Courtesy of Cinema Retro.

Kandahar, Afghanistan
08 February 2010

American troops are spread widely across Afghanistan.  Some are remote and accessibility is difficult.  In 2008, I was with six soldiers in Zabul Province who didn’t even get mail for three months.  They had no email.  They were on the moon.  Six courageous men, in the middle of nowhere, and their nearest backup was a small Special Forces team about five hours away.  Resupply to these small outposts is crucial, difficult, and would require major effort by ground.  Enter the United States Air Force.

Tonight’s mission was to fly from Kandahar Airfield (KAF) to Bagram Airfield (BAF), pick up specially rigged bundles of fuel and ammunition and parachute those to American forces up near the border of Turkmenistan.

The aircraft would be a C-130J.  The C-130 variants have been around so long that Captain Fred Flintstone may have been the first pilot.  They’ve seen more than fifty years of service.  The aircraft is so good that nobody wants to shed them, so the Air Force simply continues to upgrade a great old horse.  Dozens of countries fly dozens of variants today.

The latest and greatest for general use is the C-130J.  You can spot a “J” from the older variants by looking at the propellers.  Each propeller has six high-tech blades, allowing the aircraft to carry more weight with greater economy.  In Afghanistan, with the “high hot” conditions, pilots say the J can carry 2-3 times more cargo than older variants.

The C-130 crews in Afghanistan have many crucial missions, though the U.S. crews are proud to say that some of their friends are working Haiti.  Here in Afghanistan, they perform such missions as resupply by parachute, or often landing on rough, remote airstrips.  They recover bodies of our lost troops and fly the remains back to base.  The Js can actually carry a firetruck or two fully armored Humvees, which is pretty impressive considering a single Humvee door weighs more than 400 pounds.

Before takeoff, the two pilots go through long checklists using a lot of terms that are unfamiliar to me.  Sounds like a space launch. (They seated me in the cockpit — which they call the “flight deck” — wearing a headset, and so I can hear and see it all.)  The flight deck is so big that even giant Dutch people could stand up and take a step or two with no problems.  There is even a bunk bed behind us.

Some things are easy to understand, “Engine number two,” “flaps,” “brakes,” but they go over the checklist so quickly that my pen has no more chance of following than a sparrow could follow a hawk.

Finally, after several long checklists, we start taxiing to the runway.  We got held up by ATC (Air Traffic Control) when the tower spotted two scrawny dogs crossing the runway.  The pilots scanned but didn’t see them, and finally 1LT April Brown, in the right seat, said, “There they are,” pointed, and Captain John Holland, left seat, got eyes on.  The dogs held up this part of the war for about a minute before trotting away, and then the fighter jets and others kept roaring away.

The small pieces of glass in front of each pilot are called “HUDs”, or Heads Up Displays.  Pilots say the HUDs are great because they can keep their eyes out the windows while still seeing critical information without looking down at the instrument panel.  Notice through the left HUD, a fighter jet is roaring down the runway.  (Just after the dogs left.)  My quarters on KAF are straight ahead past the far side of the runway, so it’s pretty loud here day and night.  Helicopters, C-130s, jets of all sorts.  The enemy has been firing more rockets onto the base, causing some casualties, but to my knowledge have destroyed no aircraft.  Years ago, the Mujahidin more or less ran the Soviet Air Force out of Kandahar with their rocket attacks.  The “Muj” once shot down a Soviet general, captured him, but killed him before they realized they had a general.  Today, the enemy shoots at lot with SAFIRE (Surface to Air Fire) at aircraft and sometimes sparkle the pilots with lasers.  If there is a surface to air missile threat, it’s not presented itself.

The pilots throttle up and we rumble away.  There are actually three pilots aboard and the other is sitting behind me, or down in the cargo bay.  It takes about eighteen months to learn how to fly this aircraft.  One year of pilot training, then six months of training on the C-130J.  Captain Holland said the pilot training is pretty tough, but by the time you get to the C-130 school, you are in the study groove and it gets a bit easier.

That’s Lieutenant April Brown in the right seat.  She’s from San Diego and it’s obvious she loves flying.  After we got up into the darkness, she asked Captain John Holland, left seat, to take the controls so she could snap on her night vision goggles.  They see a lot of shooting stars up here, artillery illumination missions, and other aircraft.

They were kind enough to issue me a set of goggles for the mission, but the helmet and that type of goggles were alien to me so later a helpful loadmaster helped fit the goggles on the helmet and adjusted them.

There is a heck of a lot of air traffic up here, especially near the main airfields.  Over the radio, pilots could be heard with accents that seemed to come from all over the world, talking to air traffic control about headings, altitude, and other matters such as the length of available runway.  Predators and other “drones,” which are always looking down, keep their lights on so that pilots don’t plough into one.

The crew has parachutes in case the aircraft becomes uncontrollable.  I asked a pilot how in the heck he was going to get into a parachute if the airplane was out of control.  Bottom line: at least one pilot is going to have to ride the plane in while the crew gets out.

