U.S. Army Lt. Col. Burton Shields, commander of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry of Task Force Stryker, sits during a meeting, or shura, with village leaders in the Badula Qulp area, West of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010. (AP)

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It’s Day 5 of the biggest allied offensive in Afghanistan since 2001 — some 15,000 U.S., NATO, and Afghan troops working to secure Marjah, a key opium-smuggling base in the Taliban’s heartland.

It’s being called the first big test of President Obama’s troop surge and General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy. A strategy of holding fire to protect civilians, rolling in a local government to keep the Taliban out, building a nation.

And with the recent capture in Pakistan of the Taliban’s top military commander, there’s hope, justified or not, of turning the tide.

This hour, On Point: We’re looking at the Afghan surge as it plays out on the ground.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation this week.

Guests:

Joining us from Kabul, Afghanistan, is Rod Nordland, foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He’s reported on civilian casualities in the Marjah offensive and on the UN’s refusal to participate in the military’s reconstruction efforts there.

From Monterey, Calif., we’re joined by Kalev Sepp, professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and retired Army lieutenant colonel and special forces officer.  From 2007 to January 2009, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Capabilities, helping to oversee global counterterrorism policy.

From Washington we’re joined by Peter Bergen, senior fellow at the New America Foundation, where he co-directs the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative.  He’s editor of Foreign Policy magazine’s Af-Pak Channel blog and author of “The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader.”

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, right, accompanied by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, testifies on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010, before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. (AP)

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Pulitzer Prize-winning military writer Tom Ricks wrote the book that left its name on the U.S. intervention in Iraq. He called it “Fiasco.”

Now Ricks is watching two wars continue to unfold in Iraq and Afghanistan; a drone war and American presence in Pakistan that this week saw three U.S. casualties; and a debate in Washington and beyond over “don’t ask, don’t tell” and gays in the military.

This hour, On Point: a conversation with Tom Ricks on America’s wars, American strategy, and the U.S. military now.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Thomas Ricks, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, where he writes the blog The Best Defense. He is the author of “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003-2005″ and “The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.”

President Barack Obama speaks about the war in Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009. (AP)

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And so, the Afghanistan plan is announced. We’re going in. And we’re getting out.

Going in, with 30,000 more American troops to fight and train and claw back momentum from the Taliban. Going out, or headed in that direction, by July, 2011 – just eighteen months from now.

There was something for everyone last night in the President’s speech at West Point. Building up. Coming home.

But there was no straight up withdrawal. No word on how to pay for the surge. And no guarantees.

This Hour, On Point: eight years in and doubling down in Afghanistan. We’ll look at the plan, and the battle ahead.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

John Mearsheimer, professor of political science and co-director at the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. He’s been critical of sending further troops to Afghanistan and advocates withdrawing.

Robert Kaplan, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a longtime correspondent for The Atlantic. His latest book is “Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground.” He has advocated sending more troops to Afghanistan.

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Iraq combat veteran and Marine Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Workman went into some of the worst fighting in Fallujah. Nightmare stuff. Killed twenty men in a day.

He came out with the Navy Cross — and a brutal case of post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

Now, from the brink of suicide and despair, he’s fought back to tell his story — and the story of many thousands of other veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

He’s fighting for acknowledgement of all that they bring home. All.

This hour, On Point: A Marine hero’s story of the battle there, and here.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Workman joins us from Los Angeles. An eight-year combat veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he served in Fallujah in 2004 and was awarded the Navy Cross for valor. His new memoir, “Shadow of the Sword: A Marine’s Journey of War, Heroism, and Redemption,” chronicles his time in Fallujah and his subsequent struggle with PTSD.

Read Chapter One from “Shadow of the Sword.”

From San Diego we’re joined by Heidi Kraft, former clinical psychologist in the U.S. Navy.  She led a combat stress unit in Iraq and wrote the book “Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital.” She continues to treat combat trauma.

