Other Fronts in the GWOT
Posted by Keith_Indy on 01 Jun 2007 at 1:41 pm | Tagged as: Military Matters, Keith's Page, Developmental economics, Foreign affairs
One of the most misunderstood statements that President Bush has made, regarding the Global War on Terrorism, has been that Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. While, Iraq is a front, it is not the only front. Now, whether this is purposeful mis-direction, or just a coincidence, that takes the spotlight over missions which aren’t a secret, but also don’t get any airplay from the mainstream media.
Take for instance, the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa. This small command (1,700 military and civilian personnel) has been operating around the Horn of Africa, since Dec 2002, yet many people don’t know it exists or what it does.
The current commander puts their mission this way.
That’s really our mission in the Horn of Africa” fostering good will while providing a safe, secure and healthy environment in which people can raise their children, Mullen wrote May 23 in The Hill newspaper. Trust is essential to that mission.
This is an excellent example of the kind of work we can do, with a low investment, but a high yield, to prevent future failed/failing nations from breeding terrorists and extremists.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/05/navy_africa_admiral_070523w/
After about 90 days on the ground, the Navy admiral in charge of the coalition mission in Djibouti says efforts in the region continue to build capacity towards bringing security and stability to the Horn of Africa.
I am somewhat of a diplomat,†Rear Adm. James Hart said in a phone interview from Camp Lemonier, a former French Foreign Legion barracks, in the small country of Djibouti bordering the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. We are working together with the State Department and [the U.S. Agency for International Development] to take a 3-D approach to promoting development and stability in the region.
This interagency model could potentially be the framework for the Pentagon’s new regional command for Africa, Hart said.
…
Hart is in charge of approximately 1,700 military and civilian personnel from all of the armed services, the Coast Guard and several other foreign militaries. The command, which currently falls under U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility (with the exceptions of Tanzania and Uganda, two countries technically under U.S. European Command’s oversight) was formed in 2002 and led by a Marine Corps two star general until the Navy took over the mission in early 2006.
The command focuses on drilling wells, providing medical and veterinary assistance and building schools in hopes that by improving health, we will improve security, Hart said.
The mission statement of task force states the goals of the command are to prevent conflict, promote regional stability and protect coalition interests in order to prevail against extremism.
Hart said this mission is accomplished by conducting military-to-military training, civil-military operations and maintaining persistent engagement with the countries in the region.
…
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen has said the mission in the Horn of Africa is to build trust and good will with the local population in the region.
“That’s really our mission in the Horn of Africa fostering good will while providing a safe, secure and healthy environment in which people can raise their children,” Mullen wrote May 23 in The Hill newspaper. Trust is essential to that mission.
…
Beyond boosting military capabilities around the Horn, Hart said his main focus is on influencing the next generation of children in the region to “stay away from extremism.”
8 Responses to “Other Fronts in the GWOT”
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I don’t understand how it was misunderstood. He called Iraq the central front in the Global War on Terror. That’s a pretty unambiguous statement, especially compared to some others (like comparing the Iraq occupation to our five decade plus occupation of Korea). Moreover, there is a big difference between simply not disclosing information that may compromise a secret mission and deliberately lying to the electorate. If, as you say, Bush deliberately lied (how would a definite, knowingly false statement be anything else?), then he is a liar. Furthermore, since the strategic balance hasn’t changed much in the positive in the Middle East, then that means anything Bush says about Iraq is suspect, and probably false for the purposes of pushing some hidden agenda.
Umm… am I the only one here who sees a problem with that?
Also, about the SOCOM operations in the Horn… they are in a large way responsible for encouraging Ethiopia in its botched invasion of Somalia, which has turned Mogadishu into even more of a humanitarian disaster than it was before. Similarly, they are ostensibly there to help dampen sea piracy along the busy shipping lanes, but the invasion of Ethiopia has distracted them from that.
So they’re left running goodwill, “stay in school” operations. Why? Why is the military turning into the face of public diplomacy? Doesn’t it have several wars to fight? Don’t we have civilian government agencies, like USAID and the State Department, to handle the “soft,” societal issues behind conflict?
