Afghanistan War Hero Stripped of Silver Star Army Major Matt Golsteyn betrayed by cowardly leaders >" By February 20th, 2010, the Battle of Marjah had been underway for a week. In order to seize the Afghan districtan IED-infested, Taliban-dominated collection of villages and crisscrossing canals and tree lines that were a defending fighters dreamthe U.S. military had divided its force into thirds. A task force of more than a thousand U.S. Marines, accompanied by Afghan soldiers, assaulted the northern portion of Marjah. Ditto for the central portion of the district. And the southern third? It had been attacked by a single U.S. Army Special Forces team consisting of nine men, accompanied by a handful of Marine engineers tasked with clearing bombs from the roads and a few hundred Afghan troops that were more of a babysitting case than true partners. Such a light American footprint on at least part of the battlefield would put an Afghan face on the operation, as the lingo went at the time. As the Special Forces soldiers wore Afghan Army uniforms, the Taliban concluded that there were virtually no Americans on their southern flank. The fighting there was intense..."< continue -> http://freebeacon.com/national-security/afghanistan-war-hero-stripped-of-silver-star/ To understand Obama's politically correct "Rules of Engagement" (ROE) that favors the enemy and causes Americans to bleed and die on the battlefield. >" In Afghanistan, the [rules of engagement] that were put in place in 2009 and 2010 have created hesitation and confusion for our war fighters, said Wayne Simmons, a retired U.S. intelligence officer who worked in NATO headquarters in Kabul as the rules took effect, first under Army Gen. Stanley M. McChrystal, then Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. It is no accident nor a coincidence that from January 2009 to August of 2010, coinciding with the Obama/McChrystal radical change of the [rules of engagement], casualties more than doubled, Mr. Simmons said. The carnage will certainly continue as the already fragile and ineffective [rules] have been further weakened by the Obama administration as if they were playground rules...."< Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...eld-deaths-linked-to-new-rules/#ixzz3QzkDnRkS >" In the first seven-plus years of war in Afghanistan (October 2001 December 200 we lost 630 U.S. soldiers. In early 2009, the Obama administration authorized the implementation of the COIN (Counter-Insurgent) strategy, more focused on winning hearts and minds than winning a war, and over the next five years, the U.S. death toll nearly tripled. Seventy-three percent of all U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have taken place since 2009. In the first seven plus years of war in Afghanistan, 2,638 U.S. soldiers were wounded in action. In the next forty-five months (2009 2012) an additional 15,036 suffered the same fate..."< http://allenbwest.com/2014/02/us-military-deaths-afghanistan-skyrocket-obama/ http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/under-obama-75-casualties-13-year-afghan-war-55-more-2014 92% of Marine Casualties in Afghan War Occurred Under Obama http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/92-marine-casualties-afghan-war-occurred-under-obama Iraq And Afghanistan Military Vets Favor George W. Bush Over Obama http://www.inquisitr.com/1193750/ir...e-w-bush-over-obama-poll/#dT1YTZUg5xaWfV3S.99
Yeah you'll be hard pressed to find any veteran who preferred fighting under Obama over fighting under Bush Jr. I am a realist, I "understand" why Obama tried to implement this COIN hearts and minds strategy. He felt that trying to gain the trust of the people and change the way they view us was a more viable solution for the long term over just killing them. However, it ties the hands of our troops BIG TIME and that is never a good thing. At the end of the day, to the Commander in Chief of US armed forces the lives of the troops should be the absolute number 1 priority over anything else, and that includes over the lives of the people in the countries we are fighting in. I have an issue with any leader who doesn't agree with that and implements policies that put the lives of our troops in greater danger.
Winning hearts and minds isn't the job of the U.S. military in combat. Just like nation building, it's not the job of the U.S. military. You win hearts and minds after the war has been won. Nation building begins after the war is over and it's not the job of the military to engage in nation building, that's the job of the State Department and others, not the military. What ever happened to the Peace Corps ?
