A Troubling Resignation

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine officer in Iraq turned Foreign Service Officer, has resigned in protest over our planned escalation in Afghanistan.  His background is impressive and his reasons are troubling.

When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.

A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.

And a bit more on his resume:

His first ambition in life was to become a firefighter, like his father. Instead, after graduation from Tufts University and a desk job at a publishing firm, he joined the Marines in 1998. After five years in Japan and at the Pentagon -- and at a point early in the Iraq war when it appeared to many in the military that the conflict was all but over -- he left the Marines to join the private sector, only to be recruited as a Defense Department civilian in Iraq. A trained combat engineer, he was sent to manage reconstruction efforts in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit.

"At one point," Hoh said, "I employed up to 5,000 Iraqis" handing out tens of millions of dollars in cash to construct roads and mosques. His program was one of the few later praised as a success by the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

In 2005, Hoh took a job with BearingPoint, a major technology and management contractor at the State Department, and was sent to the Iraq desk in Foggy Bottom. When the U.S. effort in Iraq began to turn south in early 2006, he was recalled to active duty from the reserves. He assumed command of a company in Anbar province, where Marines were dying by the dozens.

Hoh came home in the spring of 2007 with citations for what one Marine evaluator called "uncommon bravery," a recommendation for promotion, and what he later recognized was post-traumatic stress disorder.

By late 2008 Hoh was ready to saddle up again:

Late last year, a friend told Hoh that the State Department was offering year-long renewable hires for Foreign Service officers in Afghanistan. It was a chance, he thought, to use the development skills he had learned in Tikrit under a fresh administration that promised a new strategy.

I'm impressed by his background; Hoh had this to say:

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.

"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

So why is he sour on our Afghanistan reffort?  Based on his time there (which we hope is not representative), he believes we are battling roughly a millenium of history:

But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

...

Hoh was assigned to research the response to a question asked by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during an April visit. Mullen wanted to know why the U.S. military had been operating for years in the Korengal Valley, an isolated spot near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan where a number of Americans had been killed. Hoh concluded that there was no good reason. The people of Korengal didn't want them; the insurgency appeared to have arrived in strength only after the Americans did, and the battle between the two forces had achieved only a bloody stalemate.

Korengal and other areas, he said, taught him "how localized the insurgency was. I didn't realize that a group in this valley here has no connection with an insurgent group two kilometers away." Hundreds, maybe thousands, of groups across Afghanistan, he decided, had few ideological ties to the Taliban but took its money to fight the foreign intruders and maintain their own local power bases.

"That's really what kind of shook me," he said. "I thought it was more nationalistic. But it's localism. I would call it valley-ism."

I infer that Hoh does not think that the notion of the central government as a useful partner would make sense even if the government better organized and less corrupt:

Hoh's doubts increased with Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election, marked by low turnout and widespread fraud. He concluded, he said in his resignation letter, that the war "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency."

With "multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups," he wrote, the insurgency "is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and Nato presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified."

If the US has ambled on stage as a performer in a five hundred year effort by Kabul to impose its will on recalcitrant rural Afghanistan, we might be well advised to amble off again, or at least, scale back our objectives.  On the other hand, Gen. McChrystal is a smart guy with relevant experience and he has reached an opposite conclusion.

And what impact will Hoh have?  I think ABC News is awry here:

Hoh's resignation comes as a blow to the Obama administration, which has yet to decide whether it will send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, as the lead commander on the ground, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has requested.

A blow?  One might think Hoh provides useful cover to the "Give peace a chance" wing of Obama's base and their natural allies in the media.  John Kerry being against the escalation of a war he once favored is ancient news; Hoh might provide political and media cover for Obama to buck McChrystal and adopt his own instinctive split-the-difference approach in Afghanistan.

Will Obama's eventual middle ground make any sense?  Politically, maybe.  But if McChyrstal is wrong about his objectives and requirements, he is wrong, and giving him part of what he needs makes no sense.  On the other hand, if he is right than giving him less than he needs makes no sense either.

MORE: James Joyner is more concerned with Obama's dithering than Hoh's message (which he describes as "spot-on":

Hoh's story is  interesting.  One gathers that he was an outstanding Marine officer and was a rising star as an FSO.  Then again, he'd been on the job less than a year.  Now, granted, that's enough time to win a Nobel Peace Prize.  But, c'mon, is it really worth this high level of attention that he disagrees with national policy?  His experience is, after all, entirely tactical -- and at the lower end of tactical at that.

Comments

[bunky]

big deal

[Major Wood]

It seems like many of the same things were said about Iraq before "the Surge". When the Talidan see a weak CIC like Obama they become stronger. Either Obama goes all in to win or he should pull them out...and carpet bomb later if needed.

