I am sure the following article in the Defensenews.com was
overlooked during the that installment of the fast and furious (AKA the
election and its associated campaign).
Here is the link for you to read for your self.
If ISAF, the majority composition being United States forces,
is truly wining the hearts and minds of the Afghanistan then why are these
numbers being reported?
Why on Sept 20th 2012 did the head of the Joint
Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) (What a name, who the
hell comes up with these zingers? He
should be fired!) Lt. Gen Michael Barbero reported to the House Appropriations
defense subcommittee “in the past two years, IED events have increased 42
percent, from 9,300 in 2009 to 16,000 in 2011. This year we’re on track to meet
or exceed the number of events we saw last year. In fact, this July we saw the
highest number of monthly IED events ever recorded.”
Does this sound like we are wining?
And this from the Air ForceTimes
At the time Air
Mobility Command Combat Tactics Branch chief and director of operations Maj.
Thomas Lankford, now Lt. Col. Thomas Lankford is quoted as saying “about 40
forward-operating bases were supplied by airdrop alone last year”. That would
be for the year 2011. This number was later
updated to 43 forward operating bases.
“43 forward operating bases in Afghanistan were supplied
solely by air, with 27,000 troops receiving all of their food, water,
ammunition and fuel from the sky, dropped primarily by the U.S. Air Force” (Defense
weekly)
Imagine
that? 43 manned forward operating bases
that through a combination or impassable terrain, poor to non existent roads,
IED’s, and either direct attack by hostile enemy forces or the threat of direct
attack by hostile enemy forces, we the ISAF/NATO United States Armed forces
were forced to resupply these elements via airdrops. It sounds like the end game at Stalingrad for
the Sixth German Army, and or the French Far East Expeditionary Corp at Dien Bien
Phu. Thank god that the Taliban do not have
anywhere near the anti aircraft artillery that the Soviet Army and Viet Minh
had. It appears that we the United
States Armed forces do not control our lines of communications (LOCs) (This is
not a good thing).
We
have had 10 years to improve the road networks, but for a myriad of reasons
have been unable to accomplish this task.
Number one reason cited is the territory is not safe, meaning the
hostiles currently have enough of a presents to deny us the use of the
ground. But even in area where it appears
that we do control the country side improvements seem to be singularly
unimpressive. Case in point is the
Salang Tunnel, which with the loss ground resupply routes from Pakistan via Khyber
Pass, has now taken on new importance, since it is now the only ground route
left for bring NATO/ISAF supplies into or in the case of a draw down out of Afghanistan. The toll and fees on the Pakistan route are
considered to be too excessive. Cannot
really blame Pakistan, with the announced draw down and such the money train is
due to leave the station soon, and you want to strike while the iron is
hot. NATO/ISAF staff is just getting
around to planning on upgrading this tunnel, which by most accounts is in
terrible and fairly unsafe conditions.
The tunnel that was completed in 1964 was designed for 1,000 vehicles
per day traffic now experiences traffic in excess of 16,000 vehicles per day.
While
and when the Pakistan route via the Khyber Pass was in use as the primary
supply route for NATO/ISAF supplies it accounted for 80 percent of supplies
delivered.
In
2005 the first year that the Air Force started to track airdrop of supplies,
only 2 million pounds were delivered in this manner. In 2006 3.5 million pounds of supplies were
reported as airdropped. 2007 8.1 million
pounds of supplies were air dropped.
2008 16.5 million pounds of supplies were delivered by airdrop. 2009 32.2 million pounds of supplies were
airdropped. 60.4 million pounds were
recorded as airdropped in 2010. It was reported that 30 million pounds of
supplies were air dropped. In 2010 the
United States Air Force reported that 60 million pounds were air dropped. In 2011 80.4 million pounds of supplies were
air dropped. We do not have number for 2012
but my bet is that it is greater or equal to 2011 numbers maybe 92 million
pounds (it is just a guess).
For
those of you who are more visually inclined I have provided the following
graph.
To
put into daily terms and scales that most of us know as to how much is being
delivered via airdrop in Afghanistan, I have provided the following examples.
In
2006 it was weight equivalent of dropping the 1.4 Ford F-150’s from the sky
everyday for the entire year. 2007 we
are now dropping 3.26 F-150’s from the sky everyday of the year. In 2008 we are up to 6.65 F-150’s everyday of
the year or 1 every 4 hours of everyday of the year. 2009 it is 12.97 F-150’s, a little over one
every two hours everyday of the year.
2010 we at 24.17 F-150’s everyday, or 1 every hour of everyday for the
entire year. 2011 it is 32.39 F-150’s
everyday, or 1.34 every hour of everyday for the entire year.
Be
advised in the process of doing all of this we are flying the guts out of our
C-130, C-17, and C-5 aircraft fleets, they will not make there project
operational life time since those calculation were based on lower number of
annual flight hours, but that is another problem for another day.
There
was also the US Marine Corp experiment in Afghanistan with 2 unmanned K-MAX
helicopters with the capability to the delivery of up to 3.5 tons of supplies
to forward operating bases. The Marines
decided to perform this task at night in order to reduce the chance that the
vehicles would be taken out by ground based small arms fire. As reported in Defense Industry Daily, since
November 2011 to July 2012, the 2 K-Max aircrafts have flow 485 sorties, with
525 hours in flight and delivered more than 1.6 million pounds of cargo. This 1.6 million is in addition to that
delivered via airdrop by the United States Air Force.
And
then there is this from the following link
June
2012 the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command Chief Gen. Raymond E.
Johns Jr. predicts that about a third of the forces in Afghanistan later this
year will be supported exclusively by airdropped supplies- everything from food
and ammunition pallets to water and fuel bladders. If that is not another stone on the pile that
we do not control the ground what is?
The
ever increasing tonnage of supplies being airdropped to forward operating
bases, the increasing number of IED being encounter, and one must assume that
these are in the area’s that NATO/ISAF feels are under there control, since we
can deduce by the airdrop numbers that the command will not even consider
resupply to these sites by convoy.
Does
this sound like we control the countryside, or even enough of the countryside
to make a difference.
Based
on Brian Cloughley (Analyst for IHS/Jane’s Sentinel) post in found here in the
The News
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-143413-Afghanistans-lost-war
God
only knows how sedated the briefer of the Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh
Rasmussen was and for that matter how sedated the Secretary General of NATO was
when he was briefed. The Secretary
General is quoted as saying afterward that “The enemy is being pushed further back from the
population”, and “We saw Afghan security forces that are growing more capable
and more confident” as stated in the article these statements by the Secretary
General are “ misleading to the point of downright dishonesty.”
We
still have Green on Blue incidences, yes the number are down, I suspect because
NATO/ISAF has significantly reduced the amount of exposure NATO/ISAF personnel
have to ANA personnel.
Does
it sound like victory?
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