Last week I wrote about the fanciful “progress” talk about Afghanistan coming out of General Petraeus’ shop, showing that the security situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate even in areas held up by the military as positive examples. One of the facets of this drivel with which I took particular issue was the assertion of a “comprehensive civil and military effort” in Kandahar. A new report (.pdf) out today by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) further deflates that false narrative.

Recall that in Carlotta Gall’s NYT piece, she wrote:

“Unlike the Marja operation, [military and other administration officials] say, the one in Kandahar is a comprehensive civil and military effort that is changing the public mood as well as improving security.”

As I pointed out last week, military officials repeatedly described Marjah (yes, that Marjah) as a “comprehensive civil-military campaign,” so it’s laughable that we should buy that kind of description as an assurance that the push into Kandahar won’t a) fail spectacularly, or b) turn out like Marjah. But the association of the phrase “comprehensive civil and military effort” with Marjah isn’t the only reason we should be really, really worried.

SIGAR’s latest report audits the implementation of the “civilian surge” meant to accompany the military troop increase. The report raises several concerns about the civilian side of the “civil and military effort,” including:

* the effectiveness and quality of training for field personnel;
* the level of agency guidance for field work;
* the application of models for civilian-military integration;
* civilians’ ability to oversee implementing partners;
* the civilian surge’s long-term sustainability; and
* the Embassy’s lack of a formal and systematic mechanism for collecting and implementing best practices and lessons learned.

Reading between the lines of report, we can also see that the civil/military partnership is, shall we say, a bit rocky (emphasis mine):

“improvements were needed in such areas as agency-specific procedures, working within an interagency setting, field conditions, and civilian-military dynamics.”

“Both civilian and military personnel have stated that they would benefit from further training on the precise dynamics and best practices of the civilian-military relationship, as well as more integrated civilian-military training. For example, one official stated that training should include more exercises and scenarios requiring conflict resolution between civilian and military personnel.”

“…an IPA summary of conclusions reached from interviews with approximately 50 State, USAID, and USDA personnel stationed throughout Afghanistan concluded that civilian-military integration is occurring because of personal tenacity rather than institutional planning. The summary added that there are no clear lines of communication for civilians in the field on how to act with the military portion of their PRTs, or how to delineate “taskings” from their military partners.”

This audit is just the latest in a string of reports indicating real trouble not just with the relationship between the civilian and military personnel but with the entire civilian “uplift” itself.

Remember that the U.S.’s idea of a “comprehensive” civilian/military effort is a ratio slightly above one civilian for every 100 military personnel. SIGAR says that the January 2012 personnel target for this uplift is 1,500 personnel. That’s fewer people than live in my little hometown in Texas, and it’s expected to be a “comprehensive” partner for a 100,000+ military force in a country larger than California. Those 1,500 people will face a “lack of clarity from their agencies on various aspects of their work in the field,” unrealistic training for their partnership, and massive logistical challenges. And, as the SIGAR report makes clear, they will also face a lack of respect from military colleagues who deride them as unreliable and ineffective because the arrangement of the civilian presence leaves them out of the information loop even when it comes to civilian-led projects happening in their area of responsibility. This is not a recipe for success, and it certainly cannot be described as a “comprehensive civilian and military campaign.” It’s a military campaign with a civilian fig leaf.

“Comprehensive civilian and military effort” is the new “government in a box.”

We should replace these and other junk phrases with a new counterinsurgency motto: “Over-promise, under-deliver.”

The Afghanistan War isn’t making us safer, and it’s not worth the cost. If you’re tired of the spin, join the tens of thousands of others working to end the war at Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.

Follow Derrick Crowe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/derrickcrowe

Drunken shootouts and debauchery, meaningless death and mayhem — the “Wild West” atmosphere created by the Bush Administration’s criminal initiation and execution of the Iraq War is the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks in part to the rapacious greed injected into war-fighting by the liberal use of for-profit armed “security” companies, a brutal, unaccountable and unreliable swagger is increasingly the face of the U.S. in conflict zones around the world. The latest Wikileaks dump adds a sickening granularity to what Brave New Films showed in our documentary, Iraq For Sale: the use of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan makes a few people very, very rich, but it’s making the rest of us — Americans and local civilians alike — much less safe.

