Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holding a Powerful Re-Evaluation Of Af-Pak

I missed the hearing, but Ackerman has a post about it here
http://washingtonindependent.com/40173/senate-foreign-relations-committee-holding-a-powerful-re-evaluation-of-af-pak


More here from NECN (video at the link)
http://www.necn.com/Boston/NECN-Extra/2009/04/23/Kerry-insists-Afghanistan-is/1240497745.html
Kerry insists Afghanistan is not the next Vietnam

http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2009/hrg090423a.html

(I missed it earlier)

..on Cspan 3.It was great! I think it was all really well put together and conducted and I liked how they had people with a variety of different viewpoints, but who all seemed to share a sort of common goal, present. Senator Kerry of course did a really excellent job leading it. He really seems in his element in this position; he's really well suited for it. :) And I've said this more than once before, lol, but I just think it's so awesome how he went from his testimony before this committee 38 years ago..to chairing it now. Talk about coming full circle!

I was also really moved by how moved he seemed to be by a lot of the testimony. He looked like he was tearing up at one point. And on a lighter note, I liked how when Andrew Bacevich kept talking about his '71 testimony and "the young John Kerry", the Senator said how much he apperciated that recognition, but what he did not appreciate was "the reminder that I am now the older John Kerry". What a great sense of humor he has! :D

Anyway, I don't want to say too much more so as not to spoil it for anyone who's yet to see it, but I thought it was great.

intermingled with Kerry's testimony from '71. All in a Sam Stein post on HuffPost:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/the-new-john-kerry-afghan_n_190617.html

I have watched part of the hearing and found Rick Reyes very compelling.

and that is why this didn't get much attention.

All I saw was the generic - today in Congress where it got a little discussion.

The Anti-War Left (those are folks always opposed to wars) have completely propagandized the hearing, and really have made it different from what I saw. Now Reyes' testimony was compelling; but he didn't do as well during the Q & A. I thought the other three vets really knew their stuff when asked direct questions, even the woman soldier who told Sen. Kerry that she was nervous (and Kerry was so nice telling her she was doing well). I have to say that after watching the ENTIRE hearing, instead of a propaganda film made by Brave New Films (and believe me it was designed to manipulate somebody like me, lol), I am willing to give more leeway that we need to stay in Afghanistan. Those troops convinced me. But you wouldn't know that if you relied on HuffPost and DailyKos.

Look at this diary:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/23/723758/-How-Do-You-Ask-a-Man-to-Be-the-Last-Man-to-Die-for-a-Mistake-in-Afghanistan

It is using John Kerry's words in a way that is quite disingenuous, given the hearing he put together.

because I did miss some of the beginning. It was a good hearing and I found myself siding with others rather than Reyes. That doesn't mean I valued his testimony less, but that I believe that sometimes wars are necessary and they gave more compelling reasons for being in Afghanistan.

Fascinating stuff. So much more than just Reyes. I don't know why people are so quick to glom onto a sound bite and dismiss the serious thought and consideration required to actually solve problems.

All of them, including Reyes, gave very thoughtful testimony speaking both of things that worked and things that limited their effectiveness. The anti-war people actually distorted both John Kerry's and Reyes' testimonies extracting only what they wanted to hear from each. Brave New Worlds is using both Reyes and the hearing for their own agenda - and in doing so they could hurt both. I think this hearing, unlike the 1971 one, is actually more useful for those who believe we need to succeed here, but feel that changes are needed from what we did in the past. I hope that Kerry can get Gates or someone high under him to view this hearing.

Like you, I heard many describing things that could or did work. Couple that with Kerry's comments that unlike Vietnam what happens here does impact our security. It actually impacts the world's security and it allows us to help the Afghan people. It is significant that the BU professor, who is anti-war, spoke of how while the vets of Vietnam included many who became antiwar, most from Afghanistan "tuned out".

I though Genevieve Chase's comments of working with Village elders and the need to provide security simultaneously with asking them to get their village to change and her comments about trust being something won over time and given to the individual was very interesting. I wonder if placing people in one place for their entire tour would not only be more effective, but safer on the individual level as it would seem as you build trust you gain people more likely to watch your back.

