Medal of Honor Long Overdue for Heroic Hawaiian

The Medal of Honor will likely finally be awarded to this heroic Hawaiian warrior. His story is inspiring in every way. Where do we find such men?

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Medal of Honor Likely for Isle Man

October 28, 2009
Knight Ridder/Tribune

A Maui man who gave his life in a one-man stand during the Korean War against "overwhelming numbers" of enemy troops so fellow Soldiers could survive," is expected to be approved today for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.

The addition of Army Pfc. Anthony T. Kahoohanohano's name to the Medal of Honor roll represents a decadelong effort by his family and Hawaii lawmakers to upgrade the Distinguished Service Cross he received and to give him the recognition they say he deserves.

Kahoohanohano, who was with Company H, 2nd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, of the 7th Infantry Division, was in charge of a machine gun squad supporting a company of Soldiers as a much larger enemy force advanced in the vicinity of Chup'a-ri, Korea, on Sept. 1, 1951.

Fight to the Death

According to his posthumously awarded Distinguished Service Cross citation, as the men fell back, Kahoohanohano -- although already wounded in the shoulder -- ordered his squad to a more defensible position while he gathered grenades and returned alone to the machine gun post.

As enemy troops tried to overrun Kahoohanohano's position, the 21-year-old from Wailuku fought back with bullets, grenades and then his hands, according to the citation.

"Private Kahoohanohano fought fiercely and courageously, delivering deadly accurate fire into the ranks of the onrushing enemy" until he was killed, the citation states.

A counterattack was launched, and the U.S. troops found 11 dead enemy Soldiers in front of Kahoohanohano's position, and two in the gun emplacement itself who had been beaten to death with an entrenching tool.

The Distinguished Service Cross was presented to the Soldier's family on Maui in 1952.

The Medal of Honor award is expected to be approved today with President Obama's signing of the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act in the White House Rose Garden.

The upgrade of Kahoohanohano's recognition for valor represents a 10-year quest by the family started by Abel Kahoohanohano Sr., one of Anthony's brothers, and taken up by Abel's son, George Kahoohanohano, after his father died.

A 10-year Effort

A recommendation for a Medal of Honor was made by the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink in 2001 but the request was denied by the Army. U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, then took up the cause.

George Kahoohanohano said his uncle's actions "more than earned the Medal of Honor."

Then-Army Secretary Pete Geren wrote to Akaka in March saying that after giving the request "careful, personal consideration, I have determined that the Medal of Honor is the appropriate award to recognize Private First Class Kahoohanohano's heroic actions."

All six Kahoohanohano brothers served in the military -- four in the active duty Army, one in the Marines and another in the National Guard.

Madeline Kahoohanohano remembered Anthony, her brother-in-law, as a fearless man of his word. The son of a police officer, he was a football and basketball standout at St. Anthony's School for Boys.

"He didn't seem to be afraid of anyone," Madeline Kahoohanohano said. "He always was a toughie. He always used to stand up -- even for his younger brothers. He would step up and protect his younger brothers."

From Knight Ridder/Tribune

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Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

Australian Singers Pay Tribute to American Military

Some of the best friends we made in Iraq were the extraordinary Australian soldiers. We shared security duties many times on joint convoys. It's important to all of our friends down under that they know how much we appreciate them for their service and their friendship.

You may not have heard of this group - the Ten Tenors - from Australia, but they have been traveling the world singing, and they offer this wonderful tribute to the United States of America's men and women in uniform. Wonderful singing and beautiful images.



Turn up your volume, sit back, and enjoy. This is beautiful.

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR AUSSIE FRIENDS!

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

Obama's Road to a Failed Presidency

The following article was sent to me by a friend in Kentucky:

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Dr. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist, who has had nearly 30 years experience in planning, conducting, and managing research in the field of youth studies, and drug and alcohol research. Currently Dr. Hunt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis and the Principal Investigator on three National Institutes on Health projects.

Another Failed Presidency
By Geoffrey P. Hunt

Barrack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out.

Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China .

But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.

But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?

No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.

But not this president.. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task- all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper.

Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience. In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non- green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."

Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.

Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along. Hopefully, we will all have the will to make sure this will be a one-term presidency as I don't think we can survive two terms.

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We still don't really know who Barack Obama is, do we? But I think we've learned the hard lesson that his agenda is not a traditional American one...

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

An Army Veteran Needs Help

I cannot tell a lie. This wonderful man is my brother-in-law, Jim Spitzer. His life has been one of service, hard work, and dedication to his family, his community, and his country. He has served as both a soldier and a police officer.

Jim has been through some tough times, but he still exemplifies the warrior spirit. His determination, courage, and sense of duty to his wife and children are examples to all who witness the battle he is fighting now.

Jim needs a liver transplant. His story is told on the website for the National Foundation for transplants at this link.

