Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t Get It

Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t Get It

By Jamie McIntyre Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 11:16 am
Posted in On War

Bill O’Reilly says he’s perplexed.  He doesn’t understand.   On his Fox News program “The O’Reilly Factor” Tuesday night O’Reilly complained that no one could explain to him why things were getting worse, instead of better, in Afghanistan.   U.S. troops are doing a good job, he said.  There are not more Taliban.  Pakistan is cracking down on its side of the border, so why is the situation “deteriorating” in the assessment of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

O’Reilly’s confusion is understandable, but the answer is as simple as the solution is complex.   It is found in the other mantra repeated by Adm. Mullen and the other U.S. commanders.   The U.S. cannot kill its way to victory in Afghanistan.   As the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, former Afghanistan commander Karl Eikenberry put it on CNN Sunday, discussing the military dimension, “It’s critical, but in and of itself, it’s not sufficient. This is not going to be won entirely on the battlefield here for us in Afghanistan. It’s going to require that the government of Afghanistan develops capability over the next several years. It’s going to require further work in helping to develop a sustainable economy.”

And that’s the part of the strategy that shows very little progress, and very little prospect for quick improvement.   And that’s why the Pentagon is now forced to consider another infusion of fresh reinforcements.    But as National Security Advisor Jim Jones, another former commander responsible for Afghanistan, put it a few months ago, “The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed.”


Right now there’s not enough economic progress to warrant much optimism.

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CharlesHouston September 2nd, 2009 at 7:19 pm

As much as I appreciate Bill O’Reilly’s bringing up topics that are difficult, he appears to be more of a commentator than a journalist. It seems that he could do some additional research and would find lots of information.
As a 28 year Air Force veteran, and having been interested in counter insurgency operations (from a safe distance!), and having talked to my brother (Army, LtCol, tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan), my opinion is that we are only now getting evidence of the actual condition of Afghanistan. It has been what it is now for centuries, but we hid inside our fortresses and did not interfere with the Taliban and local nationals.
Now we are going to their provinces and trying to establish “order” or something.
Up until now, the government of Afghanistan has had authority that sometimes extended as far as the near suburbs of Kabul — and everyone was happy. The Afghans grew poppies and sold dope to Europe and America, and we looked away.
Now we are trying to bring the benefits of the modern world (FM radio stations, drive thru fast food, running water, roads, schools, etc) to the country and wonder why they do not appreciate us more.

CharlesHouston September 2nd, 2009 at 7:20 pm

Part 2
They do not value any of that and we cannot make them. They are a medieval country and it will take decades to change that — they are gonna hate Israel, treat women like farm animals, and we can’t do anything about it. Sure we can save a burned kid, we can start a school. But as soon as we drive out of town the entire population reverts to a feudal society that does not value a school at all. They will not permit girls to go to school. Face it.

Sure we can get out and greet the population and establish order — in the daytime. But unless our troops are approximately as many people as the entire poplation of Afghanistan, we can’t be everywhere all the time.

The Afghans don’t hate America — most of them still have no idea who we are. They just are subsistence farmers, are enormously ignorant, and hate everyone who is not from their village.

CharlesHouston September 2nd, 2009 at 7:20 pm

Part 3
Counterinsurgency is a contest between two forces who’s logistics are mostly off limits. The Taliban/Afghan tribes (currently) cannot strike at our ammo plants and we have a hard time striking at their camps in the Pakistani tribal areas. They cannot kill all of our folks and we can’t kill all of theirs. So this is another test of resolve and the US has never done well at those.

Bill — that is the situation. Argue for better armored vehicles, argue for small unit patrols and for our folks to get outside the wire. Just don’t think that Afghanistan has changed much since the British were there 1840.

Who am I, some sort of anti-war hippie? I am a 28 year veteran of the Air Force, a long time supporter of John McCain, a moderate conservative with a technical degree and enough common sense to ask that we limit our goals to achieveable ones.

Jeff B September 24th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Do the Diplomats in the State Dept have a counterinsurgency strategy? The military has been training and employing counterinsurgency tactics for well over 4 years and the troops on the ground understand how important it is to rid the Afghan Army and Afghan police of corruption — that’s mainly why we need more troops on the ground to expand that mission. However, unless the diplomats in the State Dept start working with their Afghan counterparts on ridding the governement of corruption the efforts of the military will all be in vain.

The Captain September 24th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

Jamie’s observation that one cannot kill one’s way to victory rings true. One of the false “lessons learned” of our recent wars is that war can be reduced to “targets.” The logic that follows from that — a false one in my book — is that once one has “serviced” all the targets, victory has been obtained. My own Navy often falls victim to that mentality as at sea once one has sunk all the ships or shot down all the airplanes and missiles, the last one standing is victorious. The Air Force falls victim to this as well — once the fighter pilot has shot down all the bogies, he wins. Unfortunately, the tactical does not necessarily translate to the strategic. When I first saw the war plans for invading Iraq early in 2002 while at Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain, my observation was, “Sure, we will destroy the Iraqi Army in weeks, but then what?” We never answered the “then what?” My son will be in Afghanistan by December, so I am very much concerned about the “then what?” We had better get it right or we will be fighting a losing war despite the battleground victories. As the North Vietnamese colonel responded when confronted with the observation that the U.S. military had won all its fights on the battlefield, “Yes, that is true, but it is also irrelevant,.”

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