.Gates backs critique of spy agencies in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates threw his support on Thursday behind a harsh critique of the U.S. military's spy agencies in Afghanistan, increasing pressure on them to shift focus from killing insurgents to winning hearts and minds.
The rare public critique by U.S. Major General Michael Flynn, deputy chief of staff for intelligence for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, put a spotlight on what some American officials describe as a behind-the-scenes tug-of-war within the U.S. military and intelligence community over priorities.
In his report, Flynn described U.S. intelligence officers and analysts in Afghanistan as "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced ... and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers."
While the U.S. military's focus has shifted under President Barack Obama to mounting a counterinsurgency campaign aimed at sidelining the Taliban by winning over the Afghan people, Flynn said the intelligence community was instead still focused on capturing and killing mid- to high-level insurgents.
U.S. hunt-and-kill operations on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, frequently using unmanned aerial drones armed with missiles, have been condemned by human rights groups and have fueled anti-American sentiment.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates found Flynn's analysis "brilliant" and his findings "spot on."
But Morrell said Gates had "real reservations about the general's choice of venue for publication." Flynn's report was issued on Monday by a private Washington think tank, surprising Pentagon officials.
Some saw it as a breach of the established military chain of command and an unusually public flogging of intelligence agencies that Flynn is meant to lead in Afghanistan.
Flynn said in his report that he had directed intelligence officers and analysts to gather more information on a wider range of issues at a grass-roots level, as well as to divide their work along geographical lines.
Pentagon officials said the report was aimed at intelligence agencies overseen by the Defense Department, and not the CIA, which has overseen strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda targets along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
"This is internal criticism. It is not directed at our colleagues elsewhere in the intelligence community," Morrell said.
Release of the report came less than a week after a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers at a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, the second-most deadly attack in agency history.
Al Qaeda's Afghan wing claimed responsibility for the bombing on Thursday, saying it was launched to avenge the deaths of the group's leaders. Some of them were killed in CIA drone strikes.
An intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended the focus of U.S. spy agencies on insurgents, saying: "You can't be successful at counterinsurgency without a profound understanding of the enemy."
Reuters
I agree, there will always be the opportunity to kill, more so if we gain the local space, then they will come to us.
The rare public critique by U.S. Major General Michael Flynn, deputy chief of staff for intelligence for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, put a spotlight on what some American officials describe as a behind-the-scenes tug-of-war within the U.S. military and intelligence community over priorities.
In his report, Flynn described U.S. intelligence officers and analysts in Afghanistan as "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced ... and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers."
While the U.S. military's focus has shifted under President Barack Obama to mounting a counterinsurgency campaign aimed at sidelining the Taliban by winning over the Afghan people, Flynn said the intelligence community was instead still focused on capturing and killing mid- to high-level insurgents.
U.S. hunt-and-kill operations on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, frequently using unmanned aerial drones armed with missiles, have been condemned by human rights groups and have fueled anti-American sentiment.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates found Flynn's analysis "brilliant" and his findings "spot on."
But Morrell said Gates had "real reservations about the general's choice of venue for publication." Flynn's report was issued on Monday by a private Washington think tank, surprising Pentagon officials.
Some saw it as a breach of the established military chain of command and an unusually public flogging of intelligence agencies that Flynn is meant to lead in Afghanistan.
Flynn said in his report that he had directed intelligence officers and analysts to gather more information on a wider range of issues at a grass-roots level, as well as to divide their work along geographical lines.
Pentagon officials said the report was aimed at intelligence agencies overseen by the Defense Department, and not the CIA, which has overseen strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda targets along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
"This is internal criticism. It is not directed at our colleagues elsewhere in the intelligence community," Morrell said.
Release of the report came less than a week after a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers at a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, the second-most deadly attack in agency history.
Al Qaeda's Afghan wing claimed responsibility for the bombing on Thursday, saying it was launched to avenge the deaths of the group's leaders. Some of them were killed in CIA drone strikes.
An intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended the focus of U.S. spy agencies on insurgents, saying: "You can't be successful at counterinsurgency without a profound understanding of the enemy."