Here is a brief synopsis from the website:

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"In 2007, Jim was diagnosed with a life-threatening liver disease. Doctors have told Jim a liver transplant is his only hope for a second chance at life. He will soon be placed on the transplant waiting list at Florida Hospital.

Jim loves his job as a utility tech. Unfortunately, working takes all of his energy and leaves him unable to do much else. Even so, Jim is determined to continue working as long as his health allows so he can help support his family. He and his wife, Vannessa, have five children and eight grandchildren.

In the 1970s, Jim spent three years with the U.S. Army. During that time, he was involved in the security effort to protect U.S. Olympic athletes in the 1972 games in Munich. After returning to the U.S., Jim spent years with the reserves and even earned a service medal for coming to the aid of a fellow soldier while in the jungles of Panama. For a short time, he served with the 1775th Military Police out of Detroit.

Despite his struggles, Jim is optimistic about the future. He hopes to have his health restored so he can return to the hobbies he once loved, like riding his motorcycle and working on old cars. Jim looks forward to the lifesaving transplant that will allow him more time with his family.

A liver transplant costs approximately $500,000. And that's only the beginning. Even with medical coverage, Jim will face significant expenses. For the rest of his life, he will need follow-up care and daily anti-rejection medications. The cost of post-transplant medications can range from $2,000 to $5,000 per month--and they are as critical to his survival as the transplant itself.

You can help.

To make a donation to NFT in honor of Jim, click this link to donate today via PayPal.

If you'd prefer to send your gift by mail, please send it to the NFT Florida Liver Fund, 5350 Poplar Avenue, Suite 430, Memphis, TN 38119. Please be sure to write "in honor of Jim Spitzer" on the memo line.

Thank you for your generosity!

Patient Health Institute: Florida Hospital

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Any assistance would be appreciated. Please forward this information to anyone you think could help.

I also urge you to visit the website for this wonderful organization, the National Foundations for Transplants.

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

Upcoming Interview on my book: "My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq"

Please check out this link for information about an upcoming radio interview about the book. As we get more information out via my publicist, we hope to have more of these events.

Please check out the website for the book at www.MyLastWar.com and recommend it to your friends.

If you happen to read it, I would love to hear from you at my email address of TheRangerCop@aol.com.

Thanks!

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

C'mon Mr. President - Make a Decision on Afghanistan

It is “fish or cut bait” time in Afghanistan. Now that NATO has come out in support of increasing troop strength in that war, President Obama needs to quit worrying about Fox News and make a decision on General McChrystal’s troop request.

With Pakistan’s offensive in the tribal areas, there may be a window of opportunity to eliminate the terrorist safe havens once and for all. We must coordinate our military efforts with Pakistan because such cooperation will be the only way to achieve success in either Pakistan or Afghanistan.

As long as the Taliban and Al Qaeda have places to hide, we will never succeed in Afghanistan. Our success in the beginning of the war came when we put these fundamentalist thugs on the run. Our failure has been giving them the time to take root in Pakistan.

The strategy in Afghanistan must be to win or leave. Our troops must not be put in a situation where holding the line and maintaining the status quo is the only realistic goal. Success will only come if the Afghans can take care of themselves (a questionable goal in the first place), and the fundamentalists have no place to train, supply, and rest.

Complete victory is the only acceptable goal for men and women who risk their lives in war. Our civilian and military leaders must develop the strategy to defeat the terrorists and the Taliban once and for all (which means NO safe havens), or we should give up the ghost and bring the troops home.

There is no middle ground.

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

Note to Subscribers of "American Ranger"

I have consolidated separate RSS subscription feeds through one account.

If you are currently subscribing to American Ranger and you stop receiving updates, please RE-SUBSCRIBE by using one of the subscription links on the American Ranger home page/this page.

I apologize for any inconvenience, and I appreciate your continued readership!

Charles M. Grist
American Ranger

American Ranger the Cop: An Old Case Springs to Life

The one thing about being a cop is that you never know when some old case is going to raise its head once again.

Several years ago, my squad located an armed robber in a house near the crime scene. I managed to get a post-Miranda confession to the robbery from the suspect, he was identified by the victim, he was convicted, and he was sent to prison.

While one of our detectives was interviewing him at the police department, I checked on an arrest warrant for the guy from another state. I called the detective who handled the case, got the details of the major crime, and managed to get the robber to confess to the crime in the other state.

Now the trial in that state is finally happening, so I have to testify about the confession.

That's okay; glad to do it. Anything to keep a bad guy off the street.

