I’ve been looking at this article for a day wondering what to make of it. Part of the reticence flows from not knowing much about David Kilcullen.

I’ve found and read a few articles about him since I snipped this from DAWN. This one by George Packer for the NEW YORKER is probably the best background all-rounder.

Read on –

David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency expert who will assume a role as a senior adviser to Gen Stanley McChrystal, has been highly critical of the war’s management to date. He outlined a ‘best-case scenario’ for a decade of further US and NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan during an appearance at the US Institute of Peace on Thursday.

Under that timeline, the allied forces would turn the corner in those two years, followed by about three years of transition to a newly capable Afghan force and about five years of ‘overwatch’.

‘We’ll fight for two years and then a successful transition, or we’ll fight for two years and we’ll lose and go home,’ Mr Kilcullen said…

Mr Kilcullen was speaking for himself, and it is not clear that Gen McChrystal shares his dark assessment. Gen McChrystal is assembling what aides describe as a blunt summing up of a war his predecessor called a stalemate. That review is due within weeks and may lead to a request for additional US forces beyond those President Barack Obama has already sent to Afghanistan this year.

The report is expected to recommend changes in the way the United States and NATO organise and manage the war. Ahead of those recommendations, the Pentagon set up a new command centre, an ultra-secure war room where a people from a mix of services and disciplines sit together. The command post is supposed to quickly process information for Gen McChrystal and bulldoze some of the Pentagon’s legendary bureaucracy.

Separately, the Obama administration is developing new measures of success in Afghanistan, something top military leaders promised Congress months ago. Some of the gauges would apply to the Afghan government, some to its armed forces and police and some to the United States…

The United States does have compelling reasons to continue the fighting, Mr Kilcullen said, but Mr Obama’s counter-terrorism mandate ‘isn’t at the top of my list’.

Helluva beginning ain’t it?

His work on the surge in Iraq was productive. His infamous characterization of the neocon decision to invade Iraq as – “fucking stupid” – leaves him with few supporters among the nutball Right. His analysis of insurgent motivation as more reliant on social networks and context than religious jihad in and of itself will frustrate everyone seeking simplistic solutions to global questions – Left or Right.

Got to keep an eye on this lad.




  1. Warme says:

    Dems of course will claim it’s all Obama’s fault for ending the war “during his watch”, you watch.

  2. Wotan says:

    I agree, Bush’s efforts to bankrupt America can be shut down, now that Obama is doing a much better job at it e.g. giving out $23.7 trillion in bailouts. One hitman leaves, the other stays.

  3. Greg Allen says:

    Lesson: Never EVER led conservatives fight your wars.

    They always fight like past wars and get the CURRENT war wrong.

    These goofball conservatives actually thought a bunch of bearded guys in flip-flops where EXACTLY LIKE the German and Japanese fascists!

  4. SB says:

    We’re just gonna stay there, watch and see. As time goes by everone in America will forget about the fact that we are “in Afganistan”

    This is how “it” works!

  5. Special Ed says:

    That picture has no relevance to the article. These guys are in negotiation to offload this HumVee in the “Cash for Clunkers” program.

  6. Jägermeister says:

    #4 – SB – As time goes by everone in America will forget about the fact that we are “in Afganistan”

    So true…

    #5 – Special Ed – These guys are in negotiation to offload this HumVee in the “Cash for Clunkers” program.

    LMAO 😀

    #6 – Alfred1

    Who’s impersonating Alfredone?

  7. Jägermeister says:

    And btw… Is David Kilcullen actually Alex Jones… the conspiracy thickens…

  8. Holdfast says:

    So one general says it could take up to 40 years http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/08/afghanistan-military and another one says what he has been told to tell us.
    I suspect that neither knows for sure!

  9. ECA says:

    Ok,
    we went to war in Afghanistan for WHAT??
    To find bin Ladin..
    WE WENT to war in IRAQ. WHY??
    Cause some person flip the bird at Bush.

    LAST I counted..
    we had about 1/3 the military in Afghanistan, that are in Iraq.
    LAST I HEARD..
    the oil in IRAQ was supposed to pay for the war..

    Msgs from bin ladin..(??)
    http://usatoday.com/news/world/2008-03-19-3140876710_x.htm
    http://cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/14/binladen.message/index.html

    There are a few others..
    DID we get him or not??

    SO, WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING IN IRAQ??
    Pumping OIL and selling it OVER PRICED.

  10. chris says:

    The only successful military intervention in Afghanistan was by Genghis Khan. He forced his own organizational system, which was generally fair and logical, instead of the tribal system which was the standard both before and after.

    The Afghan tribal stuff isn’t an accident. There isn’t shit in Afghanistan. First you feed your family, then your tribe. By that point the food is about gone. No friendly neighborhood cookouts.

