What the US needs to do, he says, is rely on 100 plus tough adviser task forces to live and work with the Afghan army to train them so they can eventually replace these task forces and secure the Afghan state. At the same time, more Special Operations Forces would be employed to hunt down and kill insurgent leaders. The point is to kill the enemy, not win over the population.
"This war will be decided by grit," West writes.
Bing West at 70 is the ultimate embedded combat reporter fully bonded with the mythic warrior ethos of the "grunt." As he sees it, the infantryman is the nation's greatest hero, a selfless man (there are few women in this club) often misunderstood or forgotten and usually betrayed by shifty politicians.
West's 1972 book The Village is a study of Combined Action Platoons living and fighting inside Vietnamese villages. It is considered a classic and the basis for his current ideas in Afghanistan. The current book is based on many trips and incident after incident of on-the-ground experience with infantrymen. In one case, he tells of being on death's door with cholera. So he cannot be criticized for not being there.
West clearly feels President Obama, Secretary Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen are all speaking double talk and covering their asses about the war in Afghanistan. He concedes it's a failure.
"Neither side is winning," he writes, while pointing out, "we can't afford $100 billion a year." He calls for a strategy "that matches our reduced means."
What Bing West refuses to see
As a veteran activist member of the peace movement, I don't presume to belong to Bing West's beloved class of warriors that he describes this way: "hardy, adventurous men who embrace the sweat, heat, cold, bruises, vomit, cordite smell, blasts, rifle cracks, screams and camaraderie, knowing that some among them will lose limbs or bleed out."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
