on The Command

As you may or may not know, I enjoy reading Marc Ambinder. So it should not surprise anyone that when his short e-book on JSOC, titled The Command, was released, I devoured it in a weekend. If you are at all interested in America's Special Forces then I highly recommend the book. Ambinder and Grady really hit this one out of the park, go buy it.

What most fascinated me was the swift and extremely effective change that occurred right before the surge in Iraq in the way JSOC gathers, disseminates and acts open intelligence throughout the US military and Federal bureaucracy. I used to think what we see in the Bourne movies was pure fantasy, but now I'm starting to think it reflects reality fairly well:

Here is how a colleague of General Flynn’s described the change in procedures on the ground: “What would normally happen is: the shooters would kick down a door and snatch everyone and drag them to the front room, and then take everything with them, and put it in a trash bag. The bad guys would be taken to a detention facility and the pocket litter would come back to [the intelligence analysts]. Flynn thought this was stupid. Instead, he gave the shooters—think of this—the Delta guys, mini cameras, and schooled them in some basic detective techniques. When you capture someone, take a picture of them exactly where you captured them. Take detailed notes of who was doing what with what. Don’t merge all the pocket litter.”  

He continued, “Then, the shooters were supposed to e-mail back an image of the person they captured to Balad [JSOC’s intelligence headquarters], where analysts would run it through every facial recognition database we have, or fingerprints or names, or what have you. We’d get hits immediately. And so our intel guys would radio back to the team in the field, ‘Hey, you’ve got Abu-so-and-so, or someone who looks like them. See if he knows where Abu–other-person is.’”

And that’s what the shooters would do. They’d tell their captured insurgents that for a price, they could help them. A senior JSOC intelligence commander said, “They’d say, ‘I know you, you’re so-and-so. And if you want us to help you, you need to tell us where this other person is.’ And it would work. And then, when we got a new address, sometimes within twenty minutes of the first boot on the door, we’d have another team of shooters going to another location.” Follow-up interrogations were plotted out like dense crime dramas, with dozens of participants, including some by video teleconference.  

Instead of three operations every two weeks, JSOC was able to increase its operations tempo (or “optempo”) significantly, sometimes raiding five or six places a night. This completely bewildered insurgents and al-Qaeda sympathizers, who had no idea what was going on. In April 2004, according to classified unit histories, JSOC participated in fewer than a dozen operations in Iraq. By July 2006, its teams were exceeding 250 a month. McChrystal’s operations center was open for fifteen hours a day, regardless of where he was. There is a strong correlation between the pace of JSOC operations, the death rate of Iraqi insurgents and terrorists, and the overall decline in violence that lasted long enough for U.S. troops to surge into the country and “hold” areas that used to be incredibly dangerous.

They went from under 12 operations a month to over 250 a month! That's just insane! Ambinder & Grady don't mention it explicitly here but what I really think is the revolutionary thing is not the change in tactics per se but the trust and decision making placed in the hands of the "shooters". By empowering them to do the on the ground investigation and analysis it enabled the intelligence to be acted upon much earlier and more than likely put the enemy on their heals. A lot like when an offense goes no huddle in football and as a result of the defense not being prepared the entire momentum of the game shifts.

Some More Thoughts On Bin Laden

Apparently the US and Afghan governments have been holding super secret talks (though if it is appearing on this blog I doubt it is all that secret) with various factions of the Taliban in order to bring them into the government fold. It also appears that the death of Osama bin Laden does not complicate those talks, if anything it makes them easier. According to Ahmed Rashid who spoke on NPR's Fresh Air the death of OBL may negate the personal debt that Taliban leader Mohammed Omar has to Al Qaeda (in particular OBL).

Setting aside the fact that the Taliban peacefully integrating back into Afghan society would be nothing short of amazing, let us contemplate what this would do to US domestic politics. I'm no expert (though I do have a degree in Political Science) but would the Afghan and Iraq* wars ending on Mr. Obama's watch not castrate the national security issue in respect to GOP politics? Not to mention it might give Mr. Obama enough political capital to cut the defense budget significantly.

The point of this brief post really is that if you are thinking of donating to Barack Obama's reelection campaign you may be better off investing in a high end disputes lawyer and buying him a ticket to Kabul.

*George W Bush deserves credit for implementing "The Surge" as well as overseeing "The Awakening" movement among Sunni's in Iraq. Without those policies we may well have seen a much less stable Iraq at this time.

Some Thoughts on Bin Laden

Thought #1

If the US government and the world ran the way I would like then he would have been taken alive and tried for his crimes, a practice offered to US citizens on a daily basis and something we should extend to the world, it would only improve our image. Now if I could have my way in the fullest I would like to see it all go down in the way that Lawrence Wright lays out in his recent appearance on Fresh Air, an Osama bin Laden that sees himself tried for each crime in each of the respective countries that his followers carried out his attacks, which culminates in his being tried under Sharia law in his home country of Saudi Arabia (with the possibility of being beheaded in a public setting). But alas the world is not my oyster.

With all that said and knowing the world in which we live in the actual outcome was probably the best that could have happened. If he were taken alive he would have been taken to Guantanamo Bay and the whole thing would have been mishandled from there for years with him being executed with the Muslim street thinking he was murdered by Americans and not brought to justice. His being shot in the head was the best option and kudos to the Navy Seal team for knowing that that's what their bosses really wanted even though they probably didn't voice it.

Thought #2

This will change very little in the scheme of things. Yes its great that we removed an iconic figure of radical Islam and yes this will set back Al Qaeda quite a bit but the positives end there. The problem is is that this "War on Terror" is a lot like the "War on Drugs", there is only one concrete and state oriented side in this fight where as the opposing faction in this "War" is loosely connected via ideology. And even that bond isn't that strong.

As long as there are people buying the crazy that the Islamists are selling then there will always be Islamists. Offer the Muslim street a better alternative (true democracy perhaps?) and then and only then will you see the Islamists fall by the wayside.

Thought #3

Hey America! How about next time we kill someone we don't like we don't act like we collectively won every major sporting event all at once? K? Thanx!

Yes I know he was a horrible human being and yes I think the world is better off without him but celebrating death never helped any situation in the long term. My point is, as outlined by the previous thought, we don't actually "win" until the rest of the world thinks we are decent people and that we are not out to destroy their way of life. How does dancing on the grave of a man some of them may be sympathetic too achieve that?

And as a fellow "Millennial" I don't buy this closure thing being propagated by my peers yes Osama bin Laden may be dead but that does not mean everything will go back to normal (not in the sense that you knew someone who died on September 11th in that respect I completely understand that this may mean closure and that is not what I am speaking to, I'm speaking to what was discussed in this weeks This American Life).

September 11th altered the fabric of America for good (Lexington speaks well to this) and the worst thing that could happen is if we go back to thinking terrorism is only something that happens "over there" and not to us. The party atmosphere was naive, if not just perfectly American in the sense that we are always looking for an excuse to throw a party.

Further Reading:

Steve Coll on OBL's death

The Economist briefing on OBL's death

NYT Obituary on OBL