Month: January 2010

Afghan Hands – The Blog

~ Michael A. Innes ~ Leave a comment

A little over a week ago, I made a return visit to the ISAF webpages to poke around. It looks like some changes have been in the works. The website, which was pretty static before, is all swish now, and comes equipped with a social media dashboard in the footer where readers can subscribe to Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr (but no Twitter) feeds. It’s also got a new Afghan Hands blog, which carries “updates from Leaders and Troops across Afghanistan”.

So far, though, it looks like ISAF has only partially embraced the vigorous public diplomacy ethic espoused by NATO SecGen Anders Fogh Rassmussen and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral Jim Stavridis. Judging by the  content of the few posts that are already up at Afghan Hands, ISAF is using this as essentially press-release-by-another-name, which is completely redundant, not to mention unnecessary: officially sanctioned, edited, and command-vetted information can be and is readily pushed to the web in other formats, and pushing it as blog content when it’s not doesn’t add credibility. If anything, in the realm of social media, it demonstrates limited understanding of appropriate and convincing uses of such technologies. There’s also no date-time stamp on individual entries, which is a small point but just as fundamental, and bad practice in any domain of publishing, whether it’s public affairs/public information, blogging, intelligence, or what have you.

To my note to ISAF Public Affairs suggesting that a date-time stamp would be really helpful, no reply. I’m going to assume for now that these are all just growing pains, and that the wrinkles are still being ironed out. NATO and ISAF are in a position to make the Afghan Hands blog a welcome and authoritative hub for information and discussion. It would be disappointing, to say the least, if they don’t make the most of an otherwise golden opportunity – and more than a little ironic, given recent arguments from MGen Mike Flynn, the ISAF intelligence chief, that intelligence analysts could stand to learn a few things from real world journalistic practice. Stay tuned.

Biosphere or Bust

~ Michael A. Innes ~ 3 Comments

Apparently, for the Biosphere 2 project, it’s the latter option. Check out friend Geoff Manaugh’s review of the now run-down state of the facility, including some recent pictures of the site, which construction has basically been left to rot. Feral cities, indeed. Check out the glossy official Biosphere website; the pictures below tell a distinctly less upbeat story.

The Battle for Tora Bora

~ Michael A. Innes ~ Leave a comment

If you haven’t already read Peter Bergen’s TNR piece on the late 2001 battle for Tora Bora, Afghanistan, you should. It’s a page turner, and offers a “definitive account” of  “how Osama bin Laden slipped from our grasp.” It definitely lives up to the strapline. In my opinion, it’s also a fine example of good use of source material, as Bergen plumbs the wealth of memoirs published since then by key players.

Excerpt:

What really happened at Tora Bora? Not long after the battle ended, the answer to that question would become extremely clouded. Americans perceived the Afghan war as a stunning victory, and the failure at Tora Bora seemed like an unfortunate footnote to an otherwise upbeat story. By 2004, with George W. Bush locked in a tough reelection battle, some U.S. officials were even asserting, inaccurately, that bin Laden himself may not have been present at the battle.

The real history of Tora Bora is far more disturbing. Having reconstructed the battle–based on interviews with the top American ground commander, three Afghan commanders, and three CIA officials; accounts by Al Qaeda eyewitnesses that were subsequently published on jihadist websites; recollections of captured survivors who were later questioned by interrogators or reporters; an official history of the Afghan war by the U.S. Special Operations Command; an investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and visits to the battle sites themselves–I am convinced that Tora Bora constitutes one of the greatest military blunders in recent U.S. history. It is worth revisiting now not just in the interest of historical accuracy, but also because the story contains valuable lessons as we renew our push against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Read the rest here.

The AfPakInd Channel?

~ Michael A. Innes ~ 3 Comments

Anyone interested in tracking that other interested party to AfPaK issues – namely, India – should really read friend Eric Randolph’s blog, The Kikobor. Eric just left his job as an editor with Jane’s Country Risk and relocated to the subcontinent a couple of months ago to work on his freelancing career. He’s been posting and publishing regularly, at the blog, in Britain’s Guardian newspaper and in Jane’s Intelligence Weekly.

If his new profile photos are any indication, it’s been a maturing experience, too. Seriously, he’s grown a very distinguished beard. It makes all the difference, I think…

CNAS and Its Image Problem

~ Michael A. Innes ~ Leave a comment

Michael Crowley’s piece raised an interesting point about how counterinsurgency thinking is sold and received in Washington, zeroing in on CNAS President John Nagl’s central role in giving it the slick gloss that ensures even skeptics buy into it. Contrast that with CNAS efforts to prove it’s more than just a one-trick pony: CNAS reports on national security issues that have nothing to do with counterinsurgency fail to convince…. indeed, the response to such efforts lies somewhere been patronizing smile and cruel snicker. How to fix it? It probably doesn’t help that CNAS is led by one of the most recognizable faces in what Crowley dubbed the “cult of counterinsurgency.”

I wonder: if Nagl were to be replaced with, say, a scholar or practitioner  with broad and fair expertise across the range of security issues – or even with someone who’s a recognized authority on anything but counterinsurgency and counterterrorism – wouldn’t that boost CNAS credibility by visibly redistributing its eggs from one basket to several?