The first leg of the mission took us to Bagram Airfield (BAF), which must be one of the busiest airports in the world.   BAF is madhouse of traffic and they also take a little rocket fire at times.  The rocket fire is not a big deal, though we do take some KIA and wounded.  On the scale of the war, it’s like mosquito bites.  A nuisance you could do without, but trivial when taken to scale.

To avoid SAFIRE, pilots turn on the landing lights during the last few seconds.

So they taxi behind the “FOLLOW ME,” and we roll by all sorts of jets and helicopters.

And then we park, and go to grab take-away dinners at a nearby DFAC (dining facility) while the airplane is loaded with the supplies that are to be parachuted later tonight.

Twenty pallets weighing a total of about 32,000 pounds are rolled into the cargo bay.  The loadmasters have special training and much responsibility.  If they make a mistake, passengers can be hurt, the aircraft can be damaged, and it could even crash.  Each pallet has information posted on the side, including gross weight.  Before the pallets are loaded, they already have been arranged in the proper order, and a loadmaster then programs in the weights of the pallets and their anchor locations into the C-130J’s computer.  This calculates the CG, or Center of Gravity, which must be within specified constraints.  The computer calculates the gross weight of the aircraft, which is the net aircraft weight, plus fuel, plus cargo.  Gross weight for this mission would be about 150,000lbs.

In addition to the loadmaster’s heavy responsibilities, the riggers who “build” these pallets and attach the parachutes must be on their job.  They call this a CDS, or container delivery system, and they said it’s using LCADS “low cost air delivery system” parachutes that are relatively cheap and do not need to be turned in.  Whereas parachutes for our soldiers nearly always open, the pallets are more likely to burn in (though they seldom do).  This happened once when I was with the British in Iraq, sending us all diving to the dark, desert floor while we heard the pallet screaming in, and then practically explode when it hit the ground.  The honey comb on the bottom is a shock absorber.  Some of the containers carry ammo.  I asked the pilots about the dangers of parachuting relief aid into places like Haiti (remembering when some Kurds were killed by bundles), and they confirmed the dangers.  Problem is, the people you are trying to help are desperate – hence the willingness to use dangerous means to feed them — and so when they see the parachutes floating down, the hungry people rush to catch them, not realizing these things are very heavy and coming down very fast, and then people get crushed and we get blamed for killing people with love.  The pilots try to drop far enough away that people don’t get crushed.

Read PART II of this post at MichaelYon-Online.com

15 January 2010

Cobra Battery at FOB Frontenac
Arghandab, Afghanistan

Artillery is called “The King of Battle.”  When it comes to the delivery of force, probably nothing outside of nuclear weapons can outmatch the sustained delivery of extreme brutality.  Cannons also can deliver small atomic weapons.

Aircraft and missles have range and other profound advantages, yet on a tactical battlefield these guns are like a force of nature.

They can fire in any weather that man dares to stand in.

American artillery can destroy a parked car with the first shot from twenty miles away.  No sniper has ever lived who can shoot so well.

The red glow is caused by an approaching humvee whose lights were dimmed by red filters, yet the sensitive camera collected light over time.

Calculations for shots are extremely complex and include dozens of factors, such as windspeed, barometric pressure, humidity, altitude of the gun and the target, temperature, and the earth’s rotation, and the specific lot number of the ammunition.  Every gun is different and so the calculations for one gun would lose accuracy in another.  The guns are brutal and rugged, but also high-tech, precision machines that took centuries of science, engineering and experience to reach the current state.

The guns have reached such a high level of evolution that despite the extreme complexity, within minutes of receiving a “fire mission,” a good crew will reliably deliver accurate shots with help from the computer.

Sometimes missions are pre-planned, while at other times crews must wait close to the guns for hours, even days, without a break.  There was some base in Iraq—I went there with CSM Jeff Mellinger but have forgotten where it was—and the base was taking rocket or mortar fire on a frequent basis from a certain area.  And so the cannoneers slept just next to the guns, and finally the enemy fired and was killed because the guns were pointed at the exact predicted firing point.  The cannoneers just loaded and counter-fired and finished them.  Probably few people on base realized that the “cannon cockers” had conducted an ambush-by-howitzer.  (Maybe the crew who was there will recall this and set the facts straight.)

Cobra battery, 1-17th Infantry, fires illumination.

Sometimes the crews fire “H & I” or “terrain denial” missions.  Harassment and Interdiction missions are fired at terrain known to be used only by the enemy at certain times, and so anytime the enemy feels like rolling the dice, they can move into that terrain.  Such missions also provide influence for “shaping” the battlefield.  If the commander is trying to flush the enemy into a blunder—maybe an ambush—or maybe to cut them off from an escape route, he can have the guns pound into a gorge, say, that is used as an enemy route.  Or maybe he just tries to persuade the enemy to take a route where we have sniper teams waiting.  The battery can be used in many ways that do not include direct attacks on enemy formations.

Read the rest of this article at MichaelYonOnline.com.

Award winning war correspondent Michael Yon was detained and handcuffed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Yesterday by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel.