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

Counterterror Strategy for Afghanistan & Pakistan - From the Warrior Legacy Institute

The Warrior Legacy Institute is sometimes described as a "people's think tank" and it offers a perspective on the strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This release also includes a link to their website which has videos and other information. This is presented here as simply another source of information for all of us as we watch the critical days ahead in the War on Terror:

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For immediate release:
October 22, 2009

Warrior Legacy Institute releases layperson's guide to Counterterror strategy for Afghanistan & Pakistan

There is an important debate underway about what strategy we should pursue in Afghanistan. This decision is important for all Americans, but many don't have a very good understanding of both the Population-Centric Counterinsurgency strategy advocated by Gen. McChrystal and a Counterterrorism strategy. The Warrior Legacy Institute (WLI) releases a paper today on Counterterror that doesn't require a military background to understand. This is a complement to the paper we released last week on Population-Centric Counterinsurgency. We are also releasing two short videos on these topics. Both the papers and videos are designed for you and anyone you want to share them with. They were produced for you and anyone you want to share them with. We believe that educating the public about the choices will allow them to make informed decisions about what they think is best.

The Warrior Legacy Institute (WLI) is a “people's think tank” designed to take the most important national security issues and explain them in simple language to the American people. The papers are designed for those who have an interest in what our strategies actually are, but who do not have a deep knowledge of military affairs. The papers and companion videos can be found here.

The debate about what our plan for Afghanistan should be is happening now, WLI believes all Americans should have a clear understanding of the specifics under consideration.

Cordially,

Jim

Jim Hanson
Director, Warrior Legacy Institute

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Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com

The Rocky Road Ahead in the War on Terror

As usual, Stratfor.com, a master in global intelligence, has a superb and insightful essay on where we are headed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

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The U.S. Challenge in Afghanistan
October 20, 2009 | 0630 GMT

By George Friedman and Reva Bhalla

The decision over whether to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan may wait until the contested Afghan election is resolved, U.S. officials said Oct. 18. The announcement comes as U.S. President Barack Obama is approaching a decision on the war in Afghanistan. During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, Obama argued that Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time, but Afghanistan was a necessary war. His reasoning went that the threat to the United States came from al Qaeda, Afghanistan had been al Qaeda’s sanctuary, and if the United States were to abandon Afghanistan, al Qaeda would re-establish itself and once again threaten the U.S. homeland. Withdrawal from Afghanistan would hence be dangerous, and prosecution of the war was therefore necessary.

After Obama took office, it became necessary to define a war-fighting strategy in Afghanistan. The most likely model was based on the one used in Iraq by Gen. David Petraeus, now head of U.S. Central Command, whose area of responsibility covers both Afghanistan and Iraq. Paradoxically, the tactical and strategic framework for fighting the so-called “right war” derived from U.S. military successes in executing the so-called “wrong war.” But grand strategy, or selecting the right wars to fight, and war strategy, or how to fight the right wars, are not necessarily linked.

Afghanistan, Iraq and the McChrystal Plan

Making sense of the arguments over Afghanistan requires an understanding of how the Iraq war is read by the strategists fighting it, since a great deal of proposed Afghan strategy involves transferring lessons learned from Iraq. Those strategists see the Iraq war as having had three phases. The first was the short conventional war that saw the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s military. The second was the period from 2003-2006 during which the United States faced a Sunni insurgency and resistance from the Shiite population, as well as a civil war between those two communities. During this phase, the United States sought to destroy the insurgency primarily by military means while simultaneously working to scrape a national unity government together and hold elections. The third phase, which began in late 2006, was primarily a political phase. It consisted of enticing Iraqi Sunni leaders to desert the foreign jihadists in Iraq, splitting the Shiite community among its various factions, and reaching political — and financial — accommodations among the various factions. Military operations focused on supporting political processes, such as pressuring recalcitrant factions and protecting those who aligned with the United States. The troop increase — aka the surge — was designed to facilitate this strategy. Even more, it was meant to convince Iraqi factions (not to mention Iran) that the United States was not going to pull out of Iraq, and that therefore a continuing American presence would back up guarantees made to Iraqis.

It is important to understand this last bit and its effect on Afghanistan. As in Iraq, the idea that the United States will not abandon local allies by withdrawing until Afghan security forces could guarantee the allies’ security lies at the heart of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. The premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, e.g., before local allies’ security could be guaranteed, would undermine U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. To a great extent, the process of U.S. security guarantees in Afghanistan depends on the credibility of those guarantees: Withdrawal from Iraq followed by retribution against U.S. allies in Iraq would undermine the core of the Afghan strategy.

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategy in Afghanistan ultimately is built around the principle that the United States and its NATO allies are capable of protecting Afghans prepared to cooperate with Western forces. This explains why the heart of McChrystal’s strategy involves putting U.S. troops as close to the Afghan people as possible. Doing so will entail closing many smaller bases in remote valleys — like the isolated outpost recently attacked in Nuristan province — and opening bases in more densely populated areas.

