A Quote by Dave Abrams
There is no more "front" and "rear" where Fobbit-types would go to hide out in safer locations. In Iraq and Afghanistan, you engaged in a theater of operations that's 360 degrees at all times.
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Johnny Apple, a New York Times correspondent, wrote a front-page story saying Afghanistan could be a quagmire and he was mocked and derided. What is certainly true is that all sorts of resources that would have been used in Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq. Would those resources have helped? Almost undoubtedly. Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.
In the 360-degree battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, women have served honorably and fought valiantly. Yet there is a key difference between being in harm's way and reacting to enemy contact, and being in a direct combat operations role day in and day out. They are different scenarios that require different standards.
Afghanistan remains an opportunity to deal al Qaeda a vital strategic blow, especially since we have abandoned all operations - including counterterrorism operations - in Iraq.
Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.
I wanted to continue doing my work, but I had to figure out how. And so what I have basically come up with is that I still go to Afghanistan and Iraq and South Sudan and many of these places that are rife with war, but I don't go directly to the front line.
Well, first, the situation in Afghanistan is much better than it was. But there is no comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq has a bureaucracy, Iraq has wealth. Iraq has an educated class of people who are positioned to come in and take over.
Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.In my new book, I open with a quote from Donald Rumsfeld. In October 2001, he said of Afghanistan: "It's not a quagmire." Ten years later there are 150,000 Western troops there.
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.
Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for the much needed salve--it feels good to finally laugh about Iraq. Fobbit deserves a place alongside Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 as one of our great comic novels about the absurdity of war.
You take 35 degrees out of 360 degrees and call it a photo. No individual photo explains anything. That's what makes photography such a wonderful and problematic medium.
Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.
Iraq at one time was actually a functioning government. It's a real state. Afghanistan is not Iraq. It's tribal. It's got a different - a number of different sects, never really had a solid government there running the country on any kind of a continuing basis. Well, to rebuild the nation of Afghanistan is going to be more difficult than rebuilding the nation of Iraq.
The Iraq War has thrown such a heavy shadow on Afghanistan that you can't hardly get any news about that now. I went to Afghanistan this year and spent more time there than I did in Iraq ... just 'cause they were forgotten about, and I wanted them to know that I appreciated it.
As I found while leading special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, if the problem is interconnected, your organization must be, as well.
The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to judge correctly what is going on in front.
I've been to Afghanistan and Iraq a few times, and then I've done deployments elsewhere - with Special Forces, we go all over the place.
