Old Chesty Wouldn’t Have Put up With This Crap

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

I have been convinced for years that we lost the Afghanistan War over six years ago when we invaded Iraq. We should have gotten out as soon as we and our Afghan “friends” had cleared most of the Taliban out of the major cities. No doubt we had to send a message to the world that we would not tolerant any attack that killed almost 3,000 people and destroyed 16 acres of buildings on prime real estate in the middle of the world’s financial center. But we should have known when to declare victory and come home.

Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires for over 2,000 years. Even good generals like Alexander the Great couldn’t conquer it. Frankly, our generals aren’t that good. So here we are in another surge before we know whether the previous one in Iraq worked. The Commission on Iraqi Refugees reported the other day that even with a slight decline in violence, over two million Iraqis are not returning home until things “get sorted out.” Good luck. The Sunnis are now threatening to boycott the upcoming election that is supposed to bring peace to that country. The Shiites removed 440 Sunnis from the election ballot because they said the candidates were tainted by past association with the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein. A good “beheadin’” civil war is probably just around the corner. Can someone explain to me what we have “won” in Iraq? Just what is “victory” in Baghdad?

So now we have 15,000 of my fellow 1st Battalion, 6th Marines trying to take out–according to the best estimate–400 Taliban who are hiding behind the skirts of women and children in bedrooms and on rooftops in Marjah, a town of about 80,000. Under the rules of engagement cobbled together by the counter-insurgency experts and General Stanley McCrystal we must avoid killing “civilians.” What does a Taliban private or colonel look like? Well, he looks like a civilian, doesn’t he? Or do they have uniforms and GI boots?

My fellow Marines are bitching about the rules of engagement because they are not supposed to shoot at civilians who don’t have a weapon in their hands. Even if they have seen the shooter hand his AK-47 to a woman or a kid they can’t take him out! He switches from civilian to Taliban trooper in a New York minute! Our troops are not supposed to shoot where snipers are if women, children or “unarmed” males are present. If our troops are under heavy attack they often have to wait over an hour for air support while colonels sitting on their backsides perhaps thousands of miles from Marjah argue about the target. If the Taliban are seen carrying arms in and out of mosques we still can’t blow it or them to Muslim paradise. It doesn’t make war sense.

Would You Want To Fight For A Military General Or A Political General?

I know that Army General Stanley McCrystal, our CG in Afghanistan, is a Green Beret, a Special Ops guy who has spent some time on the “dark side” as they say, and has some expertise in counter-insurgency, but he also has all of the attributes of an officer who can get you killed quick. He is classified as an ascetic while being political. The point of asceticism is to exercise and sacrifice yourself so you can become some sort of supernormal being just a muscle and a blink away from immortality. In his earlier days McCrystal put in a 12-mile run every morning just to get loose. Now he limits himself to a five-mile run, but he sleeps only four hours a day and eats only one meal so he doesn’t get “sluggish.”

Napoleon Bonaparte thought his soldiers should endure lives of sacrifice and discipline. He thought they could fight better. I have a sneaking suspicion that Boney was just trying to save a few francs.

Napoleon might have learned this from the Spartans of Greece. They were really spartan. At age seven all boys entered military training and were educated by “trial by ordeal.” They went barefoot summer and winter and wore one simple homespun garment even in winter. Recent movies about Spartans showed the fighters wearing gold jockstraps and that’s about all. I think that was to sell movie tickets to people who admire the male form.

It boils down to this. Can a Marine grunt trust an Army general who still runs five miles a day, doesn’t get much sleep, eats only one meal a day, and says you can’t shoot the guy who has dropped his AK-47 in a ditch while he walks away? That you have to watch a house for three days without firing into it for fear of killing a “civilian?” That’s called establishing “a pattern of life” for the neighborhood! McCrystal has issued orders that air strikes and long-range artillery fire “ can be authorized only under very limited and prescribed conditions.”

We are currently in the seventh day of clearing a town of 80,000 of 400 Taliban with no particular end in sight. American commanders say they killed 200 Taliban in the first three days and now there are only 40 left. Does that mean that we now have 15,000 troops against the 40 surviving Taliban? We had better give our boys another ammo clip. Marjah leaders estimate that half of the citizens favor the Taliban because the Taliban leaders buy all of their poppy products. (It was just reported this morning that about 25 National Afghan Police defected to the Taliban with all their trucks, equipment and weapons, including mortars and heavy machine guns supplied by us. The Taliban welcomed them. Why did they defect? Because the Taliban paid them more. Oops, another 14 bailed out in the afternoon.)

Does President Obama really believe that the Iraq War was the only “dumb war?” The Afghan War is a whole lot dumber. Hey, generals, war isn’t “fair.” When everyone wears a turban or a burqa, when shooters wearing big skirts shoot among skirts, when Taliban do not have a large “T” embossed on their foreheads, when there is no such thing as a frontline, just who do you kill, when eight-year-olds carry guns and ammo house to house for their dads?

