Iraq: What Is Wrong?
Like I have a clue (hence the title of this weblog - which really should be a disclaimer for 99% of all weblogs). But, since everyone is talking about Iraq and what is to be done, I figured I'd give it a shot as well.
I am going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say that things in Iraq don't seem to be going so well for us or the new Iraqi government. Dick Cheney says that the insurgency is in its last throes, but the number of attacks has been going up. But I doubt that matters - I have a feeling that there is no metric at all that wouldn't be spun by Cheney so as to indicate that we were winning. Attacks going down? We're winning! Attacks going up? We're winning!
Anyway. I think the key problem here is this: Brookings estimates that the strength of the insurgency nationwide has remained somewhat constant over the ten months or so at somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 fighters. The number of foreign fighters is estimated to be about 1,000 - about 5 or 6 percent of the total strength of the insurgency.
In case you're wondering about the source of these numbers, Brookings lists such America-haters as Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency; General John Abizaid; General Richard Myers; and John McLaughlin, Deputy Director of the CIA.
Brookings also reports that, according General George Casey, "15,000 militants were killed or captured between January 2004 and January 2005", with another few thousand captured or killed since then.
That's a lot of people - about 18,000. Yet, during that same time, from January 2004 to the present, the insurgency is estimated to have grown from between 3,000 and 5,000 people to somewhere around 20,000, and the estimate has hovered around that number for almost a year.
In other words, despite having killed or captured thousands and thousands of insurgents, the insurgency has grown in strength, and continues to make up its losses - and only a handful of these replacements are foreign fighters.
In other, other words: despite the fact that Cheney claims that the insurgency is in its last throes, something like 30,000 or more Iraqis have joined the insurgency in the last ten-or-so months.
Why, despite the fact that the insurgency continues to use torture, assassinations, and suicide bombings, do Iraqis continue to join it?
There is the obvious: a lot of Iraqis are unhappy with the direction in which Iraq is headed:
It doesn't really matter if the Sunnis think things are worse because they have lost status and power since the fall of Saddam, or if things really are worse - because they feel they'll have no say in a country dominated by Shi'ites, or because the government of al-Jaafari is singling them out for random arrests, or because Sunnis have also found themselves the victims of the insurgency and Shi'ite militias, or because things like electricity production have gone down since the fall of Saddam, what with the general lack of security and the looting and random killing and what not. No, it doesn't really matter if the Sunnis have grievances we'd consider legitimate or not. What matters is that they perceive that things are worse, that the present course will only lead to worse things, and that the source of the problem is the new Iraqi government and the Americans who protect it.
But I have a feeling that a lot of it has to do with this Knight Ridder piece from September of last year (via the Dread Cole):
Certainly, some Iraqis appear not only to be pissed, but feel justified in joining the insurgency. Well, about 3,000 a month do.
No matter how many times we point out that Americans are fighting against the suicide bombers who murder children, it doesn't really matter - many Iraqis blame American troops for suicide attacks, not because they really believe that Americans caused the attacks, but because they feel that Americans are responsible for the lack of security in the first place. Check it out: Iraqis blame Americans.
So we have created a situation, by only sending enough troops to overthrow Saddam but not secure the country, which allowed the insurgency to flourish, Iraqis blame us for not securing the country. So we fight the insurgency - and in the process do more harm to the Iraqis than the insurgency. So Iraqis get pissed off even more. In other words, our continued presence appears to be generating the ill-will that feeds the insurgency.
A lot of the people we're fighting are pretty nasty - I'm thinking of Zarqawi and his al Qaeda friends - and want to establish a Salafi theocracy. Others are former Baathists who want to re-establish a Baathist dictatorship. But not everyone joining up can be al Qaeda or a Baathist - there are only so many of those. No, we're facing the same sort of thing we did in Vietnam: we're turning a war against a nasty political cadre into a general, patriotic, nationalist conflict. Most of the Vietnamese weren't communists, but they still fought for the communists - because they perceived the Americans as foreign invaders. Similarly, Stalin was able to rally the Russian people to the Great Patriotic War, despite the fact that most Russians (and other subject peoples) really didn't like the Soviets. Every day that we're there, we're probably alienating more and more people.
Do I recommend withdrawal? No. Lord, no. I think that if we simply announced a withdrawal, the country would go to hell - you know, a deeper layer of hell or something. I think that the Iraqi armed forces are weak enough right now that they would be unable to fight the insurgency - or the civil war that would probably follow a US withdrawal prior to the writing of a constitution. And then we'd have problems that would make pre-September 11 Afghanistan look like Switzerland. Oil, sectarian violence, involvement by Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia, a trained cadre of terrorists with no one to fight...
Withdrawal is not an option we should be considering. At least, not immediately. See my next post for more on this.
