Archive for the 'Marine Corps' Category

In Bank of America Removes American Flags Honoring Dead Marine we briefly discussed the ugly incident where a BofA branch removed American flags honoring a U.S. Marine who had perished in Operation Enduring Freedom.  We demanded that a Bank of America executive weigh in with comments explaining the policy that required such a thing – or otherwise, why a branch manager would take it upon herself to do such a thing.  Whether the BofA executives have not read our demands or are just cowards is not yet clear.  But here is more to explain the ugly incident.  First is a video of part of the funeral procession.  The second is mostly audio explaining the incident itself.  You can be the judge.

Greenville, South Carolina saw the arrival of a Marine who perished in Afghanistan, and Gaffney, S.C. was his ultimate resting place.

Only the faint sound of lightly marching feet could be heard as hundreds stood silent on the Greenville-Spartanburg International tarmac Wednesday while fully adorned Marines carried Lance Cpl. Chris Fowlkes’ flag-draped coffin.

The solemn arrival began an afternoon-long procession that ultimately wound through the streets of the 20-year-old Marine’s hometown of Gaffney, where businesses shut down and mourners lined the streets.

The homecoming came six days after the former Gaffney High School football player died in a military hospital in Germany from injuries sustained a week earlier in an explosion in the Helman province of Afghanistan.

Well-wishers waved flags, saluted and shed tears as an army of police cars escorted Fowlkes’ family along the 40-mile stretch from the airport to the town.

Lance Corporal Chris Fowlkes was a popular and well known young man in Gaffney, and a brave warrior who gave his life in the service of his country.  It was seemingly a very heart-felt and patriotic funeral procession.  But all was not well in Gaffney, S.C.

A South Carolina Bank of America branch is drawing criticism Thursday after an employee reportedly ordered the removal of American flags placed to honor a fallen Marine over fears that people would be offended.

The Palmetto Scoop received one eyewitness email claiming that the branch manager at Bank of America’s Gaffney branch at 1602 West Floyd Baker Blvd. “told a citizen who was preparing the route for a U.S. Marine killed in action in Afghanistan by placing small American flags along the roadway that the flags might upset some of her customers.”

Said the outraged tipster, “[The branch manager] took them down and made the citizen go in to get them if she didn’t want them thrown away.”

The flags were part of the funeral procession of Lance Corporal Christopher Fowlkes, 20, who died last week after an explosion in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

WSPA-TV has also received similar tips about the “flag flap.”

A teller at the branch confirmed to TPS that the branch manager had been there around the time of the incident but had left for the day.

Bank of America released a statement apologizing for the incident and celled it a misunderstanding.

“We want to ensure the community knows how deeply proud we are of the men and women who have sacrificed so much in service to our country,” the statement said. “The bank does fly the American Flag at our locations throughout the country and flags were displayed in front of our banking center in Gaffney the evening prior to our dedicated Marine returning home.”

UPDATE: WCBD in Charleston reports that Bank of America said the incident was a “miscommunication in corporate policy.” That raises the question, which policy would require employees to remove American flags that are part of a funeral procession for a fallen Marine?

One commenter says “You Lie.”  The branch in Lexington [Main Street, Lexington, South Carolina, United States of America] refuses to fly the flag the tellers tell me they have on site. The flag pole has been naked for over 2 years now. It is a disgrace, and a poke in the eye.”

So should BofA rename their corporation to bank of Russia?  Is it Bank of America, or is it not?  With whose offense were they worried?  Really.  Who, exactly, would have come into the bank and demanded that an American flag be removed for a Marine who perished in Afghanistan?  And why would Bank of AMERICA have cared?

What corporate policy was in effect?  Was this a branch-specific issue, or is there a corporate policy that forbids the displaying of American flags for the fear of causing offense?  Who was responsible for removing the flags?  Has corporate policy been changed?  If so, why was the policy in effect?  If not, what is the justification for the policy?  Will Bank of AMERICA issue a formal apology to the Fowlkes family first and then to AMERICA?

There are many unanswered questions concerning this ugly incident.  I feel that it’s necessary for a BofA official to formally comment on this article to enlighten my readers.

In the mean time, my most sincere condolences goes out to the Fowlkes family.  God be with you through this most difficult time.