It’s mission bloat of the worst kind, driven by a horrendous imbalance of funding (93% of America’s foreign policy budget is the military) and terrible political negligence and mismanagement of the “liberal” Department of State.
Simple, to many people think the GWOT stops at Iraq, and Afghanistan. There’s no lying involved. Not publicizing the mission isn’t a lie.
Which are involved with the work that CJTF-HOA is involved with. But the civilian agencies don’t always operate in hostile/semi-hostile environments, at least not by themselves.
Well, the way you were saying it, you made it sound like Bush was deliberately mis-labeling Iraq “the central front” to mislead people from looking at other missions. Like you, I’m fine with not publicizing covert activity (so long as it is moral), but the President deliberately lying as part of a covert op is no okay with me. That makes me think every single one of his statements is meant to cover up something else that’s going on — not an idea a president should want to take deep hold.
And it’s certainly true these agencies don’t operate in many hostile environments. That doesn’t mean CJTF-HOA should usurp their development roles (and, potentially, funding) just because it’s bureaucratically easier. Blurring the line between development and military is a dangerous road to travel down.
Joshua,
I think the word Keith used was misunderstood, not lying. Iraq is the central front in Bush’s mind, or at least was, I don’t want to speak for him on what he believes now. Central doesn’t mean only, and a great deal of success has been had in many areas, but the focus is very Iraq oriented. That is as much his fault as anyone’s.
If what bothers you is the idea that it is possibly purposeful misdirection, maybe such things shouldn’t be done, but once again in my little nits with you, it isn’t an idea to take hold, it is the way it always has been. I assume much is happening that is being deliberately hidden. I assume a great deal of it won’t work. Of course, in any endeavor things that don’t work are as important as what does. Take something as straightforward as a battle or campaign. Attacks and maneuvers which don’t “work” still disrupt, pave the way for future actions, etc.
Take Somalia. I have no idea what will “work,” and if you were in charge you wouldn’t know either. You will try a number of things, most of which would fail and be open to ridicule. In the end the effort will succeed, if ever, when you stumble upon something which does, though often it is luck, because the variables are too many to truly predict. In the meantime the hope is the efforts are more successful than just not doing anything. In that instance the Islamic Courts walk across the countryside and just take over. That assumes, of course, such a thing is undesirable. So, I take the continuing efforts there as important, just as in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.
It also puts me at odds with much of the commentary on Iraq. I don’t think it will be a disaster strategically for the US if we pull out. I think it will be a disaster for Iraqi’s and others in the region. I think it would be better if we succeeded in nursing a reasonably stable outcome, but not doing so is in and of itself no great tragedy for me or most of my fellow citizens. A negative, yes, disaster, no.
Nor would it mean the invasion didn’t accomplish anything, just as I think it is wrong to believe Vietnam was a waste. It accomplished quite a bit for the US from a strategic perspective, even if actually preserving a non-communist South like we were able to do in Korea would have been better. The same goes for Afghanistan should we abandon that project down the road.
In the end it just means we will most likely be back later, and probably facing a more difficult path, but that was even more likely in 2002. I agree with your constant points about our policies, institutional failures and other issues (including humanitarian.) I would suggest however they have been fewer in recent years, not expanding. A cursory reading of our history shows how much better we are at these things than we once were, and more humane. As for the rest of the world, well, even if we restrict it to the Europeans, we still come off pretty darn good. The ones who look the best can only say that because they never do anything. Sweden can play the role model all it wants, but of what relevance does it have to the rest of the world? Very little. They would make little impact even if they did do something. The last time their behavior in foreign policy had any relevance was WWII, where their behavior may have been understandable, but also contemptible.
So in the end Joshua, I can’t argue too much with your complaints on this or anything else, but I can’t draw the same conclusions, both because they do not shock or surprise me and because I don’t expect that we will ever see it stop. Incrementally improve (and the result of that incremental improvement in just the humanitarian aspects of warfare since WWII is absolutely breathtaking) in both how we wage war, arm ourselves, run our institutions and conduct foreign policy is possible, but will always give the ready critic an endless supply of fodder and the ability to feel superior to the dunderheads running things.