Yon was returning to the United States from Hong Kong to visit family when CBP officials stopped him during a routine security checkpoint.  “Officials asked me what was in my bag—nothing wrong with this question,” Yon said in an interview with BigGovernment.com.  “I told them it was normal stuff, clothes and toothbrushes.”

At this point the Customs officials escorted Yon to a designated screening area where they examined the contents of his bag.  “Then they asked me how much money I make,” Yon said.  Yon suggested to the Customs officials that the question was inappropriate and unrelated to transportation security.  The award-winning blogger noted another CBP officer approached Yon: “he asked who do I work for.”  ”I did not answer the question which clearly was upsetting to the [CBP] officers.”

Yon was escorted to a room elsewhere in the airport where he said he remained silent during much of the questioning.   According to Yon, “they handcuffed me for failing to cooperate.  They said I was impeding their ability to do their job.”

(more…)

On this small base surrounded by a mixture of enemy and friendly territory, a memorial has been erected just next to the Chapel.  Inside the tepee are 21 photos of 21 soldiers killed during the first months of a year-long tour of duty.  The fallen will belong forever to the honor rolls of the 1-17th Infantry Battalion, 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and they will join the sacred list of names of those who have given their lives in service of the United States of America.

—

The symbol of the 2nd Infantry Division is the Indian Head.  At night, soldiers of the “Indian Head Division” can be seen passing by the tepee, sometimes stopping to peer inside before walking into the darkness.

Sometimes the soldiers walk by carrying lights that are red or green, or sometimes white.  Tonight, Cobra Battery was firing illumination rounds from the cannons, which boom from the darkness, arcing a round into the night, where miles away a canister unsheathes, and the parachute opens, and brightness floats silently, shimmering over the valley where these soldiers died.

The firing is not done in remembrance, but to support ongoing combat operations.

Inside the tepee are the 21 photos, and a Bible.  The book is opened to Psalm 31.

In front of each photo, electric candles flicker through the night.

Mostly there is silence.

Soldiers put cigarettes in front of each photo, though they say that many of the fallen did not smoke.

…for thou art my strength.

Only during such times are strong men and women of greatest importance.  At all other times we have Hollywood.

Today we need soldiers who never forget their brothers, while they carry forward with devotion and strength.

The War in Afghanistan has truly begun. This will be a long, difficult fight that is set to eclipse anything we’ve seen in Iraq. As 2010 unfolds, my 6th year of war coverage will unfold with it. There is relatively little interest in Afghanistan by comparison to previous interest in Iraq, and so reader interest is low. Afghanistan is serious, very deadly business. Like Iraq, however, it gets pushed around as a political brawling pit while the people fighting the war are mostly forgotten. The arguments at home seem more likely to revolve around a few words from the President than the ground realities of combat here. I can bring the ground realities, but can sustain the coverage only by the graciousness of readers. Please keep that in mind. Please click…

Please consider joining my free Facebook and/or Twitter pages.

As Christmas approaches, many people are thinking about the troops, who in turn are thinking about loved ones at home.  Cards and letters are tacked up on many walls.  The favorites are from the little kids, with questions like, “How do you go to the bathroom?”  “Can you eat dinner?”  “Does it hurt to get shooted?”  It goes on.

I emailed to Command Sergeant Major Jeff Mellinger, asking if he had any words for the troops this Christmas.  Jeff came right back with this awesome letter:

Michael,

As you make your rounds over there, please to remind them that we know they are there and appreciate their performing their duty in such a magnificent manner.

Jeff

Then CSM Mellinger writes:

I awoke this Saturday morning at PT time (0430), and looked at my surroundings.  The worst winter storm in DC for a number of years had arrived in force.  Snow, and lots of it.  Roads are closed, planes are grounded, and people are huddled comfortably inside their homes or foolishly out trying to learn how to drive in snow.

Rather than roll over, I put some warm clothes on, leashed the dogs, and out we went for some exercise and introspection. As I walked, I was trying to imagine being in those winter camps and fights so long ago.I thought of Washington’s Christmas raid at Trenton, and his last, lonely winter camp.  I thought of the soldiers at Fort Niagara. I thought of the bitter cold of the Argonne, the Huertgen Forest and Bastogne, the Aleutians, the Chosin Reservoir, the Sava River, and Tora Bora.

As I thought of those heroes of our past, those legendary Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen that we regularly honor and pay tribute to, I thought of those quiet professionals in current fights that we don’t speak of often enough.

Look around on any forward operating base or outpost in Afghanistan, the Philippines or Iraq.  Watch the Soldiers passing through our airports coming home on or returning from R&R.  Listen to speeches during a deployment or redployment ceremony.  Stand silently and render honors to one of our fallen (something which is hardly more sincere than on Disney Road and at that airfield!).