Well the problem here is that there is no definitive way to "win" this war. This isn't a normal war where the enemy government can surrender and say uncle. Terrorism doesn't work that way. Much of our conventional war machine is rendered useless when dealing with terrorism because they hide among the innocent like cowards. They refuse to fight America head on because they know they will be destroyed so they use human shields and use our own moral code against us. They know the US could win this war tomorrow, we could just initiate something like Operation "Blank Canvas" and completely destroy the Middle East and start over. But they know we won't do that. They know if they shoot at us and run into a crowd of civilians we don't bomb the marketplace. We are fighting more of an ideology than an actual force. It's hard to combat something like that with conventional weapons designed to fight people who wear uniforms. If we go in there and just wreak havoc on the entire region and destroy everything then that makes the people living there hate us. Yes you killed the bad guys but your bombs killed my family and destroyed my house too so (*)(*)(*)(*) you. That is why we were trying to have the locals like us better than the terrorists and have them give up the names of the bad guys. But the problem is that it simply wasn't working. Too many US troops were dying playing this game. This type of war isn't for the conventional US military machine. It's for Special Forces. They are the ones who need to operate in this countries on a smaller scale who can seek out and find the enemy. US conventional troops are simply being used as cannon fodder by Obama's policies. We need to unleash our Special Forces units over there with almost full immunity, simply tell them to "Go kill the bad guys". They leave a smaller footprint and don't cause as much havoc as a B-1 bomber. It leaves a smaller presence so the locals don't get sick of seeing US humvees and troops driving by their houses for 14 years. Treat this like a bounty mission and let out Spec Ops go in there and kill these people. Thats my solution and according to 3 different SF books I've read that's their solution as well.
We don't need the Islamic terrorists to say uncle, we just need to exterminate them. Then perhaps we should adjust our regard for "innocence" so it's closer to what it was in WW2. I'd say we're fighting ourselves more than either of those. If they don't, they're our enemies.
A realist ought to recognize that his sympathies lie with the enemy, which naturally colors his strategy.
As in "Special Forces" you are referring to the Army's "Green Berets" correct ? The job of the Army Special Forces is suppose to be winning hearts and minds, it's what they are suppose to be trained for. It's not the job of conventional forces like Marine grunts, Army grunts or even Navy SEAL's to be in the winning hearts and minds. Their job is killing the enemy. During the Vietnam War the Army Special Forces (Green Berets) were in the winning the hearts and minds business and so were the Marines "Combined Action Paltoons" (CAP) The Marines CAP was some what a sucess while the Green Berets sucess wasn't that sucessful. Not so much the Green Berets fault but General Westmorland who didn't believe in winning hearts and minds. The difference I noticed between the CAP's winning hearts and minds compared to the Green Berets winning hearts and minds, the CAP's would organized a village or hamlet platoon size militia. They would operate no further than four or five miles from their home village. While the Green Berets would organize South Vietnamese village militia but then would move them twenty, thirty or more miles from their homes to engage the enemy. The Green Berets Montagnards is a completely different topic so all I will say, The Montagnards didn't like the South Vietnam government and vice versa. They were more like mercenaries and not all Montagnards were good guys. Up in I Corps we once came across a Montagnard who we suspected being VC. What's a Montagnard doing way up near the DMZ in I Corps ? Ends up he was VC. The Montagnards homeland was in the Central Highlands in ll Corps. I believe Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld original strategy was to have a small footprint in Afghanistan. By 2003 Al Qaeda had fled Afghanistan moving their base of operations to Yeman, OBL was forced into early retirement because he was to hot and went into hiding and the Taliban got their butts whooped big time and fled too Pakistan to lick their wounds for years. First of all, POTUS the Secretary of Defense shouldn't be micromanaging the military once they have been committed into a war. You would have thought Rumsfeld and Obama would have learned from the mistakes of the Vietnam War when LBJ micromanaged the Vietnam War. Let the generals and admirals run the wars, not civilians. You go to war when the civilian politicians have already failed, so why should you allow them to run wars ? As soon as the Taliban noticed that the war in Iraq was being politicized back in the USA, the Taliban said those stupid Americans, they are repeating the same mistakes of the Vietnam War and they stopped licking their wounds and crossed back into Afghanistan and re-entered the fight.
I don't think that his sympathies lie with the enemy, I think that he views the world in a pure moral light. He sees human life as all equal, which from a pure moral standpoint is correct. However, and this is a big however, the military does NOT work that way. As messed up as it sounds, the lives of OUR troops matter MORE than the lives of those in other countries. Obama doesn't see things that way, which is respectable from a moral standpoint but absolutely appalling from a military standpoint. A leader of our military forces has to understand that when sending troops to war they must do everything in their power to make sure they have all of the tools necessary to keep them safe. Any policy that sacrifices the safety of our troops for the safety of those in foreign nations is flat out wrong from a military standpoint. The bottom line is simple, as morally wrong as it seems. A simple question. Do the lives of our troops matter more than the lives of the people in the nations we are invading. The answer to that question is yes. Are all humans equal from a pure moral standpoint? Absolutely. Are all humans equal from a military standpoint? Absolutely not. THAT is what Obama doesn't understand, and that is why he is so disliked by our men and women in uniform.