McChrystal’s strategy therefore has three basic phases. In phase one, his forces would fight their way into regions where a large portion of the population lives and where the Taliban currently operates, namely Kabul, Khost, Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The United States would assume a strategic defensive posture in these populated areas. Because these areas are essential to the Taliban, phase two would see a Taliban counterattack in a bid to drive McChrystal’s forces out, or at least to demonstrate that the U.S. forces cannot provide security for the local population. Paralleling the first two phases, phase three would see McChrystal using his military successes to forge alliances with indigenous leaders and their followers.

It should be noted that while McChrystal’s traditional counterinsurgency strategy would be employed in populated areas, U.S. forces would also rely on traditional counterterrorism tactics in more remote areas where the Taliban have a heavy presence and can be pursued through drone strikes. The hope is that down the road, the strategy would allow the United States to use its military successes to fracture the Taliban, thereby encouraging defections and facilitating political reconciliation with Taliban elements driven more by political power than ideology.

There is a fundamental difference between Iraq and Afghanistan, however. In Iraq, resistance forces rarely operated in sufficient concentrations to block access to the population. By contrast, the Taliban on several occasions have struck with concentrations of forces numbering in the hundreds, essentially at company-size strength. If Iraq was a level one conflict, with irregular forces generally refusing conventional engagement with coalition forces, Afghanistan is beginning to bridge the gap from a level one to a level two conflict, with the Taliban holding territory with forces both able to provide conventional resistance and to mount some offensives at the company level (and perhaps at the battalion level in the future). This means that occupying, securing and defending areas such that the inhabitants see the coalition forces as defenders rather than as magnets for conflict is the key challenge.

Adding to the challenge, elements of McChrystal’s strategy are in tension. First, local inhabitants will experience multilevel conflict as coalition forces move into a given region. Second, McChrystal is hoping that the Taliban goes on the offensive in response. And this means that the first and second steps will collide with the third, which is demonstrating to locals that the presence of coalition forces makes them more secure as conflict increases (which McChrystal acknowledges will happen). To convince locals that Western forces enhance their security, the coalition will thus have to be stunningly successful both at defeating Taliban defenders when they first move in and in repulsing subsequent Taliban attacks.

In its conflict with the Taliban, the coalition’s main advantage is firepower, both in terms of artillery and airpower. The Taliban must concentrate its forces to attack the coalition; to counter such attacks, the weapons of choice are airstrikes and artillery. The problem with both of these weapons is first, a certain degree of inaccuracy is built into their use, and second, the attackers will be moving through population centers (the area held by both sides is important precisely because it has population). This means that air- and ground-fire missions, both important in a defensive strategy, run counter to the doctrine of protecting population.

McChrystal is fully aware of this dilemma, and he has therefore changed the rules of engagement to sharply curtail airstrikes in areas of concentrated population, even in areas where U.S. troops are in danger of being overrun. As McChrystal said in a recent interview, these rules of engagement will hold “Even if it means we are going to step away from a firefight and fight them another day.”

This strategy poses two main challenges. First, it shifts the burden of the fighting onto U.S. infantry forces. Second, by declining combat in populated areas, the strategy runs the risk of making the populated areas where political arrangements might already be in place more vulnerable. In avoiding air and missile strikes, McChrystal avoids alienating the population through civilian casualties. But by declining combat, McChrystal risks alienating populations subject to Taliban offensives. Simply put, while airstrikes can devastate a civilian population, avoiding airstrikes could also devastate Western efforts, as local populations could see declining combat as a betrayal. McChrystal is thus stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place on this one.

One of his efforts at a solution has been to ask for more troops. The point of these troops is not to occupy Afghanistan and impose a new reality through military force, which is impossible (especially given the limited number of troops the United States is willing to dedicate to the problem). Instead, it is to provide infantry forces not only to hold larger areas, but to serve as reinforcements during Taliban attacks so the use of airpower can be avoided. Putting the onus of this counterinsurgency on the infantry, and having the infantry operate without airpower, is radical departure in U.S. fighting doctrine since World War II.

Seismic Shift in War Doctrine

Geopolitically, the United States fights at the end of a long supply line. Moreover, U.S. forces operate at a demographic disadvantage. Once in Eurasia, U.S. forces are always outnumbered. Infantry-on-infantry warfare is attritional, and the United States runs out of troops before the other side does. Infantry warfare does not provide the United States any advantage, and in fact, it places the United States at a disadvantage. Opponents of the United States thus have larger numbers of fighters; greater familiarity and acclimation to the terrain; and typically, better intelligence from countrymen behind U.S. lines. The U.S. counter always has been force multipliers — normally artillery and airpower — capable of destroying enemy concentrations before they close with U.S. troops. McChrystal’s strategy, if applied rigorously, shifts doctrine toward infantry-on-infantry combat. His plan assumes that superior U.S. training will be the force multiplier in Afghanistan (as it may). But that assumes that the Taliban, a light infantry force with numerous battle-hardened formations optimized for fighting in Afghanistan, is an inferior infantry force. And it assumes that U.S. infantry fighting larger concentrations of Taliban forces will consistently defeat them.