Modern American heroes (not our over-indulged athletes or actors) are hardly given their due.  They walked or still pass quietly among us, never seeking acknowledgement or fame, but simply doing their duty as they have sworn oaths to do.  We already know some of their names:

- Smith, Murphy, Monsoor, Dunham, McGinnis – Medal of Honor;
- Hollenbaugh, Cooper, Nein, Sanford, Coffman – Distinguished Service Cross;
- Hester, Birch, Roundtree, Kandarian, LaFrenz – Silver Star;
- Kopp, Shumney, Kuban, DeLeon, Gentry – Bronze Star for Valor;
- Biggs, Carbone, Turecheck, Rushing, Berwald – Army Commendation for Valor.

And, I submit, for every warrior we acknowledge in a ceremony, there are a hundred or a thousand more who are never acknowledged for the difference they make every day.

So as I finished my peaceful walk in the snow, I thought of the Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors that are carrying the fight away from home so that I could have this walk in peace, and I am forever grateful.  I thought of those in MRAPs slowly searching roadways for hidden dangers, others working with local police to secure a village, and yet others moving quietly and quickly to eliminate or capture a hidden enemy, and I am filled with pride.

Wherever you are, and whatever you do or did to continue to guarantee my safety and freedom, I thank each of you in, headed to, returning from, or supporting the fight.  You are my heroes, and I thank you.

CSM Jeff Mellinger

The War in Afghanistan has truly begun. This will be a long, difficult fight that is set to eclipse anything we’ve seen in Iraq. As 2010 unfolds, my 6th year of war coverage will unfold with it. There is relatively little interest in Afghanistan by comparison to previous interest in Iraq, and so reader interest is low. Afghanistan is serious, very deadly business. Like Iraq, however, it gets pushed around as a political brawling pit while the people fighting the war are mostly forgotten. The arguments at home seem more likely to revolve around a few words from the President than the ground realities of combat here. I can bring the ground realities, but can sustain the coverage only by the graciousness of readers. Please keep that in mind. Please click…

Please consider joining my free Facebook and/or Twitter pages.

13 December 2009
Kandahar, Afghanistan

People are confused about the war.  The situation is difficult to resolve even for those who are here.  For most of us, the conflict remains out of focus, lacking reference of almost any sort.  Vertigo leaves us seeking orientation from places like Vietnam—where most of us never have been.  So sad are our motley pundits-cum-navigators that those who have never have been to Afghanistan or Vietnam shamelessly use one to reference the other.  We saw this in Iraq.

The most we can do is pay attention, study hard, and try to bring something into focus that is always rolling, yawing, and seemingly changing course randomly, in more dimensions than even astronauts must consider.  All while gauging dozens of factors, such as Afghan Opinion, Coalition Will, Enemy Will and Capacity, Resources, Regional Actors (and, of course, the Thoroughly Unexpected).  Nobody will ever understand all these dynamic factors and track them at once and through time.  That’s the bad news.

The good news is that a tiger doesn’t need to completely understand the jungle to survive, navigate, and then dominate.  It is not necessary to know every anthropological and historical nuance of the people here.  If that were the case, our Coalition of over forty nations would not exist.   More important is to realize that they are humans like us.  They get hungry, happy, sad, and angry; they make friends and enemies (to the Nth degree); they are neither supermen nor vermin.  They’re just people.

But it always helps to know as much as you can.  This will take much time, many dispatches, and hard, dangerous work.  Let’s get started.

The Taliban’s main effort at the moment is Kandahar City.  See it down there?  Let’s move closer.

Click on the above image for larger view.

First, let’s talk about understanding “the borders.”  They are fictitious.  The “borders” that describe the “country” of Afghanistan have trivial effect on the enemy, but the borders (without quotes) greatly affect Pakistan and the Coalition.  The AfPak frontier will be sealed the day frogs stop croaking.  We complain that Pakistan should help, but they can’t do much.  We haven’t secured the Tex-Mex border.  Many Afghans are migratory in the way that we see Mexican laborers in the United States.  Only instead of just picking corn, some will pick corn and supplement their income by planting a bomb.  For some, it’s just business, like being a hired gun in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Lots of normal people will do those jobs.  We must consider this when thinking about the rent-a-Taliban.

Click on the above image for larger view.

President Obama and NATO will plan to send tens of thousands more troops.  The big fight shaping up will likely unfold in the south, in places like Helmand, Kandahar, and to a much lesser extent, Zabul, and also in other eastern provinces.  We could use far more troops, and so other places will be left to fester, but the surge and change of course might be enough to turn the war around.  We will find out.

Russians say we repeat their mistakes but they are wrong.  The Soviets employed true scorched-earth tactics—the same tactics that many armchair commanders at home would like to employ.  Every time the Soviets whacked the Afghan hive, more hornets raged out.  Soviets bullied their way around places like Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and were fantastically brutal in Afghanistan, using all the fire they could breathe.  Their “Rules of Engagement,” if any, were probably more concerned with conserving ammunition.  They tortured.

Click on the above image for larger view.

