The COIN Myth II: Searching for Human Intelligence

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Wednesday January 13, 2010 · 6:26 AM PST

2010/01/13 · 06:26

Part I noted that two key requirements of our counterinsurgency doctrine – a legitimate host-nation government and a competent, trustworthy host-nation security force – will never be accomplished in Iraq or Afghanistan. Part II will illustrate the lack of reliable intelligence in our woebegone wars.

Jeff Huber

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Monday January 04, 2010 · 6:40 AM PST

2010/01/04 · 06:40

Non-G.I. Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney’s fellow Vietnam-era draft dodger turned warmonger, said on the Dec. 27 edition of Fox News Sunday that "Yemen is now one of the centers of that fight." It’s difficult to tell from reading the transcript of the interview between Joe and Chris Wallace what exactly Joe means by "that fight." Does he mean the fight against al-Qaeda, or the fight the military-industrial-congressional complex is waging to ensure that we have a Long War of 50 years’ duration or more?

Jeff Huber

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Thursday December 31, 2009 · 6:10 AM PST

2009/12/31 · 06:10

So this Lonesome Luke rich Nigerian kid, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, hops on a plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underpants. As the plane begins to land, the kid tries to set off the bomb and it does little more than give him third-degree burns on his tallywhacker, and the entire civilized world goes snake guano.

Jeff Huber

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Tuesday December 29, 2009 · 6:06 AM PST

2009/12/29 · 06:06

Devotees of President Obama’s plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan hope to repeat the "success" of our surge in Iraq. That’s likely to prove easier to accomplish than even the most rabid Afghanistan surge proponent dares to hope.

Jeff Huber

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Tuesday December 22, 2009 · 5:13 AM PST

2009/12/22 · 05:13

Conquerors immemorial have known that the secret to successful occupations is to let the guys who surrender stay in charge of the yokels. We are presently bogged down in two quagmires because we haven’t learned that lesson.

Jeff Huber

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Tuesday November 17, 2009 · 6:45 AM PST

2009/11/17 · 06:45

The mainstream media’s coverage of Iran continues to suck. Joe Klein of TIME magazine just posted a short piece that mentioned "the discovery of the nuclear reactor at Qom, a secret facility that seems to have been built for research into weaponization. The Russians were as surprised by this as everyone else was."

Jeff Huber

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Thursday November 12, 2009 · 7:24 AM PST

2009/11/12 · 07:24

Mikhail Gorbachev, head of state of the Soviet Union when it withdrew from Afghanistan, has two words for Barack Obama: get out. Gorbachev, now 78, said in an interview in Berlin that he sees no chance of American success in Afghanistan even with more troops. "I believe that there is no prospect of a military solution," he said. The U.S. "should be preparing the ground for withdrawal rather than additional troops."

Jeff Huber

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Wednesday November 11, 2009 · 8:42 AM PST

2009/11/11 · 08:42

Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen finally told it like it is. "If we don't get a level of legitimacy and governance [in Afghanistan]," he confessed, "then all the troops in the world aren't going to make any difference."

We’re not going to get legitimacy and governance in Afghanistan. We’re stuck with Hamid Karzai, and he’s a moral and ethical shipwreck. As columnist Bernd Debusmann says, "The United States and its NATO allies are fighting on the side of a corrupt and discredited government in a war, now in its ninth year, for which, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, there can be no purely military solution."

Jeff Huber

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Tuesday November 10, 2009 · 8:23 AM PST

2009/11/10 · 08:23

National Security Adviser James Jones says, "Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false." That’s maybe good news. It maybe means Obama is coming to his senses and is ready to pull the plug on this Af-Pak madness.

Jeff Huber

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Sunday November 08, 2009 · 5:08 AM PST

2009/11/08 · 05:08

Afghanistan has become a Mel Brooks movie.

President Hamid Karzai handpicked an election commission that threw the election his way. UN overseers declared the election was crooked and decreed that a runoff was required. Karzai didn’t want to face a runoff, but John Kerry and other U.S. officials talked him into accepting it.

Karzai’s opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, demanded that the crooked Karzai change the crooked election officials before the runoff and Karzai refused. So Abdullah refused to participate in the runoff and Karzai’s handpicked election officials cancelled the runoff and declared Karzai the winner. The U.S. and other western powers swarmed to decree Karzai Afghanistan’s "legitimate" president.

Jeff Huber

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Saturday November 07, 2009 · 6:00 AM PST

2009/11/07 · 06:00

Adnkronos International (AKI), the Italian news agency, reports that the U.S., in the person of Hillary Clinton, pressured Hamid Karzai rival Abdullah Abdullah to drop out of the presidential race. The way AKI describes it this was the biggest foreign policy coup of the Obama administration to date.

It was a four or more way swindle in which the U.S. swung its full support behind Karzai, the Pakistani military agreed to make peace with the Taliban, and the Indians withdrew their troops from the Kashmir region. The $1.5 billion annual aid package we’re giving Pakistan was mentioned in the story, and probably had something to do with the transaction, if the story is true.

Jeff Huber

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Thursday November 05, 2009 · 5:23 AM PST

2009/11/05 · 05:23

As Colonel Tim Reese noted in July, "The ineffectiveness and corruption of [Iraqi government] Ministries is the stuff of legend." Of Iraq’s security forces, Reese reported that "Corruption among officers is widespread, Cronyism and nepotism are rampant in the assignment and promotion system," and "Laziness is endemic."

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The COIN Myth II: Searching for Human Intelligence

The Next Quagmire

I See London, I See France, I See Bombs in Underpants

Another Surgin' Safari

Bring Back the Bad Guys

Iran and Time

Say Nyet to Afghanistan

Obama’s Wacky War

Trash Can Afghanistan

Blazing Afghanistan

Hillary’s Dope Deal?

Iraq Quack