Obviously, if McChrystal drives the Taliban out of secured areas and into uninhabited areas, the United States will have a tremendous opportunity to engage in strategic bombardment both against Taliban militants themselves and against supply lines no longer plugged into populated areas. But this assumes that the Taliban would not reduce its operations from company-level and higher assaults down to guerrilla-level operations in response to being driven out of population centers. If the Taliban did make such a reduction, it would become indistinguishable from the population. This would allow it to engage in attritional warfare against coalition forces and against the protected population to demonstrate that coalition forces can’t protect them. The Taliban already has demonstrated the ability to thrive in both populated and rural areas of Afghanistan, where the terrain favors the insurgent far more than the counterinsurgent.

The strategy of training Afghan soldiers and police to take up the battle and persuading insurgents to change sides faces several realities. The Taliban has an excellent intelligence service built up during the period of its rule and afterward, allowing it to populate the new security forces with its agents and loyalists. And while persuading insurgents to change sides certainly can happen, whether it can happen to the extent of leaving the Taliban materially weakened remains in doubt. In Iraq, this happened not because of individual changes, but because regional ethnic leadership — with their own excellent intelligence capabilities — changed sides and drove out opposing factions. Individual defections were frequently liquidated.

But Taliban leaders have not shown any inclination for changing sides. They do not believe the United States is in Afghanistan to stay. Getting individual Taliban militants to change sides creates an intelligence-security battle. But McChrystal is betting that his forces will form bonds with the local population so deep that the locals will provide intelligence against Taliban forces operating in the region. The coalition must thus demonstrate that the risks of defection are dwarfed by the advantages. To do this, the coalition security and counterintelligence must consistently and effectively block the Taliban’s ability to identify, locate and liquidate defenders. If McChrystal cannot do that, large-scale defection will be impossible, because well before such defection becomes large scale, the first defectors will be dead, as will anyone seen by the Taliban as a collaborator.

Ultimately, the entire strategy depends on how you read Iraq. In Iraq, a political decision was made by an intact Sunni leadership able to enforce its will among its followers. Squeezed between the foreign jihadists who wanted to usurp their position and the Shia, provided with political and financial incentives, and possessing their own forces able to provide a degree of security themselves, the Sunni leadership came to the see the Americans as the lesser evil. They controlled a critical mass, and they shifted. McChrystal has made it clear that the defections he expects are not a Taliban faction whose leadership decides to shift, but Taliban soldiers as individuals or small groups. That isn’t ultimately what turned the Iraq war but something very different — and quite elusive in counterinsurgency. He is looking for retail defections to turn into a strategic event.

Moreover, it seems much too early to speak of the successful strategy in Iraq. First, there is increasing intracommunal violence in anticipation of coming elections early next year. Second, some 120,000 U.S. forces remain in Iraq to guarantee the political and security agreements of 2007-2008, and it is far from clear what would happen if those troops left. Finally, where in Afghanistan there is the Pakistan question, in Iraq there remains the Iran question. Instability thus becomes a cross-border issue beyond the scope of existing forces.

The Pakistan situation is particularly problematic. If the strategic objective of the war in Afghanistan is to cut the legs out from under al Qaeda and deny these foreign jihadists sanctuary, then what of the sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal belt where high-value al Qaeda targets are believed to be located? Pakistan is fighting its share of jihadists according to its own rules; the United States cannot realistically expect Islamabad to fulfill its end of the bargain in containing al Qaeda. The primary U.S. targets in this war are on the wrong side of the border, and in areas where U.S. forces are not free to operate. The American interest in Afghanistan is to defeat al Qaeda and prevent the emergence of follow-on jihadist forces. The problem is that regardless of how secure Afghanistan is, jihadist forces can (to varying degrees) train and plan in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia — or even Cleveland for that matter. Securing Afghanistan is thus not necessarily a precondition for defeating al Qaeda.

Iraq is used as the argument in favor of the new strategy in Afghanistan. What happened in Iraq was that a situation that was completely out of hand became substantially less unstable because of a set of political accommodations initially rejected by the Americans and the Sunnis from 2003-2006. Once accepted, a disastrous situation became an unstable situation with many unknowns still in place.

If the goal of Afghanistan is to forge the kind of tenuous political accords that govern Iraq, the factional conflicts that tore Iraq apart are needed. Afghanistan certainly has factional conflicts, but the Taliban, the main adversary, does not seem to be torn by them. It is possible that under sufficient pressure such splits might occur, but the Taliban has been a cohesive force for a generation. When it has experienced divisions, it hasn’t split decisively.

