Useful Fools

The war in Iraq, improperly called an insurgency, is a complex kind of war - one which allows the enemy to achieve greater effect with fewer combatants. In a guerilla war, the tactic is to overthrow the government with the support of a significant part of the populace. Democracy’s enemies in this war have instead a two-stage goal of first driving out foreign protectors with terrorism. and then triggering a conventional civil war. Because of this, competitors for the spoils - Iran, Iraqi Baathists in Syria, Al Qaeda and the Syrian regime all have the same goals for the first stage, with each hoping to win or gain spoils when their proxies fight each other in the second stage.

Their first stage tactics are primarily terrorist, with some small unit ambushes and attacks. They seek to drive out the democratic protectors of Iraq (primarily the US) by causing a continuous stream of casualties, even at a relatively low level. They seek to demoralize, confuse and enrage the Iraqis, triggering anarchy leading to civil war. Thus they using terrorist attacks against coalition forces, government officials, security forces, and reconstruction personnel, while killing large numbers of civilians.

Terrorism is unusually effective as a tactic because it is a cheap but significant force multiplier. Small numbers of readily replaceable terrorists, often not even trained (in the case of car bombs) or with minimal training (in the case of IED installation and detonation) can kill a much larger number of their enemy. Thugs can operate as assassins and kill important individuals, disrupting reconstruction efforts and the new government.

By using small weapons such as powerful mines, small numbers of terrorists can kill many Americans (i.e. they have a remarkable “force multiplier”). The new Iranian engineeried IED’s - now a misnomer - is an example of how the enemy strategy is evolving. Almost impregnable (to IEDs) marine armored troop carriers are death traps when attacked by the new weapons. One of these devices killed 14 marines last week. Some have been intercepted at Iranian border crossings, and the weapons are not improvised - they have machined parts and are engineered by experts specifically to attack armored vehicles. Notably, it is likely that these Iranian produced weapons are being supplied to Sunni and perhaps Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq, even though the Sunnis are Iran’s proxy enemy in the second stage.

While comparisons with Vietnam are always dangerous, there is are at least two important lessons that should be applied to Iraq. Although we won the war in South Vietnam at least twice militarily, it was at great cost. This was because we failed to cut the supply lines from the base of the enemy - North Vietnam, and failed to adequately wage war against the enemy base. General Giap, overall enemy commander, later said that cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos would have quickly defeated the communist side because of the vast amount of material needed to support a guerilla war). The second victory was achieved by removing most restrictions on attacks against the enemy base, blockading their sea supply routes with mines and bombing them into submission. This took only 12 days.

In Iraq, we have a much worse enemy interdiction problem. Terrorists and increasingly lethal weapons are arriving from two neighborint enemy bases via long, porous borders - Syria and Iran. The enemy logistical lines cannot be cut by patrolling the borders because the material and personnel that must get through are much less and the borders much longer.

The malefactors listed above are all at war with the coalition and Iraq, using terrorism in Iraq and in coalition countries. Syria and Iran are allies, in the first stage of the Iraq war, with those who attacked the heart of the United States on 9/11 and on 7/7 the heart of England. The latter was clearly an extension of the Iraq war, with a stated purpose to drive Britain out of Iraq.They are this war’s equivalent to North Vietnam, except we haven’t attacked them at all.

In this age of asymmetrical warfare and terrorism, they should be treated as wartime enemies, with all the measures that implies. Not to do so may lead to the loss of war in Iraq and ultimately an ever increased threat of nuclear megaterrorism in our homelands which could literally destroy our economies, kill tens of millions of our citizens, and perhaps cost the west forever its preminent economic and military position, while an undamaged China gains hegemony.

The AP, like most of the MSM, needs to consistently show the Iraq war in the worst possible light. Hence, in spite of the very significant good news that the US loss rate since Jan 30th has dropped significantly, they report The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has topped 1,500, a top headline but a totally artificial and insignificant news story (why not “topped 1536″ or 1492?).

The loss of 54 troops was “down sharply” from January.

When it comes to Iraq and the Main Stream Media, the glass is always half empty, and that’s the good news! The bad news is the glass was full of poison.

There is an active discussion in blogspace, including at Roger Simon’s excellent blog on the subject of partitioning Iraq. The idea of a “rolling partition,” where the partitions evolve as smaller units join voluntarily together seems especially popular.

