ON TARGET: Real Life Not Imitating Art

Brad Pitt in the movie War Machine

By Scott Taylor

I recently had the opportunity to watch the new, made for Netflix movie War Machine, starring Brad Pitt. The subject of the film is the U.S. led war in Afghanistan with Pitt playing the fictitiously named Lieutenant-General Glenn McMahon. While the name is changed to provide some Hollywood artistic licence, the movie closely depicts the real life Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal and the events that transpired during his command of the Afghan mission in 2009.

The opening scene has Pitt as McMahon strutting through the airport in Dubai along with his attendant staff officers. The narrator sets the scene, telling us that the war in Afghanistan is going poorly and therefore a new General – McMahon is being brought in to jump start the whole allied campaign. The plotline follows McMahon’s attempts to do just that, up until he is fired and the final scene is his successor and a fresh set of staff officers striding through an airport, full of confidence en route to Kabul to turn things around.

War Machine is a brave diversion from the usual rah-rah, war movie genre, propaganda in that it portrays former Afghan President Hamid Karzai as a powerless puppet of the U.S. . In one dramatic scene McMahon pursuesKarzai right into his private Presidential bedroom in order to get the Afghan leader’s permission to launch a large offensive. Karzai replies that both men know such permission is not his to grant – “but thanks for asking” he tells McMahon.

There is also a poignant moment after the big offensive begins and naturally enough, innocent civilians are killed. True to his beliefs, McMahon flies to the front lines to explain to Afghan villagers – through his translator – that the U.S. is intent on bringing Afghans security, democracy and freedom.

The bewildered Afghan elder replies concisely “Just leave.”

It was refreshing to see that a U.S. moviemaker understands that despite all of our good intentions and ideals, since 2001 the West has delivered nothing but violence, corruption and insecurity to the Afghan people.

Then of course came the real life news last week that the U.S. is committing more troops to Afghanistan, and urging NATO allies such as Canada to do the same. There will be a new commander and a new strategy and this time, by golly, we are going to get it right. U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis admitted to a Senate Committee “We are not winning in Afghanistan right now. And we will correct this as soon as possible.”

Of course, Mad Dog neglected to say how the U.S. will do things differently after sixteen years of futile intervention. The only response seems to always be more troops.

Then we had former U.S. General David Petraeus – famous for his briefly successful, but ultimately failed surge strategy in Iraq – telling the media that we should brace ourselves for a “long-haul, generational war” in Afghanistan.

As if sixteen years isn’t already of generational length, Petraeus went on to point out that the U.S. has had a ‘long haul’ military presence in Korea for more than 65 years. Not mentioned by Petraeus was the fact that Korea and Afghanistan are as different as soap and beans. In Korea, the U.S. fought alongside Korean allies to prevent them being overrun by the North Korean Communist forces. This was successfully achieved in 1953 with the ceasefire agreement establishing a clearly defined boundary between North and South Korea. In Afghanistan the U.S. led intervention never eliminated the Afghan insurgency, and the U.S. trained and equipped Afghan forces are woefully inadequate to fight the war on the their own.

A better analogy would be that of the U.S. failure in Vietnam. If the U.S. pulls out of Afghanistan now, the corrupt cabal that they installed in Kabul will collapse just like the South Vietnamese, U.S. backed government did in 1975.

It is for certain that the U.S. would not have spent 65 years in Korea if every day their soldiers were being attacked and killed by fanatical Koreans.

The War Machine Afghan elder had the right answer “just leave”. The Afghan people are hardy survivors who will eventually sort out their own future – even if it does not resemble a western democracy.

ON TARGET: Madness In Mosul

credit: arabstoday.net

By Scott Taylor

For those closely following the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, it would appear that the days of the self-proclaimed caliphate of Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL) are coming to an end. Backed by Russia and Iran, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his loyalist forces have had recent success against the Daesh forces based in and around the city of Raqqa.

Some reports suggest that embattled Daesh fighters have sought to desert the current fight and join the ranks of al-Qaeda instead. However, I’m not sure how, in the bigger picture, this change of alliance will matter squat given that both Daesh and al-Qaeda are fundamentalist Sunni extremist evildoers.

However, in the same way that the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President made George W. Bush appear like a sage statesman by comparison, Daesh atrocities somehow have made al-Qaeda seem like a more reasonable brand of Islamic terrorists. But I digress.