Reuters
I agree, there will always be the opportunity to kill, more so if we gain the local space, then they will come to us.
posted by madtom at 9:53 PM
33 Comments:
Sigh. You people are going to get us all killed--- or all of them killed in a best case scenario. I was speechless and ready to break a seal on a Jim Beam decanter that looks like Elvis after watching that bizarre performance by His Oliness today. The entire thing was like a bad parody, but when he went into his suck up mode--- we know Muslims want what we want... security, education, a job, liberty.... I wanted to shoot the TV Elvis style. Was he talking about this Nigerian kid who had a mansion in London, education, security? Or the Army psychiatrist who had money, eductation, liberty? Maybe Osama himself who had money, education, practically Saudi royalty? Is O really that fucking stupid or is he just so blinded by chickenshit political correctness he is blind to facts? It's Bizarro world---- if we are nice to Afghanis, in a few years we can leave and they will develop a new modern society? WE will act on all intelligence within 48 hours, but we will read them their rights and give them a lawyer. We will work 24-7 to get to the bottom of this attempted attack, but the head of the agency tasked with the job is on a one week ski trip first. Just how fucking stupid have Americans become? Political correctness has lobotomized everyone under 50 or who attended a major university since the 50's. Be afraid, very afraid.
i do not know about the General trying to get the military to do his job of getting buddy with afghans and Karzei president who want to know all militarys operation?
"Sigh. You people"
Will, I'm confused, are you reacting to this story, of O speech? I think you said it best It's Bizarro world---- I keep turning it in my head, nothing makes any sense. It must be syops, confuse the enemy...I know I am confused.
About using intelligence to protect the locals, that will work, no they wont come out the other side westernized, or Jeffersonian, but they could become friends. If yours were deployed there, would you want them surrounded by frighten desperate local, or people that had learned that they could trust and work with us to help with the basics?
I do have a nephew there (I think he's there) and a niece's husband is soon to be there. I don't want them to imagine that any local is their friend, not for even a minute. It's an impossible dream for Afghanistan. They will never be our 'friends'. They will use us while they can, but the can't be our friends without overturning everything their culture and society are built upon. It would take brutal unrelenting responses to the enemy and generations amongst 'friends' and I don't think we have that long or that many 'friends'. We're just another in a long line of invaders to them and they'll go along to get along, until they need to go along to get along with the next one, even if they are the Taliban and AQ with whom they have far more in common than with us.
B WILL DERD i think so too on your last comment and we have to be aware of those even if they smile at you according to some attack they done on us,thank you
Oh sure gang up on me, bring it on. Have either of you even taken the time to watch the c-span video from Logar province.
Maybe you two need the link
Unless you think we are going to be doing this for 100 years, what's the point? Assuming the ancient Afghan society is capable of being reformed by a small occupying force, the 'insurgency' isn't going anywhere (read your own posted material).
We are headed for financial and social catastrophe here at home and there is no way this project is going to survive for more than 2 or 3 years. Among the news yesterday, SS is running at a deficit NOW, even though the OMB said in August that deficits couldn't begin before 2019 and would be completely bankrupt before 2039--- move that up to now and possibly bankrupt by 2022 because job losses are greater than we know and because a record number of disability claims are being processed. And no time to go into medicare, the health care fiasco or bankrupt state governments.
I don't know why we are ignoring it, but the 'recovery is phony contrived numbers made possible by massive government borrowing and printing, and even with all that they STILL have to fake the numbers. Time to cut loses and work on revolution here at home. We can't afford noble right now. Our vulnerability right now is financial. One guy can throw the country into a tailspin and the enemy knows it. The effort in Afghanistan is pointless. They don't need a base, they need a room and a website anywhere, anytime. Let them have their bases cuz they are nothing more than roach motels-- target rich environments. Better there than a motel room at the airport.
i dont know much of what is going on on all fronts of the war but the link to CSPANvideo is very owerfull and hearthwarming to see our own military using to try to convince the farmers that we realy want to help them improve their quality of farming and life did you ever go in our own country in poor distict tryng to improve their life it is as difficult and very slow process to convince them also maybe because they do not know better hope for change as not arise in their minds they strugle for to long hopfully the militarys will succeed we can see a bit of the possibility if the military do not give up,thank you
"They don't need a base,"
Remember we are not the target, we are only the gate, once open they will take the oil and then we will really be fucked. You think it's bad now, you think we are bankrupt now, give in to the enemy and we wont even have the paper to print money on...Now is not the time to give in my friend, now is the time to fight to the death if there was ever a time.