Briefly following up on Taliban Ambush in Eastern Kunar Kills Four U.S. Marines, we know now that there will be an investigation of this incident reviewing whether the ROE was a contributing cause to four Marines perishing.  There have been some blog posts and other discussion forums questioning the veracity of the reporting done that day by McClatchy.  Christian at Defense Tech (whom I respect) says Jonathan Landay with McClatchy is “a well-respected journalist whom I’ve known for years.”  I see absolutely no reason prima facie to doubt the veracity or accuracy of the report.

If the report had vacillated I would be less strident about this incident.  But the report was clear.  The Marines were under fire and demanded artillery not once, but twice.  They were denied artillery and CAS not once,  but twice – for the stated reason that the ROE didn’t allow it.

McChrystal has released his tactical directive, but let’s be clear about this.  There is what is written on paper and the unwritten context.  Here is the unwritten context.

“If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy… if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don’t know whether you will create civilian casualties, if you can withdraw from that situation without firing, then you must do so,” said McChrystal.

There is always a chance.  Always.  But here is something that has no chance of happening.  No investigation will find that a tactical directive written or endorsed by a four star general was responsible for anything bad.  The directive will be exonerated and the field grade officers responsible for denying artillery had better begin looking for another line of work.

You heard it here first.

In Helmand is a Sideshow – Or Not I addressed the charge that had been leveled in a WSJ article that Helmand was a sideshow to the real fight.  Summarizing, the author said:

American forces have been waging a major offensive in the neighboring southern province of Helmand, the center of Afghanistan’s drug trade. Some U.S. military officials believe the Taliban have taken advantage of the American preoccupation with Helmand to infiltrate Kandahar and set up shadow local governments and courts throughout the city.

“Helmand is a sideshow,” said the senior military official briefed on the analysis. “Kandahar is the capital of the south [and] that’s why they want it.”

I responded:

The Helmand Province is the home of the indigenous insurgency, the Afghanistan Taliban, and its capital is Lashkar Gah.  Without hitting the Taliban’s recruiting grounds, fund raising and revenue development, training grounds, and logistical supply lines, the campaign cannot be won.  Focusing on the population centers is a loser strategy, doomed to sure failure.  Controlling the cities as some sort of prison while the roads are all controlled by Taliban is just what the Russians did, only to withdraw in ignominy.  The Marines are in Helmand because just like Anbar, Iraq at the time, it is the worst place on earth.

But the narrative won’t go away, and even seems to be gaining momentum.  Joe Klein weighs in with the next installment.

The U.S. military does not move in mysterious ways. It plods, it plans, it plots out every logistical detail before launching an initiative. Things take time. For example: not all of the 21,000 additional forces that President Obama authorized for Afghanistan last winter have even arrived in the country yet. For another example: the battle plan those troops were asked to execute was devised primarily by General David McKiernan, who was replaced about the time the troops started arriving. McKiernan’s plan reflected his experience in conventional warfare: he chose to deploy the troops where the bad guys were — largely in Helmand province on the Pakistani border, home of nearly 60% of the world’s opium crop, a place that was firmly in Taliban control. But pursuing conventional warfare in Afghanistan is about as effective as using a football in a tennis match. The Army’s new counterinsurgency doctrine says you go where the people are concentrated and protect them, then gradually move into the sectors the bad guys control. That is not what we’re doing in Afghanistan. In addition to all the other problems we’re facing — the corruption of the Karzai government, the election chaos, the porous Pakistani border — it has become apparent that we’re pursuing the wrong military strategy in this frustrating war.

Note how the narrative has graduated to the strategy being implemented was McKiernan’s, not McChrystal’s, and McChrystal had no choice in the matter due to logistical inertia.  Continuing with the “McChrystal is powerless to change things” meme:

Upon his arrival in Afghanistan as McKiernan’s replacement last June, General Stanley McChrystal was pretty much presented with a fait accompli: the troops were arriving in Helmand. “The ship was moving in that direction,” a military expert told me, “and it would have been difficult to turn it around.” Indeed, it would have taken months of planning to change course. The additional troops were needed immediately to blunt the momentum of the Taliban and also to provide security for the Afghan elections. The trouble was, the troops would have been better deployed in Helmand’s neighbor to the east — Kandahar province, especially in Kandahar city and its suburbs. “Kandahar is the center of gravity in this insurgency,” says John Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who helped write the Army’s counterinsurgency doctrine. “It is as important now as Fallujah was in Iraq in 2004.”

