As the enemy’s logic shifts, we are shifting our logic as well
I’ve been reading over the transcript of the speech by President Bush. Things aren’t going so well for my blood pressure.
Part of my problem with the US policy in Iraq, and for that matter, the Global War on Terror, is that I think I get it. I think I actually have a decent understanding of what is going on, of what is involved. When people like President Bush speak or write, I want to go hear what they have to say because I want to either hear affirmation that yes, I really do get it, or to find some evidence of how my views are wrong and in what direction I need to go to rethink my views. To many times, though, I come away convinced that they just don’t get it. And trust me, that’s not a good view to have of the leadership of your country or military.
Bad Words
I think that the root of my angst today is the words he selected, or the words that are selected for him (I really, really want to believe he doesn’t write any of these things). He picks words that have meaning to me.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, a sophisticated and violent insurgency took root.
Insurgency. See, that words means something very specific to me. Granted, it might not mean something specific to a house-husband from Kansas, but it means something specific to me. An insurgency to me an a group or coalition of groups using political and violent means to affect change on a legitimate government.
After Saddam fell, there was no legitimate government. Rebellion might have been a better word. Certainly, pandemonium would have worked better than “insurgency.”
And even now, I have a hard time using the word insurgency with regards to Iraq, because I see that as only one of the two fights going on there. Yes, there is now an insurgency against the government of Iraq. There are people in Iraq using political and violent means to affect change on the legitimate Iraqi government — and yes, that includes Al Qaeda and their friends. And yes, there is also the Al Qaeda / Salafist fight with the US / Crusaders / Westerners, too — which has nothing to do with affecting change on the legitimate government of Iraq.
Bad Logic
Yet the persistent attacks, particularly last February’s bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the Shia Islam’s most holy shrines, eventually resulted in sectarian reprisals.
I also have problems with logic. See, according to this statement above, there’s only been sectarian violence for 20 months. It infers that reprisals started just 20 months ago.
Now, there is the distinct possibility that my memory is already starting to fail me — I am getting old. However, I seem to recall hearing about bodies being dumped around Baghdad ever since, well, every since US forces arrived there. Whether it was blood feuds being settled in a lawless time, or personal scores that needed to be settled, I have an impression of their having always been some level of group on group violence in Iraq. I just don’t like bad logic. It’s like the references to “illegal militias” — as if there are legal militias in Iraq.
It’s a lot like this:
Americans have no intention of taking sides in a sectarian struggle or standing in the crossfire between rival factions. Our mission is to help the elected government in Iraq defeat common enemies, to bring peace and stability to Iraq and make our nation more secure.
How can two sentences be any more at odds with each other, yet be spoken in sequence? If “our security at home depends on ensuring that Iraq is an ally in the war on terror and does not become a terrorist haven like Afghanistan under the Taliban,” and if Al Qaeda and the Salafists are one of the “sides” in the sectarian struggle or the insurgency, does domestic peace and stability within Iraq seem pretty important to the US? Wouldn’t that make us take sides in the sectarian strife, at odds with the Al Qaeda and Salafist aligned forces stirring the hornets nest inside Iraq? They would be, after all, a common enemy.
I also have to ask, is Iran a common enemy? If we’re going to need to work with the Iraqi government to fight Al Qaeda and the Salafists in Iraq, wouldn’t we also need to help them fight those groups and militias and organizations sponsored by Iran? Would our common enemy be those that the Iranians arm, finance, and / or train? What if there are groups in Iraq, using political and violence means in an effort to affect change on the legitimate government of Iraq, who are being supported by Iran? Do we need to step in and take sides against them, being as we are committed to defeating “common enemies”?
Things that just sound wrong
I read this, and almost fell out of my chair.
Most recently, we have moved additional coalition and Iraqi forces into Baghdad, so they can help secure the city and reduce sectarian violence.
We moved Iraqi forces into Baghdad. Oh, we did, did we? Does that mean that we were on the bus, headed that way, and stopped to let them on? Because, it sure sounds as if we’re telling them what to do, using them like a tool.
That one little statement, or mis-statement, really begs one giant question: Just what will “win” look like in Iraq?