Soviet abuses enflamed the population and combat ranged from north to south—with much occurring in Kandahar Province, the capital of which is Kandahar City.  The Soviets fought in places like Bamian, where today Americans can literally go on vacation.  The Lithuanian Ambassador to Afghanistan told me he took some holidays in Bamian and loved it.  Last year, I drove about a thousand miles from Jalalabad to Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif and back, and other places, with no problems and no soldiers.  Most of the country is not at war.  Much of this is a result of our strict “Rules of Engagement” (ROE) which seems to be driving people crazy at home (and many soldiers, too).  Many soldiers hate these new ROE, and there is little doubt that we will lose troops due to restrictive ROE.  My own thoughts are of little relevance.

Click on the above image for larger view.

Left Green Zone

The Green Zone on the left is a result of the Helmand River Valley, and also widespread American construction projects last century.  These projects left goodwill toward Americans and fantastic agricultural opportunities for the drug lords, whose products are said to kill more people every year than the war itself.  The drugs are a crucial part of this war and must be correctively addressed.

The British are running the fight in Helmand Province—they are fighting well and courageously but are under-resourced.   There are US Marines, Danish, and other folks out there.  In Helmand, the fight is serious, and friendly troops are spread far too thinly.  Some experts believe that focusing on Helmand before securing Kandahar was a strategic error.  Most districts in Kandahar are said to be under Taliban control or heavy influence.  Some areas of the south are under complete, uncontested Taliban control.  The brown area comprising the lower third of the image above is a massive desert.

Right Green Zone

The Green Zone to the right is caused by the Arghandab River, just next to Kandahar.  The Taliban want Kandahar and are in a good position to get it.  The year 2010 likely will mark a true Battle for Kandahar, though it probably will not be punctuated by the sort of pitched battles we saw in places like Mosul and Baghdad.  This remains unknown.

Click on the above image for larger view.

Armies from at least three countries have ventured into the Arghandab River Valley: British, followed by Soviets, and more recently Canadians; all were unsuccessful.

In the book Three Campaigns in Afghanistan (on the subject of Britain’s three wars), difficult engagements are described: “Further west, however, there is a great gap in the hills, where the plain narrows and runs in the Arghandab Valley.  To force a passage in this direction, through thickly sown villages and gardens and vineyards, was ‘no child’s play.’  Without masses of well-trained infantry, the attempt could not have been made at all.”

The Soviets came.  The Bear Went Over the Mountain contains a description by Soviet Army LTC S.V. Zelenskiy: “In October 1982, our reconnaissance learned that 10 guerrilla forces with a total strength of approximately 350 men were operating north of Kandahar City in the ‘green zone’ bordering the Arghandab River.  This fertile ‘green zone’ stretches for 15-20 kilometers along the northern bank of the river and is up to seven kilometers wide.  It is an agricultural region of gardens and vineyards bisected by a network of irrigation ditches.  It is practically impassible for vehicles.”

LTC Zelenskiy continues:

“The brigade received an order to destroy these mujahideen.  The commander’s concept was to seal off the north with the broneguppa of three battalions.  Helicopter gunship patrols would fly patrol patterns to seal off the south and east.”

The Soviets were defeated.  That was 1982.  But the Soviets kept trying.  In 1987, the Soviets came with all they could muster.

The Battle for Chaharqulba Village

Click on the above image for larger view.

The history is acutely relevant because the 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fort Lewis, Washington, is at this very moment fighting in the ARV, in the same villages described.

The book The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet Afghan War recounts some experiences of Mujahideen Commander Akhtarjhan, who joined the Jihad at age 12.  At war’s end he was a twenty-five-year-old commander.

Akhtarjhan describes the 1987 battle:

“The Soviets were there in strength, but they stayed on the plain with their tanks and artillery and seldom committed their own infantry.” The Soviets pushed Afghan troops ahead.

The guerrillas had fortifications and thousands of mines. The Soviets employed the tactics that many people at home beg for today; massive artillery, bombings, helicopter attacks.

According to The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower, Soviet commanders did not search and destroy; they destroyed then searched in villages throughout Afghanistan.

The battle raged for days, then weeks.  The guerillas began to crack.  According to Commander Akhtarjhan, they had plenty of ammunition but were starving and would take food and supplies from soldiers they fought.

”…my base (was) in Babur village in the orchards on the west bank…”

(Today, leaders in 5/2 Stryker Brigade say that Taliban wounded are evacuated to Babur.)

During the big battle, Soviets crept with their vehicles from the Zhare Dashta plain, just west out of the Green Zone, toward the guerrilla base in the village of Chaharqulba.  Sandbags on the Soviet vehicles made them difficult to kill with RPGs, but “It took them a week of fighting to cover six kilometers to our base.”

According to Akhtarjhan, the District Government post was on the east side of the river (as today), and the guerrillas used the east side as R&R because the Soviets would not bomb that area.  Interestingly, today, there are relatively few actions in the northeast Arghandab Valley, but the west side of the river is a madhouse during fighting season.  Unlike the Iraqis who would fight in their own neighborhoods, Afghans take it somewhere else.

Commander Akhtarjhan recounted: “During the siege, however, we could not send our wounded to Pakistan.  We could not remove the shrapnel and so many of our seriously wounded died of their wounds.  We had a few Arabs in our base at this time.  They were there for Jihad credit and to see the fighting.  ‘If you are Muslims, help us collect the wounded,’ we would tell them.  They would refuse.”