Kandahar is the capital city of Afghanistan’s Pashtun majority, home of both the Karzai family and Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban. It is where the Taliban began. It has been run, in a staggeringly corrupt manner, by Hamid Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai — who, according to U.S. investigators, has extensive links to the opium trade. As the Karzai government has grown more unpopular, the situation in Kandahar has deteriorated. The Taliban own the night, slipping death threats under the doors of those who would cooperate with the government. In Iraq the military’s counterinsurgency strategy turned around a similarly bleak urban situation — notably in Baghdad, where U.S. troops helped the Iraqis regain control of neighborhoods by setting up and staffing joint security stations. But the troops who should be securing Kandahar are fighting an elusive enemy in Helmand.

Following Clausewitz into a single center of gravity for a campaign is the reason behind Center of Gravity Versus Lines of Effort in COIN, and I still continue to believe that nothing so easy and clear will present itself as a single focal point for our efforts.  But the statement concerning Fallujah in 2004 is odd.

Kandahar doesn’t seem anything like Fallujah in 2004.  The security situation in Kandahar may be degrading, but in Fallujah it was so bad that at the beginning of al Fajr the city was free of noncombatants and only fighters were left behind, many or most of whom were high on epinephrine and morphine.  The campaign in Anbar saw more than 1000 U.S. Marines perish, way more than have died in Operation Enduring Freedom between all branches of the service.  Fallujah saw continued operations into 2007 with Operation Alljah, but during the fight for Anbar Marines were also deployed to Haditha, al Qaim, Hit, the Syrian border and other rural areas.

The argument to control the streets of Kandahar makes sense if that argument doesn’t also hinge upon removing the Marines from Helmand where the fighters recruit, train, raise their support, and get ingress to and egress from Afghanistan.  In Now Zad Taliban fighters have been so unmolested that they have used that area for R&R.  The city of Now Zad – with an erstwhile population of 30,000+ civilians – is deserted with only insurgents remaining to terrorize the area so that inhabitants don’t return.  The Marines are so under-resourced that they can only fight the Taliban to a standstill.  It is so dangerous in Now Zad that the Marines deployed there are the only ones to bring two trauma doctors with them.

It is a strange argument indeed that sends Marines to Kandahar while the insurgents in Now Zad have separated themselves off from civilians and invited a fight.  So send more Marines to Kandahar to control the streets.  The Taliban bullying will stop once a Regimental Combat Team arrives.  This should not be too difficult to pull off.  As I have said before, there are so many Marines at Camp Lejeune that some units are not even in the same barracks, and more barracks are being built.  Not since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom has the Corps been so large with so many Marines garrisoned in the states.  Furthermore, if they aren’t in the states they are on board amphibious assault docks doing nothing.  Entire Battalions of Marine infantry – doing nothing for nine months.

But if the resources to control Kandahar are there, the argument to remove them from Helmand is not.  Whether the sources for the WSJ and Joe Klein’s article are wishing for the narrative to gain traction or there is in reality a sense that Helmand is a sideshow is irrelevant.  The strategists need to sense the reality that Helmand is not a sideshow, and that it is a very real line of effort in the campaign.  Without hitting the insurgents where they live we will follow the Russians out of Afghanistan.

A U.S. Marine fires at Taliban fighters during an insurgent attack on U.S. and Afghan troops in the Watapor Valley.

The Independent has an informative article on U.S. Marine Corps operations in Helmand.  Much of it is reproduced below.

Battling through the dense, towering corn fields, the heavily armed US marines trudged through Taliban territory, every arduous step sinking into deep cloying mud. In the background, the thunder of artillery rounds boomed.

Suddenly, a burst of Pashtu emanated from the radio set monitoring Taliban chatter. “They say they have got eyes on. They are waiting on us,” translated one of the marines. “Can we ask them where they are?” another replied sardonically.

The think tank International Council on Security and Development (Icos) announced last week that there had, yet again, been an increase in Taliban activity across Afghanistan. Its research revealed the insurgents had a permanent hold in 80 per cent of the country, up from 72 per cent last year and 54 per cent in 2007.

In this remote part of the green zone bordering the Helmand river, their defiant presence is blatant. As the marine patrol approached the tiny hamlet of Herati, they were greeted by a volley of bullets before an agonising pause. The troops sat as the day turned into a furnace, beads of sweat sliding down their faces, listening to the Taliban prepare their assault. Huey and Cobra attack helicopters circled overhead.

