Read Online The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Michael T. Flynn, Michael Ledeen - Free Book Online Page B
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need to change what we were providing our troops at the edge and we proceeded to do that. In the meantime, thank God they were so brave, ingenious in how they executed their mission, extremely well trained, and innovative. There is something about the American soldier—despite our best efforts to shit on them, they rise to the occasion and perform miraculously.
Before going back to Afghanistan in June 2009, I had most recently served at Central Command and for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon, pristine areas where you get all the intelligence you want and on a constant basis. The problem is, that intelligence doesn’t do you a bit of good if you aren’t able to get it to those who can actually do something about it. And in those assignments, I found that “intelligence,” the really sensitive stuff, was routinely outdated and therefore irrelevant. I was quickly starting to see that the world of open source information from media on the battlefield was becoming more and more useful—this would pay off later on with the rapid rise of social media.
During this listening tour, many soldiers and civilians we spoke to complained about the disconnect between the government of Hamid Karzai, the international community, our military forces, and the rest of the country. Nearly everywhere we traveled, whether by helicopter, foot, or vehicle, there was this incredible loss of confidence stated by everyone. They lacked confidence in us, and they especially had zero confidence in their own government.
Our investigation took us into early July, but it was only a first take. I needed to know a lot more. It was clear that the intelligence system was badly broken. There was nothing remotely approaching what we’d created in Iraq. There were few resources and an almost complete disconnect from what our men and women saw on the ground to what we were reporting up to our higher HQ. Overall, the Taliban had returned, al Qaeda was back (and stronger than before) and were now in possession of large swaths of Afghanistan. Even though the president of the United States said that Afghanistan was his main priority, the Pentagon and the rest of the system, the intelligence community included, simply could not and did not adjust. The focus was still on Iraq.
In mid-July 2009, I took a small team back around the country examining the intelligence operations in a far more detailed way. Speaking to many of the Afghan people as far down into the various villages as we could go was essential. I also started to develop relationships during this period with some very notorious characters. One was Colonel (now General) Abdul Razziq of Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar Province, another was Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK), half brother to President Karzai.
They weren’t Boy Scouts. Razziq was known for his narcotics and poppy smuggling down across the Pakistan border at a place called Friendship Gate—though there were no friends nor anything friendly coming across that gate. He was a slim, wiry, and extremely tough guy. He showed me a couple of bullet wounds he had taken fighting the Taliban. Most Americans likely only see such a person in National Geographic . The Taliban had killed at least two of his brothers and had tried to kill him on more than one occasion. Despite his many unsavory characteristics, I liked Razziq; he was straightforward with me, as I was with him. We actually got along with each other and this paid off down the road. It was the first time anyone from the ISAF level or even the government had paid any attention to him and he was in charge of a large portion of an extremely important and very dangerous piece of geography, southern Kandahar. It was the gateway to Pakistan’s southern border region and directly across the border from the Taliban’s HQ in a notorious place called Quetta.
I didn’t like what he represented nor what he did, but we needed him badly. He maintained stability in his tribal areas, he knew what
Before going back to Afghanistan in June 2009, I had most recently served at Central Command and for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon, pristine areas where you get all the intelligence you want and on a constant basis. The problem is, that intelligence doesn’t do you a bit of good if you aren’t able to get it to those who can actually do something about it. And in those assignments, I found that “intelligence,” the really sensitive stuff, was routinely outdated and therefore irrelevant. I was quickly starting to see that the world of open source information from media on the battlefield was becoming more and more useful—this would pay off later on with the rapid rise of social media.
During this listening tour, many soldiers and civilians we spoke to complained about the disconnect between the government of Hamid Karzai, the international community, our military forces, and the rest of the country. Nearly everywhere we traveled, whether by helicopter, foot, or vehicle, there was this incredible loss of confidence stated by everyone. They lacked confidence in us, and they especially had zero confidence in their own government.
Our investigation took us into early July, but it was only a first take. I needed to know a lot more. It was clear that the intelligence system was badly broken. There was nothing remotely approaching what we’d created in Iraq. There were few resources and an almost complete disconnect from what our men and women saw on the ground to what we were reporting up to our higher HQ. Overall, the Taliban had returned, al Qaeda was back (and stronger than before) and were now in possession of large swaths of Afghanistan. Even though the president of the United States said that Afghanistan was his main priority, the Pentagon and the rest of the system, the intelligence community included, simply could not and did not adjust. The focus was still on Iraq.
In mid-July 2009, I took a small team back around the country examining the intelligence operations in a far more detailed way. Speaking to many of the Afghan people as far down into the various villages as we could go was essential. I also started to develop relationships during this period with some very notorious characters. One was Colonel (now General) Abdul Razziq of Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar Province, another was Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK), half brother to President Karzai.
They weren’t Boy Scouts. Razziq was known for his narcotics and poppy smuggling down across the Pakistan border at a place called Friendship Gate—though there were no friends nor anything friendly coming across that gate. He was a slim, wiry, and extremely tough guy. He showed me a couple of bullet wounds he had taken fighting the Taliban. Most Americans likely only see such a person in National Geographic . The Taliban had killed at least two of his brothers and had tried to kill him on more than one occasion. Despite his many unsavory characteristics, I liked Razziq; he was straightforward with me, as I was with him. We actually got along with each other and this paid off down the road. It was the first time anyone from the ISAF level or even the government had paid any attention to him and he was in charge of a large portion of an extremely important and very dangerous piece of geography, southern Kandahar. It was the gateway to Pakistan’s southern border region and directly across the border from the Taliban’s HQ in a notorious place called Quetta.
I didn’t like what he represented nor what he did, but we needed him badly. He maintained stability in his tribal areas, he knew what
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