Very Limited Resources.
John Bussey, WSJ, reports on the latest hot version from the DoD for the Afghanistan surge. Not eighty thousand, not forty thousand, not even the ten to fifteen thousand with an air fleet of Predator robots sweeping over the Khyber Pass in pursuit of Gunga Din's heirs. Instead the new magic number is 30-35 thousand, we are told (above), however the whole of the delivery will not come until the end of 2010. Does this mean that the Obama administration has disappointed the DoD? It does not. The Obama administration is dealing with the facts of an over-extended yet sophisticated military. My information is that General Casey does not want to continue the present rotation schedule of 12 months in the combat zone and 12 months out of the combat zone. The US Army has very limited resources to put into Afghanistan over the next six months to a year. Same for the Marine Corps, which is already heavily in-country. Bluntly, we are down to the last of the trigger-pullers who are not already in either Iraq and Afghanistan. The redeployment from Iraq is critical, but it is not sufficient. Volunteer armies have natural limits.
Blame What?
AfPakia is a NATO effort with UN assistance, and the facts demonstrate that neither NATO nor the UN are contributing effectively or generously. AfPakia is also not the center of the struggle. In sum, the Obama administration is committing the US to a disproportionate combat role in a non-strategic combat theater. Afghanistan is an extension of Pakistan. The manipulation and bloody-mindedness in Pakistan mean that there can be no solution or even effective management at Kabul and in the Pashtun regions until and if Islamabad is stable and trustworthy. There is the possibility that Pakistan is now in the control of the enemy. By enemy, I mean the Wahhabists of Arabia. The one and only ally the Taliban had back into the 1990s when it overran Afghanistan was the House of Al-Saud. Nothing has changed. It is not an endgame, but it is a strong move to blame the wretchedness of Islamabad and Kabul on the House of Al-Saud.
McChrystal.
The McChrystal plan in AfPakia was never one thing or another; it is a work in progress for what can be done with the resources available. In the event of a disaster in Kabul or Islamabad (Jihadist coup), nothing will be enough. My information is that this is not about politics. It is strategy. As long as the US maintains Riyadh as an ally, we will have trouble in Jerusalem and Kabul and Islamabad. As long as the US treats Tehran as a hostile state that can be managed with diplomacy, there will be trouble in Gaza and Beirut and Baghdad and the Gulf. Surge lite in Afghanistan answers none of the critical questions. It doesn't even solve Al Qaeda. The road to Bin Laden and his kindred of Cain begins in Riyadh, at Abdullah's palace, at Abdullah's desk.
(1)
Again, it’s all too easy to make political hay. Seems like an impossible situation for any third party. Pakistan will fall (or has fallen). Pakistan has nukes. Should that be a worry for us? Probably, especially if everything we do only makes things worse all around.
Everything that's happening would be so much easier if we could just trust our leadership. There's a difference between marching on Washington on a sunny day, knowing we'll be back home for supper that same evening, and being just plain afraid - whether we march or not. I don't think the American people are so much worried about what goes on overseas. I think what they're worried about is a lot closer to home.
Why is it that we're so involved in everything? What's happened to the Russians or the Chinese - or Europe for that matter? What’s happened to Brazil? What's happened to our great communicator? Why can't he sit down with any of these others and say, "You handle it. We'll help if we can. Surely you too live on this planet. Surely you too have a stake in this."? If I’m not wrong, this is precisely what he campaigned on – and what we voted for.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Just reading through the afternoon media news cycle. This "stretched too thin" issue is coming from Big Army? BS, my personal opinion. If we are stretched too thin it's from worry that home is no longer safe. And if that's the case then Islamofascists everywhere owe good old Major Hasan big time.
I read this afternoon that Ambassador Eikenberry has said: no more additional troops until Karzi behaves or there is a "legitimate" government to turn Afghanistan over to--like that's going to happen soon. Eikenberry (one of three ambassadors to Afghanistan from the US) is likely to carry some weigh with the President since he was, until this spring, 4 star General Eikenberry in NATO (so effectively the President has three generals he can listen to and point fingers at: Jones, Eikenberry and McChrystal.)
Also leaked to the press is this nugget of CYA: oh there was talk on the senior staff at Walter Reed that Hasan might be psychotic but it's oh, so difficult to get a doctor kicked out of the Army, so many meetings, paperwork and counsellings. Again I say, BS. Although the Army is currently promoting medical doctors from Captain at the 90 percent rate--10 percent are not being promoted (and Captain is the lowest rank doctors hold so that their pay is higher to keep them in) . Yet, Hasan was promoted in May 09 (and this had to be by his Walter Reed supervisors who had to write good enough evals to be promoted). Same article said he had several bad evals and although this might be the case, if they were bad, they were probably during training (and therefore, weigh less when looked at by the promotion board if they counted at all). His regular evals (one possibly two but probably only one in the time he was not in training) had to have been good enough. So this is cover your "you know what" time and leak this nugget to the media.