Suddenly rounds from rifles and Russian machine guns began raining down from a collection of compounds just a few hundred yards away over a small canal. The marines dropped on to their bellies and returned fire. Enemy bullets cracked over their heads and danced in the dust, but none hit their targets and the other side eventually fell back. The scream of a Harrier fast jet, low over the compounds, provided a parting warning.

It was one of three fire fights the 2nd Platoon endured during a seven-hour patrol on Friday 11 September, a symbolic anniversary of the terrorist attack that led these young servicemen to Afghanistan.

But worse was to come. As they made their way back through the corn fields, Corporal Andrew Bryant halted abruptly, his foot caught. He looked down to find it was tangled in two copper command wires, which an explosives team discovered were linked to a daisy chain of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) along the patrol’s route. If it had detonated, Cpl Bryant would not have been the only victim.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God. This is going to be it, right here.’ I am not scared of a fire fight. They can shoot at me all day. But the IEDs you have no idea when it is going to come at you. You never have any idea when your time is up,” said the 21-year-old New Yorker. “We have already had problems with them. My friend lost his legs, and two others were killed [when a vehicle hit a roadside bomb]. “That’s the best way they can get at us. They know they can’t beat us with conventional arms” …

While recent reports show that the insurgency has grown in the north and Kabul, it is in its traditional strongholds in the south and east that it remains at its deadliest. On 2 July, 4,000 US marines were dropped at key points in Garmsir district, Helmand, a staging post for the Taliban moving north from the Pakistani border.

Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines were ordered to take the southernmost point. After four days of intense fighting, they established combat operating Post (COP) Sharp – named after Lance Corporal Charles “Seth” Sharp, 20, who was killed on the first day – in Mian Poshtay. For the past two months, in daily battles, they have attempted to purge the area of a defiant Taliban while trying to convince the locals that they are here to help and, more importantly, to stay …

Slowly, some of the local farmers have started to listen, but fear of retribution is everywhere. After the battle on Friday, a man appeared from nowhere to give the marines information on the Taliban positions before disappearing into the fields once more.

In nearby Lakari market, Taliban stroll with impunity through stalls that sell opium and ammunition as well as fruit and vegetables. From the dialect that can be heard over the radio chatter during a fight, it is obvious that many are from Pakistan, where they have training camps near the border. This is the main supply route into Helmand, through which smugglers bring drugs, weapons and fighters to battle the British and American troops to the north. Once over the border into Baramcha, they move up to Safaar, where they receive weapons and orders, before heading into Lakari.

The locals in Mian Poshtay, either through fear or a strong sense of traditional Pashtunwali that demands they welcome them into their homes, continue to feed and harbour them. Others are interwoven in the community. As Captain Eric Meador, commanding officer of Echo Company, explained, the village tractor mechanic may also be a local fighter.

The Americans have put on a show of force, sending out patrols, meeting ambushes with overwhelming power. When four armed men were spotted by surveillance a few days ago laying an IED, mortars obliterated the team. The Americans informed the locals that those waging this un-Islamic war would meet the same fate. But they know they face a chicken-and-egg situation: to provide security to local people, they must cut off the Taliban supply line. But to convince farmers to co-operate, they must provide security. The locals, the Americans insist, are tiring of the insurgents. In the past couple of weeks, people have tentatively come forward with information and requests for medical help.

A boy of eight turned up at the gate yesterday with his three smaller brothers and his sick baby sister. As the doctor tended the youngest, Captain Meador gave the children liquorice and toys. “They are expecting you to be these big mean people the Taliban tell them the Americans are and I sat down and blew soap bubbles with them. Their faces just lit up,” said the officer.

“We are keeping the enemy away from population areas that are a little bit better – neutral to positive. I think the people around here want change but there has not been enough time.”

Last Monday, 20 elders turned up at shura, a meeting organised by the US marines. Among them were suspected Taliban sympathisers. Others genuinely appeared to want to co-operate. Many more would have liked to attend, they said, but were too afraid. One of them, Mirza, explained: “The Taliban said we will cut off your head, your fingers, if you go to the shura. But we had to come. The most important thing is peace, prosperity and security and no civilians are killed.”

Two days later, when the governor of Garmsir made a rare trip to the region, only a handful of old men came. The reason became obvious 24 hours later when one of the original attendees turned up at COP Sharp to display the wounds on his legs; he had been whipped. The elders who had attended the first shura, he said, had been taken to Lakari and beaten.