On June 05, 1987, the Manila Standard reported that Afghan forces “lost as many as 1,500 men through desertion and casualties,” and that “a 6,000 strong Soviet-Afghan force launched a massive operation on May 26 against their positions around Kandahar and nearby Arghandab. The sources said the anti-government units fought back and captured 300 Afghan troops and seven Soviet soldiers.  They added that guerrillas killed four of the Soviet soldiers while the other three joined guerrilla ranks.”

Akhtarjhan recounted, “We let the enemy get closer than ten meters to us before opening fire.  We let them get this close for two reasons.  First we wanted to be sure to get them with the first shot.  Second, we wanted to prevent their escape.  We laid thousands of PMN mines [anti-personnel] in the area – particularly on the infantry approaches from Jelawor.”

The guerrillas were having a hard time killing Soviet vehicles.  The mujahideen became dispirited and were ready to retreat.  But then Akhtarjhan’s Senior Commander, Mullah Naqib, said, “This is their last battle and will decide the battle between them and us.  They’ve tried to conquer the base for years and this is their last throw.”

Mullah Naqib strode out to fight alone, and his courage rallied the commanders behind him.  After 34 days the Soviets were defeated and retreated.

Of global significance, in what is perhaps ultimate Cosmic Justice, Soviet barbarity was a great factor leading to the downfall of the empire.

Mullah Naqib would become a leader of much influence and would later become helpful to us against the Taliban, who tried unsuccessfully to kill Mullah Naqib.  Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack in October 2007.  Demonstrating the fragility of the situation, Naqib’s death was a major setback for Kandahar city security and left an opening for the Taliban.  President Karzai appointed Mullah Naqib’s son to take over, but he is deemed both inexperienced and unable to handle the task.

Since the 2001 invasion, U.S. soldiers have come and gone from the Arghandab, but we’ve never had enough soldiers to sit still.  More recently, the Canadians made jabs at Arghandab but did not get far.  Some people believe the Canadians have been militarily defeated in their battlespace. No US officer has told me that the Canadians have been defeated, and none have denied it.  There is no doubt that Canadian troops earned much respect, and that more that more than 130 paid the ultimate price.

On current course, Canada will have fully retreated by 2011.  This is crucial: the enemy realizes that our greatest weakness is Coalition cohesion and they have defeated what was an important partner.

Now it’s mostly down to the U.S. and Afghan forces to saddle Arghandab, or lose Kandahar.

DUSTWUN
Duty Status: Whereabouts Unknown

Click on the above image for larger view.

Afghan elections were scheduled for 20 August 2009.  With the Canadians effectively neutralized by enemy resistance, the 5/2 Stryker Brigade combat team was tasked to operate in Arghandab to help facilitate voting.  The Brigade Commander, Colonel Harry Tunnell, had little intel on the region.  (Though I have found 5/2 soldiers reading and discussing everything they can find on the Soviet experience.)  The enemy started by making small bombs but those were not effective against Strykers, and so they kept upping the charges to a thousand pounds or more.  Enough to destroy any vehicle on the planet.

Early in the tour, two soldiers were killed about twenty minutes apart by IEDs.  Their buddies “knew” that the soldiers had been killed, but the bodies could not be found.  The U.S. military will practically stop the war to look for a missing soldier.   Every available asset was sent to Arghandab and they gained huge intelligence and flooded the place for the first time.  Remains were found and the men joined America’s honor roll.  The Taliban suffered humiliation.

The enemy is not defeated, but our people were now operating among them.  U.S. casualties continued during the next three months but there are indications that the enemy is today in disarray.  The enemy became afraid to sleep indoors where they might be killed by an airstrike—or by U.S. soldiers, who have a tendency to burst in during periods of maximum REM sleep.  The Taliban were terrorized and began sleeping in the orchards at night, rigging homes with explosives, which they arm at night.  (I’ve heard similar reports from Pakistan.  Pakistanis have said that drone strikes are demoralizing and terrorizing the Taliban, and though drone strikes are controversial, some Pakistanis want to see the strikes increased.)

Tactically, it is important to recognize that Arghandab is agriculturally rich in products such as grapes and pomegranates.  The valley is not like the big opium farm we see to the west in the Helmand green zone.  Famous for its pomegranates, Arghandab is considered a “breadbasket” for Afghanistan.

Pomegranate trees represent major long-term investments for farmers.  The trees take 5-7 years to mature and are productive for about 50 years.  The harvest occurs between about the first week of October to mid-November.  This is important because the trees are thick and provide good tactical cover for the Taliban, making them difficult to spot from the air, explaining why they sleep in the orchards at night.  This angers farmers; the Taliban plant bombs in the orchards, using their livelihoods for cover and concealment, and fighting during harvest season.  Bombs kill trees.