I am going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say that things in Iraq don't seem to be going so well for us or the new Iraqi government. Dick Cheney says that the insurgency is in its last throes, but the number of attacks has been going up. But I doubt that matters - I have a feeling that there is no metric at all that wouldn't be spun by Cheney so as to indicate that we were winning. Attacks going down? We're winning! Attacks going up? We're winning!
Anyway. I think the key problem here is this: Brookings estimates that the strength of the insurgency nationwide has remained somewhat constant over the ten months or so at somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 fighters. The number of foreign fighters is estimated to be about 1,000 - about 5 or 6 percent of the total strength of the insurgency.
In case you're wondering about the source of these numbers, Brookings lists such America-haters as Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency; General John Abizaid; General Richard Myers; and John McLaughlin, Deputy Director of the CIA.
Brookings also reports that, according General George Casey, "15,000 militants were killed or captured between January 2004 and January 2005", with another few thousand captured or killed since then.
That's a lot of people - about 18,000. Yet, during that same time, from January 2004 to the present, the insurgency is estimated to have grown from between 3,000 and 5,000 people to somewhere around 20,000, and the estimate has hovered around that number for almost a year.
In other words, despite having killed or captured thousands and thousands of insurgents, the insurgency has grown in strength, and continues to make up its losses - and only a handful of these replacements are foreign fighters.
In other, other words: despite the fact that Cheney claims that the insurgency is in its last throes, something like 30,000 or more Iraqis have joined the insurgency in the last ten-or-so months.
Why, despite the fact that the insurgency continues to use torture, assassinations, and suicide bombings, do Iraqis continue to join it?
There is the obvious: a lot of Iraqis are unhappy with the direction in which Iraq is headed:
As bad as conditions became after Saddam fell from power and the Americans were running things, many Sunni Arab leaders claim conditions have only become worse under the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.The headline: "Iraq's Sunnis say things never worse".
It doesn't really matter if the Sunnis think things are worse because they have lost status and power since the fall of Saddam, or if things really are worse - because they feel they'll have no say in a country dominated by Shi'ites, or because the government of al-Jaafari is singling them out for random arrests, or because Sunnis have also found themselves the victims of the insurgency and Shi'ite militias, or because things like electricity production have gone down since the fall of Saddam, what with the general lack of security and the looting and random killing and what not. No, it doesn't really matter if the Sunnis have grievances we'd consider legitimate or not. What matters is that they perceive that things are worse, that the present course will only lead to worse things, and that the source of the problem is the new Iraqi government and the Americans who protect it.
But I have a feeling that a lot of it has to do with this Knight Ridder piece from September of last year (via the Dread Cole):
Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder.Emphasis mine. If the police in your city were trying to catch a serial killer who had murdered fifty people, and in the process, killed a hundred of your friends, family, and neighbors, wouldn't you be a little pissed at the police? We should not be surprised when these people get angry at us for doing them more harm than the insurgency from which we claim to be protecting them.
According to the ministry, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 - when the ministry began compiling the data - until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,726 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.
While most of the dead are believed to be civilians, the data include an unknown number of police and Iraqi national guardsmen. Many Iraqi deaths, especially of insurgents, are never reported, so the actual number of Iraqis killed in fighting could be significantly higher.
...Iraqi officials said the statistics proved that U.S. airstrikes intended for insurgents also were killing large numbers of innocent civilians. Some say these casualties are undermining popular acceptance of the American-backed interim government.
Certainly, some Iraqis appear not only to be pissed, but feel justified in joining the insurgency. Well, about 3,000 a month do.
No matter how many times we point out that Americans are fighting against the suicide bombers who murder children, it doesn't really matter - many Iraqis blame American troops for suicide attacks, not because they really believe that Americans caused the attacks, but because they feel that Americans are responsible for the lack of security in the first place. Check it out: Iraqis blame Americans.
So we have created a situation, by only sending enough troops to overthrow Saddam but not secure the country, which allowed the insurgency to flourish, Iraqis blame us for not securing the country. So we fight the insurgency - and in the process do more harm to the Iraqis than the insurgency. So Iraqis get pissed off even more. In other words, our continued presence appears to be generating the ill-will that feeds the insurgency.
A lot of the people we're fighting are pretty nasty - I'm thinking of Zarqawi and his al Qaeda friends - and want to establish a Salafi theocracy. Others are former Baathists who want to re-establish a Baathist dictatorship. But not everyone joining up can be al Qaeda or a Baathist - there are only so many of those. No, we're facing the same sort of thing we did in Vietnam: we're turning a war against a nasty political cadre into a general, patriotic, nationalist conflict. Most of the Vietnamese weren't communists, but they still fought for the communists - because they perceived the Americans as foreign invaders. Similarly, Stalin was able to rally the Russian people to the Great Patriotic War, despite the fact that most Russians (and other subject peoples) really didn't like the Soviets. Every day that we're there, we're probably alienating more and more people.