Summarizing the logs released by Wikileaks, the New York Times on October 25 made it clear that fat cat war junkies like Blackwater/Xe’s Erik Prince have sold the American people a toxic bill of goods:

For all the contractors’ bravado — Iraq was packed with beefy men with beards and flak jackets — and for all the debates about their necessity, it is clear from the documents that the contractors appeared notably ineffective at keeping themselves and the people they were paid to protect from being killed.

In fact, the documents seem to confirm a common observation on the ground during those years in Iraq: far from providing insurance against sudden death, the easily identifiable, surprisingly vulnerable pickup trucks and S.U.V.’s driven by the security companies were magnets for insurgents, militias, disgruntled Iraqis and anyone else in search of a target.

Shorter version: people died, are still dying, because of these Humvee-chasing war tychoons’ ineptitude and brutality, and the toll includes their own employees. Worse, even when we know that these Gordon Geeko’s of the war industry oversee a machine that’s killing and maiming innocent people (including U.S. soldiers!), our governments seem unwilling to do anything about it:

…But whatever the constellation of reasons — from war-zone jumpiness to outright disregard for civilian lives — the security companies are cited time after time for shootings that the documents plainly label as unjustified. This has blackened their reputation, even if it has not lessened the military’s dependence on them.

…Many of the companies apparently felt no sense of accountability. Contractors with a Romanian company called Danubia Global killed three Iraqis in Falluja in 2006, another report said, then refused to answer questions on the episode, citing a company policy not to provide information to investigators.

Lest you think this is an attitude unique to Romania, remember that the effort to prosecute Blackwater/Xe is collapsing right here in the U.S., and many of the companies cited for the worst abused continue to get paid to provide their brand of “security” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some of these gun-wielding mercenaries seem to be doing their best to give the Cowboy gang from Tombstone a run for their money in alcohol-fueled carnage:

…And still more recently, in July 2009, local contractors with the 77th Security Company drove into a neighborhood in the northern city of Erbil and began shooting at random, setting off a firefight with an off-duty police officer and wounding three women, another report said.

‘It is assessed that this drunken group of individuals were out having a good time and firing their weapons,’ the incident report concluded.

I’m sure the women injured by the bullets didn’t have a very good time.

Because the U.S. has utterly failed to reign in the hired guns under their authority in Iraq, the saloon-and-pistols atmosphere has spread unchecked to Afghanistan. Remember Wackenhut? If you don’t remember the name, I’m sure you remember the photos of the great job they’ve done “protecting” the U.S. embassy there:

I’m fed up with being humiliated — of seeing our troops in combat zones humiliated! — by the behavior of these unaccountable, brutal mercenary companies. That’s why today, I called 202.224.3121 and told my representative that I want them to support the Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act and phase out the use of armed security contractors. I hope you’ll do the same.

You can learn more about the danger posed by these war profiteers by watching Brave New Foundation’s documentary, Iraq For Sale.

Written by Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe

Another general is working to undercut the president’s prerogatives on Afghanistan. This time, it’s U.S. Marine Corps General James Conway working to frame the July 2011 deadline to start troop withdrawals as something that can be essentially ignored by him and his subordinates. President Obama must ask swiftly and strongly to rein in this new runaway general and get our troops home.

Conway spent an afternoon at the Pentagon on Tuesday undermining the president’s deadline for significant withdrawals starting in July 2011. He started by relaying the admonition of a lance corporal: “Sir, don’t let our country go wobbly on us now.” Then, he let it be known in no uncertain terms that none of “his” Marines would participate in a July 2011 drawdown:

“Finally, though I certainly believe some American units somewhere in Afghanistan will turn over responsibility to Afghan security forces in 2011, I do not think they will be Marines. …I honestly think it will be few years before conditions on the ground are such that turnover will be possible for us.”

