Question!

I posted a comment on another BLOG and received an email from "Pat" with a question. I have no knowledge of Pat except that I accepted his question as a honest one. I thought I would publish my reply on this BLOG. I did clean up the last paragraph a bit from my reply email. Thanks Pat for the interest.

Hi, I read your comments about iraq and Rumsfield etc (msn iraq blg website)How would you suggest they deal with the counter insurgency war? What would they do differently than they are doing now? The only thing I'm sure of is we can't pull out now. I really feel we should double the number of troops and hit it hard. Pat, CA

Hi Pat, I am certainly not saying pull out of Iraq or Afghanistan but I feel we are fighting the war (insurgencies) in both countries incorrectly. The sad part is since the fall of the Soviet Union, we knew this was coming. Debates, discussions, studies have been going on for years and have been completely ignored. http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/elek.pdfYour comment; “I really feel we should double the number of troops and hit it hard.” is exactly the same thing everyone said at the beginning of the Viet Nam War. We put over half a million troops into that country and lost the war strategically and politically despite winning battle after battle. Take a look at what the British did in Malaya and the Congo. There is a number of techniques; Fourth Generation Warfare, Pseudo Operations, US Marines Small War Manual, etc. http://www.military.com/Opinions/0,,Lind_070705,00.html The point is, we are making the same mistakes as Viet Nam. We do have to fight a war on terrorism but we are confusing terrorism with insurgency. Mr. Lind makes a good point in the following article:http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,101835,00.html
Rumsfeld and his guys do not know what they are doing when it comes to war fighting. They were brought in to reform DOD and it certainly needs reforming. However, the minute the thought of going to war was discussed, “all bets should have been called off” and the reformation ended with Rumsfeld and his lawyers being replaced with people that knew what they were doing.

Outrage!

A couple of articles of interest posted today. The first is on E.D. Hills FOXNews Blog:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200419,00.html E.D Hill talks about the lack of outrage concerning the torture and dead of Army Pfc. Thomas Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca. The other article can also be found on the FOXNews site titled “Two California National Guard Troops Killed by Iraqi Patrol Partners”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200413,00.html. This article, at least in my opinion, demonstrates some of the difficulties of a counter insurgency war.

Now my main question is how in the “blue ball blazes” did these two elite Airborne soldiers get captured (and a third soldier killed at the same time) without a pile of terrorist bodies to show for the effort. I have to wonder if the Haditha investigation put the generals into the decision making mode where they changed the rules of engagement or combat procedures exposing these soldiers to capture and death. Based on the early news reports, a reaction force was nearby and was on the scene in 15 minutes. If we make the assumption that these three troopers were properly armed and trained, they should have been able to hold off seven terrorist for 15 minutes. If you take a look at similar combat situations, both in Iraq (Ramadi) and even Somalia (Blackhawk Down), our combat troops, when fighting out numbered, have left large piles of enemy bodies. What happened here? Now this is the kind of event that requires an investigation. When America’s sons and daughter die in this manner, there should be outrage, and congress should have generals on the carpet asking them what in blue ball blazes happened. Why were these three soldiers unable to protect themselves from capture, torture and death?

We got Zarqawi, Great! Now what??

We got the terrorist Zarqawi, but what does this mean for the war in Iraq? I am afraid to say this, but my personal opinion is that Zarqawi’s death will not significantly impact the Iraq War. We need to remember that Zarqawi is a terrorist and the current war in Iraq is an insurgency. Zarqawi‘s death is a victory for counter terrorism but not for the Iraq counter-insurgency. Zarqawi was a global terrorist using the Iraq war in hopes to both build a secure base and to attack his primary enemy (USA). Now don’t get me wrong, Zarqawi needed to be hunted down, (Personally, I think we should have lopped off Zarqawi’s head and stuck it on a stake on top of the Washington Monument.) but the Iraqi insurgency will go on very nicely without him.

The question then becomes, how did we get the impression that Zarqawi’s death would affect the Iraq War? (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0609/p01s03-woiq.html) One source of this impression is Mr. Rumsfeld and his deputies.

Mr. Rumsfeld has committed DOD to the war on terrorism (not much choice there in light of 9/11), however, he and his team of lawyers have missed the fact that we are involved not only in a global war on terrorism but also a counter-insurgency war in Iraq. The Iraq insurgency has over 130,000 servicemen tied up in Iraq, to say nothing of the 65.6 billion dollar appropriations bill (for both Iraq and Afghanistan) congress just passed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33540-2005Jan24.html
You would think that Rumsfeld and his guys would be able to focus on those kinds of numbers and trying to figure out exactly how we can relieve that kind of pain (eg - shorten the Iraq War). Wrong!