During WW ll in the Pacific the entire Pacific was one big free fire zone. All of those islands in the South Pacific and atolls in the Central Pacific had civilian native populations living on them. It didn't stop the naval bombardments being conducted or bombing from the air of these islands and atolls because their were innocent natives living on the islands. Even in the European theatre of war, Europe was one big free fire zone. If a French village or town was occupied by Germans troops, it became a free fire zone.
When I say "Special Ops" I'm not specifically talking about Army Green Berets although that is the correct definition of them. I am talking about all members of SOCOM. I just say "Special Forces" because that's what the general public thinks all specialized units like Navy SEALs, Marine Recon, etc are called. I believe the smaller specialized units are much better suited for this type of war than the standard American conventional war machine. Our military was designed to fight a conventional war better than anyone else. When fighting a guerrilla war much of our power is rendered useless due to collateral damage because our enemy hides behind human shields like cowards. Special Forces units don't use bombers or tanks etc, they are able to fight close in with a smaller footprint and kill the enemy where he lives. The books that I read that advocated the use of SOCOM forces to fight terrorism were mainly Navy SEAL books. The authors (who were SEALs) were practically begging Congress to let them loose on the terrorists and let them go in and hunt them down. And I agree 100% We have loads of advanced pretty technology which is good when dealing with a nation like Russia or N Korea or Iran. F-22's, M1A2 Tanks, B-1 bombers, Paladin Artillery Batteries, Arleigh-Burke Class Destroyers, etc do absolutely nothing when fighting terrorism. We need specialized units to fight them toe to toe. Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, Green Beret's etc are those units.
The Silver Star awarded to Golsteyn was taken back for political reasons. That case is a microcosm of the obama administration - politics and protection of the administration comes before all other things.
There have been over 200 flag officers and field grade officers purged from the military by the Obama administration for political reasons. >"For weeks, rumors have flown about a “purge” of senior military officers by the Obama administration. The tone was set in 2010, when President Barack Obama fired General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, over insults about the president and vice-president attributed to him in a profile by the late Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone. Lately, a rash of firings has fueled suspicions of a vendetta. Those suspicions, in turn, reflect a widely known open secret: Obama is not well-liked, in general, by the military. Partly that is because the military tends to be conservative, and to vote Republican. But it is also because of the way in which the president has used the military as props in his political campaigns while showing little real concern for the welfare of the troops or their success in the field of battle..."< http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2013/11/18/is-obama-purging-the-military-of-dissent/ Obama's purge of the U. S. military is unprecedented Here is the list of our military elite who have been purged or fired under Obama: -> http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Art...rge-of-the-U-S-military-is-unprecedented.html Purging America’s military >" It seems that every week since President Obama took office in 2009, we’ve been hearing that another top leader has been summarily fired, despite his decades of loyal service and valuable experience in protecting the nation. Statistically speaking, it’s actually closer to one every 8.8 days, a staggering 200 military brass shown the door in less than five years..."< Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/12/gordon-transforming-the-us-military/#ixzz3R1yhgJCC Here's the one that really pisses me off. Probably the best general who knows how to fight a war. >" President Barack Obama fired General James Mattis, the head of Central Command, without even calling the general to let him know he was being replaced. "I am told that General Mattis was travelling and in a meeting when an aide passed him a note telling him that the Pentagon had announced his replacement as head of Central Command. It was news to him -- he hadn't received a phone call or a heads-up from anyone at the Pentagon or the White House," Thomas E. Ricks reports. In another post, Ricks says Mattis was fired because: Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way -- not because he went all "mad dog," which is his public image, and the view at the White House, but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order consequences of military action against Iran. Some of those questions apparently were uncomfortable. Like, what do you do with Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What do you do if Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, "And then what?"..."< continue -> http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-fires-top-general-without-even-phone-call_697744.html Gimme a General Who Won't Fight! That's Obama http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/01/dangerous_times_gimme_a_general_who_wont_fight.html It gets even better, Obama fired a Marine colonel over pigs to pay off a political debt to PETA ? Did Pigs Get a U.S. Marine Colonel Fired? >" U.S. Marine Corps Installations Pacific Commander Maj. Gen. Peter Talleri replaced Col. Jeffrey R. Woods this week "due a lack of confidence" in Woods' leadership. No other information was released about the change other than it is a "private matter." This announcement came on the heels of a national social media campaign launched October 3 by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and October 5 by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to get the military to stop using live pigs in their military training in Hawaii..."< http://www.hawaiireporter.com/did-pigs-get-a-u-s-marine-colonel-fired Excerpt: >" But just why the brass are hiding behind the Privacy Act, could also have something to do with PETA and pigs. That's right. You read that correctly. Some civilians have been raising cain over the Marine's use of sows in certain experiments in Hawaii. Woods, reportedly, was outspoken on the issue. In other words, this career Marine may have been brought down and career ended because of his lack of "political correctness."..."< http://militarycorruption.com/coljeffwoods.htm
But they do. The evidence was overwhelming even before his preposterous attempt the other day to draw a moral equivalence between Christianity and Islam. Believe me, I understand the reluctance, of active military personnel especially, to even silently entertain such ideas; but it behooves those of us not constrained by military responsibility to acknowledge aloud that it's long past time to drop the pretense that the rotting corpse in the middle of the living room smells like roses.
