We Didn't Follow the War Plan

Retired Army General Jack Keane just confirmed that we failed to conduct a planned offensive in Regional Command East to complete the Afghanistan surge military plan.

I've been talking about this for a couple years. I kept looking for signs of the offensive in Regional Command East through 2012. I'd read about how it was part of the plan but never saw indications it was underway.

And that was the plan. The military didn't get the forces it wanted, and so planned a two-stage offensive. First we went on offense in Regional Command South in 2010.

Then we'd hold the gains there with reduced forces and more Afghans, and shift to Regional Command East.

But it never happened. The best I could figure was that we carried out a modified offensive in Regional Command East using Afghan forces backed by our troops while the surge force was still intact--supported by active use of special forces, of course.

This was always somewhat confusing to me. If I lived in Washington and worked in the field, I'm sure this would have been in the krill flow of information that flows by you every day.

But blogging from my figurative basement in my figurative (but quite strikingly handsome, obviously) pajamas, I don't get that information.

So today was the first time I heard somebody with the background to know explicitly say on the news what had gradually dawned on me--we abandoned the plan and never conducted an offensive in Regional Command East to really beat down our enemies before we began to draw down our forces.

Given that we did beat down our enemies in Iraq per that surge plan before we drew down (and then prematurely zeroed out) our forces, the absolute imperative of keeping forces in Afghanistan after 2014 to bolster Afghan efforts should be obvious as we watch Iraqi forces mass to retake Fallujah and Ramadi from freaking al Qaeda occupation.

But even though we didn't follow the war plan in Afghanistan, we surely have an awesome post-war plan for Afghanistan, right? I mean, I've been told that liberals are big on having a fully thought-out plan before beginning a war. A surge is a subset of that, right?