2
Oct

CIA Surge into Afghanistan

Posted by: Wordsmith @ 11:54 pm in Afghanistan, American Intelligence, War On Terror, foreign policy  | 59 views

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Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Interesting piece at Foreign Policy Small Wars Journal:

While Obama and his team deliberate, other developments are underway that will either support McChrystal’s request or perhaps create alternatives. On Sept. 20, the Los Angeles Times reported on another “surge” into Afghanistan, this one by the Central Intelligence Agency. According to the article, the CIA’s head count in Afghanistan will increase to 700, led by increases in paramilitary officers, intelligence analysts, and operatives tracking the behavior of Afghan government officials.

There is something to be said about the success of having a light footprint, utilizing Special Forces and CIA rather than a heavy military force (but wasn’t the Rumsfeld approach only temporarily successful?). We have such footprint operations going on all over the world, to great success (re: Robert Kaplan’s Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts)

We shouldn’t underestimate the power of viagra diplomacy to carry us to victory in Overseas Contingency Operations.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Afghanistan, American Intelligence, War On Terror, foreign policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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4 comments so far

tfhr
 1Reply to this comment  

Got to love this OPSEC: “Precise numbers are classified, but one U.S. official said the agency already has nearly 700 employees in Afghanistan.” The only secret the LA Times, and the rest of the MSM, will keep is the identity of the source and the actual numbers of their own declining subscribers and viewers. Here’s a deal – give me the name of the “U.S. official” and I’ll buy one of your crappy newspapers?

Of course it could not be a LA Times article without some factual errors – the one that jumps off the page at me most is the claim that the deployed teams will bring access to national (satellite) systems to military commands. “…Crisis Operations Liaison Teams, small units that are attached to regional military commands, giving officers access to information gathered by the CIA as well as satellites and other sources.” I guess the DIA, NGA and NSA can send their folks home because the LA Times has decided to let the CIA COLTs take care of their business. When a commander wants an image he’ll tell his people to tell send the task through DIA or if need be, direct to NGA.

The LA Times can’t figure out how to get newspapers to people’s doors but they’ll tell you how intelligence architecture works!

October 3rd, 2009 at 9:07 am
Wordsmith
 2Reply to this comment  

The only secret the LA Times, and the rest of the MSM, will keep is the identity of the source and the actual numbers of their own declining subscribers and viewers.

Here’s another one to snicker and stew about.

October 3rd, 2009 at 9:23 am
Wordsmith
 3Reply to this comment  

Why should America’s enemies need foreign intell and spies? All they have to do is subscribe to our media.

October 3rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
tfhr
 4Reply to this comment  

Two things almost save us in the face of relentless OPSEC failures:

1. The MSM is so incredibly incompetent that if they say “1″, it could very well mean “1.1″, “10″, “2″, “won”, “lost” or “tomato”. I would not want to brief a good commander, only to have to confess that I got my information from the NYT.

2. I’ll leave it to Gamal Nasser to speak for our enemies (and allies):

“The genius of you Americans is that you never made clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which makes us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing.”

Long live the spirit of Gamal Nasser, at least where this matter is concerned. I think he captures better than anyone, one of the chief reasons we fight so often and usually without much help.

October 3rd, 2009 at 12:57 pm

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