First off, I find it annoying that professional journalists cannot seem to follow proper grammatical rules and capitalize the word Marine.  The word marine refers to inhabiting, related to or formed by the sea.  Marines are the subject of the article.  The difference is in a letter, and journalists should get it right.

But getting on to the major points of the article, it’s obvious that although the Taliban are, generally speaking, tactically sound fighters compared to insurgents in Iraq, they are lousy shots (unlike many in Iraq).  This report follows the same theme as just about every other report from Afghanistan, whether ANA or Taliban.  Their roadside bombs and IEDs are lethal, their shooting not so much.

The campaign is winnable, but note that as we have observed before, there aren’t enough Marines or logistics to engage in the chase.  With only 4000 U.S. Marines in Helmand, the Taliban easily have enough terror on their side to prevent the locals from siding too easily with the Marines.  Beatings and whippings are commonplace with the Taliban, and the best way to ensure that the Taliban don’t have the time or wherewithal to brutalize the population is to chase them, kill their fighters, interdict their lines of logistics, and police the terrain.  In short, aggressive military and policing action is the only solution, and that requires more Marines.

I recently had an extended conversation (one of many such) with a certain Marine about his experiences in Fallujah in 2007, and while I was reminded at how heavy the kinetics was early on, I was also reminded of how much interaction the Marines had with the population.  In addition to heavy combat operations, their time in Fallujah may be said to have been policing on steroids.  The same will have to hold true for Helmand or we will not win it.

Finally, recall that we recently discussed Discerning the Way Forward in Afghanistan where I addressed – wearily, for the hundredth time – the small footprint model for Afghanistan, what a miserable failure it has been, and how it cannot hope to succeed.  Is this report from The Independent anything other than confirmation in the superlative that the hunter killer teams concept will not work?  Intelligence suffers because the Marines are not plentiful enough to protect the population from the Taliban, and they are 4000 strong in Helmand.  What happens if we bring the Marines home and send a few teams of Rangers to the Helmand Province?  Answer: the Rangers die within days.

In a sad for the U.S. Marine Corps, four Marines have perished in Afghanistan.   Lamenting their deaths and praying for their families is appropriate, but it’s also important to note the circumstances surrounding this incident.

Four U.S. Marines died Tuesday when they walked into a well-laid ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter for the Marine commander also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle, which lasted seven hours.

Three American service members and 14 Afghan security force members were wounded.

It was the largest number of American military trainers to die in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The battle took place around the remote hamlet of Gangigal, in a valley about six miles from the Pakistani border, after local elders invited the U.S. and Afghan forces for a meeting.

American officers said there was no doubt that they’d walked into a trap, as the insurgents were dug in at the village, and had preset their weapons and their fields of fire.

Again, this is a sad day for the Marines, but I sense that there is more here than casualties.  Or better said, there is more here than a mere tactical or intelligence failure.  I fear that we are attempting to win hearts and minds without the necessary concomitant force projection.  We all know that the Anbar experience will not directly apply to Helmand, or Kunar, or anywhere else for that matter.  But if we can look past that nuance we can learn from the campaign for Anbar and what lessons it might have for us in Afghanistan.

Recall the example of Abu Ahmed and Al-Qaim.

The 40-year-old is a hero to the 50,000 residents of Al-Qaim for having chased Al-Qaeda from the agricultural centre where houses line the green and blue waters of the Euphrates.

In the main street, with its fruit and vegetable stalls, its workshops and restaurants, men with pistols in their belts approach Abu Ahmed to kiss his cheek and right shoulder in a mark of respect.

It was not always this way.

He tells how one evening in May 2005 he decided that the disciples of Osama bin Laden went too far — they killed his cousin Jamaa Mahal.

“I started shooting in the air and throughout the town bursts of gunfire echoed across the sky. My family understood that the time had come. And we started the war against Al-Qaeda.”

It took three battles in the streets of Al-Qaim — in June, in July and then in November 2005 — to finish off the extremists who had come from Arab countries to fight the Americans.

Abu Ahmed, initially defeated by better equipped forces, had to flee to the desert region of Akashat, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) southwest of Al-Qaim. There he sought help from the US Marines.

“With their help we were able to liberate Al-Qaim,” he said, sitting in his house with its maroon tiled facade.

