American Troops Depressed and Deeply Disillusioned

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

American troops in Afghanistan losing heart, say army chaplains

American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban.

Many feel that they are risking their lives — and that colleagues have died — for a futile mission and an Afghan population that does nothing to help them, the chaplains told The Times in their makeshift chapel on this fortress-like base in a dusty, brown valley southwest of Kabul.

“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.

“They feel they are risking their lives for progress that’s hard to discern,” said Captain Sam Rico, of the Division’s 4-25 Field Artillery Battalion. “They are tired, strained, confused and just want to get through.” The chaplains said that they were speaking out because the men could not.

********

“We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose closest friend was shot dead by a renegade Afghan policeman last Friday. “I need a clear-cut purpose if I’m going to get hurt out here or if I’m going to die.”

Sergeant Christopher Hughes, 37, from Detroit, has lost six colleagues and survived two roadside bombs. Asked if the mission was worthwhile, he replied: “If I knew exactly what the mission was, probably so, but I don’t.”

The only soldiers who thought it was going well “work in an office, not on the ground”. In his opinion “the whole country is going to s***”.

**********

Lieutenant Peter Hjelmstad, 2-87’s Medical Platoon Leader, said sleeplessness and anger attacks were common.

A dozen men have been confined to desk jobs because they can no longer handle missions outside the base. One long-serving officer who has lost three friends this tour said he sometimes returned to his room at night and cried, or played war games on his laptop. “It’s a release. It’s a method of coping.” He has nightmares and sleeps little, and it does not help that the base is frequently shaken by outgoing artillery fire. He was briefly overcome as he recalled how, when a lorry backfired during his most recent home leave, he grabbed his young son and dived between two parked cars.

The chaplains said soldiers were seeking their help in unprecedented numbers. “Everyone you meet is just down, and you meet them everywhere — in the weight room, dining facility, getting mail,” said Captain Rico. Even “hard men” were coming to their tent chapel and breaking down.

The men are frustrated by the lack of obvious purpose or progress. “The soldiers’ biggest question is: what can we do to make this war stop. Catch one person? Assault one objective? Soldiers want definite answers, other than to stop the Taleban, because that almost seems impossible. It’s hard to catch someone you can’t see,” said Specialist Mercer.

“It’s a very frustrating mission,” said Lieutenant Hjelmstad. “The average soldier sees a friend blown up and his instinct is to retaliate or believe it’s for something [worthwhile], but it’s not like other wars where your buddy died but they took the hill. There’s no tangible reward for the sacrifice. It’s hard to say Wardak is better than when we got here.”

Captain Masengale, a soldier for 12 years before he became a chaplain, said: “We want to believe in a cause but we don’t know what that cause is.”

***********

At morning service on Sunday, the two chaplains sought to boost the spirits of their flock with uplifting hymns, accompanied by video footage of beautiful lakes, oceans and rivers.

Captain Rico offered a particularly apposite reading from Corinthians: “We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle6865359.ece

[Peikko 1,575]

House minority leader John Boehner has accused President Barack Obama of endangering the mission in Afghanistan by "delaying action" on sending more troops. But present policy would require more troops than America could ever send – as many as 650,000 troops for the next 12 to 14 years, according to the US army and marine corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual metrics. This commitment of time and resources cannot be accomplished at a cost acceptable to Americans.

Many critics of the war, including Boehner, are not asking the right question when it comes to the eight-year campaign in Afghanistan: not whether the war is winnable, but whether the mission constitutes a vital national security interest. From that perspective the current open-ended strategy fails.

In his battlefield assessment of the war, General Stanley McChrystal, America's top commander in Afghanistan, says without more troops the mission "will likely result in failure". But success in Afghanistan would hardly be guaranteed even if Obama were to commit several hundred thousand troops and decades of armed nation-building.

It is well past time for the US to adapt means and ends. Rather than an indefinite military mission with large numbers of US troops, US strategy should focus on assisting and training Afghan forces in order to limit that country's future dependence on foreign troops for security.

Growing and improving the effectiveness of the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) is limited and feasible. A focused mission of training the ANSF means America must support, rather than supplant, indigenous security efforts. In March, Obama committed 4,000 US trainers to Afghanistan, while Nato pledged an additional 5,000 military trainers and police. At that time, the Afghan national army (ANA) had about 82,000 soldiers, a number scheduled to grow to 134,000 by the end of 2011. The Afghan national police (ANP) stands between 85,000 and 90,000. It currently covers 365 districts, 46 city police precincts and has a presence in all 34 provinces.

But numbers tell only part of the story.

The focused district development programme (FDD) is a district-by-district training regimen for police units. The FDD is directed by the combined security transition command Afghanistan, a joint service organisation under the command and control of US central command that is responsible for equipping and training Afghan security forces. Since it began in October 2007, a mere 52 of 365 police districts have successfully completed the programme, despite training camps operating at maximum capacity.

The concept of proper police procedures and respect for the rights of citizens remains underdeveloped. "The first time they heard that they weren't supposed to beat people, and they weren't supposed to take their money, [but] that they were supposed to enforce laws and that their job was to protect the people, most police were surprised," said army Colonel Michael McMahon, the FDD's director.

According to Karen Hall, police programme manager in the bureau of international narcotics and law enforcement affairs at the US department of state, 75% of the Afghan national police are illiterate, which prevents many officers from filling out arrest reports, equipment and supply requests and arguing before a judge or prosecutor.