Letting them have Afghanistan is hardly going to make a real difference. And what are they going to do with the oil, eat it? We could make damn sure they can't sell it, and that would be the best thing that could happen to this economy short of overthrowing our own government. You want to see some innovation, job production and energy independence, destroy the ME ability to export and watch them go to war with one another, or do it in the opposite order. Weapons sales and domestic energy would go a long way to fix what ails us. I bet even Florida would start drilling. Alternatives would actually start to make some sense. Within 18 months the economy would be booming if government got out of the way, and I bet the people would insist upon it. America would find new purpose. Foreign oil isn't saving us from anything, it's just contributing to bleeding us dry slowly and there is no getting around it. War has saved us before and it would possibly do it again. Scratching to maintain the status quo is a loser because the status quo is slow death.
would it be good to look back only 10ears and try to lower the consumption of oil comparing the amount of those 10 years i wonder if people could do it is it a crazy idea maybe not if we would be force to do it, thank you.
And you think the Chinese are just going to sit back, the Indians. I know Europe won't fight, it'll be us the Canadians and the Ozzies back to back shooting our way out. But where to go? You think we could sustain the US current population without energy. What would we eat?
I would put it conservatively at 100 million casualties in the first year. Including the fall out victims
i gess your right MADTOM it would need an invasion of alien to freake up every one in this world to get us to gether to fight the alien with our new technology but we still did not find a way to newtralyse the roadside bombs thank you
I bet aliens capable of light speed travel would make some hellacious IEDs.
Yeah, that is some radical thinking but we are in the most radical times since the civil war. Like I said, there is no way the status quo avoids catastrophe. You show me a plausible alternative that is safer than mine. The Chinese have problems all their own and Russia would gladly assist them with their energy needs. They have excess dollars. China is Dubai times ten just waiting to happen. They are the bubble of all bubbles and 800 million plus wondering where their bubble is. We would be fine---- sacrifices to be sure, but agriculture is running at about 70% right now and exporting at that. We have 18 months plus of oil in reserves right now-- that's what we have been putting it away for. India would take a hit, but we could have influence with their remaining supply to make sure they get theirs. Why do we have the most powerful military if not to use it in times of do or die, which is where we are right now. We just aren't ready to admit it yet, because those in power want us to fail thinking we will cower to them in our time of need. I know that is the ultimate conspiracy theory, but you tell me what else make sense. Rush it right--- and what scares me even more, so is BECK!
There are always alternative. I don't see how we survive 'just fine", agriculture is energy intense, fertilizer is all energy, 18 months, that's best case under martial law.. Your calling that just fine. And if the Russians send so much to the Chinese, what will Europe eat, they're begging now, if the Russians put up a fist come first served sign...Europe is dead.
B will derd i heard or read the name beck but i cant place it
Glenn Beck radio and now TV show host. One of the better right wing shows, funny informative and sometimes controversial. But also very lucrative...Preaches to the choir and riles up the base. I might add very entertaining
thank you b will derd
ilovebees,
If you really want to understand radio, first you have to listen to Phil Hendrie, until you can "get" Hendrie, No Beck or Rush for you. That goes for all of you!
Free Pil Hendrie Clip Lord Vader [Windows]
Remember callers are real just like on the other two shows
Phil Hendrie?! He's a funny dude, but I know you know better on the caller thing. Beck is a TV preacher for the new millenium, but until you can dispute his opinions, don't dismiss him. I thought he was a nut, but he uses the words of the powers that be and their actions to support his paranoia. And mine, unfortunately. He's right about Wilson and Teddy and his cuz. They are the baby daddies of the Progressives who would be the new Nazis if the Jihadists don't beat them to it. O is the dazed an confused bastard child of Roosevelts and Marx. If you want to know Truth, read Jefferson. He got it better than anyone in history. Government is a necessary evil, and when you cede to government powers beyond what is necessary, it becomes evil because it robs of you the inalienable rights afforded you by God. If you don't believe it, you miss the point of what it is to be American. And most of us do......