This alliance between a Sunni tribe and American troops was to be the first, and it give birth to a strategy of other US-paid Sunni fighters ready to mobilise against Al-Qaeda.

It resulted in the Sunni province of Al-Anbar being pacified in two years.

The US military, which since it led the Spring 2003 invasion of Iraq had sought to control the frontier with Syria, found in the men of Abu Ahmed an auxiliary force completely au fait with all the routes used by the smugglers.

And while Abu Ahmed has been able to receive the homage and rewards which are seen as his right as a warlord, he is very aware that the current calm is a fragile one.

“I’ve drawn up my will several times,” he said. “I expect to die.”

The myth has it that Ramadi and Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was the first such instance of coupling of Marines and indigenous fighters.  It wasn’t.  The myth also says that we finally awoke and attempted to court the friendship of the local sheiks.  Maybe there is an element of truth to that in certain parts of Anbar (not in Fallujah at any time, and not in Haditha), but the initial seeds of the awakening had to do with the indigenous fighters observing that the Marines had force projection and were willing to use it.

Granted that there is a huge difference between Anbar and the Kunar Province where Marines are embedded with the Afghan National Army.  But that’s the point, isn’t it?  The ANA isn’t ready, there aren’t enough Marines, and the locals take advantage of Marines who are implementing counterinsurgency tactics taken directly from FM 3-24.

This was my fear – that counterinsurgency tactics advocated in FM 3-24 would become so religiously ingrained into the thinking of the armed forces that they would believe that it applies in any situation and without the necessary force projection to back up the nice intent.

Carrots and stick, folks.  All carrots and no sticks makes for brave warriors who perish on the field of battle because the local fighters have little to fear – not because of our own warriors, but because of the lack of resourcing and tactics being implemented.

UPDATE:

It now appears that this may be yet another example of a rules of engagement problem.

GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.

“We will do to you what we did to the Russians,” the insurgent’s leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.

Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.

U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.

“We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We’ve lost today,” Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, said through his translator to his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter’s repeated demands for helicopters.

Four U.S. Marines were killed Tuesday, the most U.S. service members assigned as trainers to the Afghan National Army to be lost in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Eight Afghan troops and police and the Marine commander’s Afghan interpreter also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle that raged from dawn until 2 p.m. around this remote hamlet in eastern Kunar province, close to the Pakistan border.

Three Americans and 19 Afghans were wounded, and U.S. forces later recovered the bodies of two insurgents, although they believe more were killed.

The Marines were cut down as they sought cover in a trench at the base of the village’s first layer cake-style stone house. Much of their ammunition was gone. One Marine was bending over a second, tending his wounds, when both were killed, said Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 21, of Greensburg, Ky., who retrieved their bodies.

I said it would happen, and only recently “officials” have admitted that the new Afghanistan ROE have opened up new space for the insurgents.  Now it has cost the lives of four more U.S. Marines.  How many more Marines will have to die before this issue is addressed?  The new ROE should have been dealt with as a classified memorandum of encouragement and understanding to consider holistic consequences of actions rather than a change to formal rules by which our Marines and Soldiers are prosecuted by courts.  Yet the damage has been and continues to be done by poor decisions at the highest levels of leadership.

Damn the ROE.

In response to Publishing the Marine Photo: Remember the Words of Christ, John Bernard, 1stsgt USMC ret., speaks.

I am Lcpl Joshua Bernard’s Father. I deeply appreciate your intense concern over this immoral act and believe these folks are working without a functional conscience as described in Romans chapter 1. Having said that; I will make the same point here that I have now made repeatedly in interviews. We cannot let this ‘distraction’ change the important elements of the greater story and that is the implimentation of the new ROE. There aren’t 1000 Afghan lives that are worth a single Marine’s life. I say this because I am first an American and Marine – not a world citizen. We have a right and responsibility to export violence to defend these shores and our citizenry. Anything less and we will be judged ‘found wanting’ as the Bible describes those who fail to do what they know to be right. It is time for us to hold our elected officials accountable and renind them that they are Americans and for the attrocities against our Warriors that they are complicit in. Keep fighting the fight guys, here in your blog as I am with this small window of opportunity I have been given through the shed blood of my only son.

John Bernard
1stsgt USMC ret.

For more, see Proud to be a Marine.