[spongeworthy]

I'm not so sure. The history of that region just isn't like any other place we've tried to clean up.

I'm not sure you need more than a year, if that, to throw up your hands and leave the region to their backward ways.

[Jack is Back!]

In case you are interested in what to do militarily in Afghanistan with an innovative approach (is this what the Once is reading) then go to LUN. It will take a little time but you will soon see that the Once needs to start listening to his Generals and not the mad uncle in the attic.

[narciso]

I assume we were in the Korengal, because of it's proximity to Pakistan, does Mr. Hoh
except the Durand line, as a real dividing line. They certainly don't. How did the Taliban and AQ gain a foothold, in an era where the opposite policy applied. He seems
to be resigning before policy is being implemented unlike Watts, Lake, et al. So what does he say about the problem of Pakistan?

[Frau Schnitzel]

If Sen. Conehead Kerry (D-South of France) is now in charge of Afghanistan policy and to use the title of John Derbyshire's new book, "We are Doomed!"

[BadIdeaGuy]

If Mr. Hoh believes that a corrupt central government is a bad idea, maybe we should elect him to the US Congress.

[Cecil Turner]

Joyner's view of things seemed spot-on to me. This is a junior officer (not a "senior official") who doesn't see any value in continuing. I share his dissatisfaction with our "strategy" (or non-strategy?), as does McChrystal. But his unilateral decision the war isn't worth fighting is hardly compelling. We certainly have an interest in keeping Al Qaeda from reestablishing training bases and C2 nodes in AF (though whether there's a better way is always open to question).

It's also worth noting that there's a price to be paid for vigorous backflipping on foreign policy, usually in blood. One of Osama's guiding principles was the view of the US as ineffectual (based on the 1993 retreat from Somalia). How this particular retreat would play out is hard to pin down, but odds are it wouldn't be any more pleasant.

On the other hand, if he is right than giving him less than he needs makes no sense either.

No kidding. This is an "either-or," not a "how much?" or somewhere-in-between decision. Picking the wrong one and pursuing it efficiently would be a whole lot better than publicly demonstrating the inability to choose.

[clarice]

I believe Senator Conehead is Northern French. South of France is a rather different ball of wax.

[bad]

What do you expect from a Hoh?

[narciso]

Help me out here, he seems to have missed the Anbar awakening, and projects the pre
surge experience as the template. So in short he doesn't like what's happening now,
but doesn't seem to eager to pursue a strategy that might work

[bunky]

I'm sorry but in the schmeme of things (and the stakes), its like a private quitting. No personal insult meant to the man's service. This will be used to make the faux deliberations going on now look substantive.

[LTC John]

I think that trying to point to a one time CPT and ignoring the 4 star General might not be the heavyweight help the Biden camp is looking for.

But I'm just some dumb O-5, so I wouldn't believe anything I say either
/paradox

[bad]

Speaking of Biden, his approval ratings are now lower than Cheney's.

[Paul]

Sounds like Hoh just got burned out on military matters or was frustrated, that he now just wants to throw in the towel and let Afghanistan de-evolve to what it was before. Less than a year on a job does not qualify for him to know anything on the region let alone think he knows best policy for the region.

[Don Imus]

Is he nappy headed?

[clarice]

How can you say that,Paul. Let's say he'd been there for the same amount of time and thought McChrystal was right. He'd be getting the same media attention. Wouldn't he?

[andycanuck]

How does Mr Hoh stack up against Major Gant?
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/294084.php

[osıɔɹɐu]

He comes across as very trite, and cliche by
comparison, Major Gant acknowledges all the obstacles, frankly as few others. Yet he offers hope, where Hoh just gives up.

[Stevevvs]

18 Comments, not one reference to Islam, the Qur'an, the Hadith's, or the Sira's. Eight Years, trillions of dollars, and no one here thought it important to study Islam. Much like the former, and current administrations.

IF we ever leave Iraq or Afghanistan, everything will crumble, and these Islamic States, with their U.S. approved Islamic Law based Constitutions, will show the Infidels how foolish we have been.

I guess no one here cracks a book, or reads any Andrew C. McCarthy, Diana West, or Robert Spencer, just to mane a few. Perhaps it's time...

[Soylent Red]

Corrupt central government? OK.

Then how about we move toward more of a confederation model with accountable local government supported by embedded US troops? That is, I believe, what GEN McChrystal is proposing.

[Soylent Red]

I guess no one here cracks a book,

You mean like the Siras?

FYI, it's Suras.

[bgates]

18 Comments, not one reference to Islam

Wait...are there Islamians in Afghanistan?

