“American troops are needlessly exposed to increased enemy attack, suffer unnecessary casualties, cannot secure or control the indigenous population and are not allowed to deny freedom of movement or maneuver to the Taliban.”
This is a portion of an 8 page letter that a Tactical Commander in Afghanistan, Colonel Harry Tunnell, wrote to Secretary of the Army John McHugh in August of 2010. Throughout this letter, Tunnell associates what he believes to be unnecessary dangers faced by American troops with the Army’s adoption of its “Counterinsurgency” operational doctrine known as COIN.
Introduced into the Afghan theater of operations by General David Petraeus in July of 2010, COIN includes 24 “points” to US commanders in the field, all based on the belief that “alienating Afghan civilians sows the seeds of our defeat.” In short, the intent of COIN is to “win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.”
But the winning of those hearts and minds has come at a steep price. During the first 9 years of the war in Afghanistan, 1000 American soldiers were killed. In the 27 months since the adoption of COIN, another 1000 American soldiers have been killed. As a function of time, that’s more than a 400% increase in the number of American casualties.
And in his letter, Colonel Tunnell explains that COIN is the principle reason for what he believes to be any number of unnecessary deaths.
According to Tunnell, “COIN has become such a restrictive dogma that it cannot be questioned…” “This has created a dysfunctional and toxic leadership environment throughout our Army which has resulted in poor organization, unrealistic training and indecisive battlefield performance.” For example, “Afghan Army battalions were performing security operations…” and leading other operations in the field. Of course, as Tunnell explains, the overwhelming majority of Afghanis cannot read or write! Also, providing Afghan troops with security information has resulted in countless deaths of American and coalition troops as Muslims trusted under COIN have turned into terrorist murderers.
“Worst of all,” says Tunnell, “COIN dogma has degraded our purpose to willingly, effectively and realistically train for combat.” “I was continually badgered to not conduct brigade maneuver live fire training before deploying because NTC leaders deemed that we were already ‘too lethal’ of an organization.” Tunnell’s unit was sent to one of the most dangerous locations in Afghanistan; yet live fire training was disallowed because the unit was already “too lethal!” The Colonel continues that, upon deployment to the field “…we were subsequently forced to conduct a brigade attack as a matter of force protection almost without delay. We had to do the attack without the benefit of the live fire training that we requested…”
“Eating soup with a spoon” is how Lt. Colonel Gian Gentile has described the COIN doctrine, as it has “…removed the essence of war—fighting—from its pages.” “It is as if our COIN doctrine, with all of its seductive simplicity, operates like a secret recipe: “do this, and then this, and at the right moment add this and … you win…”
Were the fortunes of war so easily predictable and controllable, many, perhaps even most, of the 1000 American troops who have died since mid-2010 might still be alive.
“Leaders are willing to conduct operations at the tactical and operational levels of war to decisively defeat the enemy or they are not,” concludes Colonel Tunnell. Tragically, the unwillingness of today’s American leaders to decisively win a war is responsible for the needless—indeed, criminally callous and cynically disregarded—death of countless American soldiers.
Follow Coach at twitter.com @KcoachcCoach
Photo credit: TexasEagle (Creative Commons)
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way to much blood spilled by this “scumbag ” leadership !!! , treason and hanging for all of them !!!!!!!!!!!!
These death encouraging rules were put in to effect to do what they are doing – killing and maiming those that would be the first one’s to go after this new Hitler. He is an evil entity that is using these brave young men as caonon fodder to get rid of his opposition to his “civilian army” – DHS, IRS, TSA, FDA, EPA, TSA, and even the weather service are all armed to the teeth! This is why these rules are being enforced by the new Hitler! The military brass have no ass as they should be up in arms over this but they to have been bought off or worse, they are cowards! The military had better start waking up, they take an oath to defend America from enemies foriegn and domestic! We have an enemy in the “Outhouse.”
obama is Killing Our Troops Intentionally He And All those Arab Mo Foes Ned to Go. Fire obama (barry) Get Ride Of All Of Them. obama Your Fired, Mitt Romney Order Our troopTo Defend Themselves And Get Them Out And Send Them Home !!!!!!!!
I have no problem with war. Sometime`s we have to go to war. But when our country goes to war it is to win anyway possable and the government needs to stay out of it and let the military take care of business. No restrictions. Win it or don`t get in it. Kids joining the military takes abd oath to defend OUR country for enemies forgion and domestic. It doesn`t say anything about protecting any other country much les the minds and hearts of anyone. Any kid male or female thinking about joining the army or marines should be givien an atititude adjustment. Want your kid to come back in a bag or with pieces missing? Go ahead and let them be cannon fodder. I loved my kid the way he is to much to let him join the army.. .
Petraeus should know better than to even have written down such pap as his “minds and hearts” doctrine in Afghanistan. He’s was still fighting the war in Vietnam. It didn’t work there! It won’t work in Afghanistan.
He’s a former commander of the Combined Arms Center who should know that you employ ALL of your weapons in concert and you train, train, train to WIN.
This watered down milquetoast pap of COIN is a recipe for FAILURE having been tried and found wanting in Vietnam. If General Allen hasn’t thrown COIN out it’s because Barack “Which-end-did-you-say-the-bullet-comes-out-of?” Obama subscribes to this losing doctrine which favors his Muslim friends.
If the military is not allowed to win in Afghanistan then bring those guys and gals home and apologize to every one of them for having stuffed them into a meatgrinder then helped the enemy turn the handle.
Vote Hussein bin Obama OUT in November, FIRE Petraeus from the CIA before he does any more damage then take a real hard look at what we’re doing in Central Asia. Right now all that’s being accomplished is to keep a sizable part of our defensive force OUT of country where they can’t do a thing to that end or VOTE, and soaking up demoralizing casualties
Smell any rats?
This is a darn shame that this fraud in our Whtie House along with the rest of the commie DemonRats are purposely causing our men to be killed, uncessarily, in Afghanistan. Obozo and the rest of the treasonous politicians in DC should be hung.
The first thing we need to do is recognize the problem. As I see it, our troops are expected to overcome well-armed muslim radicals who wear no uniform and blend in with the “civilian” population, without firing until fired upon, and then only if there is no danger of hitting any “civilians.” If American troops see arned muslim killers, but those killers are in a home where there may be “civilians” present, they are not to fire upon them. It seems our foreign aid has expended, especially in the area of training indigenous people to “defend” their country. We provide arms and ammunition. Then we provide moving targets to help them learn to shoot.
The Obuminable One has given his good friends the best live-fire training in the world.
The solution is two-fold: Cancel the target practice and give our troops the right to fight – get them out of there today! Launch full-scale investigations into Obuminable’s frequent bypassing of our Constitution, into his deliberate refusals to perform the basic duties of his job, into his fiscal corruption and incompetence, into his Chicago Politics system of governing and giving our money to his cronies, into his true background from birth to the present, including college admission records, then votr him out, indict him, and send him to Leavenworth Federal Prison or Gitmo for life. When he dies, send him home to Kenys for burial. Don’t pollute American soil with his maggot-ridden corpse.
Pete, we do not need to stop the target practice, just let the army practice where it would do the most good. Live ammo army training at the Whitehouse would give America a chance to recover from their worst enemies. The Obama thugs.
THE ONLY THING THAT MUST BE DONE IS………………IMPEACH OBAMA…………..NOT WAIT FOR ELECTIONS, AS WE ALL KNOW ITS FIXED……………DO YOU ALL KNOW THE WORD……….CORRUPT.