On the other hand, it is not clear that Western forces in Afghanistan can sustain long-term infantry conflict in which the offensive is deliberately ceded to a capable enemy and where airpower’s use is severely circumscribed to avoid civilian casualties, overturning half a century of military doctrine of combined arms operations.

The Bigger Picture

The best argument for fighting in Afghanistan is powerful and similar to the one for fighting in Iraq: credibility. The abandonment of either country will create a powerful tool in the Islamic world for jihadists to argue that the United States is a weak power. Withdrawal from either place without a degree of political success could destabilize other regimes that cooperate with the United States. Given that, staying in either country has little to do with strategy and everything to do with the perception of simply being there.

The best argument against fighting in either country is equally persuasive. The jihadists are right: The United States has neither the interest nor forces for long-term engagements in these countries. American interests go far beyond the Islamic world, and there are many present (to say nothing of future) threats from outside the region that require forces. Overcommitment in any one area of interest at the expense of others could be even more disastrous than the consequences of withdrawal.

In our view, Obama’s decision depends not on choosing between McChrystal’s strategy and others, but on a careful consideration of how to manage the consequences of withdrawal. An excellent case can be made that now is not the time to leave Afghanistan, and we expect Obama to be influenced by that thinking far more than by the details of McChrystal’s strategy. As McChrystal himself points out, there are many unknowns and many risks in his own strategy; he is guaranteeing nothing.

Reducing American national strategy to the Islamic world, or worse, Afghanistan, is the greater threat. Nations find their balance, and the heavy pressures on Obama in this decision basically represent those impersonal forces battering him. The question he must ask himself is simple: In what way is the future of Afghanistan of importance to the United States? The answer that securing it will hobble al Qaeda is simply wrong. U.S. Afghan policy will not stop a global terrorist organization; terrorists will just go elsewhere. The answer that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is important in shaping the Islamic world’s sense of American power is better, but even that must be taken in context of other global interests.

Obama does not want this to be his war. He does not want to be remembered for Afghanistan the way George W. Bush is remembered for Iraq or Lyndon Johnson is for Vietnam. Right now, we suspect Obama plans to demonstrate commitment, and to disengage at a more politically opportune time. Johnson and Bush showed that disengagement after commitment is nice in theory. For our part, we do not think there is an effective strategy for winning in Afghanistan, but that McChrystal has proposed a good one for “hold until relieved.” We suspect that Obama will hold to show that he gave the strategy a chance, but that the decision to leave won’t be too far off.

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Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com
(The website for my book, "My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq.")

Private Contractors Paying a Heavy Price in Iraq and Afghanistan

During my tour in Iraq in 2004, I was proud to meet many of the private contractors who served in civilian jobs. These men and women protected diplomats, guarded facilities, drove trucks, and filled a multitude of jobs that had to be done. They have also suffered comrades killed and wounded.

The following article from the Orlando Sentinel via the Chicago Tribune, talks about the tragedy of one of those civilians wounded in 2004 (Reggie Lane, pictured above). Sadly, these heroes don't have the same support system that awaits soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

This story will break your heart:

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In U.S. wars, contractors' pain is private

They suffer without support available to military veterans

By T. Christian Miller
Special to Tribune Newspapers
October 18, 2009

CENTRAL POINT, Ore. - -- A nurse rocked him awake as pale dawn light crept into the room. "C'mon now, c'mon," the nurse murmured. "Time to get up."

Reggie Lane was once a hulking man of 260 pounds. Friends called him "Big Dad." Now he weighed less than 200 pounds and his brain was severely damaged. He groaned angry, wordless cries.

The nurse moved fast. Two bursts of deodorant spray under each useless arm. Then he dressed Lane and used a mechanical arm to hoist him into a wheelchair.

Lane's head fell forward, his chin buried in his chest. His legs crossed and uncrossed involuntarily. His left index finger was rigid and pointed, as if frozen in permanent accusation.

In 2004, Lane was driving a fuel truck in Iraq for a defense contractor when insurgents attacked his convoy with rocket-propelled grenades. For most of the five years since, Lane, now 60, has spent his days in silence, a reminder of the hidden costs of relying on civilian contract workers to support the U.S. war effort.

His wife, Linda, said visiting her husband was difficult. They had been childhood friends and were fiercely loyal to each other.

"He was a good man. He paid his bills. He took care of his family," she said, her breathing labored from a pulmonary disease. "He's a human being who fought for his country. He doesn't deserve to be thrown away."

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has depended on contract workers more than in any previous conflict -- to cook meals for troops, wash laundry, deliver supplies and protect diplomats, among other tasks. Tens of thousands of civilians have worked in the two battle zones, often facing the same dangers as U.S. soldiers and suffering the same kinds of injuries.