Mostly the enemy is gone for now.  Each year, many Taliban migrate to Pakistan.  The “snowbirds” return and fight during spring.  Our signals intelligence people intercepted communications from a senior Taliban leader in Pakistan, to the senior surviving leader in Arghandab, who was then heading to Pakistan.  The commander was ordered to return to Arghandab or risk losing to the Americans.  U.S. officers at 5/2 said the Taliban commander was very upset by the order.

Colonel Tunnell would say, “It is our assessment that the enemy has been defeated in the near term in the southern Arghandab River Valley, which has given us a few months’ breathing space.”  The Strykers will soon deploy to other missions in southern Afghanistan and will be replaced by the 82nd Airborne Division.

The Taliban in Arghandab got a serious whipping but they are not dead.   The winter season is providing our side a brief opportunity to earn local support with various projects in a relatively unmolested environment, while the snowbirds are in Pakistan, no doubt plotting their return.

The Battle for Kandahar is on.  Fresh troops in the United States have been given orders to get over here.  The chapter called “Arghandab” will be crucial.

The War in Afghanistan has truly begun. This will be a long, difficult fight that is set to eclipse anything we’ve seen in Iraq. As 2010 unfolds, my 6th year of war coverage will unfold with it. There is relatively little interest in Afghanistan by comparison to previous interest in Iraq, and so reader interest is low. Afghanistan is serious, very deadly business. Like Iraq, however, it gets pushed around as a political brawling pit while the people fighting the war are mostly forgotten. The arguments at home seem more likely to revolve around a few words from the President than the ground realities of combat here. I can bring the ground realities, but can sustain the coverage only by the graciousness of readers. Please keep that in mind. Please click…

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When New York Times journalist David Rohde was kidnapped last year in Afghanistan, the company engaged in a painstaking effort to squash the story. They succeeded in persuading major media who learned of the kidnapping to keep quiet. The cover-up was so good that a New York Times reporter I spoke with in December 2008, while she and I joined Secretary Gates on a trip through Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq and back to the United States, had not heard about the David Rohde kidnapping.

The New York Times openly agrees that publishing such articles increases the peril to the lives of hostages, yet it published details about a British couple being held hostage in Somalia, and thus increased the value of the hostages to the kidnappers.

Some months after Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping started leaking, I published a generic blurb about the case, but made sure none of the information was new.

I knew more than was included in the vignette, but chose not to release it. I did not share what sources had told me: that Taliban members were being paid large sums of money (and that money was being wasted) and that some of the efforts flowed through Dubai. I have not published any other additional information from sources. Shortly after publication, March 13, 2009, I received an e-mail that included this request from a person close to Rohde:

“The NYT has asked for a news blackout while they do what they can for David Rohde’s release. All the wires and the big papers are following it. Therefore, while I’m sure you don’t mean any harm, I’m not sure your post about him is helpful.”

The person who e-mailed was not from the New York Times.  I removed the blub I had posted to my site. Though no new information was released, I had offered the kidnappers more coverage.

Sources continued sending reports about attempts to repatriate Rohde. I had not sought out this information. It had fallen as it usually does, like rain.

After Rohde returned to the United States and details became public, the Washington Post and others contacted me about my decisions to publish and then remove the vignette. My thoughts were that if the words risked the life of Mr. Rohde, they should not be publicized.

While reading the New York Times’ article about the British couple, I became upset, and wondered why they would implement a black-out for one hostage, but not another.

I shifted my Blackberry over to Twitter and punched out some blurbs, one of which said the following:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

And:

“NYT is endangering the hostages in Somalia.”

It is important to know that while tweeting those words, I was sitting on an airplane, on a research trip, for an article for the New York Times. An editor had asked for something about Afghanistan, and I chose the topic of biogas, which included trips to Cambodia, Laos, Nepal (twice), Vietnam (this week), and Afghanistan.

The New York Times is one of the best sources on Iraq and Afghanistan. Their war correspondents are the “A-Team” and that included David Rohde. I was happy to write a piece for the New York Times.

The flurry of follow-on stories that picked up on my tweets, such as those by the Huffington Post, focused on ransom for Mr. Rohde, rather than the point about the harm the New York Times’ detailed coverage could cause the hostages.

On November 2, the New York Times posted a public response:

“Several Web sites repeated Monday erroneous allegations that The New York Times had paid a ransom in the case of its reporter David Rohde, held by the Taliban for seven months.”

The New York Times didn’t mention me by name, but the story continued spreading, with people reporting that I accused the New York Times of lying. Nowhere in the “tweets” was ransom mentioned, or anything about lying. I have no evidence that the New York Times misled the public, nor did I say or imply such. The tweet about money was based on what I had been told by reliable sources. Again, this is the tweet:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

The New York Times rebuttal statement goes on to quote David Rohde:

“American government officials worked to free us, but they maintained their longstanding policy of not negotiating with kidnappers. They paid no ransom and exchanged no prisoners. Pakistani and Afghan officials said they also freed no prisoners and provided no money.

“Security consultants who worked on our case said cash was paid to Taliban members who said they knew our whereabouts. But the consultants said they were never able to identify or establish contact with the guards who were living with us.”

