■"Pentagon reports more bombs, fewer U.S. casualties: Better armor and intelligence contribute to declining rates of injury and death," by Dave Moniz, USA Today, 25 February 2005, p. 9A.
■"U.S. to Resume Training Of Some in Indonesia Military," by Agence France-Presse, New York Times, 27 February 2005, p. A13.
■"Afghans Accuse U.S. of Secret Spraying to Kill Poppies," by Carlotta Gall, New York Times, 27 February 2005, p. A3.
■"Flaws Reported in Screening Subcontractors for Iraq Prisons," by Michael Janofsky, New York Times, 26 February 2005, p. A5.
■"Within C.I.A., Growing Fears Of Prosecution," by Douglas Jehl and David Johnston, New York Times, 27 February 2005, p. A1.
The SysAdmin adjusts, because the enemy adjusts. The insurgents in Iraq change their tactics, on average, every 7 to 10 days, so we've learned to do the same. We're using computers to predict likely targets based on previous patterns, and our jamming technologies have made it harder to detonate the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
And then there's the growing use of robots to dispose of bombs.
Did we learn the hard way? Roughly 1,500 hard ways so far, with February being the best month since June of last year, but that's still almost 50 dead for us.
But the Army especially, after resisting the SysAdmin role so vehemently across the oh-so-busy 90s, is now embracing it with real vigor. The Army is having an almost Freaky Friday-sort of switch with the Navy right now: whereas the Navy was considered the premier crisis-response force (using the Marines for on-ground actions), now it's the Army that's increasingly being recast as the expeditionary big stick that looms behind the always rough-and-ready Marines. We're talking the U.S. Calvary settling the wild spots in the Gap, with the Army forming the center, the Marines forming the tip of the spear, and the Special Ops guys playing the role of scouts, assassins, and mountain men who disappear for months at a time, returning with only incredible tales.
Another good example of SysAdmin work is the U.S. getting back into the role as mil-mil mentor to Indonesia. Part of this is a long-term effort by Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, former ambassador to the country, but the tipping point is the shared experience of responding to the Asian Tsunamis, a point I make in the essay I wrote for Issue #2 of the Rule Set Reset.
Now for the failing grades:
We have got to find something else for Afghanistan than spraying poppies. Tell me you want this passage on our collective conscience:
Abdullah, a black-turbaned shepherd, said he was watching over his sheep one night in early February when he heard a plane pass low overhead three times. By morning his eyes were so swollen he could not open them and the sheep around him were dying in convulsions.
Although farmers had noticed a white powder on their crops, they cut grass and clovere for their animals and picked spinach to eat anyway. Within hours the animals were severely ill, people here said, and the villagers complained of fevers, skin rashes and bloody diarrhea. The children were particularly affected. A week later, the cropsówheat, vegetables and poppiesówere dying, and a dozen dead animals, including newborn lambs, lay tossed in a heap.
Our narcotics experts, the article says, have been advocating this step for months to help us get control over the drug situation. This is control? This is what we want to be associated with? This is how we generate security in Afghanistan? This is how we win hearts and minds? All for illegal drugs used by our populations?
This activity burns bridges. It does not create connectivity.
Also plenty of bad examples of poor screening for private-sector personnel brought into Iraq to help run the prisons there, thanks to a Justice Department Inspector General report ordered by Sen. Schumer of NY. That report is just the tip of the iceberg, showing just how much better we need to get both in terms of contracting for this help and then overseeing its employment and integrating it better with our military forces' overall efforts.
We need to do this not only to protect our interests in these interventions, but to protect our own people. Until we get better and more clear rule sets in place regarding how we wage warfare against individuals, we'll risk not just our own people going over board but having to investigate and prosecute thoses abuses as well. That's a morale killer for everyone, so the clearer the rule sets, the more confident our people will be in their efforts.