If Iraq could be ready to take over for American forces in 12 to 18 months (funny that they didn’t say consecutive months), it might be OK to assume that we’re looking at “victory” in 12 to 18 months. (Of course, I could have had that wrong, too — it might have been “could withdraw US forces in 12 to 18 months” meaning it would take 12 to 18 months to get US forces and all of their crap out of Iraq.)
If victory is so close, but the US is still ordering about the Iraqi military units like they’re an armada of sock puppets, what is going to change in the next 12 to 18 months had did not or could not have happened in the last, oh, 3+ years?
“I know the American people understand the stakes in Iraq. They want to win. They will support the war as long as they see a path to victory.” Porch light must be out — that path is hard to see in this speech.
New doctrine
And don’t laugh. I was also hoping that he’d talk about, or at least reference, the new Army and Marine doctrine on conducting counter-insurgency operations. It’s a sleek new doctrine that boils fighting an insurgency down to this:
- identify the issues of the population
- co-opt those issues, make them your own
- find a way to address the issues, in order to diffuse them
- poof — insurgency diffused
Seems pretty simple. New doctrine for the Army and the Marines — the guys on the ground in Iraq, by the way — at a time when the US is re-looking how to win this insurgency so we can all go home to Momma.
We almost got a reference to it with this: “In the end, the Iraqi people and their government will have to make the difficult decisions necessary to solve these problems” which reminds me of Elaine and her “I met this lawyer, we went to dinner, I had the lobster bisque, yadda-yadda-yadda, I never heard from him again.”
Ask the anarchist
Instead, what we got was this:
Yesterday, our ambassador to Iraq, Zal Khalilzad, laid out a three-step approach.
First, we’re working with political and religious leaders across Iraq, urging them to take steps to restrain their followers and stop sectarian violence.
Second, we’re helping Iraqi leaders to complete work on a national compact to resolve the most difficult issues dividing their country. The new Iraqi government has condemned violence from all quarters and agreed to a schedule for resolving issues such as disarming illegal militias and death squads, sharing oil revenues, amending the Iraqi constitution and reforming the de-Baathification process.
Third, we are reaching out to Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, asking them to support the Iraqi government’s efforts to persuade Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms and accept national reconciliation.
Wow. This reminds me of those papers I wrote in college — and there were a lot of them like this — that were two pages of material stretched to five. Or ten. Or worse.
The first and third steps are moot. Throw them away, I say. Achieving either one of those would not bring lasting peace to Iraq, or solve the problems faced by the people or the government.
Now, before you take me to task over step two, let’s ask an anarchist (and feminist, and Jew to less) what she would say about step two.
Emma Goldman was a turn of the century anarchist, back in the day when being an anarchist actually meant something. A fiery orator and a gifted (and prolific) writer, she spent her life opposing oppression. She came of age in a time when the working class was at war with the business class, at a time before the Bolshevik Revolution, at a time when the common workers in America were coming to feel that they had no means of redress with the American government, with regards to the permitted business practices or any other issue for that matter. It was the era of the “bomb throwing anarchist” and of business owners hiring thugs to, literally, shoot and kill striking workers.
In one of her better known essays, she explored the psychology of violence, putting under the microscope those around her who were taking to arms over their beliefs.
“The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic” she said, and “it is among the Anarchists that we must look for the modern martyrs who pay for their faith with their blood, and who welcome death with a smile, because they believe, as truly as Christ did, that their martyrdom will redeem humanity.”
Have you asked yourself what it is that you believe so strongly in that you would give your life to advance?
You should. Because that is the question we should be analyzing with regards to those taking to arms in Iraq. What is it about which they feel so strongly, and about which they feel they have no redress with the Iraqi government, that they are willing to give their life to advance.
I don’t know, but I’m going to go out on a limb here: I’m pretty sure it’s not “disarming illegal militias and death squads, sharing oil revenues, amending the Iraqi constitution and reforming the de-Baathification process.”
“As General Casey reported yesterday in Iraq, the men and women of the armed forces have never lost a battle in over three years in the war.” I think that if we don’t figure out what the Iraqis view as being worth fighting and dying for, winning battles won’t amount to a hill of beans — we’ll win the battles but lose the war.