As we have noted before while studying heavy battle space weight, requirements for cold water and completely exhausted Marines, the battle in Helmand is dismounted.  The Marines are drinking on average more than four gallons of water per day.  It is now being termed a walking war for the Marines.

ADARVESHAN, Afghanistan — The threat of buried homemade bombs, coupled with an often unforgiving terrain and a counterinsurgency agenda that requires regular presence among Afghans, is forcing U.S. Marines to take on Taliban fighters on foot.

And these footprints in the sand and dust of Helmand Province are, according to some defense analysts, leading down a path of higher American casualties that could potentially affect the American public’s support for the war here.

Almost 90 percent of the Marine operations under way in Southern Afghanistan’s Helmand are on foot, according to Col. Christian Cabaniss, commander of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines.

“We walk. This is not Iraq. We don’t drive around,” Cabaniss said.

Often, there’s no other option, Marines here say. Mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, for example, are too big and heavy to allow nimble navigation of the labyrinth of irrigation canals and ditches in southern Helmand Province. Add to that the fact that the bulk of the population in southern Afghanistan is located in rural areas.

“To be amongst the people, you’ve got to walk out there,” Cabaniss said …

“Instead of just trying to kill us, they also want to make us spend forever to go 100 meters,” Hunt said. “If you go on the roads, you know you’re going to hit IEDs. Then you’re just stuck in vehicle recovery all day, every day.”

Troop reaction to the foot patrol strategy on a battlefield that requires them to carry up to 100 pounds of gear where temperatures regularly soar over 110 degrees is mixed.

“I’m biased,” said Sgt. Matthew Roell. “I was a pall-bearer for a while and I saw a lot of people in pieces. Whenever we go foot mobile, I’m thinking about that,” he said. “Either you’re in a truck and get hit or you’re out in the open and get hit. Either way, if it’s your time, it’s your time, you know.”

While the stakes may seem higher by being outside of protected vehicles, many infantry Marines support the combat patrol strategy.

“I prefer to be foot mobile if we get attacked because that’s where I make my bread. That’s what we’re trained to do in the Marine Corps,” said Cpl. Joshua Johnston.

As we have noted before, infantry belongs on foot.  It’s the best way to ensure contact with both the population and the enemy, or in certain circumstances, both at the same time.  But not only is it tactically what the Marines are all about, the bifurcation between vehicle-borne troops and foot-borne troops seems to be solidifying.

Two years ago when I was in Iraq, I noticed there were essentially two different primary infantry weapons (the M16 automatic rifle and the also-automatic M4 carbine) carried by America’s two primary ground forces — the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army.

Marines for the most part were carrying the M16. The Army on the other hand was primarily carrying the M4: a shorter, lighter version of the M16 with a collapsible-stock.

Not that there weren’t leathernecks carrying M4s; there were. And soldiers also were wielding 16s.

But slightly different approaches to infantry tactics had led one force to favor one version of the weapon over the other. And experts today at Headquarters Marine Corps and the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal suggest that trend is increasingly reflecting the differing operational philosophies between the two services …

One Marine officer told me, “I understand the Army has in fact considered an M-4 pure fleet, getting rid of all their M16s, and they’ve already done that within their brigade combat teams.”

Indeed, during my time in 2007 embedded with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the Army’s famed 1st Cavalry Division operating out of Baghdad, nearly all of the soldiers were armed with M4s — whereas during my time spent with Marine rifle squads of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Al Taqaddum and Regimental Combat Team 2 near the Syrian border, I observed a far greater number of Marines carrying M16s.

The reasons were simple: Army patrols were frequently mounted (in Humvees and other vehicles) at least for a portion of any given patrol. And it is simply easier to get in-and-out of vehicles with a shorter M4.

Marine patrols however were almost always on foot (and for hours at a time).

“We see ourselves as foot-mobile infantry,” says Clark, who adds, “From the Marine Corps perspective, we issue the carbine to folks — vehicle drivers, crews, and infantry officers [tasked more with leading men than physically engaging enemy targets] — who might be impeded by a longer, heavier weapon.”

Like their Belleau Wood ancestors, Marines still pride themselves on being able to kill the enemy at great distances. And rifles are frankly better suited for distance-shooting than carbines. Though Clark adds the capabilities between the two “are very close,” and the M4 is very effective.

U.S. Army Col. Doug Tamilio, project manager soldier weapons at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, tells HUMAN EVENTS, “The M4 is [now] the primary infantry weapon in the U.S. Army.”