[Soylent Red]

As we learned last night bgates, "Islamian" is a race.

You bigot.

[osıɔɹɐu]

The tribal question predates Islam by about a millenium, when they were called the Pathans, and they fought Alexander,and later
Crassus's legions in the last gasps of the Roman REpublic

[scott]

I sat in on several outstanding briefings today from SFC's that just returned from what they call "Again-I-Stan".

Basically they call the enemy in those remote valleys "accidental guerillas". Tribes of 1-2000 people who will never leave that valley. The Taliban pays them $50 to plant an IED. They don't know anything of geopolitics or jihad.

They showed some video of firefights that drives home how isolated they are in those Command Outpost's (COP's). 6 soldiers being engaged daily. Only resupply is by air. The cook hanging rounds. In the bottom of a cereal bowl. Exposed.

All agree, It's a very different fight from Iraq. The videos ,to me, had an errie Vietnam feeling to them.

At one point, A Brit I was seated next to turned to me and said "8 more Americans killed this morning mate".

Our guys will kick anybody's ass but obama better figure out what the f**k
they're doing there and back them up.. like yesterday!

[Ignatz]

--They showed some video of firefights that drives home how isolated they are in those Command Outpost's (COP's). 6 soldiers being engaged daily. Only resupply is by air. The cook hanging rounds. In the bottom of a cereal bowl. Exposed.--

A thousand little Dien Bien Phus.

[Cecil Turner]

18 Comments, not one reference to Islam, the Qur'an, the Hadith's, or the Sira's.

Nor one to Sun Tzu or Clausewitz, which might be more apropos. When you get all clued in and sensitive after all that research, maybe you can enlighten us on the proper grand strategy in the GWOT (oops, I mean "overseas contingency operations"). Or you can just sit there and be all superior, and we'll just ignore you some more.

AFAICT, the options on the table are a full-blown COIN approach per McChrystal, or a whack-a-terrorist approach per Biden. Not sure either couldn't be made to work (as well as such things ever do). If we ever decide what to do. Until then . . .

[Marc]

another county heard from A different officer's opinion, equally respectable, and one with a different response to the question Capt. Hoh was commissioned to answer about tribal fighting.

[Marc]

oops link busted. meant to post this link:

http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/wp-content/themes/stevenpressfield/one_tribe_at_a_time.pdf

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

It appears that the fundamental mistake we made in RVN is again a real possibility. Simultaneous dual strategies with diametrically opposed objectives.

[Peter]

One major difference between this fight and my war in southeast Asia is that we put most (not all) of our firebases on top of the hills.

In this fight the scheme seems to be little bitty bases, most down in the valleys. Seems strange to me, but then I only made (acting) SGT and got out as a Lance Corporal.

There is something else that is awfully strange to me. We keep getting into fights wars where we win every fight but lose the war. Let's see, we won every fight in Viet Nam, the commies run the place. We won every fight in Korea. Bother Kim is still in power. We wone every fight in Panama, the Chicoms now run the big base that controls access to the Canal.

The Jury is still out on Iraq but I won't place any bets on their future once Iran gets nukes. How do we always win the fights but lose the war?

[Ignatz]

--How do we always win the fights but lose the war?--

Because our miitary is very competent; our politicians somewhat less so, to be as charitable as possible.

[Ishiatsi]

How did you manage to pick the title of this blog post when you knew you were describing a temp worker who had been in Astan for 4 months and is not an expert on anything?

[Ishiatsi]

"One major difference between this fight and my war in southeast Asia is that we put most (not all) of our firebases on top of the hills.
In this fight the scheme seems to be little bitty bases, most down in the valleys. Seems strange to me"

Take a look at the WaPo interactive on the battle at Wanat. The "top of the hill" is a matter of perspective. It was on the top, relative to the village. Except there's a hill above that, and one above that, and the peak is something visible from space.

Either way, if the Taliban wins by influencing the population, the population is where the fight is.

There are valleys with a dozen marines in an outpost, 100s of taliban and farkall else for miles. They are attacked daily. What you win there if you do is anyone's guess.

[Cecil Turner]

How did you manage to pick the title of this blog post . . .

Seems to me that criticism would be better aimed at either the WaPo, who incorrectly called this guy an FSO and used the less-than-helpful "US official" to imply he was a policy guy:

U.S. official resigns over Afghan war
Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting

Or perhaps at ABC news, who both can't figure out what he is or why he resigned:

Matthew Hoh, a Senior Civilian Official in Afghanistan, Resigns Over U.S. Strategy

By contrast, TM's "troubling" (yeah, he ain't no shrinking violet, and after volunteering, essentially becomes a conscientious objector . . . that's troubling) seems pretty unremarkable.