The caveat given by Presidents Bush and Obama ad nauseum–”conditions on the ground”–has been widened so far that it threatens to totally neutralize the drawdown portion of the president’s Afghanistan strategy. The entire general officer corps seems to be comfortable openly deriding or dismissing the idea of a significant drawdown in July 2011. President Obama has no one to blame but himself that this keeps happening.

By allowing a string of major administration officials, from General Petraeus to Secretaries Clinton and Gates, to equivocate about July 2011 on Sunday morning talk shows immediately after the West Point speech, Obama, intentionally or not, telegraphed a lack of enthusiasm for the deadline to every stakeholder paying attention. In so doing, he let a narrative develop that the reason he included a deadline was because he had to speak to “multiple audiences.” Among military officials and Washington, D.C. power-holders, a interpretation took hold that the president was placating restless voters with assurances that we shouldn’t take too seriously.

Now, generals under his command openly deride the deadline as a political move. Conway is only able to show such open contempt for a meaningful deadline because Obama sat back and watched while this process took place. The general went so far as to say that the deadline is giving the insurgents “sustenance,” but that’s okay, because they’ll be shocked and demoralized when he and “his” Marines don’t go anywhere.

Just who is running the show here?

President Obama needs to come out right now and reiterate that there will be a drawdown that begins no later than July 2011 and that it will involve significant numbers of U.S. troops. In fact, he should go further: He should set a hard end-date for the combat mission that occurs no later than December 2011.

Right now, there are at least three generals–Petraeus, Conway, and Caldwell–working hard to frame the president’s July 2011 drawdown as something they can essentially ignore when it comes to extending a brutal, costly war that’s not making us safer. If the president doesn’t take the situation in hand and counter the Pentagon’s in-your-face campaign to neuter the drawdown component of the time-limited escalation plan, he risks getting outmaneuvered in the press just like he did when General McChrystal played hardball on last year’s strategy review.

Worse, he’ll have demonstrated to the generals that they, not he, run the show in Afghanistan. If the president doesn’t want this war to devour his legacy and corrode civilian control of the military further, he needs to act swiftly and decisively to get his generals back in line and get our troops home.

If you’re with the almost 60 percent of Americans who oppose the war in Afghanistan, join the tens of thousands of others fighting to end it at Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook.

Follow Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AfghanistanDocu

Sign our act.ly petition to push Katie Couric to challenge Petraeus’ claims of “progress” in their upcoming interview.

While a stain of insecurity and violence spreads across Afghanistan, General Petraeus is on a media blitz, disingenuously trying to sell the idea of “oil spots” of “progress” in Afghanistan. Petraeus’ goal is clear: Despite overwhelming public opposition, he wants more time to experiment with counterinsurgency in other people’s homelands, and he’s putting the half-billion-dollar public relations machine of the Pentagon into high gear to hammer his message into our heads. The first journalist on his media blitz, NBC’s David Gregory, utterly failed to sufficiently challenge Petraeus on his easily disproved spin, reminding one of the media’s negligence during the Iraq War debate. CBS’ Katie Couric is next at bat. We need her to do better.

All of the information Couric needs to blow apart Petraeus’ happy talk is already in the public domain, just as it was during the run-up to the Iraq debacle. For example:

* The recent (and Orwellian) Report on Progress toward Security and Stability (.pdf) in Afghanistan from the Pentagon discloses that violence is up 87 percent over the same period last year, and that despite the massive increase in troops over the reporting period, the insurgency continues to grow in size and capability. More alarmingly, the report discloses that the Afghan government is falling further behind in “sympathy” or “support” from populations in the key districts of the country.
* IED attacks roughly doubled over the past year.
* Civilian deaths are rising precipitously, and Afghans blame Petraeus’ forces not only for the deaths they cause directly, but for bringing the conflict with them as they press into new areas and failing to protect civilians from insurgent violence.
* The Afghan NGO Safety Office says that the single biggest threat to aid workers in Afghanistan is the armed gangs backed by the Local Defense Initiative, an ISAF/Afghan government program to create local “security” forces.