Contract workers from the U.S. have been mostly men, primarily middle-age, many of them military veterans drawn by money, patriotism or both, according to interviews and public records.

Nearly 1,600 civilian workers -- both Americans and foreign nationals -- have died in the two war zones. Thousands more have been injured.

Many of the civilians have come home as military veterans in all but name, sometimes with lifelong disabilities but without the support network available to soldiers.

"These guys are like the Vietnam vets of this generation," said Lee Frederiksen, a psychologist who worked for Mission Critical Psychological Services, a Chicago-based firm that provides counseling for war-zone workers. "The normal support that you would get if you were injured in the line of duty as a police officer or if you were injured in the military ... just doesn't exist."

Before Reggie Lane went to Iraq, he and Linda Lane worked as a truck-driving team, steering tractor-trailers across the country.

But work was haphazard, and together they made about $32,000 a year. They had a hard time keeping up with bills and twice filed for bankruptcy.

In the fall of 2003, Linda heard that defense contractor KBR Inc. was hiring truck drivers to deliver fuel, food and supplies for the military in Iraq. The salary was $88,000 a year, more than they had ever earned.

By November of that year, Reggie was on his way to Iraq.

"He didn't go over there to fight a war. He went over there because (KBR) said you'll have armed guards," Linda said. "They promised big money. You'll be protected, no problem."

More than five years have passed since Lane's convoy was attacked. The total cost of Lane's care for the rest of his life could be as much as $8.9 million, according to an estimate from the insurance company AIG. The bill will be paid by the federal government, which reimburses insurers for combat-related claims from war-zone workers.

On July 10, Linda Lane died. She had been hospitalized after suffering respiratory distress, family members said.

Reggie Lane let out a wail when relatives told him the news. "I had never heard anything like that before," said Bev Glasgow, who runs Lane's current foster home.

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If anyone knows of any organization dedicated to helping these wounded civilian warriors, please let me know, and I will post that information here.

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com
(The website for my book: "My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq")

Obama Got It All Wrong in Honduras

The Obama administration really screwed up when dealing with the situation in Honduras. Democracy and the rule of law were less important than protecting a Marxist thug. Obama, Clinton, and the other progressive/leftists have thrown their support behind ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, a member of Hugo Chavez's Marxist gang (pictured above with Zelaya on the right).

Here is an editorial from the Washington Times:

* * * *

Undermining Honduras

Editorial From THE WASHINGTON TIMES

When Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh was chosen as chief legal counsel to the State Department, we editorialized that it was an "offensive nomination." We explained that "Mr. Koh's repeatedly stated agenda is contrary to the American tradition of law originating in the 'consent of the governed.' " Little did we know that Mr. Koh would trample on the consent of the governed in other countries, too.

Now we discover that it was Mr. Koh's legal opinion that supported the Obama administration's wrongheaded, and indeed immoral, decision to punish the nation of Honduras. The administration bizarrely objects to Honduran legislators and judges enforcing their own constitution against the would-be dictator, Manuel Zelaya, who tried to shred a key constitutional restraint against a Honduran president trying for a second term in office.

In August, the Law Library of Congress concluded that "the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya ... in accordance with the Honduran legal system." Yet not only did the Obama administration object, but it imposed unilateral sanctions against Honduras. Even James Kirchick of the liberal New Republic magazine wrote that "U.S. policy has become a mistake in search of a rationale."

Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, reports that when he and Reps. Aaron Schock, Peter Roskam and Doug Lamborn (Republicans of Illinois, Illinois and Colorado, respectively) went on a fact-finding mission to Honduras, the only person there from any party or interest who said Mr. Zelaya should still be in power was U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens. The only source Mr. Llorens could cite for his stance was a legal opinion by Mr. Koh.

As it happens, Mr. DeMint and 15 other senators have been asking since July 8 for the State Department to cite the source of its legal analysis. Their letter protesting the administration's stance was mailed to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In an unmerited slap in the face, the department's response came not from Mrs. Clinton, but - a slow 14 days later - from Richard R. Verma, the assistant secretary for legislative affairs. Mr. Verma's letter completely ignored the request for legal analysis. Mr. DeMint reports that all subsequent congressional attempts to see legal analyses written by Mr. Koh or anybody else have been rebuffed as "privileged communications." This is, to put it bluntly, illegal. No such vague privilege exists.

Legal scholar Miguel Estrada, who was born in Honduras, has asked why Mr. Koh appears to "not have the gumption to expose his reasoning process and conclusions to public scrutiny." Perhaps it's because Mr. Koh's conclusions undermine a Honduran government that even Mr. Verma acknowledges is "an important trading partner [and] an ally in the fight against drug-trafficking cartels and organized crime."