Think once again to Somalia. Let us imagine you (assuming you had made the area an area of study and therefore are qualified) reaching for your preferred policy tools in that situation. Inevitably there would be horrible failures (though things would have possibly gone much worse if you had done anything differently) which of course would give the ready critic the opportunity to claim they happened because you did it wrong. Of course you did do it wrong, because the right answer is unknowable, but the “proof is in the pudding” as they say. Somalia is a mess, Iraq is a mess, everywhere is still a mess, and it is always because the people who made the decisions did the wrong thing.
If you ever do get a position in government where you get to make policy, that will be your fate. The worst things is, you will know that the critics are right, but you will also believe you did what you needed to do, the best thing as you saw them at the time. Quite possibly you will be right, but everyone else will take apart your defenses based on the obvious, predictable (now) outcomes that actually have occurred. Things you should have known, that they of course will insist with absolute certainty you couldn’t have not known. They will look at any explanation with incredulity that you expect them to believe it, or that the now untestable other path was going to be so bad. Looking back you will say “how could I have missed that” but you will know that at the time it didn’t seem anything like that, but your excuses will seem feeble, even to yourself.
Of course many have persevered in the face of their apparent stupidity, Eisenhower comes to mind. Because he was fortunate he is seen as wise and competent, but that was not how it often seemed, and people such as myself have spent much time scratching our head over many of his decisions even decades later such as, why the campaign in Italy? Very easy to think that was a predictable and huge mistake. Yet, the campaign in Italy wasn’t useless. That wasn’t its purpose, but it did keep the pressure on. It gave the military the opportunity to learn about amphibious invasions, and much else. He tried, it was in retrospect a mistake, but they were bright men. They just miscalculated, as all do. It wasn’t however a waste. It was probably, though at great cost, better than waiting until they were ready to invade France.
Of course Ike’s legacy was on the edge of disaster as well. What if when he gambled on the morning of D-Day the weather hadn’t cleared? As dicey as the invasion was, how big a disaster could it have been? What if any number of things, such as the ruse that kept the German armor from the coast, not worked out as well as they did? Given the criticism he already faced, would he have survived? Would the war effort have faltered? How stupid would the decision have looked given the weather forecast? We underestimate chances role, and overestimate the competence of people being a decisive factor either way in most endeavors. Warfare and foreign policy more so than most areas. Of course, today he would be jailed as a war criminal for his treatment of German prisoners, but that is another issue.
I’m back
Lance,
You are, of course, right. It’s damned near impossible to come up with ideal solutions to so-called wicked problems, but that doesn’t mean we should excuse stupidity. Just as, while I am very sympathetic to the muddling process when it comes to things like insurgencies, there comes a point at which you just start to think they fundamentally misunderstand the problems they’re facing; and that is where I feel we are now.
As to the bit about secrecy… well, there are two sides to that. I fully understand the need to hide covert programs, even lie about their existence. But issuing false statements like “iraq is the central front on the war on terruh” just to overshadow something else strikes me as going too far. Because once you start lying about the fundamental reason behind a war, then everything you say about that war cannot be trusted.
Again, that is where I feel we are now—even if Bush has told a string of lies to cover up something else that may or not be good that we may never know about, we can’t trust him now, because he has done so much to destroy our trust.
Also, Somalia was an example I used in relation to the horn of africa force IndyKeith brought up. If it kept to its original mandate, which was fostering security cooperation and stemming piracy (and even stability operations), I’d be an enthusiastic supporter of it—and I was, until it helped spear the invasion of Somalia. See, I think the Horn has tremendous strategic value, and our policies there from the start have made things worse, not better.
Anyway, my feelings on that conflict have gone through an evolution, which you can see in the Somalia category on The Conjecturer.
I know someone in this, and when I see them next, I’m going to ask them if they have any successes to chalk up on the other side of the board from Somalia.
I sure hope so. But I’d feel more hopeful about it if your blurb here had any specific things the Task Force has accomplished.
About time.
Also, have you heard of periods? ;^)