If you take a look at Mr Rumsfeld’s signed, 2006 - Quadrennial Defense Review Report that he delivered recently to Congress and the President, you would become convinced that we are fighting a global war on terrorism but not a war in Iraq. In this 90+ page document, he uses the word counter-insurgency only eight times. There are no sections or paragraphs dedicated to the counter-insurgency. He quotes Zarqawi three times in the first third of the document in discussing the war on terrorism. The document seems to assume or imply that if we defeat terrorism, we win in Iraq. Wrong!

Sunni Arabs dominated by Ba’athist and Former Regime Loyalists (FRL) comprise the core of the Iraqi insurgency. Tribal networks are central to the insurgency because they supply the manpower and the unrest for the Iraq insurgency (http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fellows/baram20030708.htm). Saddam controled the country by providing not only a considerable amount of autonomy but also privileges (money, weapons, permission for illegal activities, etc.) to the Sunni tribal chiefs. Taking away their sugar daddy has not pleased these guys in the least. Zarqawi was not the center of gravity for the Iraqi insurgency. The Sunni tribal network is and should be the Iraqi War’s political focus of effort. Rumsfeld and his deputies should be writing papers on how DOD can aid this effort instead of telling us how they are reforming DOD.

Haditha Allegations Recall Abu Ghraib Punishments

Just saw this article with the above title released by the AP today, Jun 7, 2006: http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,198500,00.html

I read two articles a couple days ago concerning the Haditha incident; the first is on Clark Stooksbury’s BLOG titled “Buddies”. http://clarkstooksbury.blogspot.com/ A good article and I especially like the following quote: “The idea that in a couple of years the young men who actually pulled the trigger may be sitting on death row or serving a life in prison, while the architects of this war collect 100 grand at a time on the lecture circuit makes me sick”.
The second article is also published by the Associated Press titled “Marine Captain: I'm a 'Political Casualty' of Haditha Killings Probe”. Capt. James Kimber was the Company Commander of Kilo 3-1 and the accused squad is part of its organization. The Captain was relieved along with the battalion commander and another officer for “lack of confidence in their leadership abilities” (we need to talk about that one later). The news reports are not clear who the third officer is except that it is another company commander which does not make sense to me. I am guessing that the third officer was the squad’s platoon leader, usually a 2nd Lt. The Captain feels like a political casualty and he probably is, unfortunately, the Captain is now caught up in the standard political Marine Corps “search for the guilty; punishment of the innocent” phase of this embarrassment. Now that the news is hammering away at this, there is no going back nor is there forgiveness for the innocent within the Marine Corps. I can’t help but feel sorry for the Captain because he has been set on a course that makes no difference weather he is blameless or not. Generals normally react to any kind of political pressure, especially when they feel embarrassed, by relieving the chain of command from the battalion commander down despite incomplete investigations or possible innocent officers. Scapegoat relief’s provide the political elusion of control and action on the general’s part and also covers their “you-know-what”. It is interesting as a side note, that in these situations where they hold the “chain of command” responsible, very seldom do they go above the battalion commander(LtCol), because then it starts to get dangerously close to themselves, the generals. You would think that the generals would be spending more time explaining to the public the challenges of a counter insurgency and to small unit leaders. You would think that the generals would be talking to Mr. Rumsfeld and his Neo-con architects trying to figure out a short cut for ending this war. You would also think that instead of assuming the worse about their chain of command, they would be doing their best to standup for these officers. Of course, we also know that the only Marine generals that are willing to standup to Mr. Rumsfeld and his war architects are retired.

Haditha

Folks, we should not be surprised by this incident. We are involved in a war and specifically, a counterinsurgency war that, by its nature, is fought in and among the civilian population. Counter-insurgency battles tend to be decentralized with small units operating on their own, fighting against an enemy that seeks concealment within the population. The stress and challenges for small unit leaders is enormous. Squad leaders are called upon to make decisions that most Americans, comfortable on their TV couch or peering into internet computer screens, sipping lattes, can not comprehend and should not judge without all the facts. In combat, small unit leaders must make frequent risk filled; split second; friend or foe decisions. I am betting that the intent of the Marines involved in the Haditha incident was not to murder but to destroy a perceived foe. Mistakes in combat happen and bad mistakes are punished. Historically, counter-insurgencies last from ten to twelve years. Folks, we are three years into that process and over the next seven to nine years, this is going to happen again. As citizens of a country that has sent service men to fight this war, let us not make the same mistake as the Viet Nam War, where we used service men and women; our own sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and neighbors as political sacrificial pawns to gain momentum for an antiwar movement.