Interesting that the administration is leaking that the Army's tired and the Army is leaking, "we aren't incompetent just overwhelmed by bureaucracy".
A very dark Veteran's Day indeed. And now I have to say: don't trust the fourth, fifth and sixth reports as people try and justify why THEY didn't turn Hasan in.
I've now said several times that one of Obama's goals is to give the military a black eye. This may explain the less-than flattering leaks. Under this administration, the military cannot win. They will be scapegoated every chance that arises. If Obama and his Marxist merry men have to make stuff up, look for them to do that as well.
I heard today that any incident involving the military on U.S. soil is immediately handed over to the FBI. They bear the responsibility of doing whatever (if anything) needs to be done. The military has no further say in the matter. If, on the other hand, something involving the military should come up on foreign soil or in theater, the military handles it. I heard that the military is apt to be stricter on members who may be mouthing off or associating with undesirables. Can you confirm this?
Peter: this is news to me. These killings occurred on a US military base inside the US. The Army has jurisdiction unless there is something like conspiracy across state lines (and even then it might still fall to the Army as 13 different murder cases). The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) has an article regarding murder that Major Hasan can be tried on.
By the way, a court-martial if and when convened will be a jury of his peers--majors and above only allowed on the panel with probably a one-star (or it's possible a colonel but since the death penalty will be involved probably the head of the panel---the equal of the jury foreman---will be a general officer). There may be the equivalent of a grand jury as well, called an Article 32 hearing and if convicted the military system has a lengthy appeals process.
I read today that the major will probably be charged by the Army but until he's charged we won't know. He can be tried for murder under the UCMJ by the way and for terrorism in a civilian court.
Anon - Thank you for this. Your insights always have the ring of authenticity. Actually, I did not make my question clear. I wasn't talking about the killings. I was talking about all the evidence that had come out previously that should have raised somebody's suspicions about the Major. Say, the Major had said something about blowing up some military installation state-side and somebody else heard it and reported it. It is my understanding that such a concern would then have to be passed on to the FBI, and the military would then be told that it's being taken care of, and that they (the military) wouldn't have to worry about it any more.
By the way, there's a good article in the WSJ this morning about this very thing (without answering my specific question directly). It says there's considerable confusion about what to do about intelligence gathered, given the seemingly overriding issues of political correctness, profiling, etc.
An active tip on a possible act of terrorism is always passed to the FBI if the base is in the US (and since 9/11 even if overseas) but the investigative arm of the Service--CID for Army, OSI for Air Force and NCIS for Navy/Marines would all be involved (in fact the concern should go to them first). They would stay involved but the main investigative arm for this is the FBI. (We would not be told "not to worry about it" any more).
That's a direct piece of information--i.e someone reports something; intelligence gathering is different (as it tends to be done by passive means--i.e. collecting of some kind, either by humans, equipment or both) and this is where confusion comes in. FBI is actively gathering info, CIA is actively gathering info, DIA is actively gathering info and so are the Services--CID, OSI, and NCIS; plus each Service has an Intelligence directorate. Then you've got Treasury, Homeland Security, Secret Service... it goes on and on.
And it appears in Hasan's case FBI Terror Task Force knew about emails to and from a militant imam and the Army local chain of command and possibly "Big Army" (the Pentagon staff) was not informed. Why? probably because the wiring diagram for where they are to get this info is way down the chain (and perhaps the gathering agency would not like to revel to another agency or those without a need to know, how the information was gathered. I believe the Terror Task Force reports directly to the Director of Intelligence, not even to the FBI proper, and the Director who is top dog decides how this info is given out and to whom (OK, he has a staff that does this but it's his signature on the bottom line). It is looking like a breakdown in communication happened or more practically a decision made that there wasn't a need to know to for Army--which is looking like a very bad decision, if this is the case.
Hope this close to the answer you were looking for. News this hour says Hasan will be charged with 13 counts of murder and tried under the UCMJ.
By the way the comments JB posted by Larry Johnson (ex CIA ex State) over on the topic of Jihad-shopping are very accurate and I agree with him--the emails didn't show criminal activity. The act of contacting the imam was probably outside Army policy, however, and might have been punishable (as disobey a direct order) but only under the UCMJ and not under civilian law, so the FBI would not necessarily be able to pass this directly to the Army.
However, Mr. Johnson should know that the DI could pass this to CID (supposedly under the Patriot Act) and allow them to be alerted and investigate.....this was the reason to create the DI office....however, this out of my range of knowledge and I won't speculate. I fear that there will be calls to tighten this "loop hole" in an individual's freedom but fear does make simple information gathering look "criminal" in hindsight.
As an example: if you, as a military person, have ever gone to a militant site to see what was there and what their propaganda was like and didn't report this as a military member to your supervisor or superior then you too could look like a budding terrorist. This is why the FBI and CIA info gathering couldn't be reported directly to the Army.....not everyone is a terrorist who studies terrorism.