Kerry did a wonderful job selecting these people. They were all extremely thoughtful, serious people, clearly committed to doing a good job, and all had clearly very intelligently reflected on their experiences and had pulled insight out of them. There were many well developed thoughts and suggestions that really should be considered. This was clearly a difficult hearing for him - emotionally it had to bring back much of Vietnam and I think he really cringed at points when young John Kerry was mentioned so often. I know the SFRC hasn't had a hearing like this before, has the Armed Services Committee?

The Boston Globe ran a http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/04/22/no_counterparts_to_the_young_kerry_at_war_hearing/?page=3">front page article on Wed, April 22, about this hearing. It mentioned, by name, 3 soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It ran their pictures on the inside part of the paper and took quotes from them that generally emphasized their view of what should happen in Afghanistan going forward. The tail end of the story included a quote (without picture) from Prof. Bacevich.

I think the media, including the MSM and the leftish online media, sees what it wants to see and formulates the story to conform to the conclusions it wants to draw.

So, does this story from http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/04/afghan_vets_giv.html">Friday's Boston Globe that does prominently feature Sgt. Reyes balance out their earlier coverage?

Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is tell someone of good intentions that time has run out and they no longer have the chance to right a wrong or see a cause through to it's end. This was the overwhelming feeling I got from watching the hearing in the SFRC on Thursday morning.

The Committee took the testimony of 5 people, 4 veterans of the Operation Enduring Freedom and one Professor on International Relations at Boston University,who was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and who had lost a son in the Iraq War back in 2007. All of these people offered poignant and heartfelt testimony that spoke to their experience in war and hopes and fears for the future of the US involvement in Afghanistan.

The four service people spoke about their involvement with Afghani civilians. The overall impression I got from their testimony was one of genuine humanitarian concern for the well-being of the Afghani people going forward. The disagreements among the soldiers centered on whether or not the US can actually do anything to better that future. Three of the veterans believed we could, one veteran believed we could not. I found all their testimony compelling.

Prof Bacevich's testimony was more about the overall picture of US foreign policy and how the particulars of Afghanistan fit into that overall policy. Bacevich's goal seemed to be to drastically downsize US goals and insert a dose of realism into the discussion.

This was the heartbreaking part of the hearing for me. The soldiers spoke about the connections they feel with the Afghani people and how it would be wrong to abandon those people. We have the opportunity to do much good there and to help rebuild a nation and alleviate genuine suffering. These soldiers had put in a lot of time and effort and had seen lives of friends lost in this cause. That was very touching. They made a compelling case for continuing our effort in Afghanistan and, perhaps, putting more troops on the ground in order to stabilize that country.

One soldier related the story of holding the hand of a dying soldier and that the thought of abandoning the mission in Afghanistan would, to him, dishonor the memory of what that soldier was trying to do. I can understand that and I could plainly see the pain of that memory as it was related.

This is the crux of the matter then. It is not a faction against faction case where we draw up false sides and pretend that one side is right and another is wrong. All the sides are right. It is morally wrong to abandon Afghanistan. It is morally wrong to see 40,000 villages in Afghanistan where there are no schools or health care or other basic necessities and then leave them. It is wrong and, in the end, this is what we will do.

It is not physically or fiscally possible for the United States to rebuild Afghanistan. We lack the manpower, the commitment of other nations and the money to do so. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that anything that we do in that country will last beyond the tenure of the US term there. If we want to secure Afghanistan and it's future, then we commit to an open-ended term there that has no end. We commit to spending untold amounts of money that we don't have in search of an uncertain goal that might never be reached.

If we stayed and put in time to rebuild Afghanistan for, say, 15 years, there is zero guarantee that the billions of dollars we would spend there would make any political, humanitarian or social difference. There is plenty of evidence that pulling out would make things worse for the Afghani people and destabilize the country. It might also make things worse in terms of human rights for women and religious minorities. This is the very definition of a quagmire.

I found this hearing heartbreaking. The pleas of the soldiers for more time, more troops, more effort for the people in that strife-torn nation was genuine. I felt it. I also heard Prof Bacevich and the questions from the panel. The writing is on the wall, as far as I can see. The mission there, and elsewhere in that area, is going to change. We are not going to be the caretaker nation there. We are not going to rebuild the schools and roads and hospitals. We are going to be the international police who come in and do investigations. That is a big, big difference.

