Afghanistan (or Any War): Situation Normal, All Fouled Up

No wonder the military has so many -- and such unprintable -- words to describe how things can get royally screwed up. SNAFU really is normal.

When events go as planned, when nothing breaks, stuff happens on time, things come together, an action results in the predicted consequences . . . well, military folks lift their heads and look around uneasily. Uh-oh. FUBAR is about to happen.

If you're unfamiliar with that acronym, it means Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition – or Fouled Up Beyond All Repair. As in SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fouled Up), though the word beginning with F is not really "fouled." It's a stronger word, an Anglo-Saxon verb, let's say. Both acronyms date to World War II, but the sentiment among military units almost certainly pre-dates the Roman Legion.

I wish people back in Washington had a better sense of this. Too few of them have served in the military or spent time at war -- and quick in-and-out high-level-briefings of congressional delegations and visiting Pentagon poobahs don't count.

I'm especially worried about the White House and Pentagon staffers who are assembling the "benchmarks" with which to measure the war here in Afghanistan. They tend to pick inputs -- number of miles of roads paved, number of schools built, number of Afghan soldiers trained. But those measure the going-in state of things; they don't weigh the inevitable foul-ups and unintended consequences.

Quick example: The United States has built lots of good roads here, on the solid theory that Afghans can get to market easier and that grateful people will turn against the insurgents. But it turns out the insurgents use the roads, too. Roads make it easier for them to get around. And criminals use them to set up roadblocks and demand money.

But, aha! We are recruiting and training Afghan police to secure the roads! Alas, there aren't enough of them, and they're not well enough equipped, and some of them are corruptible, and so where does the "benchmark" of number of roads built get you?

I traveled once with a senior Pentagon official on a four-day trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. The executive jet would land, we'd be met with an armored limousine, whisked to a waiting helicopter and zoom to some outpost where the staff would be waiting to brief us with PowerPoint. Then back to the waiting helo to be swiftly carried to the next stop and another briefing. Nothing went wrong.

After a few days of this, you got the feeling that you could order something to happen and it actually would happen. Nothing would go wrong!

Helicopter? Right here, sir!

We making progress out here, soldier? Yes sir! Right here on this chart, sir!

Brent Scowcroft, a retired officer and wise presidential adviser, once told me the most valuable thing he learned in military service was how screwed up things can get. On a strategic level, he said, war never goes the way you think it will, or should. "The military is a blunt instrument. We should all remember that,'' he said.

Scowcroft was White House national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush during Desert Storm, when the president decided not to chase Iraqi troops back to Baghdad and knock off Saddam Hussein.

Most foul-ups have lesser consequences. At dawn one recent morning I was waiting with paratroopers of the 82^ndAirborne for a mission to be launched. (Mission briefing was supposed to be at 0415 and now it's 0435 -- what's up?) We were assigned air cover for the mission, OH-58 scout helicopters and Pathfinders in Blackhawks. They're a comforting presence to keep an eye out for bad guys and shoot them if need be, and for possible evacuation of casualties.

Nobody blinked when the company commander announced, "Hey guys, we got no air today. That means everybody, increased security, watch rooftops for snipers!"

The air cover was pulled off for a higher-priority mission. Who expected anything else? A few days ago, an entire mission was scrubbed because the Afghan National Police, who are supposed to accompany troops on every patrol, never showed up. When we lurched off on a different mission, the turret gunner's headset was dead, so he couldn't hear or say anything -- not too good since he's supposed to be watching for IEDs and warning the driver.

Two days before, I went off with a platoon of soldiers in four MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) on a mission high into the mountains. These huge armored trucks were built for the flat roads of Iraq, not for the boulder-studded goat trails of mountainous Afghanistan. We lurched and jolted our way upwards on a track that got more and more narrow and finally found our vehicles wedged between Volkswagen-size boulders and the high adobe walls of a mountain village.

We backed down and got turned around okay, but one of the MRAPs ran over a large rock that ripped out its brake system. Mission abandoned. Hats off to the troopers who got the disabled truck hooked up to a tow bar and to the drivers who got the whole convoy down safely.

But that wasn't the plan.