Jeff Huber: Cockamamie COIN

[laststeamtrain]

Cockamamie COIN

Posted by Jeff Huber

A new CBS poll says 69 percent of Americans think things are going badly in Afghanistan. Only 27 percent of Republicans think things are going well there. Yikes.


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Yet we continue to pursue a heavy military footprint approach to counterterrorism. This is partly because the Pentagon’s Long War strategy has little to do with combating terrorism. David Kilcullen, an adviser to Petraeus and McChrystal, says terrorism isn’t “at the top of my list” of reasons to persist in Afghanistan. He’s more worried about preserving NATO, the Cold War coalition that hasn’t had a reason to exist for 20 years.

Terrorism isn’t a reason we keep lingering in Iraq either. The Mesopotamia Mistake was never about terrorism, or weapons of mass destruction, or even Saddam Hussein. It was a neoconservative stratagem to invade and occupy the heart of the oil-rich Persian Gulf region.

We’re gushing blood and treasure into Southwest and Central Asia for no other reason than to keep the military-industrial cash caisson and gravy ship and wild-blue budget alive. COIN is a red herring, a deliberate attempt to distract attention from what’s really going on. The Pentagon and its kiss ups in Congress and the media and industry would have us believe that counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism are the same thing. They are not.

COIN, especially as we are practicing it, is about propping up the most corrupt governments on the planet. Counterterrorism is about going after terrorists. There’s a big difference. We’re not really going after terrorists. We’re seeking ways to keep the Army at war in order to justify its budget.

Little wonder it is that U.S. Army suicides are expected to rise for the fifth straight year. They know that the COIN doctrine they’re executing is a crock of horse feathers.

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[theoldman]

1. COIN as the name implies works against an insurgency.

The problem in Afghanistan is an insurgency in the form of the Taliban. The problem is not terrorism. The real question is why do we put an effort in COIN when our problem is terrorism.