We are in an economic crisis. The federal deficit is expected to double over the next decade to 20 trillion dollars. Twenty trillion dollars. It does not take a genius to see that the amount of money necessary to do nation-building in Afghanistan or elsewhere does not exist. (It does not exist.) The longer the economic crisis goes on, the more we will be pitting the interests of US poor against the poor of other nations. (This is a terrible thing. They are all worthy.)

All our choices in Afghanistan, and Iraq and soon Pakistan, are bad. That is the point. These are not hopeful hearings wherein we hear about good things that we can do to alleviate suffering and build friendships. They are hearings about the limits of what we can do. They are heartbreaking hearings.

I do think that the mission will change in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. I think the real reason for this will be economic in nature. We simply do not have the money to have large standing armies in these locations.

So, what happens next? A lot of development money is going into robotics and remote warfare applications. This is cheaper and exposes less Americans to risk. It is also a more sinkhole of immense proportions.

effective humanitarian development... like helping women and farmers survive.

Something tells me more money will be going to robotics and remote warfare.

Humanitarian aid and sustainable development are not what the Department of Defense and the Pentagon should be doing, are trained to do or are are responsible for doing in our system of government.

That is the purview of the US State Department. State is the branch of government charged with foreign assistance and what falls under "nation-building." Not the department of defense.

I want those things too. I am not sure I want to pay for them in a Defense paradigm. (How much am I over-paying for this by paying the wrong people to do it? )

Asking our troops to do nation-building is "mission creep." We have a branch of government that does this, we should use it.

robotics and remote warfare make sense. It exposes less troops to combat, incurs less casualties, lowers the cost of fielding a large standing army and lessens logistical challenges of supplying troops under difficult or hostile conditions. The long term costs of care are less because there are less injuries and less exposure to trauma causing events. In terms of cost effectiveness, accuracy, discipline and lessening casualties, robotics and remote warfare make a certain sense.

It is horrible on the human side. War, however, is not about being nice to people. War is engaged in because there is no other way to bend an enemy to reason or to your will. War is not about being nice, it's about the application of deadly force.

Nation-building should not be done by the military. They are not trained for it. The military is trained to see 360 degrees of waging or preventing cruel war. (As Thomas Ricks says, there is no peace branch of the US military.) They are trained to crush a foe with force, deadly armaments and weaponry. That is what war and military action is about.

What is the military objective in Afghanistan? Why are we there with deadly force? What is the purpose of being there, how does force of arms and soldiers on the ground get us to our objective? What is the end result? Is the military necessary or can a peace-time resource do some of this job?

We all want to save the people of Afghanistan. But is a large standing army, with all it's attendant costs and problems, the way to accomplish the goals that the soldiers at this hearing articulated?

I agree that the State Dept should be the leader in nation-building. I disagree that the military has no role. The military should be there to protect the aid teams. Also, the military has civil affairs units, which are trained in some aspects of nation building. I agree though, they should be working hand in hand with State Dept people.

I disagree strongly with this statement: "War is engaged in because there is no other way to bend an enemy to reason or to your will." I think war is engaged in because someone sees a way to profit and manages to convince enough people that they are in danger from "the enemy" and there is no way to protect them from "the enemy" except going to war. You may have sizable support coming from people who think war is the only way to remove an evil regime that is terrorizing its own people. But I doubt that group alone would ever - even in WWII - be sufficient to cause the military to fully engage. (I honestly never thought - from the moment he did it - that GHW Bush really went into Somalia for humanitarian reasons.)

I'm fine with paying to develop robotics for what they're good for (mine clearing and other things). I just think that for Afghanistan we'd better, real quick, get the mission straight or get the hell out. I think getting out may be even less of an option than it is in Iraq. (Last I heard we aren't getting fully out of Iraq, and I'm okay with that.)

So what do I think the mission is in Afghanistan? Stabilizing as much of the country as possible with some government less awful than the Taliban, preferably a government that allows women to go to school and participate in the economy independently of a slavemaster. Just this morning I heard yet another development expert pointing out that it's only when women can go to school and function somewhat autonomously, that birthrates and poverty go down. Overpopulation is driving environmental problems as well as directly driving global conflict (which is also driven by environmental problems, in a vicious circle); poverty of course drives conflict, and terrorism especially. So if we allow Afghanistan to revert to Taliban rule, we will not only see a lot of misery there, but they will once again be in a position to export misery to other countries, including us.