Any of these facts would blow a major hole in Petraeus’ spin campaign, and we need journalists on the media tour to confront the general with them. Unfortunately, in the past decade, when it’s come to accountability journalism aimed at military (or militarist) spin, the American media doesn’t exactly have a sterling reputation.

In When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina, W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston wrote:

We now know that officials in the Bush administration built a case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq that was open to serious challenge. We also know that evidence disputing ongoing official claims about the war was often available to the mainstream press in a timely fashion. Yet the recurrent pattern, even years into the conflict, was for the official government line to trump evidence to the contrary in the news produced by mainstream news outlets reaching the preponderance of the people.

Part of the reason the Iraq story was written much as the Bush administration told it is that nearly every installment was well staged and fed expertly to reporters… [P]lenty of other sources and bodies of evidence outside official Washington power circles could have been elevated to challenge the administration’s stories, but those challenges either did not emerge aggressively or were reported only in passing…

David Gregory’s treatment of Petraeus (“Look! The general is physically fit and press savvy!”) contained alarming echoes of the dynamic described by Bennett, Lawrence and Livingston. All the information Gregory needed to challenge Petraeus was available before the interview, yet he failed to press Petraeus on the patently false claims of “progress,” if “progress” refers to any widespread trend strategically relevant to counterinsurgency doctrine. For all the apologies we heard from the press after their failures on the Iraq War, Gregory’s failure on Meet the Press this past Sunday shows we’re in danger of seeing a repeat. Couric must ask tougher questions during her interview.

The list above includes just the few easily accessible bits of the mosaic of disaster created by the U.S.’s troop-heavy, military-centric policy in Afghanistan. Couric could do us all a real service by bringing just a few of these facts with her when she interviews Petraeus and setting a real example for accountability journalism for her peers rounding out the media tour. In her preview piece on her interview with Petraeus, she mentions the general’s “oil spots” comment. Couric should ask Petraeus about the real “oil spots” spreading across Afghanistan: American blood and treasure seeping into the landscape of a war that’s not making us safer and that’s not worth the cost.

Sign our act.ly petition to Couric to push her to challenge Petraeus on his claims of “progress” and on his attempt to extend the Afghanistan War.

The movement to rethink the Afghanistan War is picking up steam. In response to the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives on a disastrous policy, public opinion has turned decisively against the war. People are making their opposition heard in communities all over the country. We’re proud to see that Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan documentary has become an organizing tool for everything from local screenings of the film, to hundreds of Meetups to Rethink the Afghanistan War and other public demonstrations.

The Aug. 8 demonstration in Santa Barbara, California, organized by the local chapter of Veterans for Peace, is just one example of the growing discontent and the creative actions put together by local activists to express it. From the KEYT story:

The recent wave of violence and rising American deaths in Afghanistan are causing many people in Santa Barbara to rethink their attitude toward the Afghan War.

That was the theme of a major demonstration at the beach today.

More than 1,200 crosses were set up on the beach next to Stearns Wharf. And the strong public reaction to the memorial may be an indication that more and more Americans are actually beginning to rethink Afghanistan.

This powerful action and the public response to it shows that people understand that the Afghanistan war isn’t making us safer, and it isn’t worth the costs. We’re extraordinarily proud of the Santa Barbara Veterans for Peace chapter, just as we’re proud of the more than 42,000 people working together and organizing on Rethink Afghanistan’s Facebook page.

If you want to get together with your neighbors to organize against the war, join or host a Rethink the Afghanistan War Meetup. You can plug into the larger Rethink Afghanistan movement on Facebook.

It’s going to take all of us working together, online and in our local communities, to end this war. We’ve got a great start already. We hope you’ll join us.