As countless unlucky individuals have found out, there is no free speech when you're working for the government. It can cost you your job.
And no competent Commander in Chief ever surrounds himself with yes men especially during war time. It's the job of the JCOS and the Command commanders to speak up and the job of the CnC to listen. It works the same way all the way down the chain of command. How many butter bars who didn't listen to their platoon and or squad sergeants and ended up getting their men killed ?
I understand what you are saying and I do agree with you for the most part but I do feel that we need to have checks and balances in military high command. We have to remember that these 3 and 4 star Generals and Admirals are MILITARY men and women. Their entire adult lives have been military based. Military leadership of that caliber is great when leading armies but their line of thinking may not always be the best when it comes to things outside of combat. I'll be honest with you, the only reason plenty of villages in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't in dust right now is because there is somebody out there telling our troops NOT to annihilate everybody. Emotions run high in war, the mentality of "screw this crap, kill them ALL" runs deep and we have to have people to pull on the reigns every once and awhile. Military commanders are trained to fight, and fighting is what they want to do. Many of their solutions really are just to kill everybody or use excessive force. There are Air Force and Naval commanders out there right now who would literally unleash Operation Rolling Thunder 2015 aerial bombardments on Iraq if they were allowed to have their way. Remember the Korean War? If we would have just sat down and shut up and "let the military fight the war" then General Douglas MacArthur would have literally atomic bombed North Korea into the Sea of Japan. Now I am by no means saying that Obama is always right or that our military commanders are always right. We have to have a balance. We cannot just say "well the military is the best at fighting so lets just do whatever they want". Our war machine is the most deadly thing in the history of humanity. If we let loose on somebody then it would be NASTY. Our military commanders are top notch but their specialty is with warfare. I'm not saying they are incapable of thinking of the bigger picture but we do need to check them every once and awhile. From what's been going on for the past few years it seems like Obama is making the critical mistake of not being able to have anyone challenge his own beliefs. That is EQUALLY as bad as him folding under the pressure of military commanders and just doing whatever they say. As a leader, any leader, you NEED to have people who disagree with you in your circle. You cannot just fire everybody who disagrees with you because you are not always right. It seems to me like Obama has a specific agenda and will surround himself only with those who are willing to accept it and completely dismiss those who are not on board. That is a problem. A lot of people like to say things such as "let the military fight the wars". That's not always the best solution. Trust me, unless we are fighting WWIII you don't want to give the military free reign to fight. Remember, the United States military is a conventional war machine, this COIN stuff isn't part of their job description. If we let the military fight the wars then they are going to FIGHT to the war the way they know how. Give American Forces free reign to go out and "win" this war tomorrow and they would. But the end result would be horrible. Yes we can stop terrorism tomorrow, we literally have the power to do it even without nuclear weapons. But the end result for be devastating and way too many innocent people would die in the process. I don't think many people fully understand just how powerful the US military actually is. This past decade of playing police in the Middle East has given a false image of what we can actually do to people. Only the most fanatical of people would really be happy if they saw what happens when the US military takes it gloves off, give's morality the middle finger, and completely lets loose on our enemies. It would literally be modern day genocide on an unimaginable scale, and I don't want to see that. Yes we do need to be more aggressive when dealing with terrorism, but we have to find a balance. Especially when dealing with terrorist cowards who hide among the innocent because they KNOW that America won't take her gloves off.
