Posted on 10/10/2012 10:40:01 AM PDT by FreedomPoster
This is the most stunning and forceful letter I have read from the Afghanistan war. It was written in 2010 from Afghanistan by Colonel Harry Tunnell, the Brigade Commander of 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
After this letter, Colonel Tunnell was investigated and the normal smear campaign unfolded. Having been embedded with his Brigade in 2010, it became obvious that they were put into a no-win situation, with troops spread over several provinces in Afghanistan.
Mods, Michael Yon is the preeminent war correspondent of this era, the Ernie Pyle of our time. Please do not move this to Bloggers.
Yon is one of three places I contribute to online, and FR is one of the other two.
After finding out that the inscription on 0bama’s ring reads ‘There is no God but Allah’, I can understand why we’ve been doomed to fail in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, etc, by HUSSEIN 0bama.
Ping.
My brother-in-law did two tours. His comment was that regardless of how well we prosecuted the war (and he is not a fan of the way it has been handled) nothing, absolutely nothing is going to change on the ground. They are living in medieval times, with a medieval mindset and a pre-medieval religion and most do not want change.
Yes, that ring makes sense of so much. This should be headline news in the country but of course most will never hear of it. I have emailed the info out.
Will send to Drudge also.
bfl
Colonel Tunnell is truly a courageous soldier. He placed his concerns about his troops ahead of his own career. Just wonder how many Navy commanders have the same concerns but have not written to the Secretary of the Navy. Our big blue water capital ships are in the narrow confines of the Persian Gulf and are very vulnerable to the Chinese shore to ship missiles that have been supplied to Iran. There is no strategic reason to put those big carriers in the Gulf.
It is more and more obvious that we should have left immediately after the punitive expedition phase and not ever started the meals on wheels phase. So in the 2003 +/- time frame.
Not so stunning as pitiful.
The very idea that women could be integrated into Afhan forces is stupid beyond the pale. Educated fools who would propose to impose our social constructions on a relic civilization, if it can be called a civilization, is just plain stupid. Not ignorant, STUPID.
I weep for our troops.
Yep, in Afghanistan there is no "nationality" as we know it. Most of the stone-age people who live there know, in general terms, only the boundaries of their own villages - - their own worlds. They never heard of "Afghanistan" and really couldn't care less.
Bingo. We couldn't even threaten these guys with "bombing them back to the Stone Age." They wouldn't notice the difference.
(( ping ))
“There is no strategic reason to put those big carriers in the Gulf.”
They should be off the coast of Israel with flyover permission...
But wait....that might hurt the Iranians feelings...forget that....
Maliciously so.
Yes, there is such a thing as "malicious stupidity", and American liberals provide the audio-visual aid.
You CAN change medieval mindsets. You just have to medieval methods. I just don’ think we’re willing to do it...
Is this true?
There was a lengthy article in World Net Daily yesterday on the subject.
A regular Hatfield and McCoy feudal life.....where no one really knows why they fight, just that it is ......
I got very mixed signals regarding Tunnell before, during, and after his deployment. There were definitely issues within his brigade, but I don’t know to whom they ought rightly to be attributed.
I have sent the letter to several who ought to know the real scoop. I’ll wait to see what they have to say before commenting further.
BTW, I believe that Yon has gone around the bend and is spending all of his time in his hotel room in Bangkok chasing old demons.
COL Tunnell’s letter seems right on the mark and is especially informative about Helmand Province, the site of most of the losses for the OK ARNG 45th IN Bde in their recent deployment. The colonel’s summary of the failings of allies, as well as the COIN strategy, blows away the BS that passes for reporting these days.
As a former Field Artillery officer, I was also gratified to see him note the performance of FA personnel when placed in jobs other than putting steel on a target to take out the enemy. This has been a significant concern of mine where people are misused and mal-assigned away from their training or expertise, FA or not.
A book from Slate.com was excerpted this summer and it had some info on COL Tunnell. The book, apparently written by an Indian (dot, not feathers), is not kind to the brigade commander on his tactics. It does make for a good read because it fills in some areas only brushed in the colonel’s PDF letter. The link to the excerpt article is below:
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