Do I recommend withdrawal? No. Lord, no. I think that if we simply announced a withdrawal, the country would go to hell - you know, a deeper layer of hell or something. I think that the Iraqi armed forces are weak enough right now that they would be unable to fight the insurgency - or the civil war that would probably follow a US withdrawal prior to the writing of a constitution. And then we'd have problems that would make pre-September 11 Afghanistan look like Switzerland. Oil, sectarian violence, involvement by Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia, a trained cadre of terrorists with no one to fight...
Withdrawal is not an option we should be considering. At least, not immediately. See my next post for more on this.
posted by The Commentariart at 8:48 AM
56 Comments:
'Tis a bleak picture you paint, my friend. Yet, it does seem rational. The fight in any invasion, is the fight for the loyalty of the natives.
The American Revolution seems a good example of this. The colonies appear to have lost pretty much every battle in the south, yet won the war handily due to support from the locals (and the lack of local support for the Brits).
What can we do now? I have no idea, we may have screwed the pooch. For the sake of the Iraqis, I hope not.
Good point - it doesn't matter why the Sunni's are upset, or who is to blame. The US needs to figure out how to make the Sunni's happier and more supportive of the new Iraqi government so that they don't want to blow people up anymore.
The US military is improving tactics to deal with the insurgents/terrorists, unfortunately the insurgents/terrorists are improving their tactics as well. As you imply, it is becoming a stalemate which will result in a loss for the US. Strategies need to be changed. Maybe new leadership is necessary to try something different. Logistically and resource-wise, more troops isn't really an option.
Another issue is the costs involved. US soldiers are being used up in this war in Iraq. Huge amounts of military equipment are being used up for this war. There is no turning back. Reconstruction is expensive. At the end of this war my guess is that the total cost to the US will be over one trillion dollars. I think that this will provide a major deterrent to the US for military action in any other country for a long, long time and may swing the pendulum back toward a pacifist foreign policy.
One of the things not talked about much is that the insurgents are primarily Sunni while the Iraqi security forces are primarily Shia and Kurds. The rising number of Iraqi casualties reflect a defacto civil war in a nascent stage.
How to fix things? IMO, it's unfixable. As Gwynne Dyer says in this recent article, "This is going to be a long war." Perhaps your upcoming post will offer some hope.
d-p-u,
I have to agree, Iraq appears to meet mosbunall of the criteria for Civil War.
If Civil War errupts, I'm at a loss as to how the US could possibly extract itself or maintain any facade of victory or even success.
It seems to me that the point of this post is that the insurgency comprises a sizable number of Iraqis. I won't argue with your numbers, but I will approach them from another angle.
Iraq's population is about 25 million. Sunnis make up 20 percent of them, therfore there are 5 million Sunnis. Taking 50,000 as the number of Iraqi insurgents (higher than your own numbers), only 1 percent of Sunnis are insurgents. Of the entire Iraqi population, the Iraqi insurgents are only 2 tenths of a percent.
Make of these figures what you will.
G,
I never said that the insurgency was massive, only that it is causing us a lot of problems that we can't fix, and that our current efforts at fighting it are most likely very counteractive.
Of the entire Iraqi population, the Iraqi insurgents are only 2 tenths of a percent.
By my calculations, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nicols constituted 0.0000007% of the US population.
To look at it another way, if 0.2% of the US population were actively fighting the government and terrorizing the population with guns and explosives, would that be cause for alarm? Keeping in mind that that would be almost 600,000 insurgents.
Hi, I just found your weblog via Michael J. Totten.
The impression I get from reading Iraqi weblogs is that opinion in Iraq is just as divided as it is here in the US. Sure some Iraqis think things are worse and blame Americans but just as many (or more) are hopeful for the future.
I'm not saying that you're wrong. Things certainly are a mess and with different leadership the war might have been managed much better but the situation is not as hopeless as the mainstream media are trying to lead us to believe.
I wonder if Sunni leader have the power to end the insurgency.
I suspect they do, but choose not to.
I'm guessing that the only possible ways to end this war are either to partition Iraq or to defeat the Sunnis.
G, very good point.
Joshua Scholar
How to fix things? IMO, it's unfixable. As Gwynne Dyer says in this recent article, "This is going to be a long war." Perhaps your upcoming post will offer some hope
Gwynne Dyer – now there’s an unbiased source. About as unbiased as John Pilger or Noam Chomsky.
According to Gwynne Dyer, neocons are objectively pro-al Qaeda.
According to Gwynne Dyer, al Qaeda would do "Whatever it Takes to Assure Bush is Re-elected"
He also made this helpful suggestion:
"Certainly another attack on the scale of 9-11 would risk producing that result, even if al-Qaida had the resources for it. But a simple truck bomb in some U.S. city center a few months before the election, killing just a couple of dozen Americans, could drive voters back into Bush's arms and turn a tight election around. Al-Qaida is clever enough for that."