    Before the Soviet invasion Afghanistan was not “the Paris of central Asia.” Getting them to modernity is a pretty tall order. Throw in endless revenues from poppy and it becomes nigh impossible without getting down with SOMEBODY dirty.

    Lest we forget, the last durable infrastructure developments were undertaken by the Romans. This isn’t the wrong side of the tracks, there aren’t any tracks.

    We ought to have some sort of hunter-killer special units floating around, but this place isn’t going anywhere… fast.

  11. Thomas says:

    #3
    If we lose Afghanistan the score in the war winning department will be:
    Bush: 1
    Obama: 0

    Iraq’s military and will to fight ended in three months. The vast majority of the deaths in Iraq after that were other Iraqis due to terrorists from other countries.

    It was Obama who campaigned that we need to win in Afghanistan and not Iraq. It was Obama who has increased troop levels in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now his to win or lose.

  12. Jägermeister says:

    #14 – Thomas

    Sorry… you lost me… Which war did Bush Jr win?

  13. Thomas says:

    #15
    That would be Iraq.

  14. Jägermeister says:

    #16 – Thomas

    Oh, silly me… that one was declared a win in 2003. Remind me again… why are Americans and Iraqis still dying in Iraq?

  15. Special Ed says:

    #16 – Now THAT was funny! I suppose the German’s won as well when they bombed Pearl Harbor?

  16. Sister Mary Hand Grenade of Quiet Reflection says:

    #7 said, “Who’s impersonating Alfredone?”

    Was someone acting like an asshole?

  17. noname says:

    Despite the rhetoric else-wise, it really seems the Pentagon/CIA/NSA/FBI/Homeland Security and rest really do like WAR.

    Look what it does for their budgets and self-aggrandizement.

    Just WARs only seem to take ~4yrs and definitively end. Unjust WARs just seem to keep going and going and going …

    Pentagon/CIA/NSA/FBI/Homeland Security and rest really like this perpetual WAR shit.

  18. jescott418 says:

    As far as I am concerned we are still dumping money into a war that will never really end. As long as their are people willing to give their lives to kill American’s then it will never end. I am wondering if they (terrorists)are not happy we are over there. I mean how easy can it be for them. They don’t have to figure out how to brings bomb making material into the US. They just set up bombs along the roadside or in a square of a town. Obama and his administration cannot justify Afghanistan anymore then Bush could with Iraq. Both wars are very costly in lives and in money. Both of which should be valued a lot more in the US then it is.

  19. ECA says:

    21,
    also dont forget the LARGE BUNKER we created in iraq.. WE WANT TO STAY in Iraq..

    And still we didnt catch the person that WAS(?) responsible for the twin towers..

    We outed a kingdom, that was ruled by an iron fist, and allowed assassins to KILL HIM.. YES he was a @#$@%@$ MEAN person.
    A person ruling over a nation of 6 groups that hated each other. When 1 group Bombed the others, he killed LOTS of that group. NO FAVORITES.

  20. Thomas says:

    #17
    People were dying in Germany and Japan for years after World War II. Does that mean we didn’t win there? The object of a war is the compulsory submission of the enemy to our will. That has happened in Iraqi. We were in control of the country in months. That’s a win. The aftermath of any war is not a neat and tidy process, especially when you eliminate the previous regime. Whether we should have invaded or whether it was worth the cost or the dynamics of the pull-out are all reasonable discussions to be had. However, that we won is not in dispute.

  21. Thomas says:

    #20
    > Just WARs only seem to
    > take ~4yrs and definitively end

    Really. Tell that to the British. World War II lasted six years. The first Boer War lasted one year and the second lasted three and neither is what one would call just.

  22. ECA says:

    #23,
    ya, bring the military home..to a nation with NO JOBS..

    And obama hasnt spent as much as BUSH in the last 6 years.

    #24,
    CORRECT..
    But we instigated it.
    CONTROL?? today 23 died from 4 car bombs..
    IMO.. we took a bad controlling ruler and made things worse. He had control of his nation, and NOW we see WHY he was doing ALL he did.
    You try to control 6 NUT CASE GROUPS bent on revenge for a 200+ year ideal..

  23. chuck says:

    I predict that during the campaign for 2012, President Obama will promise a “secret plan” to end the war in Afghanistan within 4 years, and have “most” of the troops withdrawn from Iraq.

  24. Publius says:

    War is abortion
    Of other people’s sons and daughters;
    Just without the age discrimination.
    And of their property.
    Don’t forget their property.

  25. Glenn E. says:

    So… What ever happened to that “peace dividend” they promised US over a decade ago? That was when we were pulling out of Germany, because we trust the Russians to no longer invade. And almost immediately, we had to go “save” some other part of the world, from itself. By the time the US is pulling out of Afghanistan. There will be another war zone to attend to. Just as Afghanistan followed Iraq. Which followed Somalia. Etc.


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