War Is Boring

Art by Matt Bors.

It’s one of the world’s bloodiest and, for outsiders, least understood conflict. Since the mid-1990s, a complex web of political rebellions, resource wars and apocalyptic religious crusades has killed at least 700,000 people and displaced millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I will travel to DRC in September, for a period of six weeks, to report for War Is Boring and to write a graphic novel. It won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap. I estimate the cost at around $10,000. Through the crowdfunding Website Kickstarter, my supporters contributed $1,600 to cover a portion of my air fare. Other big expenses will include internal transportation, lodging, security and interpreters. You can donate through the Paypal link at right.

I will begin in Kinshasa, where I will observe a U.S.-led military exercise and interview government leaders and aid workers about Congo’s prospects for peace. Following that, I aim to accompany a band of U.N. peacekeepers into the jungle to see the conflict zone firsthand and speak to war victims.

Rebellions have long plagued both eastern DRC and neighboring Republic of Congo. Shortages of resources and arable land exacerbate political tension rooted in ancient ethnic rivalries. Corruption and years of poor governance means many everyday Congolese feel little loyalty to their government and quickly resort to violence to resolve disputes.

Only complicating the region’s web of conflicts, in recent years the Lord’s Resistance Army, a Ugandan Christian fundamentalist group, has taken root in Congo’s jungles. Propelled by a mad vision of a world on the brink of apocalypse, the LRA destroys entire villages, enslaves the boys, rapes the women and drives hordes of refugees before it.

In the wake of the LRA’s arrival from locations east, the Ugandan army and elements of the new U.S. Africa Command have occasionally deployed into DRC. The Americans’ contributions are small but vital. They train the Ugandan and Congolese troops in the tactics they’ll need to find, fix and defeat the LRA.

Together, we can begin drawing more attention to the Congo conflict and its victims. Please consider donating.

Ted Rall art.

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

Afghan National Army Mi-17 helicopters. U.S. Department of Defense photo.

Torrential monsoon rains since late July have flooded Pakistan’s Swat Valley and portions of neighboring Afghanistan, killing nearly 2,000 people and displacing around 2 million. Relief efforts have included deployments of troops and helicopters by the Pakistan military, the NATO force in Afghanistan and, perhaps surprisingly, the nascent Afghan air corps. “Right now, the Afghan air force has four Mi-17 helicopters in Pakistan supporting that relief effort,” said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Boera, head of Afghan air training.

The Afghan deployment underscores an encouraging trend in the nine-year-old war against the Taliban. On Aug. 11, top NATO commander Gen. David Petraeus announced that the Afghan army had reached its planned peak strength of 134,000 soldiers — two months earlier than anticipated. Reacting to the news, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said NATO might begin handing over security duties to Afghan forces as early as the spring of 2011.

The security handover would see Afghan forces increasingly taking the lead as foreign contingents begin a gradual withdrawal. The Dutch army removed its main ground forces from southern Afghanistan on Aug. 1. The Canadians are slated for a 2011 departure. U.S. and British troops might start leaving in the summer of 2011, though the pace of their drawdown will “depend on the conditions on the ground,” Gates said. British planning currently calls for some U.K. combat troops remaining in Afghanistan as late as 2014.

Still, the Afghan flood response could give NATO commanders some hope for a speedy end to foreign intervention in Afghanistan.

What would become the Afghan air force amounted to a handful of decrepit helicopters when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. Today, with NATO funding and training, it boasts scores of airplanes and helicopters, hundreds of pilots and thousands of ground crew. The air corps’ skill level has risen along with its numerical strength. “Afghan aviators know how to fly,” Col. Don Galli, commander of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, told World Politics Review this spring. “They take to this like fish to water.”

Read the rest at World Politics Review.

Matt Bors art.

On August 1, the Dutch army abandoned Afghanistan, ending its five-year occupation of the southern province of Uruzgan. I visited the main Dutch base, Camp Holland, in 2007 and was struck by the sheer comfort of the facility compared to other NATO bases. Lots of big NATO bases have gourmet coffee, but few feature the coffee plus exquisite, air-conditioned and armored living units, wireless Internet and a weekly smorgasbord of fresh fish.

Dutch troops lived well and, when the Taliban attacked en masse in the summer of 2007, fought hard. But their idea of hard-fighting was to flatten the contested community with air attacks and artillery, killing as many as 90 civilians, according to a NATO report. Are Dutch troops overly coddled cowards? As individuals, no. But the Dutch army’s operations represented a kind of institutional cowardice. Instead of closing with the enemy — an admittedly dangerous task for infantrymen — the Dutch stayed back, fired artillery and let Afghan civilians in the cross-fire assume most of the risk.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide asked me about the “cowardice” issue in the context of my new graphic novel War is Boring. Give it a listen.

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Improvised Explosive Devices have accounted for around 800 of the roughly 1,100 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan. To counter these increasingly-lethal bombs, the U.S. military is spending billions of dollars on blast-resistant vehicles specially tailored for Afghan terrain. But in addition to their high cost, the complex new vehicles can be a logistical burden.

Read the rest at Voice of America.

F-22. David Axe photo.

At the height of last year’s debate over whether to build more Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighters at $130-million a pop, air-power alarmists played the jobs card. “More than 95,000 American jobs” depend on continued production of the F-22 Raptor fighter, the apparently industry-funded advocacy group Preserve Raptor Jobs screeched.

“Problem is, that 95,000 number counts indirect employment at firms for whom the F-22 program is just one of many clients,” War Is Boring countered. “And it also counts Lockheed assembly workers who are in high demand for other aviation projects. In fact, ending Raptor production today might not result in a single unemployed aerospace worker.”

A year later, we’re being proved right. As the F-22 build winds down, workers at Lockheed’s Raptor-factory in Marietta, Georgia are shifting to the follow-on F-35 fighter, also a Lockheed product. “Marietta’s available facilities, tooling and worker experience with the F-22 are key enablers for F-35 program production,” said Lockheed’s Larry Lawson.

There are lots of good reasons why we should have bought more F-22s (and perhaps fewer F-35s), but jobs is not one of them. Minor policy decisions regarding particular airframes will not have a major impact on the overall U.S. aerospace industry, the world’s largest by far. Pentagon plans anticipate steady funding for a wide range of airplanes for the next 30 years.

Ted Rall art.

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

Ted Rall art.

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.

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Ted Rall art

Cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors — the artist on my new graphic novel — are in Afghanistan to chronicle the plight of everyday Afghans in a series of quickie comics. You can support Matt by buying a print.