So I think we should stay in Afghanistan for now, but get it right. Getting it right means making sure people can make a living and have security for themselves and their families without turning to the Taliban. I do not believe that blunt, poorly directed use of military force can achieve those goals. I do believe that there is a place for specialized and high quality military operations, in addition to and in coordination with sensible, well-funded, compassionate development efforts.

work like hell and strive for up most positive results. In many great undertakings there are always those naysayers and pessimists that like to suggest we shouldn't even try because we will just fail. Being realistic is fine, but it shouldn't be the only thing that defines a mission. If your goals are well defined, even if your expectations are high, if you end up somewhere is the middle I would consider that successful.

the two anti-war voices) said we should immediately withdraw. That is simply not an option. That is the position of the anti-war groups who think such a complex issue can be put into a neat box of OUT NOW.

The other interesting thing Bacevich said was that even if we got Afghanistan 100% right, Pakistan is still a mess, so a perfect Afghanistan solves nothing.

The concept I got out of the hearings was that "The Long War" is just not going to be an option for the U.S. long term. And, that with all of the changes the Obama Administration has implemented, they still seem to be buying into the Bush concept that fighting the GWOT (even with the phrase gone) amounts to invading, occupying, and transforming countries in the Greater Middle East. I think Bacevich is correct, but I also have a feeling that Obama, being a pragmatist, is going to slowly transition the missions to more and more modest goals.

to more modest goals in Afghanistan, though still kind of fuzzy. I am sure they are too smart and, as you said, pragmatic, to realize that it makes no sense to aim for a western style democracy, but at the same time I think they are in a catch 22 situation in the sense that the country HAS to be transformed somehow, especially with the ready to explode Pakistan (SCARY!!) next door.

There was some ex-colonel I have never heard of before yesterday, I think that on Rachel's show, not sure, very lucid and very eye-opening in his assessment. He was saying that most likely what will happen in the area is that once we are out, the situation will revert to what it was before, the traditions and the anti-west attitudes are too strong. Nothing really new, but the way he put it was like a cold shower.

I believe this will become a military operation again. The goal will become a fight against those who wish to harm the interests of the US.

I do not think the military can solve the humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan that led so many to embrace the Taliban. We can use the resources of our State Dept and of global NGO's to fight that and have a much, much smaller force for security for those entities. Beyond that, America does not have the power to affect social or political change in that country. That is up to the Afghanis. The money we spend to do this type of job with our military is, im my opinion, money poured down a rathole, never to be seen again.

The saddest moments in that hearing involved hearing the soldiers testify that they wanted to help the Afghani people rebuild their lives, schools, health care, et al. This is a noble and laudatory goal. And one we are totally unable to achieve in any measurable way at all.

Americans still thrill to hear JFK's call from 1961: " Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." This is the problem itself. This is undoable. It did not work in Vietnam or any other place. It is a fantasy and we have to abandon it for our own good and the good of the world.

I did not see it, hopefully it will reair over the week-end and I will get a chance. Reading the comments here is the next best thing :-).

http://www.cspan.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-A-17734

This is a better quality video than the one on the SFRC site. I am not the type to watch every hearing Kerry does, but I can tell you that this one (which is under 2 hours) is well worth your time.

I have a satellite connection with lousy Hughes that allows me 200M/day, after which it penalizes me and my speed becomes slower than a dial-up of 15 years ago. I hate them with a vengeance, but in my rural corner of the world and with a house surrounded by trees, this is the only broadband option I have. Did I mention that they dare charge me $60/month?

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64932/john-mueller/how-dangerous-are-the-taliban



And it should be known that German intelligence agencies were 100% focused on neo-Nazi groups at that time, which is why they missed this threat (they knew Atta was there, but didn't do anything about it). Which begs another question -- what if we are always fighting the last war? What if there is a new threat of some kind that is not terrorism, but since all of our resources are concentrated on al Qaeda, we miss it?

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2009/04/27/wheres_the_anti_war_voice_in_kerrys_war_hearing/



So I hallucinated seeing Corporal Reyes? Groups that lie about things really aren't helping their cause.

titling their article that there was no young JK, because they neglected to read Reyes testimony. It is entirely possible that the person writing this LTTE knew only what the BG told them. That article spoke of the IVAW not being included, without saying anything about Reyes or really explaining how anti-war the BU professor was.

I added a comment with the link to the hearing saying the problem was the BG coverage.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/

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