There would be a desperate few moments when the striker was on his back in a hostile environment, seeking the target and growingly aware of his exposure to a variety of threats – one of the problems of being within gun range is that the enemy is too – and then a sense of exultation as the target is acquired and the weapons run begins. That was where target fixation could creep in: A striker might press the run too close, and place himself within the frag pattern of his own ordnance, or worse, hit the target with his own airplane (typically a little long).

On December 30th 2009, a team of CIA operatives and support contractors had a valuable target in their sights, a doctor recently “flipped” by the Jordanian intelligence service who was to be their first “man inside al Qaeda.” Strong evidence exists that the team’s leadership was so preoccupied with the value of this potential asset that the risks of meeting him with open arms were not adequately managed.

The doctor, Humam Khalilil al-Balawi, detonated an explosive vest in the presence of the CIA team, killing seven of them and wounding several others. It was a cruel blow to the nation’s clandestine service, and to the families left behind. The team’s leader, Jennifer Matthews, left behind a gold star on the wall at Langley, along with a husband and three young children back in the States.

And right about then the finger pointing began. Yesterday’s Washington Post had an article about Matthews. It’s a little long on the “God would protect her” theme, which I’m sure sends the correct message to many of the Post‘s readers. But it doesn’t much touch on the issue of training an analyst to be an operative and to lead a clandestine mission in a war zone.

To get that, you’ve got to go back and read Robert Baer’s 2010 article in GQ magazine – since Matthews name had not yet been released, Baer uses the pseudonym “Kathy”:

The base chief is a covert employee of the CIA; her identity is protected by law. I’ll call her Kathy. She was 45 years old and a divorced mother of three. She’d spent the vast majority of her career at a desk in Northern Virginia, where she studied Al Qaeda for more than a decade. Michael Scheuer, her first boss in Alec Station, the CIA unit that tracked bin Laden, told me she had attended the operative’s basic training course at the Farm, the agency’s training facility, and that he considered her a good, smart officer. Another officer who knew her told me that despite her training at the Farm, she was always slotted to be a reports officer, someone who edits reports coming in from the field. She was never intended to meet and debrief informants.

Kathy knew that there was a time when only seasoned field operatives were put in charge of places like Khost. Not only would an operative need to have distinguished himself at the Farm; he would’ve run informants in the field for five years or more before earning such a post. He probably would have done at least one previous tour in a war zone, too. And he would have known the local language, in this case Pashto. Kathy skipped all of this. Imagine a Marine going straight from Parris Island to taking command of a combat battalion in the middle of a war.

The history books are full of stories of people being placed in positions of leadership that they weren’t prepared for. Some have even succeeded, but a war zone is a harsh testing environment.

Some of the comments to Baer’s article are illuminating as well, coming as they seem to do from knowledgeable insiders:

No one wants to be the person to speak ill of the dead. The truth, however, must trump sensibilities in this matter for a number of reasons, first and foremost being that of using this catastrophic incident as a case study in how not to conduct operations in espionage. This horrible blunder was at once both easily predictable and preventable. I cannot think of one principle of security that was not violated here. Violations fommented out of the apparent incompetence, obvious arrogance, blind ambition and elitism of “Kathy.” Having been warned repeatedly, constantly, continuously concerning suspicious developments in the days leading up to the “meet”, Kathy was stubbornly and arrogantly dismissive of sound wisdom, counsel and warning. She marginalized and widely disregarded those who were there to conduct and advise her on ground tactical operations. The proof of this is that none were present at the “welcoming party” because they knew that it was not tactically sound, hence no “knuckle draggers” were killed or maimed; they just had to clean up the mess, which they did in the magnificent fashion that is their consistent calling card. Kathy was a very insecure person, an elitist who felt the constant need to remind everyone that she was a Harvard graduate, an indicator in and of itself.

A case study indeed, if “Bulldog861974″ has the story right. One wonders if the Agency has learned from it.

“And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

Military commanders in Afghanistan have stopped making public the number of allied troops killed by Afghan soldiers and police, a measure of the trustworthiness of a force that is to take over security from U.S.-led forces.

The change in policy comes after at least three allied troops have been killed by the Afghan troops they trained in the past month and follows what appears to be the deadliest year of the war for NATO trainers at the hands of their Afghan counterparts…

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said information about the killing of U.S. troops by Afghan troops or police is important because it shows whether the U.S. withdrawal plan is realistic. “It’s not just a matter of the number of ISAF or U.S. troops getting attacked. The real question is will this force be loyal to the government?” he said. “The constant question has to be, ‘Did you rush out to set impossible levels of quantity without addressing the quality of Afghan security forces?’ “

To ask the question is to answer it.

Now it seems, we’re back to playing nice again:

INSIDE STRIKE FIGHTER VENGEANCE 13, over Kandahar Province, Afghanistan — Cmdr. Layne McDowell glanced over his left shoulder, through the canopy of a Navy F/A-18, to an Afghan canyon 9,000 feet below. An American infantry company was down there.

The soldiers had been inserted by helicopter. Now a ground controller wanted the three strike fighters circling overhead to send a sign — both to the grunts and to any Taliban fighters shadowing them as they walked.

Commander McDowell banked and aligned his jet’s nose with the canyon’s northeastern end. Then he followed his wingmen’s lead. He dived, pulled level at 5,000 feet and accelerated down the canyon’s axis at 620 miles per hour, broadcasting his proximity with an extended engine roar.

In the lexicon of close air support, his maneuver was a “show of presence” — a mid-altitude, nonlethal display intended to reassure ground troops and signal to the Taliban that the soldiers were not alone. It reflected a sharp shift in the application of American air power, de-emphasizing overpowering violence in favor of sorties that often end without munitions being dropped.

The use of air power has changed markedly during the long Afghan conflict, reflecting the political costs and sensitivities of civilian casualties caused by errant or indiscriminate strikes and the increasing use of aerial drones, which can watch over potential targets for extended periods with no risk to pilots or more expensive aircraft.

Fighter jets with pilots, however, remain an essential component of the war, in part because little else in the allied arsenal is considered as versatile or imposing, and because of improvements in the aircraft’s sensors.

Perhaps it has something to do with timing, perhaps this go-around the softly-softly approach will work better.

Perhaps.

(McDowell) was above a home in which at least two Taliban fighters had taken shelter after firing on an American patrol. But he did not know who else might be inside. Neither he nor the soldiers requested clearance for an airstrike.

“What if we hit that house and two guys inside had guns and we get eight kids, too?” he said.

High over the Arghandab River, he banked over the home that he and the rules had spared.

Referring to the targeting display in the cockpit, he pointed out its proximity to other homes, and described the limits of what he knew about so-called “patterns of life” — the rhythm of the human activity at the compound where Taliban fighters hid.

“I didn’t think about these things at all in Kosovo,” he said.

The reach of a nuclear carrier, augmented with aerial tankers, made it possible for strike aircraft to penetrate 800 miles from the ship. But what was the point of projecting power if it was not projected responsibly? The changes, he said, have been good.

“I would say that in my younger days I would have been frustrated, because we have ordnance and we know where the enemy is, and I would have wanted permission to strike that building,” he said. “Did I feel frustrated this time? Not in the slightest. It is a different mission. It calls for a different mentality.”

We very probably will not be able to kill our way to victory, or anything that smells like it in Afghanistan. The Russians hit hard for 10 years, and had little to show for it when they fell back. But it would keep us busy until a better idea came along.

My hat’s off to CDR McDowell for his forbearance.

He’s a better man than me.