oooopsie...

[blueshield]

If you want to know about "on the job", in 2005 -6, when the Republican controlled both Houses of the 109th Congress, they voted themselves 281 days of vacation...while Iraq was crumbling and Godawfulstan was bleeding and the "energy crises" McC is now crying about was building.

[Grunty1]

You mean the Democratic congress who wants more troops in Afghanistan?

Oopsie indeed.

[AmericaninProtest]

Ooopsie indeed. Just in case you haven't heard, white house is being investigated for providing deceptive and false information to the house and senate. Ooopsie.

[Sumocat]

His opinion is similar to those who called for the Marines to take over operations in Afghanistan, while the Army deals with Iraq. While it was questioned whether the Marines had the manpower for such an undertaking, if they were officially in charge with forces from other branches under their command, we would have seen the unity of command that McCaffrey claims is missing.

[AmericaninProtest]

All of us Americans should face it, we fought the wrong war. We need not be active participants but we stood silent and watched boosh get re-elected by 'rove' dirty tactics and deception. It is time we take our country back by voting for the right candidate. I will take intelligence, reason and rational thinking over 26 years of political 'experience'.

"Never will those who wage war tire of deception" (quote from the Art of War)

[helonias]

Well just think how bad it would be if we didn't have such experienced folks like Cheney and Rummy waging it.

[PADDYWHACK]

He'll make LeMay look like a pacifist.Last in the class [Annapolis] doesn't qualify you to be CinC.He has to win one war before he dies,God help the Middle East.

[YesWeCanada]

Hamid Karzai and the warlords are no better then the mainstream Taliban. The West should only care about peace and stability. They need to reverse 90% military, 10% diplomacy with the opposite. You can't defeat an insurgency over a reasonable time with mainly military. Take Iraq for example. The surge in troops helped with security and stability but the main reason for the turn around was the major diplomatic breakthroughs. The Anbar awakening and Shiite militia ceasefire arrangements were far more significant.

PS. Barry McCaffrey is a b o o b.

[independent32955]

agree on the boob comment, disagree that there have been major political breakthroughs...what are they? the iraqi government hasn't done anything of consequence regarding the laws we said we were giving them cover to produce.

[YesWeCanada]

Diplomatic breakthroughs with non-state actors have been positive. There has been only negliagable political breakthroughs between various factions of the Iraqi government. The US can be credited with the Anbar awakening. Iran can be credited with the Shiite militia ceasefire.

[OlderBudWeiser]

McCain must be salivating over the possibility of a 25 year war. He won't even live that long. No leadership. Hopefully Obama can get us out of this quick sand.
Don't think there's any oil under Afghanistan, no reason to stay. Right Mr. Bush?