In Iraq, the U.S.-led international alliance has stepped up its siege of the Daesh-held city of Mosul. This combat offensive is now well into its seventh month, and Canadian special forces soldiers have been playing an active role in assisting the Kurdish militia in that quest. The reason for such a lengthy battle can only be partially attributed to the fanaticism of the Daesh defenders. It is now estimated that there are less than 1,000 Daesh fighters holding on to approximately 30 per cent of the western part of Mosul. The eastern half of the city was reported as being fully liberated by the alliance in late January.

To keep their fighters loyal to the cause, Iraqi news reported that Daesh has begun lopping off the ears of those suspected to be plotting surrender or desertion. This seems like a hell of a way to enforce loyalty, but if nothing else it should make it easy to identify these one-eared individuals after the battle.

The final stronghold of Daesh in Iraq is in the old city of Mosul which, with its labyrinth of narrow streets, will prove a nightmare for the alliance attackers.

It is of course reluctance on the part of the allied units to endure that nightmare that has led to the snail’s pace of the overall siege. Although the assorted hodgepodge of allied units outnumbers the remaining Daesh forces groups by something like 25 to 1, the fact is that all of these disparate groups are fighting for a different ultimate objective.

There are American advisors and troops on the ground, and the U.S. is coordinating the massive aerial armada, which includes Canadian refueler and reconnaissance aircraft. The U.S. policy is to support the corrupt regime of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in securing a unified, Daesh-free, Iraq under a central Baghdad authority. That is also the stated intent of Global Affairs Canada.

While al-Abadi is a Shiite, many of the Shiite militia assisting in the siege of Mosul are waging a punitive offensive against the Sunni followers of Daesh, in the name of a holy war. Revenge atrocities committed by the Shiite militias in the early stages of the Mosul offensive have cast doubt upon their suitability for any post-victory occupation role.

Also on the ground are a large number of Iranian military advisors who are working directly with the Shiite militias.

Then of course you have the Kurdish militia, which have been tutored by some of Canada’s most professional commandos. But these Kurds are not fighting to liberate the Sunni Arab residents of Mosul from the Sunni Arab Daesh extremists. They are instead fighting to increase Masood Barzani’s bargaining position in the Kurdish quest for an independent state. Barzani is the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and he has been adamant from the get-go that he has no intention of ever returning to a unified Iraq under the control of al-Abadi.

The allied commanders have vowed that they will liberate the remainder of Mosul within the next three weeks. With the elimination of their common enemy, the power struggle among the various allies is sure to erupt. Rather than sticking around to pick sides, Canada would be wise to pull out our trainers and leave the future of Iraq and Syria to the regional stakeholders and the world’s superpowers.

Not our fight.

ON TARGET: Trump vs. Kim Jong-Un: Who Is More Dangerous?

By Scott Taylor

To follow the course of recent Western political and media rhetoric, North Korean President Kim Jong-un is a reckless megalomaniac with a goofy haircut who is bent on a nuclear war with the U.S.

All eyes were on the Kim Jong-un regime as they prepared to celebrate the country’s national holiday on April 15. Tradition has it that every year on this date, North Korea flexes its military might with massive parades and displays of firepower in celebration of the birth of the country’s founder. This year was no different as a defiant President Kim Jong-un was expected to conduct yet another nuclear test as well as launch a medium-range missile.

However, the game changer on this side of the Pacific Ocean is that Donald Trump is now in the White House. Facing the lowest domestic approval rating for a president’s first quarter in office, Trump is eagerly seeking foreign distractions.

To counter North Korea’s bluster, Trump dispatched the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group — described by White House spokesman Sean Spicer as “an armada” — to patrol off the Korean peninsula.

U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence was also sent to South Korea to issue a stern warning to the Pyongyang regime that America will no longer tolerate North Korea’s actions. “The era of strategic patience is over,” stated Pence to bring home that point and to illustrate the resolve of Trump to act decisively.

Pence reminded everyone that only hours earlier the U.S. military had launched what is known as the “mother of all bombs” against Daesh fighters in Afghanistan.

The 11-ton MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast) is considered to be the largest non-nuclear explosive device on the planet. It was developed in time for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, but Saddam’s army melted away before they could test the MOAB. With a three-kilometre destructive diameter, the MOAB was considered too lethal and too indiscriminate to be used in counterinsurgency operations such as Iraq or Afghanistan. That was until Trump needed to send a tough message to North Korea.

The target of the MOAB, we are told by U.S. military officials, was a Daesh (aka ISIS and ISIL) military base. For some reason, these Daesh fighters were in the remote eastern Afghanistan province of Nangarhar, digging a tunnel complex. Given that these tunnels were nowhere near any Afghan villages, there was no risk of any civilian casualties.

