IJC: Change of Command

And a Few Thoughts

IJC INVITES MEDIA TO
ISAF Joint Command Official Change of Command Ceremony

KABUL, Afghanistan (July 9) – Media are invited to attend the change of command ceremony when Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez will welcome Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti as the new commander of ISAF Joint Command (IJC).

WHO:        Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti and other coalition and Afghan leaders

WHERE:      North KAIA, ISAF Joint Command, International Kabul Airport, Abby Gate
            Military side of the Khawja Rawash International Airport)

WHEN:       Monday, July 11
Gate opens to media arrival at 7 am
            Gate closes to media at 8 am
            Ceremony starts at 9 am

IJC in Kabul

11 July 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan
(Published from Dubai)

IJC stands for ISAF Joint Command, while ISAF stands for International Security Assistance Force.  And so with just three letters, you can say the 53 letters and spaces of International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, which in turn symbolizes the more than forty countries assisting in Afghanistan.  They all seemed to have someone in the IJC.

On the day that I made the above image, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was coming to give a talk and say goodbye.  Secretary Gates did a great job.  In the IJC this day, the shift on duty was told to clear off all classified material so that there would be no issues with the cameras.  Secretary Gates walked in and gave his farewell talk, shook hands with a couple hundred people and then flew off in the 747-like jet that was waiting nearby.  As of this publishing, he’s retired.

Looking around this room, it’s amazing that the United States and Pakistan don’t get along.  We have close relations with all the countries represented in the IJC, and at least another hundred countries that were not present.  Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden lived for years just a short airplane flight to the east in Pakistan.  After the raid that killed bin Laden on the very doorstep of the Pakistani military, we’ve tried to spackle up our relationship with the dysfunctional “country” by sharing intelligence, which apparently was fed directly to the targets, who then disappeared.

New challenge for U.S.-Pakistan ties

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Twice in recent weeks, the United States provided Pakistan with the specific locations of insurgent bomb-making factories, only to see the militants learn their cover had been blown and vacate the sites before military action could be taken, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

Subsequent the above article, it happened again with reports of two more tip-offs.

The Big Boss of the IJC is Lieutenant General David Rodriguez.   “Rod” is widely respected by those who know him and it’s also about time for him to go home.  And so, unfortunately, we will be losing General Petraeus and LTG Rodriguez at nearly the same time.  LTG Rodriguez reminds me of CSM Jeff Mellinger in Iraq: constantly “Walking the Line.”  You never knew where they would show up.  This man, LTG Rodriguez, has worked very hard in Iraq and in Afghanistan.  When I look LTG Rodriguez in the eyes, it’s difficult to imagine what he has seen in these nearly ten years of constant war.  The only certainty is that he has seen it all.  Many people don’t know it, but LTG Rodriguez and his crew are largely responsible for the terrible beating now being issued to the Taliban and various other enemies.  This is our man.  Thank you LTG Rodriguez.

Today, 11 July 2011, there will be a change of command as LTG Rodriguez hands off to LTG Curtis Scaparrotti.  One gentleman finally gets to go home, while the other comes back to war.  Godspeed to both.

Last month, LTG Rodriguez shook hands and said goodbye to Secretary Gates, who then boarded the special 747-like airplane, and flew to Europe for more work, and finally home on his final big trip as Secretary of Defense.

More often than not in the wars, these dispatches are about younger troopers and what they suffer and accomplish, and more often than not, it’s not glamorous or pretty.  It’s gritty, ugly and lonely.  But many people at home make a difference.  I was going to a meeting a couple weeks back and saw this box of “Operation Write Home” cards, and so I stopped to make a photo because the people at home need to know how important their acts of kindness can be.  Those acts of kindness have a cumulative effect and it’s amazing that despite nearly a decade of war, so many people at home are still so supportive.

The war in Afghanistan is turning around in our favor.  After nearly five years of yelling at the top of my lungs that we are losing, it’s a relief to write these words with confidence.  That doesn’t mean Afghanistan is suddenly a nice place or that we are out of danger.  There could well be a civil war in Afghanistan’s future and, in any case, this is a very long process requiring probably a century of work.  And though President Obama facilitated the current progress by sending more troops, he is making a serious mistake not to heed the advice of experienced commanders.  President Obama is a smart man.  A wise man would listen to the counsel of his very experienced generals.  The President is gambling with the gains made by the Coalition.

Presidents come and go.  The pressures on them must be enormous.  For all of the inherent nobility of democracy, democracy often seems to demand mediocre decisions to keep winning the popularity contests.  The above two images are of Ahmed Shah Massoud—who was assassinated by al Qaeda shortly before the 9/11 attacks—and President Karzai.  Massoud is a hero to many Afghans and was respected by Americans.  He stood up to the Taliban, and the fact that you can see thousands of his pictures around Afghanistan is evidence of widespread Afghan hatred of the Taliban.  Meanwhile, Karzai seems to be losing his mind.  I made this image recently in Kabul, and shortly thereafter Karzai disappeared but hero Massoud is still there as of this writing.

Carlotta Gall is an experienced writer who also is noticing progress:

Carlotta writes:

“The change is palpable. In Marja, the district in Helmand Province where American Marines began the offensive 15 months ago, government officials can now drive freely.”

Carlotta is right.  The Taliban and other enemies are taking a terrible whipping.  Though I frequently call this war nearly ten years old, we just got serious last year or so.  In 2006 when I first started coming here, we were completely unserious.  Iraq was falling apart and Afghanistan was nearly forgotten.

Afghanistan.  The images you see daily could be from biblical times.  I’ve been to many provinces east to west and north to south.  From dusty Nimroz to the relics of Farah, to the orchards of Helmand across the desert of death to Kandahar, out to the moon in Zabul, that dead Taliban who was dumped in Urozgan, to the other moon of Ghor Province (you’ve gotta see that place), and keep going and tick off probably a dozen more.  Just keep right on going to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to the Blue Mosque with the white pigeons.  The people have been overwhelmingly friendly in each of these places and many more, and I’m not handing out money or lollipops.  Just showing up.  We are not natural enemies with the Afghans.

There are many sad faces of this war.  We say it’s been going on for nearly ten years, and it has, but we did not get serious about it until 2009-2010.  In that respect, it’s been going on closer to a year and our people are making accelerated progress.  If we pull out too quickly, there will not be sufficient time to hand off to Afghan security forces.  If we pull out too quickly, that will mean we made three major mistakes here: Under President Bush, we underresourced this war.  President Obama came in with more resources.  Still not enough, but enough to eventually succeed in pulling Afghanistan from the stone age to maybe the middle ages in a few decades.  But now President Obama wishes to again underresource the effort.  That means President Bush made one mistake, and Obama will trump that with two.  If we intended to pull the plug so quickly, why did we “plug” to begin with?  If we are going to pull the plug now, we should never have surged at all.   We have no responsibility per se to Afghanistan, but we chose a path.

I’ve been driving around all over the place and am at a downtown Kabul restaurant writing this.  The band U2 is playing over the restaurant speakers and the waiter is singing along, “We got to carry each other, carry each other.”  This guy is making me laugh.  Hearing an Afghan man singing along to U2 is a bit funny.  If the Taliban come back, the music will stop, and we will have wasted hundred of billions of dollars, not to mention the lives and limbs.

As we slowly march away from here we must remember why we came.

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