Never gonna happen under the sitting CiC, because he has no incentive for getting that done. He's plenty OK with US military failures as long as blame-shifting is an option.
Eh....I'm no fan of Obama, but I don't think his sympathies lie with the enemy. I think his problem is that he's a liberal and, as Robert Frost noted, a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. That's why the absurd moral relativism in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last week. He can't seem to take his own side. Instead he has to reduce his own side to one that is just as bad as the one he's currently bombing. I don't know how you win, or even fight, a war that way, but I suspect the answer is, you don't.
When it comes to "Special Operations" forces, there is really only 1 that has the mission of the Green Berets, those of other branches of service operate very differently. Those of other branches Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, etc), they generally only operate "in theatre" on missions, and are rarely seen by others when they are not on a mission. It is generally not their jobs to "win the hearts and minds", their job is to track down and kill bad guys (or to locate the bad guys so other units can either hunt down and kill them, or avoid them altogether). US Army Special Forces are quite unique in their role. First and foremost they are fighters, and will do many of the same missions of say the SEALs or Force Recon. But they are also Instructors, intended to help create, organize, provide training and assistance to, then help indigenous forces until they are at the point they can conduct their own military operations. Now an Infantry Battalion is going to do some "heart and mind" type missions, but this is in the interest of keeping things safe where they are at. Medics and Corpsmen helping in local clinics, giving training and assistance to local forces, even assisting local governments. These types of missions we have been doing since before the Civil War, but it is not intended to "win the hearts and minds" as much as to make our local areas secure. So the locals see us as liberators or helpers then an occupation force. General Westmoreland went overboard, and tried to turn all of the forces into more of the Special Forces role, their main goal going from warfighting to winning hearts and minds. And that was a fail, taking a minor mission and trying to make that their main mission. If you want to win hearts and minds, send in the Peace Corps. If you want to train local forces, send in the Special Forces. If you want to break things and kill people, send in the Army and Marines. As far as the OP, this is yet another case where I am waiting to find out more information. Yes, it does smell to high heavens I must admit, but there may (not is but may) be more here then we being told about. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...led-to-criminal-investigation-of-green-beret/ But myself, unless either the actions he was awarded for were later proven to be false or exaggerated for the purposes of gaining the award or he was shown (either before or after) to have dishonored himself, the service, or our country, I see no reason that his award or qualifications (his Special Forces tab was also revoked) should ever be revoked or downgraded.
Well if you're a commissoned officer in the U.S. Armed Forces and you start openly criticizing the POTUS, or just about anyone in government from Congress and above...you open yourself up for an article 88, which is basically contempt towards officials. If you don't believe in how the wars are being fought or the wars themselves; resign your commission, assuming all other service obligations have been met I certainly do not think it is very professional for any commissioned officer, to openly criticize government officials. It establishes a precedent of going against good order and discipline for the enlisted. If you're going to be an open critic about particular policy, resign the commission first.
The military are not government employees. They live under a completely different legal system and without Constitutional protections. Beyond that, criticizing your boss can get you fired no matter where your job is. This idea is not unique to gov't.
I checked with my wife on that but decided to keep that answer to myself since it won't enhance my side of the argument.
There can be a fine line between commenting ("I think this should have gone better") to openly criticizing ("This was a complete fuster-cluck and the civilian leadership are idiots"). I fully respect the rights of free speech and understand frustrations, but extreme care should be made so that one does not become the other when somebody is in active service in the military. Actually, we are Government Employees. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. My paycheck (back in the days I got a check and not direct deposit) were from the US Government, issued by the United States Treasury, and looked just like a Federal tax return check. And we do not "live under a completely different legal system", nor are we "without Constitutional protections". The UCMJ is not only completely in line with the Constitution, it is actually part of the US legal system, under Article 31 Section 10 of the United States Code. While we may have limits upon us that civilians do not (primarily because of security and other parts of the UCMJ relating to disrespect to superiors), we are still completely covered by the Constitution. The only real difference between us and other Government Employees is that we have a fixed contract which we have signed mandating how long we will serve for. Where as another employee can simply "quit" or "get fired", that can only happen to us when specific things happen (like violating orders, or getting injured). We are also the largest group of Government Employees without any form of Union. But do not think we are not government employees, and are not protected by the Constitution. Saying otherwise is simply wrong.
