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Petraeus and the PAOJohn Donovan and Castle
Scapegoating is for losers. Dusty’s interested in a win:
John doesn’t think so, replying (in part):
I threw in my own contribution to the discussion thus: “I’m hearing very positive things from within Navy channels in the Green Zone since GEN P. showed up in theater about the turnaround in prospects – this from folks who wanted to invite me over for a ringside seat on the meltdown just a few months back. These were professionals observing another service from the outside, who had no skin in the ground forces game and they were pretty despondent about what they were seeing. Something has changed, and for the better. The only questions I have is whether it has changed sufficiently for the better, and whether it has changed in time. The burden of proof is on us for the former, and the clock is not on our side for the latter. I don’t know that empowering PAO’s, however great an idea it might have been a year or more ago is going to do much for us now: Everyone has been saying that they were seeing ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for so long that the people no longer believe us when we say we’re going to get the job done. It’s not that they think we’re lying, I think they believe that we’re deceived. Without saying that it is so, isn’t it intriguing to contrast the way that senior non-fighting deadwood was swiftly swept away in they system shock which followed our entry into WWII to the time it might have taken for a similar sweep-up to occur in a war whose timeline we ourselves chose? It appears to me – and as a naval officer, what follows is clearly unschooled conjecture – that we just couldn’t understand why the patient application of sequential a** kickings wasn’t having the desired effect. We weren’t living with the Iraqi people, we were running sorties on them, kicking their doors in, roughing up their menfolk (in front of the ladies), killing quite a few of them, and getting killed right back. After all the night’s drama was complete we’d head back to camp for a debrief, hot shower and some rack time. Repeat. We really weren’t listening to the population we’ve been trying to stabilize. In poll after poll, they told us their chief concern was security – we thought we could kill our way to security, when what it looks like what it’s really going to take is bedding down in the ville, being out there when the lights go down. Which was hard to do with the forces we had. So here we are, surging with Petraeus and crossing our fingers.” You guys are big thinkers: Join in. 6 comments to Petraeus and the PAO |
 
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Yon is complaining that the military isn’t journalist friendly. It’s obvious the reason – journalists all over the world including the US are anti-american and especially anti-US-military. Why should the generals provide resources so journalists can fight on the enemies side in the media war? Even if a journalist writes a poitive story his editor will spin it negative. Yon with his on line diatribes is now part of the problem when at one time he was part of the solution. He has lost track of the story and is now making himself the story.
If you look at the history of the war the much of the problems come from trying to work with the Iraqi politics. For example, the first abortive raid on Faluja had to be scrubbed until the Iraqi’s had sufficient home grown government to order something that could have high casualties and destructive consequences. Also, 2006 was a difficult year because of the successes in the rest of the country the bad guys all flocked to bagdhad where the Iraqi governmental officials provided protection for the militias and groups that made up their constituencies (3 cheers for democracy). The surge is more of a change in tactics where the government was brought to see the light by threats of american withdrawl.
You must have read William Corson, way back when. He was the Godfather of the Civil Action Program, which embedded a Marine Rifle Squad in a village, who then formed a local militia, with whom they patrolled. Thus security, and no safehaven for the bad guys.
COIN isn’t new. Shifting from maneuver warfare to a COIN battlefield is. Thank God for Petreaus.
As for the PAO, how do you cut the deadwood, when it’s all deadwood? PAO is a backwater for those who lack the right stuff. Better to stick a smart horsetrading combat arms officer in there, who knows he has a hot commodity, and let him run.
It’s worth remembering that a very large part of the OSS was dedicated to getting our message out, and defeating theirs.
The PAO community needs to change their mission focus from writing “grip and grin hometown news release stories on promotions” to one of encouraging the good guys and demoralizing and deceiving the bad guys. Think and innovate in the concepts of information warfare; get inside the opposition’s news cycle; rapid response truth squads with Arabic language ability. Yes, deceptive ops too (with plausible deniability if needed). Give utmost care and attention to those “journalists” who are on our side helping win the war (e.g. Mike Yon, Ardolino, etc) and benign neglect of those who are not with us (like the NY Times and other secret leaking SOBs!). This is WAR, dammit!
Embrace the “new media” in all its facets.
Put a couple of hard charging, articulate, wounded warriors in the PAO shops to kick butt and take names until the peacetime garrison mindset is driven out for good!
If not for the blogs and Yon, et al, you would hardly know we are engaged in a war that includes anything other than being victims of IEDs.
Very frustrating. Just find an old WW2 copy of Life magazine and see how journalism helped support our nation’s war effort. Not true now.
Know how I really think about this?
Julius Ceasar didn’t have a PAO Corps and the history of his victory came only from his own quill..
When you start attempting to manage “news”- MSM, Yon or anybody- you’re in trouble. You couldn’t create a new PAO group if you threw all the resources at it you had. It’ll never work.
All we can do is win or at least give it our best shot.
If I had my way I would throw ‘em all out (US and foreign correspondents) and commandeer all the bandwidth and jam anything else. Let the Iraqis report the news. I know that will never happen but I would rather read Petraeus’s Chronicles AFTER we & they are victorious. All this crap sounds Madison Ave to me, but then, I ain’t sophisticated.
re- “We really weren?
I’m sorry, I didn’t catch what you said: I’m busy watching the Fox News story on the number six site of all of You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MNFIRA
Changing the military culture IS happening, it just isn’t happening as fast as it should, and PAOs (of which I am one) aren’t nearly the sole issue that some would like to think.
One only has to look at Yon’s Rub#3 comments to see that even his supporters are raising an eyebrow at his recent shenanigans. An unprecendented amount of commenters made reference to the fact that bureaucracy is an undeniable fact of life in the military and that Yon should be taking what amounts to some good advice.
Yon hits bottom when he writes:
//snip//
Speaking of comments on the website, check out this one, from a writer who teases ever so coyly about his ?
[...] on PAOs Jump to Comments Lately, it has felt like everyone has been picking on public affairs officers. At least in the [...]