More links:

You can read Jeremiah Workman’s posts at the Huffington Post.

The Washington Post offers a list of PTSD resources.

Soldiers observe a moment of silence for those killed in last Thursday's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas on Friday, Nov. 6, 2009. (AP)

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Flags at half mast across the country. Thirteen dead, many more wounded — shot in cold blood at the Army’s Fort Hood in Central Texas on Thursday.

The alleged gunman — a military psychiatrist, an American Muslim, one of the Army’s own — faced deployment to a war he opposed.

The Army’s Chief of Staff calls it a “kick in the gut” — and warns of backlash against Muslim-American troops. Unanswered questions abound — about the shooter, the warning signs, mental health in the ranks, an Army stretched thin.

This hour, On Point: The tragedy at Fort Hood.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from Austin, Texas, is Peter Sanders, reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He’s been reporting from Fort Hood.

Joining us from Washington is Ann Scott Tyson, military and pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post.

Also from Washington is Daniel Zwerdling, national correspondent for NPR.

And we’re joined by Reihan Salam, a fellow at the New America Foundation. His commentary on the Fort Hood shootings, “The Collateral Damage to Muslims,” appeared at The Daily Beast.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. (AP)

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Dire warnings, made public today, by the top U.S. general in Afghanistan. “More Forces or ‘Mission Failure,’” is the headline in The Washington Post. Taliban victory. U.S. defeat.

My guests today say listen carefully, past the headline. Daniel Ellsberg, in 1971, leaked the Pentagon Papers that changed the country’s understanding of the Vietnam War.

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s right-hand man at the State Department, called the case for war in Iraq a hoax.

This hour, On Point: The push for more troops in Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Daniel Ellsberg joins us from Berkeley, Calif. He had been a top-level defense analyst at the Defense Department and State Department and was working as an analyst at the RAND Corporation in 1971, when he leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. He served as a rifle platoon leader in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1950s. He is the subject of a new documentary called “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”

Joining us from Williamsburg, Va., is Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (U.S. Army-Ret.). He was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. A former director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia, he’s now a professor of national security studies at George Washington University and of government and policy at the College of William & Mary. He has been an outspoken critic of the George W. Bush administration and its case for the Iraq war.

Joining us from Berlin is George Packer, staff writer at The New Yorker. His article “The Last Mission” — about Richard Holbrooke, Afghanistan, and the ghosts of Vietnam — appears in current issue. His most recent book is “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq” (2005).
 

U.S. soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division patrol in the outskirts of Bagram north of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday, March 8, 2009. President Barack Obama has ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American forces already in the country. (AP)

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He took charge as commander-in-chief on January 20. But as of last Friday, Afghanistan is well and truly President Obama’s war. With Pakistan sewn right in.

The new president is sending 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan, on top of the 17,000 additional combat troops headed there. With the 38,000 U.S. troops already in the country, that will be the highest number since the war began. Plus new billions for Pakistan.

All to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Queda,” he says. Will it work? The pressure is on.

This hour, On Point: Weighing the Obama plan for Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Are you with the president on this war? On the “Af-Pak” challenge? Do we have a choice?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Kabul is Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Afghanistan bureau chief for National Public Radio.

Joining us from Washington, D.C., is Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute and author of the new book “The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free” and 2004’s “Exiting Iraq: How the U.S. Must End the Occupation and Renew the War against Al Qaeda.”

And from Gig Harbor, Washington, is Thomas Donnelly, defense and security policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institut and author, with Frederick Kagan, of “Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power.” He was policy group director and staff member for the House Armed Services Committee and was deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century from 1999 to 2002.

Who talks to Barack Obama about what to do in Afghanistan? Well, one voice on the campaign trail was young Army captain and veteran of the Afghan front, Craig Mullaney.