What is the 'alternative'? Europe will rid itself of it's 'imigrants' who are overwhelmingly Muslim and do OK. They survived Nazis and Stalinists. They can handle these goatfucking Muslims once someone takes offf their blindfold. Why does goatfucking come up as misspelled?
"you know better on the caller thing"
The callers are real and that is the key. If you think Beck or Rush is doing anything different, your not listening, your only hearing.
"don't dismiss him."
I did not think I was dismissing him?? What exactly is it I have been missing, Maybe I have been the one not listening.
"when you cede to government powers beyond what is necessary"
Oh, you mean like the patriot act, like tapping the phone lines. Then the excuse they use for the resent failure was information overload, just like I said years ago would happen. Looking for the needles, yet adding more hay to the stack..
"What is the 'alternative'?"
Even Bush understood that one, Fly paper worked for a while, I didn't like it, but it worked. But it was a bitch when the bill came due. Notice that once he changed to a less destructive policy his original strategy actually started working. Fly paper was not about Iraq, but about gaining a foot hold in the region..i.e. Iran, the axis thing...yet that did not start to work in our favor till now. Civil war in Iraq did noting to Iran, yet surge and security and Iran became vulnerable...who would have guessed. Now we need to do the same on the other boarder...The down side is that the current idiot doesn't seem to have a clue, or, playing for a different team as the last idiot.
Fly paper did have one redeeming characteristic, kept them busy, and us safe. O's been in for a year and I have lost count of the attacks on us, and I still think, like you, their A-team is out waiting for the right moment and the right target...
The Patriot thing was remarkable legislation. Done on an emergency basis and largely unchanged nearly a decade later. Few abuses as far as we know, but now that the majority of whistle blowers are sycophants of the man in charge, it worries me more.
get serious about the caller thing, there's phony and there's mindless devotion.
wasn't that what I tried to tell you from day one? Bush may be an idiot, but he is our idiot and believes in America at its most basic definition. Naive? Yeah. You go to war and you go to WAR! Half assed humanitarian nation building missions are capital pissed away like money to GM stock.
Yes, if we were pumping in resources that were clearly intended for an opponent that had soviet radar and anti air defenses, I would see the potential for Afghanistan. But that isn't happening aside from some spy drones that have very little use beyond spying on Iran. And why not clue us in so we can stop worrying about the Taliban and give them a few towns to terrorize if the towns are willing? Why be so damn intolerant of the willing oppressed? We tolerate every other deviant on record. Build some air bases and let nature take its course beyond our defensive needs? Devote one day a week to take target practice on large congregations of Taliban controlled people? Dresden was a useful tactic, and practice makes perfect.
But will O pull the trigger on Iran? Not without some can't ignore provocation, and I don't even know what that would take these days. Perhaps if they burned a playboy bunny or two, that might get the attention of the American public. Starve a few polar bears and we will come down on their asses. Those are subjects no one can joke about unless they are sick son's of a bitch(es).........
"get serious about the caller thing,"
LoL,,,,you have not got it yet....your not qualified to listen to those shows, like watching porn before your an adult...
Hendrie is the word and the way..
Then, who do you take as serious?
If you are alluding to the importance of the call screener---- I do get it. If you are as big as Rush, you don't have to do 'phony' calls because the pool from which you draw is incredibly larger. But, Hendrix often is his own caller. He lacks the pool, which means he is lacking in talent which produces such a pool that fiction can be fact if he wants it to be. Which takes more talent? Who makes the most money?
"spy drones "
I don't know about that, you know Israeli planes cant make the round trip, drones don't need a round trip ticket.
"Hendrix often is his own caller"
No. The callers are real, they are all real.
Then, who do you take as serious?
Hendrie is serious, he is as serious as any of the others, and is in fact the teacher of the rest.
You can hear all the commentary that Rush or Beck has on Hendrie, and maybe more. Hendrie goes beyond the politics and explore the human condition as well...
Hendrie is the word and the way..I miss him, he's on a different station and time now and I have lost touch.
i rarely lsten to radio except for news that i also catch on tv since i made some friends on some good blogs like your blog i never thought it would be so informative and sympatic to exchange comments and read what others have to say to add to other people knowledge,thank you.
madtom i found the blog where i read glen beck in flopping aces beck has wrote a book onthe title[arguing with idiots] i thought you'd like to know,bye
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