Former top federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, writing for National Review, put the problem best: "Now, under Obama rules, we have to tell al Qaeda what our interrogation tactics are but we can't tell the American people why the Obama administration has made a political determination to support a [Marxist] thug at the expense of Honduras' rule of law." The stonewalling is unacceptable. So is the policy it supports.

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It is little wonder that our new president has surrounded himself with a pack of socialists and avowed Marxists.

We are in trouble, America....

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com

Victory: The Conquest of the Enemy - or His Unconditional Surrender

Try to picture this scenario.

You stand still while I draw a circle on the ground around you. Now, here are the rules for this game.

If I want to hit you, I can throw rocks at you from outside the circle, or I can step inside the circle, punch you in the mouth, and then jump outside the circle. You, unfortunately, can only hit me back when I am inside the circle, not when I am in my “safe haven” outside the circle. You can throw a few rocks at me when I’m outside the circle, but all I have to do is to move or hide to avoid getting hit.

This, my friends, is Afghanistan. We are in the circle. The insurgents can enter the country to attack us, and then run to safety into Pakistan (or Iran). We can fly some drones over them and fire a few missiles, but all they need to do to survive is stay out of sight. We have all the rules; the bad guys have none.

This was also Vietnam. While our soldiers were “imprisoned” within the borders of South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese moved at will through neighboring Laos and Cambodia. They had their “safe havens” where they trained, resupplied, and “relaxed”. No fear of being attacked by us – except in 1970 when we briefly kicked their rear ends in Cambodia before politics forced us to return to the "walls" of South Vietnam.

In fact, we waged a bloody war against North Vietnam – inside South Vietnam, but we never mounted a land invasion of the north. We bombed their bridges, factories, and military facilities, but they simply rebuilt them. We waged a long, “half war” in Vietnam; we are at risk of waging another such war in Afghanistan.

When the Al Qaeda animals attacked us, we went after them. President Bush said you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. There shouldn’t have been one square inch of ground on the face of the earth where these bastards could hide from us. Yet we drove them into Pakistan, thus creating a brand new safe haven to use as a base for creating new terrorists.

Now we are withdrawing from the Afghan countryside, moving our troops back to protect the population centers because we don’t have enough soldiers to secure the entire country. If we will simply look back in history at the French colonial experience in Indochina (Vietnam), we will see that France chose to primarily secure the cities and population centers. That strategy allowed the Viet Minh (the forerunners of the Viet Cong) to infest the countryside at will.

The Viet Minh, as you may know, dealt the French a devastating defeat at Dien Bien Phu and drove them out of Indochina with their tails between their legs.

If we have any chance to succeed in Afghanistan, it will require that we listen to our military commanders. We must give them the resources they need to protect both the cities and the countryside. We must also convince Pakistan that they must save their own country from the Islamic fundamentalist plague. The best way to do that is to join forces with us in a massive ground offensive in the tribal areas. Once we wipe out the terrorists and their bases, we will leave, and Pakistan can establish law and order in these mountain strongholds.

There is only one way to fight the war in Afghanistan. We must fight it to win. Victory, by surrender or by conquest, is the only way to defeat any enemy…

Charles M. Grist
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com
Also check out:
www.MyLastWar.com - The website for the book about the C.O.B.R.A. Team
www.TheCobraTeam.com - My Team's website.

Book Trailer for "My Last War"

Take a look at the book trailer for "My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq". Then take a look at the website at www.MyLastWar.com.



Thanks for checking in with "American Ranger".

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com
www.TheCobraTeam.com
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com

"My Last War" is on Barnes & Noble's Rising Star Special Collection

I am pleased that my book is listed in the Rising Star Special Collection on the Barnes and Noble website. The link to that page is http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/iUniverse-rising-star-books/379000118 .

I hope you will forward this link to your family and friends. I would also invite you to visit the website for the book at www.MyLastWar.com where you can watch the book trailer and learn about the book.

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com
www.TheCobraTeam.com
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com

The Book About the C.O.B.R.A. Team is Here!

I am pleased to announce that my book, "My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq" is available as of this week. I hope you will visit my new website at www.MyLastWar.com. You can learn about the book, view the book trailer, and, hopefully, buy the book!

As many of you know, finishing "My Last War" has been an adventure. Some of you previewed earlier versions, but I am proud of the finished product.

I have been honored to serve with warriors in two separate conflicts a generation apart. It is my sincere wish that my fellow veterans of Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom will enjoy the story of the C.O.B.R.A. Team as told by this old Vietnam vet.

I hope you will also let me know how you like the book by commenting here or by sending me an email at TheRangerCop@aol.com.

As of today, the book is available through Barnes and Noble's website and my publishers website. MyLastWar.com will be updated regularly as new outlets are added including Amazon.com.

Thanks for checking out "American Ranger" and I hope you enjoy the book.

Charles M. Grist
www.MyLastWar.com
www.TheCobraTeam.com
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com