Half of this idea seems very good: democracy from the bottom up. But the other half is very wrong and impractical. It’s proponents also may have temporarily forgotten that we didn’t expend blood and vast amounts of treasure just to give the Iraqis a better life. We did it to get rid of a serious international threat, and to replace Saddam’s fascism with a “model” civilization in order to get at “root causes” of terrorism, partly by driving a wedge between authoritarian Muslim nations and their populations.
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Totally disgusted with the thinly disguised attacks on Bush from the leftist media, via their orgy of pontificating about the few cases where we mistreat prisoners, I thought a little perspective was needed, especially since the press has already forgoten about the beheading of Mr. Berg. For those who breathlessley read the “torture” techniques used by the CIA, as “revealed” by the New York Times today, you should know that the techniques are used against our own servicemen in Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training (which I have been through). But somehow when we do it to those who are planning to kill a few million innocent Americans, the New York Times get’s all hot and bothered.

Perhaps they should find out what kind of people were are subjecting this terrible action.
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If you, like me, get much of your information from the mainstream (or in my case, Fox) news, this may come as a surprise (although Fox has an embed in the battle who is giving us the tactical picture).

Here you can read the true strategic situation, from a military leader in the midst of the fighting. This the power of blogging.

And as you read this, raw intelligence from the field combined with analysis, you can see how wrong many of the criticisms have been and still are, because it includes the background and the planning to defeat Sadr, which has been going on for a long time, ver quietly and quite subtly.

[Welcome Instapundit Readers. I have added to the comments section one other issue mentioned previously on Roger’s blog but missing here. It’ll be a few comments down.]

This article was written as a comment on Roger Simon’s outstanding blog.

My reaction to the prisoner abuse is that perhaps we are not qualified to win this war.

Even the good people on this forum, who usually seem to understand the danger we are in, are engaged in hand-wringing about this event. Not so much about how it may affect the war, but about its lack of humanity. Roger wants to blow up the prison.

I’ve got a message for you: What you saw WAS humanity. Humans do bad things all the time. Humans make mistakes. Humans can be sadistic. And humans can be stupid.

ENOUGH!
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Fox News - breaking live - relayed by Command Post:

Steve Harrigan is reporting live from a major operation in Karbala aginst the Sadr (Shia) forces. The coalition forces (three country’s forces are involved) are using Bradleys, tanks, helicopters and AC-130s. Some enemy troops have already surrendered. Substantial heavy weapons fire is audible from Apaches and Bradleys. Loudspeakers are being used to warn residents.

This article is a response to an article by Sam at Hammorabi blog.

Sam,

Every totalitarian dictatorship has a central party which people must be members of to hold responsible positions in society and positions necessary for a society to function. Those regimes also try to cause all members have “dirty hands” in order to insure their loyalty by blackmail.

My father, a scientist, used to visit his colleagues in the Soviet Union. All were party members - they had to be in order to use their skills. We also had them as guests at our home in the United States, knowing that one of them was KGB, bailing to guess which one it was.

My point is that many in professional and administrative fields were required to join the party. I don’t know how much this was true in Iraq, but I would be surprised if it wasn’t very similar, because it is a long proven control technique for totalitarians.

Also, of course, such an organization attracts thugs and murderers and opportunists.
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[Update 1: I see Bill Quick and others are thinking similar thoughts, and especially here for Arnaud de Borchgrave’s excellent and shocking article on the subject]

[Update 2 (4/11/2004 – I have added portions de Borchgrave’s article, with emphasis added, to the end of this article.]

With Ted Kennedy’s shameful statement that Iraq will be Bush’s Vietnam (which, of course means our Vietnam), and the violence unleashed by both the Baathists and Iran’s proxy, Sadr, the door to the Tet Syndrome has been opened. The Tet Syndrome resulted in tremendous damage to U.S. Foreign policy, turning a winning situation in Vietnam into the United States’ most ignominious and long term damaging loss in history.

Here are the signs of the Tet Syndrome:

• Statements by pundits that we are losing the war in Iraq.
• A strong focus on American casualties by the mainstream press.
• Adjectives in the news like “failed,” “unexpected,” “foolish”.
• Mentions of Iraq in headlines and text, and by the president’s political opposition.
• Specials and editorials with titles like “Iraq - Can We Ever Win?” or “Iraq, Bush’s Vietnam?”
• Calls to find an “honorable way out” from Democrats.
• A focus on civilian casualties after the battle is over.

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Ali, of Iraq the Model, has a nice discussion of the necessity for the war against Iraq. He also provides eyewitness testimony on some missiles which were removed just before Clinton’s 1998 attacks.!

Iraq the Model is always worth reading.