Though it didn’t address the exact amount of money, the New York Times confirmed my tweet about money by acknowledging that “cash was paid to Taliban members.” My sources have said that large sums of money went through Dubai to Pakistan, not to mention the costs paid to consultants and other expenses.

Though my statements were in line with the New York Times’ statements, other outlets continued to state that I was accusing the New York Times of “lying.”  Not the case.

Chris Rovzar, who blogs at New York Magazine, was off mark when he ran this headline: Freelance War Reporter Accuses Times of Lying about Taliban Bribes.

My words said nothing about lying or bribes, and I am not a “freelance” or a “reporter,” though some of the work involves reporting. I contacted Mr. Rovzar and was pleasantly rewarded by his goodwill, candor and willingness to reexamine the words.

Moving on, the New York Times picked up on points about its coverage of the Somalia story when it published:

“Bloggers also accused The Times of hypocrisy in reporting on a British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates while keeping quiet Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping. . .

“The New York Times did not break the story of the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler, and during our reporting of it The Times consulted Christine Collett, Ms. Chandler’s sister-in-law, to ask her if the family objected to the publication of any information regarding the case. Ms. Collett, who was quoted in the story, said the family had no objection to The Times reporting on the case.”

Reporting with permission from a sister-in-law hardly makes it right. How many everyday people have experiences dealing with kidnappers? In fact, the Rohde case was the first time I realized how sensitive negotiators are to even passing acknowledgment.  How many of us know that even acknowledgment of the kidnapping can lead to harm?  Most people are unaware, but the New York Times knows. Did the New York Times share advice on its recent experiences when it asked Ms. Collett’s permission?

This incident aside, my respect for the New York Times’ reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan is undiminished. It offers world-class coverage, and continues to be on the reading list.

The New York Times and I simply have a difference of opinion on the hostage topic.

I believe that they have been truthful, while understandably guarded on the abduction of David Rohde. It would be wrong to bash a paper that has fielded such an outstanding team in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hostage issue is just one important issue, and all points by all parties seem to have been made and noted.

Finally, it’s time to move on from this distraction to a much larger topic: Afghanistan. Bad signals are coming from the White House.

Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.

08 November 2009

Got a ping today about an attack on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul.  It’s a dangerous road and I don’t like to drive it.  The source has always been reliable, so I pinged Tim Lynch (who often is on that road), and Tim just sent these pics and a quick narrative.  (Unedited, and my post also coming via Blackberry.)  Tim writes:

The ambush happened around 0845 or so on the west side of the Duranta Tunnel.  Steve and I rolled out to look – the fuel convoy had security escorts from Compass security and they plus some ANP are who you see up in the ridges.  Three tankers were burning and three more were shot up and leaking fuel all over the place.  There was a section of OH-58’s up and after about 20 minutes of figuring out who was who on the ground they started in on the bad guys with rockets and mini gun.

There was still some fighting going on when we arrived and few rounds came our way but were very high and not to close.  The bad guys had one belt fed which opened up briefly – the Blue Compass/ANP guys clearly had the momentum and used damn good fire discipline – we only heard volleys when the Taliban exposed themselves and those volleys were not that long.The Army claims four KIA from the OH’s which is not doubt true given how low they were scouting about for targets – there is no cover out there just fingers and draws and the security guys were putting pressure on the Ambush team to keep moving which exposed them to the birds.

Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.

Helo Halo

Luminous halos twirled above a Boeing CH-47 Chinook on a recent night around 11:30 p.m. local time at Forward Operating Base Jackson in Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, as helicopters ferried casualties and supplies in and out of the base. The photographer was independent journalist Michael Yon, a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who has covered Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines with a camera. Helicopter pilots don’t have a name for the effect, but one explained to Yon, “Basically it is a result of static electricity created by friction as…dissimilar material strike against each other. In this case, titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust.” Yon says, however, that a researcher studying helicopter brownout emailed him to say that scientists are not 100 percent sure what causes the effect. Depending on the viewing angle, it creates dazzling little galaxies. An even longer exposure reveals stars and another aircraft marked by a string of lights at upper left of center; Yon suspects this aircraft was a Predator or Reaper UAV, which, unlike manned military aircraft, fly with their lights on in the Afghan night to avoid collisions. Yon, who made these shots with a Canon 5D Mark II with a 50 mm lens at an ISO of 800, claims that the night was far darker than his sensitive camera conveys, as evidenced by the green chemlights on the ground to guide the pilots. He was moved to create a name, the Kopp-Etchells Effect, for the rotor phenomenon to honor a pair of fallen soldiers, U.S. Army Corporal Benjamin Kopp and British Army Corporal Joseph Etchells, who died one day apart in July after fierce fighting in Helmand (Kopp had been evacuated to the U.S. before he died). “The tent in the foreground is a medical tent,” says Yon, “so that casualties can be kept in a tent until the last minute. A substantial number of British casualties in Helmand have been lifted off of this exact spot…because this is probably either the most dangerous place in Afghanistan, or nearly the most dangerous.”

Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.