Herschel Smith at Captains Journal has been my source of what the ‘bleep’ is going on in Afghanistan. I can tell you I have a vested interest in what’s going on since my SO has been training Afghan troops for a few months now. I can tell you he’s not a happy camper with the situation.

NATO Cannot Be Rehabilitated

Germany has been the most notorious with their feckless troops who sit on their bums while the US and Britain does the heavy lifting.

Rather than making contact with the population, many NATO troops have been kept on Forward Operating Bases (FOBs); rather than finding and killing the enemy, NATO has placed emphasis on reconstruction efforts, reconstruction that goes unused in many cases because there is no security. Rather than conducting dismounted patrols, many troops have been confined to vehicles, obviously increasing the risk from IEDs.

Apparently German Special Forces have spent 3 years without ever leaving their base! NOT.ONE.MISSION.

From The Scotsman (see Captains Journal for link):

Germany has admitted its Special Forces have spent three years in Afghanistan without doing a single mission, and are now going to be withdrawn.

More than 100 soldiers from the elite Kommando Spezialkrafte regiment, or KSK, are set to leave the war-torn country after their foreign minister revealed they had never left their bases on an operation.

The KSK troops were originally sent to Afghanistan to lead counter-terrorist operations.

But Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister, admitted they had not been deployed “a single time� in the last three years, despite a desperate shortage of Special Forces units in the country.

Herschel concludes:

snip…..Barack Obama’s demand that NATO fulfill an increased role in Afghanistan is a doomed strategy. More troops to sit on FOBs and provide force protection for themselves (while Marines and British forces take the brunt of the battle in the South) won’t help the campaign.

Afghanistan, 2008 Election, Barack Hussein Obama, NATO, Germany, NATO Failure

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