Bullets don’t have ‘adviser’ stenciled on some and ‘combat unit’ on another

[bigtree]

December 21, 2008

WASHINGTON — It is one of the most troublesome questions right now at the Pentagon, and it has started a semantic dance: What is the definition of a combat soldier? More important, when will all American combat troops withdraw from the major cities of Iraq?

The long answers open up some complicated, sleight-of-hand responses to military and political problems facing President-elect Barack Obama.

Even though the agreement with the Iraqi government calls for all American combat troops to be out of the cities by the end of June, military planners are now quietly acknowledging that many will stay behind as renamed “trainers” and “advisers” in what are effectively combat roles. In other words, they will still be engaged in combat, just called something else.

“Trainers sometimes do get shot at, and they do sometimes have to shoot back,” said John A. Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who is one of the authors of the Army’s new counterinsurgency field manual.

The issue is a difficult one for Mr. Obama, whose campaign pledge to “end the war” ignited his supporters and helped catapult him into the White House. But as Mr. Obama has begun meeting with his new military advisers — the top two, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are holdovers from the Bush administration — it has become clear that his definition of ending the war means leaving behind many thousands of American troops.

After June 2009 looms May 2010, 16 months after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, the month he set during the campaign to have American combat forces out of Iraq entirely. Next comes December 2011, the deadline in the status-of-forces agreement to have all American troops out of Iraq.

To try to meet those deadlines without risking Iraq’s fragile and relative stability, military planners say they will reassign some combat troops to training and support of the Iraqis, even though the troops would still be armed and go on combat patrols with their Iraqi counterparts. So although their role would be redefined, the dangers would not.

“If you’re in combat, it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re an adviser: you’re risking your life,” said Andrew Krepinevich, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a research group. “The bullets don’t have ‘adviser’ stenciled on some and ‘combat unit’ on another.”


read: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/washington/22combat.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

[rug]

1. Doesn't matter if you're killed by an adviser or a combat unit either.

[jody]

2. The question is whether Obama will use his authority as Commander in Chief to bring our troops home

from Iraq or let them remain under another name as the OP suggests?

[bigtree]

6. my guess is that the military doesn't give a damn about the restrictions in the SOFA

. . . I hope their commander-in-chief does

[jody]

7. Political history confirms the more things change, the more they stay the same. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

3. If you're shooting, you ain't an "advisor" any more

You're involved.

And therefore, fair game for the "enemy".

[bigtree]

5. The trick that the Pentagon wants to perform here

. . . is to use the Special Forces, whose traditional role is basically to raise and train militias, in the new precept of this administration which has them actively engaging the enemy.


from Army Times: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/12/army_sofsurge_122008w/

Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plan to deploy three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan by the summer has superseded a contentious debate that pitted the Bush administration’s “war czar” against the special operations hierarchy over a proposed near-term “surge” of spec ops forces to Afghanistan, a Pentagon military official said.

The National Security Council’s surge proposal, which grew out of its Afghan strategy review, recommended an increase of “about another battalion’s worth” of troops to the Combined and Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, or CJSOTF-A, said a field-grade Special Forces officer, who added that this would enlarge the task force by about a third.

Several sources said that the “SOF surge” proposal originated with Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, the so-called “war czar” whose official title is assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan policy and implementation. The rationale behind deploying more special ops forces to Afghanistan was that any decision to deploy more conventional brigades to Afghanistan would take at least several months to implement, whereas special ops units could be sent much more quickly, the Special Forces officer said.

To those in favor, the proposed deployment of additional Special Forces A-teams — the 12-man units also known as operational detachment-alphas — represented proof that the Bush administration was willing to take immediate action to reverse negative trends in the Afghan war, the Pentagon military official said.

However, the proposal sparked a fierce high-level debate, with special operations officers charging that Lute and his colleagues were trying to micromanage the movement of individual Special Forces A-teams from inside the Beltway, and countercharges that Special Forces has strayed from its traditional mission of raising and training indigenous forces and become too focused on direct-action missions to kill or capture enemies . . .


read more: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/12/army_sofsurge_122008w/

[stillcool]

4. I'd love to know how many bases..

we are currently operating in Iraq, how many people it takes to staff the embassy, and how much it all costs. I'm sure it pales in comparison to the 737 known bases..and who knows how many others. It's amazing how there's always plenty of money for bombs, bullets, and bases, but the country? Not so much.

[Obamanaut]

8. My dictionary shows "advisor" not "...er." Is there a newer version

that the Times has access to?

[bigtree]

9. I found adviser in the Merriam-Webster

:shrug:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adviser

advisor too

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advisor

[Obamanaut]

10. Mine is really old, held together with duct tape - had it since HS

(1960) I guess I'll have to get a new one soon. Thanks.

Do you suppose a new one will have *isms in it such as "decider" and if so, will there also be "decidor?" Damn, this is fun! Tried to work in some Palinese there, also too.

[bigtree]

11. I can't really see the print in mine anymore

I rely on these computer dictionaries. I'm not a schooled writer so I have an endless tolerance for misspellings and other nuances. It may be a shame to have such tolerant influences that exist these days, but I think it's sort of liberating and unfettering to be able to brush past a misplaced -e- or -o- as I read or write.