Number two in his class at West Point. A Rhodes Scholar. Chief of staff for President Obama’s Pentagon Transition Team. And, in his mid-20s, a platoon commander with the 10th Mountain Division on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Out where the rounds fly and comrades die.

How does he see the war? We’ll ask. This hour, On Point: One remarkable Afghan war vet on the battlefront, and his advice for Obama.

You can join the conversation. What are your hopes and fears for the future of the war in Afghanistan? What’s your experience on the Afghan front? What advice would you give to President Obama?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Craig M. Mullaney joins us from New York.  A former US Army captain and elite Army Ranger, he served in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2004.  He is a graduate of West Point and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.  After leaving the military, he served as chief of staff for President Obama’s Pentagon Transition Team. His new memoir is “The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education.” 

More links:

You can read an excerpt from the book at Mullaney’s website, and another that appeared in Vanity Fair.

Mullaney’s site also features video episodes based on the book.  And here’s a YouTube video showing Mullaney’s base in Afghanistan being hit by enemy 107-millimeter rockets in late 2003:

A U.S. Army soldier stands guard next to a poster depicting radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr during the reopening of a street in the Kazimiyah area of northern Baghdad, Iraq, on Feb. 3, 2009. (AP)

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In the depths of America’s worst days in Iraq, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Thomas Ricks laid out the origins of early failure in his bestselling book of expose, “Fiasco.”

Now, Ricks is back with the story of the insurgency within the Pentagon that brought the surge and stabilization in Iraq.

And with a tough message. Despite Barack Obama’s campaign trail promise of withdrawal, the war in Iraq may not be half over yet, says Ricks. And Afghanistan looks even tougher.

This hour, On Point: Inside the U.S. military at war on two fronts, with Tom Ricks and his new book, “The Gamble.”

You can join the conversation. What’s your question for Tom Ricks on military’s lessons from Iraq? On what U.S. troops are facing in Afghanistan?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Thomas Ricks joins us from New York.  A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he’s the author of the 2006 New York Times bestseller “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005″ and its follow-up, just published, “The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.” He’s covered the U.S. military for more than 25 years, most recently for The Washington Post. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank, and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, where he writes the blog The Best Defense.

More links:

“The Generals’ Insurgency: The Story Behind the U.S. Troop Surge in Iraq,” a two-part series this week in The Washington Post, adapted from “The Gamble,” with web-only features including video, key documents, and a timeline.

“Stop Commuting to War” — an excerpt from “The Gamble,” at The Daily Beast.

On his blog, Ricks recently wrote a penetrating series analyzing lessons learned, or unlearned, from the costly battle between U.S. troops and Taliban fighters last July at Wanat, in eastern Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the commanding officer of a U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser monitors the pirated motor vessel Faina off the coast of Somalia while one of his helicopters provides aerial surveillance. (US Navy photo)

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Somali pirates don’t joke around.

Off one of the busiest sea lanes in the world, where oil-tanker traffic and a whole lot more flow to the Suez Canal, they have been taking ship after ship this year. Boarding bloody if need be, commandeering the bridge, holding crew and cargo ransom for big money.

Ten days ago they hit a deadly jackpot. A Ukrainian freighter stuffed to the gunwhales with heavy weaponry. Soviet tanks. Grenage launchers. Ammo.

Now U.S. warships have the captive ship cornered. A Soviet frigate is on the way. But the problem is spreading.

This hour, On Point: Pirates, global order fraying off the Horn of Africa, and a high seas crisis on the world stage.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He joined us earlier from an island near the coast of Somalia.

Joining us from London is Roger Middleton, consultant researcher for the Africa program at Chatham House in London. He’s the author of “Piracy in Somalia: Threatening Global Trade, Feeding Local War.”

Joining us from New York City is J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University and a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy in Washington, D.C. He writes a weekly column for the New Atlanticist about African security issues. His Sept. 29 column was “The Challenge of Somali Piracy.”

Joining us from Bahrain is Lt. Nathan Christensen, deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.