In other words, Daesh had inadvertently handed the U.S. Air Force the perfect target to test the world’s biggest non-nuclear bomb: A large group of evildoers huddled together in the middle of nowhere.

With the bombsite still on U.S. military lockdown, we have no way of verifying their claim that 94 Daesh fighters were killed without a single civilian casualty.

The truth of the matter is that the use of the MOAB had nothing to do with eliminating a small band of Daesh fighters in Afghanistan and everything to do with showing North Korea that Trump will drop massive bombs on real targets.

Trump also violated international law on April 6 when he fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria as a punitive measure against President Bashar al-Assad for his alleged involvement in a chemical weapons attack. No independent agency has yet proven who launched that chemical weapon in Syria, yet Trump has already delivered a lethal punishment.

For Kim Jong-un, April 15 turned out to be a bit of a bust. The KN-17 missile that was test fired embarrassingly blew up shortly after take-off, and the satellite imagery of his nuclear test site revealed the workers to be playing a tournament of volleyball at the suspected ground zero.

There are two reckless megalomaniacs with goofy haircuts playing in a game of brinkmanship on the Korean peninsula. It is not yet clear which of the two is more dangerous.

ON TARGET: Who Is The U.S. Fighting For In Syria

By Scott Taylor

The U.S. has made it clear that it believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons to gas civilians. The Trump administration needs to remain adamant about that point because it has already violated international law by launching a punitive missile strike against the Syrian air base where the U.S. claims that a chemical attack originated.

Keep in mind that President Donald Trump ordered that barrage of 59 cruise missiles against Assad’s forces before any international agency had even tested soil samples at the site of the gas attack — let alone prove who was the culprit.

Be that as it may, what is truly troubling is the Americans’ over-simplification of the Syrian equation following this chemical attack. Only the previous month, White House spokesman Sean Spicer had admitted that Assad’s presidency was a “reality we are going to have to live with.”

Then came the April 4 chemical incident in the rebel-held Syrian village of Khan Sheikhoun and with the U.S. finger of blame pointed at Assad, the Trump administration has renewed demands for his ouster. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, have been leading the charge, insisting that Assad will have no place in a political solution on the future of Syria.

What we are not hearing, and have not heard since the uprising to overthrow Assad began in Syria in the spring of 2011, is who is going to have a place in the political leadership of a future Syria?

In Syria’s six years of bloody civil war, not a single rebel leader has emerged as the face of an anti-Assad movement. Instead, the Syrian rebels have shown themselves to be a fractious collection of splinter groups all fighting for different objectives. Many of those militias are in fact Islamic extremists ranging from al-Qaeda and al-Nusra Front to the especially evil group known as Daesh (aka ISIS and ISIL). Then there are the Kurdish separatists who are fighting to create their own independent state called Rojava.

Do we really want to leave the future of Syria in the hands of any of these factions? I think not.

Then again, if you simply insist that “Assad must go,” what happens to the numerous factions that have been fighting to prop up the embattled president? Despite the western media’s campaign to paint Assad as evil incarnate, there are several Syrian minorities — such as the Alawites (Shiite Muslims), Chaldean Christians and Armenians — who are fighting on the side of the Assad loyalists. It is not necessarily because of their affection for their president but rather out of fear for their own survival should any of the Sunni Muslim extremist groups triumph over him in Syria.

So when Tillerson and Haley say remove Assad, this begs the question of who will replace him?

Surely the U.S. cannot have forgotten the massive mistake they made in Libya in 2011. Canada may have nominally led the NATO charge against Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi, but it was the U.S, France and U.K. that were pulling the strings. Backed by NATO’s air armada, a polyglot collection of anti-Gadhafi rebel groups finally captured and killed the Libyan president in October 2011 after eight bloody months of civil war.

However, it was only after Gadhafi’s murder that everyone woke up to the fact that the rebels we had supported included Islamic extremists, murderers, criminals and unruly thugs. We had focused solely on the evil madman we were fighting against and, as such, failed to see the even more dangerous elements that we were fighting for. Libya was plunged into a state of violent anarchy and has since devolved into a failed state.

Likewise in Iraq, in the present allied campaign to eliminate Daesh, international forces, including some 200 Canadian Armed Forces trainers, all know that they are fighting against evildoers. However, I do not think that any one of them is risking their life to prop up a corrupt Shiite regime in Baghdad, or to establish a future independent state of Kurdistan.

If we are going to expend Canadian blood and gold in any military venture, we need to establish a clear objective — not just attempt to counter a recognized negative.

The mistakes made in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were massive and the failed results remain ongoing. So why have we not learned any lessons from them?