A Marine Legend: Chesty Puller

When I was a Marine Corps officer in the 1950s I had the pleasure of serving under Lieut. General Lewis “Chesty” Puller for a short period of time before his “medical” retirement in 1955. Chesty joined the Marine Corps in 1918 as a private and then served as a corporal in Haiti for five years against the Caco rebels in over forty battles. He was awarded the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest award for bravery in action, for his Haiti service. After Haiti he served in Nicaragua, fighting insurgents in battles against superior forces, winning his second Navy Cross. After his Nicaragua tour he was assigned to the Marine detachment in Beijing, China, spending about three years in various duties. He continued to get promoted because of his outstanding leadership.

Besides commanding a unit of Chinese Marines, he served aboard several ships, and finished his China duties by commanding a battalion of Marines based in Shanghai. Then came World War II and Guadalcanal. He gained fame in the battle for Henderson Field by leading his battalion against overwhelming Japanese forces. His battalion suffered 70 casualties but they killed 1,400 Japanese in three hours and held the airfield for our use. He won his third Navy Cross for that action.

In the Korean War Chesty commanded the 1st Marine Regiment at the Inchon landing and then was involved in the famous Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. In various Korean actions he won the Silver Star, a Bronze Star, his second Legion of Merit from the Army, and his fifth Navy Cross. Ten years after his retirement he requested to be removed from the retirement lists so he could go to Vietnam in 1965.

I met Chesty when he commanded the 2nd Marine Division based at Camp Lejeune. He was kind of a scruffy looking character about 5’6” and 150 pounds, but he had the eyes of a leader. He looked like a private who would have trouble carrying a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) or a mortar baseplate, but he was a leader who still is the most decorated Marine in history. Among other medals he had won the nation’s second highest award six times.

But Chesty was not a politician. He took bullshit from no one, whether president, senator, or fellow general. Grunts who served under him absolutely loved him. He had been a grunt once so he protected them from maltreatment. I remember being on a division landing exercise one time and he came up to a group of officers at chow time and said: “ If I catch an officer eating before the troops I’ll send him to recruit in Butte, Montana.” Then I knew why in boot camp at Parris Island we always concluded the day with “Good night, Chesty Puller, wherever you are!”

Another favorite story involved a second lieutenant who had ordered an enlisted man to salute him 100 times because he missed a salute. Chesty said to the lieutenant: “You were absolutely correct in making him salute you 100 times, but you know an officer must return every salute he receives. Now return them all.” He always insisted on fair treatment and good discipline for grunts under his command. To his regiment of Marines at the Chosin battle, Chesty said about the Chinese: “All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us…they can’t get away this time!” But his attitude about war was based on this remark: “You don’t hurt ‘em if you don’t hit ‘em.”

I know that Chesty would never have agreed to very restricted rules of engagement imposed in the Marjah battle. With his jungle and island experiences he would have said to “civilians,” “Don’t you know war is hell? War is killing! If you don’t want to get killed–get the hell out of the way!”

Honor Killings, Afghan Police And Army Defections, Crazy Rules of Engagement, War Politics—And Why We Cannot Win In Afghanistan

Is it possible to win a war without killing any civilians? I don’t think so. If a Marine can’t shoot an enemy who has not shot at him, he will lose all faith in leadership. History tells us war is very harmful to civilian populations. But our political generals have come up with a new doctrine that dead civilians are harmful to the conduct of war. So you call off close ground-air support of fighter planes and attack helicopters. You don’t fire the rockets that protect your troops. You can’t employ snipers because they might kill a civilian behind a real target. You don’t bomb a target from 15,000 feet for fear of killing a few civilians. You don’t fire the Hellfire missile at a building from a Predator. This is an insane way to fight a war.

With a defense budget of over $700 billion, are we now boiling war down to battles between AK-47s and M-4s behind trees and buildings, “Bunker Hill” style? Why should we fight wars based on rules of engagement determined by enemy forces? I repeat, it’s insane.

Now other NATO countries are questioning the tactics and strategy of McCrystal and the Pentagon. We are committing the same mistakes that lost Vietnam, although that was an unwinnable war also. How many times do you take a hill in daytime and then give it up at night? The government of the Netherlands has just collapsed because of their support for Dutch troops in Afghanistan. Canada is also pulling its troops out in 2011. Other NATO countries have refused to send more troops.

And then we have the problems of differences in culture. Do we really understand how to have peaceful relationships with people who commit honor killings if daughters violate Muslim “law?” The Iraqi father who ran over his daughter and a friend in a Peoria, Arizona parking lot with a Jeep Cherokee has just been charged with first-degree murder. He said his daughter was getting “too Westernized.” Do you understand the actions of the father?

The Muslim Christmas bomber who wanted to blow another passenger jet out of the sky was the son of wealth, educated at the best schools in Great Britain, and was generally pretty happy with his life, according to friends. But in the short span of three months he was turned into a suicide bomber by Muslim fanatics in Yemen, convinced he would have a perpetual romp with 72 fresh young virgins who would continue to be fresh, young virgins after he violated them. I wonder if he considered whether the bomb in his underwear would blow off his balls and his instrument of pleasure so he couldn’t enjoy the virgins in the Muslim paradise. I guess I had better read the Koran for loopholes. Do you understand this young man?

He wasn’t poor and maltreated. He never demonstrated that he was a fanatic until he poured the “detonator” on his underwear and burned his privates. Will someone please tell me what makes these people tick–besides when they have a ticking bomb in their jockstrap?
These are the people George Bush wanted to turn into a Middle East democracy? I don’t get it.

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