How can anyone give a detailed analysis of what happened at Shahikot? ... The point being that our problem was almost certainly not a training problem...
Here's a few choice comments from an
article by Hackworth:
"our fine troops, trained in the flatlands of New York and Kentucky, weren't conditioned for mountain warfare at elevations of 9,000 feet"
"Our Joes were sent into battle loaded down like pack mules, insufficiently prepared for the freezing conditions and far from physically up for the game."
"The guerrillas also outranged our grunts"
"our soldiers [were] bunched up like beetles at a bugfest"
"when our brave Apache gunship pilots came to the rescue, they lost all their ships to enemy fire."
"It didn't help that our intelligence was bad regarding the size of the enemy force and its willingness to fight."
"the success of an operation [was] dependent on a non-U.S. unit -- [we] trusted our so-called Afghan allies, who left us in the lurch."
"The generals had envisioned sealing the enemy inside a noose and then pounding him with bombs, a tactic that seldom worked in Vietnam"
"The generals didn't get much right until they shrewdly declared victory and hauled butt away"
Now personally I think that Hackworth is given to hyperbole and sound-bite-itis, but it would seem he has a few valid concerns. And I don't think raising issues about the effectiveness of those on the front line is a sign of latent liberalism. We want to win, decisively, quickly, and efficiently.
Success in warfare is not on the specifics of battle, but on the desired effects. War's purpose is to achieve political objectives. If the commander says it was successful, the political objectives his boss wanted were achieved.
/john