Going forward, training should be tied to clear metrics, such as whether Afghans can operate independent of coalition forces and can take the lead in operations against insurgents. As the war in Afghanistan rages on, Obama should be sceptical of any suggestions that the defeat of al-Qaida depends upon a massive troop presence.

Committing still more US personnel to Afghanistan undermines the already weak authority of Afghan leaders, interferes with the ability to deal with other security challenges and pulls the US deeper into a bloody and protracted guerilla war with no end in sight.

Link

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

Soldiers like to see the scenery change. When it doesn't, they do get depressed. Waiting for your turn to die is not the way to fight a war.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

Soldiers like to see the scenery change. When it doesn't, they do get depressed. Waiting for your turn to die is not the way to fight a war.

Not really. The whole thing was a clusterfvck from the beginning - when the last administration decided to open up a second front in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has a lot to answer for.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

Soldiers like to see the scenery change. When it doesn't, they do get depressed. Waiting for your turn to die is not the way to fight a war.

Not really. The whole thing was a clusterfvck from the beginning - when the last administration decided to open up a second front in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has a lot to answer for.

Too late to blame Rumsfeld. Ten months later, and Obama has yet to take possession of the situation in Afghanistan. Right now, that is the key part of the war on terror, and that is where the Commander in Chief belongs. If he doesn't want to fight the war, then send everybody home.

[Joseph & Ana 0]

No one in the executive branch knows what they're doing.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

Soldiers like to see the scenery change. When it doesn't, they do get depressed. Waiting for your turn to die is not the way to fight a war.

Not really. The whole thing was a clusterfvck from the beginning - when the last administration decided to open up a second front in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has a lot to answer for.

Too late to blame Rumsfeld. Ten months later, and Obama has yet to take possession of the situation in Afghanistan. Right now, that is the key part of the war on terror, and that is where the Commander in Chief belongs. If he doesn't want to fight the war, then send everybody home.

Obama owns it now undoubtedly - but the reason we're currently in the position we're in is because of a bunch of bad chessplayers who thought they were geniuses.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

Soldiers like to see the scenery change. When it doesn't, they do get depressed. Waiting for your turn to die is not the way to fight a war.

Not really. The whole thing was a clusterfvck from the beginning - when the last administration decided to open up a second front in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has a lot to answer for.

Too late to blame Rumsfeld. Ten months later, and Obama has yet to take possession of the situation in Afghanistan. Right now, that is the key part of the war on terror, and that is where the Commander in Chief belongs. If he doesn't want to fight the war, then send everybody home.

Obama owns it now undoubtedly - but the reason we're currently in the position we're in is because of a bunch of bad chessplayers who thought they were geniuses.

Happens all the time, in bussiness, and in the military. Whining only gets people killed. Initiative gets things done.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

Soldiers like to see the scenery change. When it doesn't, they do get depressed. Waiting for your turn to die is not the way to fight a war.

Not really. The whole thing was a clusterfvck from the beginning - when the last administration decided to open up a second front in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has a lot to answer for.

Too late to blame Rumsfeld. Ten months later, and Obama has yet to take possession of the situation in Afghanistan. Right now, that is the key part of the war on terror, and that is where the Commander in Chief belongs. If he doesn't want to fight the war, then send everybody home.

Obama owns it now undoubtedly - but the reason we're currently in the position we're in is because of a bunch of bad chessplayers who thought they were geniuses.

Happens all the time, in bussiness, and in the military. Whining only gets people killed. Initiative gets things done.

I don't think that's true in this case. Foreign politics requires a degree of subtlety - not charging around like a bull in a china shop.

[Joseph & Ana 0]

But if the left stops whining about Bush, they won't have anything else to say! We can't take their only talking point away!

[Peikko 1,575]

So implement the suggestions in the piece below yours and let there be self determination in Afghanistan. Seems like a 'winning' strategy to me. It might not work, but it's going to be a lot better than keeping going with what they are doing now.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Madame Cleo

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

But if the left stops whining about Bush, they won't have anything else to say! We can't take their only talking point away!

That might just as well be you - if you stopped whining about "the left".

You're so into confrontational fingerpointing you might as well be at one of those tea parties - don't forget to bring your birth certificate along with your brass knuckles.

[Joseph & Ana 0]

yuk yuk yuk...

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I'm not surprised morale is in the $hit.

Soldiers like to see the scenery change. When it doesn't, they do get depressed. Waiting for your turn to die is not the way to fight a war.

Not really. The whole thing was a clusterfvck from the beginning - when the last administration decided to open up a second front in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has a lot to answer for.

Too late to blame Rumsfeld. Ten months later, and Obama has yet to take possession of the situation in Afghanistan. Right now, that is the key part of the war on terror, and that is where the Commander in Chief belongs. If he doesn't want to fight the war, then send everybody home.

Obama owns it now undoubtedly - but the reason we're currently in the position we're in is because of a bunch of bad chessplayers who thought they were geniuses.

Happens all the time, in bussiness, and in the military. Whining only gets people killed. Initiative gets things done.

I don't think that's true in this case. Foreign politics requires a degree of subtlety - not charging around like a bull in a china shop.

Politics is fine, when you don't have troops on the battlefield. If you want to negociate a solution, then, pull the tropps out of harm's way while you negociate. War is just politics by other means.