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.
Bingo!
Actually, most of the people who live in the tribal villages are little more than observers, watching strange, well-equipped forces from distant foreign lands do battle against insurgent forces from other, nearby foreign lands. The natives do whatever they have to to stay alive. They have absolutely no allegiance to either side. Their only goal is survival, and it is all they have known since the Russians invaded in 1980.
It’s time to execute members of the Taliban and then stuff their mouths full of bacon.
Oh my. I read the whole letter. I can understand how the Colonel’s brutally-frank letter could be career-ending, particularly when he was politically-incorrect enough to point out the widespread homosexuality and pedophilia of the Afghan forces.
Thx
I'm not completely sure that we should. Appropriate and undoubtable retaliation for wrongs is one thing, but busting heads to persuade them to be more "democratic" ain't going to work.
Oh yeah, I meant to highlight that, and then managed to not do it when posting. Page 5, at the bottom. I OCRed the document, it came through pretty well. From the letter:
d. Aberrant sexual behavior is acceptable. Considering the misogynistic culture that is common one should not be surprised that most men who join the security forces will have had limited interaction with women - a recruit may have never been alone with a woman who is not a relative. There is an acceptance of pedophilia that is wide spread and boys are sometimes kidnapped. Leaders have been known to sexually assault male subordinates. Even if sexual activity between males is consensual it has implications for good order and discipline which is why, in many arnies, fraternization is not allowed.
It worked fairly well for the Germans and Japanese. Of course, they had a history of civilization and learning. So I don’t think it will work in Afghanistan, just pointing out that “busting heads to persuade them to be more ‘democratic’” has worked in the past.
Thanks for the ping. Will comment after work. There’s a lot of missing backstory here.
FYI—COL Tunnell was my Brigade Commander in Afghanistan while I was on Brigade staff.
Who said anything about being democratic?
Democracy is a really, really bad idea - our own field manuals said so until the 1930s (Hmmm... I wonder what changed?). Even Representative Republics are hard to do - look at what is happening to ours.
Folks like Afghanis, Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians, etc. need authoritarian governments that can, and WILL bust heads if the herd gets out of line. They also need leaders who can pull an orderly transfer of power even in the face of civil unrest. What they don’t need is “democracy.”
Actually, you need stuff their mouths full of bacon BEFORE you execute them.
IIRC, there is a fatwa saying that, upon death, a martyr is transported directly paradise and nothing done to his body after death will affect this.
So bacon first, then bullet.
Why should they change? It is all about gender apartheid. If your ‘religion’ assures you that you can marry 15 year old girls until you’re 80 and treat your wife like a servant and like property-of course you don’t want anything to change.
To read your comments later.
The Army doesn’t want smart Officers, they want obedient Officers. If General Petraeus was so good, why are we still in Afghanistan? Why is Iraq falling apart again? Petraeus was real good at getting promoted and lining himself up for a good job once he got out of the Army. As the head of the CIA, shouldn’t they have heard something prior to the attack in Libya? 11 years in Afghanistan......2000 dead American Soldiers.....untold pain and misery for Soldiers, and families, as they have to keep deploying to wars that never end. Why are we paying these admirals and generals to lose? Why do we give these losers a retirement? For successfully losing? Goddamn, this fighting and killing and dieing is a hard business. Stay the fuck out of it if you can’t win in combat. I could care less about how fast you can run two miles or how great a PowerPoint presentation you can give. Can you build units that will fight, win and survive on the battlefield? That’s the only measure. The rest is bullshit. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the memorandum saying it was unfair to evaluate Officers based on their performance in combat. What the hell should their evaluations be based on? Oh, yeah, do they look fat in their photo? We have to hold these admirals and generals accountable. If we keep rewarding failure, we’re just going to get more failures. What if it was your kid dead? Do you think there’s no grief in a dead Soldier’s family? Goddamn, let’s start requiring civilians to go on casualty notifications. We’ll use the voter rolls just like jury duty with no exceptions or excuses. Then, maybe people would start to care when they see the widows and the crying kids. And yes, I swore. 2,000 dead Soldiers told me it was OK.
We are going to make new brown little Americans out of people who don’t even use BATHROOMS...? Oh, please...
Thanks for the ping.
Sometimes listening to Russia, as Clinton should have in the Balkans, can be a good thing.
I had the feeling reading through it that the bloke writing it didn't like our Army much, whether utilizing COIN or not. Then I got to the bottom:
Thank you for posting this. It needs to be seen by all. I knew much was not kosher there or in the Army but not to this extent. Knowing some current active duty Army folks, I’ve been told some things but not to this extent. Truly shocking and eerily reminiscent of RVN in some ways.
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