Both approaches are needed, and the discussion above is a good example of the need for different branches of the armed forces.

The AP has an informative update on the U.S. Marine efforts in Now Zad.

After three tours in Iraq, U.S. Marine Sgt. Andre Leon was used to brutal shootouts with enemy fighters and expected more of the same in Afghanistan.

Instead, what he’s seen so far are anonymous attacks in the form of mines and roadside bombings — the mark of what he calls a cowardly adversary.

“I’m not impressed with them,” Leon, 25, of Herndon, Va., said this past week from a Marines camp deep in the southern province of Helmand, where U.S. forces are challenging Taliban insurgents and their devastating use of IEDs, or homemade bombs. “I expected more of a stand-and-fight. All these guys do is IEDs.”

Marines on the front lines in southern Afghanistan say there’s no question that the militants are just as deadly as the Iraqi insurgents they once fought in Iraq’s Anbar Province. The Afghan enemy is proving to be a smaller, but smarter opponent, taking full advantage of the country’s craggy and enveloping terrain in eluding and then striking at U.S troops.

In interviews, Marines across Helmand said their new foes are not as religiously fanatic as the Syrian and Chechen militants they fought in Iraq and often tend to be hired for battle. U.S. commanders call them the “$10 Taliban.”

Taking advantage of the Afghanistan’s mountainous rural landscape, the fighters often spread out their numbers, hiding in fields and planting bombs on roads, rather than taking aim at U.S. forces from snipers’ nests in urban settings, as often was the case in Iraq. And they are not as bent on suicide, often retreating to fight another day.

“One thing about Afghanistan, they’re not trying to go to paradise,” said Sgt. Robert Warren, 26, of Peshtigo, Wis. He served a tour in both Iraq and Afghanistan before his current assignment at Combat Outpost Sharp, a Marines camp hidden in cornfields and dirt piles.

“They want to live to see tomorrow,” Warren said. “They engage with us, but when they know we’ll call in air support, they’ll break contact with us. … They’re just as fierce, but they’re smarter.”

Marine commanders believe they face between 7,000 and 11,000 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, although it is unclear how many are low-level militants hired for battle as opposed to extremist leaders.

By comparison, officials still are unsure how many members of al-Qaida in Iraq remain. Earlier estimates ranged between 850 to several thousand full-time fighters, although commanders believe that number has been reduced significantly as a result of counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq …

Both foes are also sometimes known to use drugs — troops have reported finding syringes and needles in enemy camps.

Training does not seem to be an issue for Marines who have been making the transition from Iraq to Afghanistan. Their skills appear to have held up in both war zones.

But new U.S. battle guidelines that limit shooting into or otherwise attacking buildings without ensuring there are no civilians inside have at times made the fighting more difficult.

The rules were put into place this summer after dozens of Afghans were killed in a May battle in Farah province that ended when U.S. forces bombed a building where Taliban fighters were believed to be hiding.

“It’s frustrating to be attacked from a building,” said Lt. Joe Hamilton of Baltimore as he scrutinized two-story village structures on the other side of dirt-and-barbed wire walls at Combat Outpost Fiddler’s Green. “You can’t shoot back because you don’t know if there are civilians there.”

He added: “They’re more disciplined. They wait longer until we get in their kill zones, then they attack us.”

In Anbar the insurgency was bifurcated between the indigenous fighters and the foreign elements who fought for religious reasons.  In Fallujah in 2007 fighters from Chechnya, Somalia, and other countries were killed by the 2/6 Marines.  They were found to have been taking epinephrine and morphine before engagements.

It’s a positive development that although the indigenous fighters are disciplined, they aren’t fanatics.  They only work for people who are fanatics.  Scores of them might still have to be killed in order to convince them that a few dollars isn’t worth the risk.  But the situation is not good for the Marines.

Recall that we have had this debate about rules of engagement and the fact that the Marines cannot possibly be assured in these cases that there aren’t noncombatants inside structures.  Thus, not only would the 2008 Marine Corps operations in Garmsir not have occurred, but the Taliban will learn to seek refuge in structures very quickly in these engagements.

It was a simple observation but for some reason difficult for others to understand.  “You can’t shoot back because you don’t know if there are civilians there.”  And thus the warfare ends and the game begins.  I suspect that it will be a deadly game for the noncombatants and Marines alike, regardless of the intent of the rules.