Al Qaida wasn't clever enough for that, which must have severely disappointed Dyer.
Al Qaida wasn't clever enough for that, which must have severely disappointed Dyer.
Why would that disappoint Dyer?
you've quoted Dyer a few times before, you seem to have studied his work, and his biases, more than I have. Why do you ask a question that you can better answer yourself?
Why do you ask a question that you can better answer yourself?
Obviously because I didn't make the false assertion that he would be disappointed by no massive terrorist attack on the US.
I remember Dyer's wonderful series on the history of war, and I remember his articles calling for intervention in Yugoslavia (and blaming the Serbs).
I'm a bit disappointed about his take on the war on terror, but not all that surprised.
I think those who focus on European history instead of getting to know the middle east as it is today will get everything wrong. The mindset of Muslims is so medieval that attempting to analyze them as if they were our mirror image is just wrong... Beyond that it sounds like Gyne is promulgating the fallacy that you can't win a war by doing what the enemy wants. The enemy (especially a religious fanatic) may not be sane enough have goals that do him any good.
What the enemy wants is irrelevant, what matters is the outcome.
So we have created a situation, by only sending enough troops to overthrow Saddam but not secure the country
[emphasis mine]
A question: To 'secure the country' would, I guess, have required some fairly brutal & continuous activity early on. We would have steamrolled Fallujah [using indiscriminate bombing if needed], swept through the Sunni Triangle guns a-blazin', severely restricted travel between provinces, placed troops at every single streetcorner patting down everybody & locking up the suspicious.
Would you have supported that or called for greater freedoms allowed for the Iraqis?
Other than that, consider that the problem may take care of itself. The surface you are seeing - Sunnis complaining, foreign fighters replacing the fallen - may represent a deeper dischord.
I think those who focus on European history instead of getting to know the middle east as it is today will get everything wrong.
Dyer was associate fellow in Middle East studies at Oxford University from 1973-75. I think his focus has been on the political tensions in the region at least since I saw him walking in the middle of that live anti-tank minefield in Lebanon in his series "War".
dpu - I think his focus has been on the political tensions in the region at least since I saw him walking in the middle of that live anti-tank minefield in Lebanon in his series "War".
A faux hero, like Joe Wilson or Oxford poet Tom Paulin.
Do you agree with Dyer’s idea that neo-cons are objectively pro-al Qaeda?
Should we do what Dyer says and give chimpanzees and great apes human rights? Should al Qaeda have listened to Dyer’s advice and should they have "clever"ly slaughtered innocent Americans in a major urban area (like NY or DC?)
I think he’s a lunatic, but I haven’t researched the man’s work in detail, as you have.
A minor point: The headline you quoted "Iraq's Sunnis say things never worse" is a 'duh' headline. Of course things are worse for Sunnis. They were Saddam's favored people who were essentially part of his extended family in many ways. Their sugar daddy isn't there to provide what they were accustomed to. I'd be pissed too. And I agree they need to be dealt with in a manner that will bring them onboard.
I came across this article which has quite a bit of reasonable thought behind it. I don't have a link so I have to paste it.
Inside the Navy
GENERAL: ‘WAR ON TERROR’ IS ‘INACCURATE’ LABEL FOR WAR ON INSURGENCY
_______________________________________________
Date: June 20, 2005
NEWPORT, RI -- The Bush administration’s term “global war on terrorism” is an “inaccurate”
label for what is truly a war against an insurgency, according to the three-star general in charge of
Marine Corps forces in the Pacific region.
Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson said winning the “profoundly complex human conflict” depends not on
killing and capturing enemies but on winning the hearts and minds of people around the world,
particularly by improving the lives of the destitute and the poor living in troubled parts of the globe.
He spoke June 15 at the Naval War College’s Current Strategy Forum.
The United States and its allies are fighting a networked, global insurgency led by extremist
Muslims, he said. The insurgent leaders do not speak for all of Islam, but they threaten to hijack the
religion for their own purposes, he said. The United States needs to be on the side of moderate
Islam and avoid being set up as an enemy of Islam, he said.
“This war has a popular label and a political label, but it’s not accurate,” said Gregson. “Terrorism
is a means of power projection, it’s a weapon, it’s a tool of war. Think of it as our enemy’s stealth
bomber. This is no more a war on terrorism than World War II was a war on submarines. It’s not
just semantics . . . Words have meaning. And these words our leading us down to the wrong
concept.”
Gregson added, “What we’re fighting is an insurgency defined as a popular movement that seeks to
change the status quo through violence, subversion, propaganda, terrorism or other military action.
But it’s different from other national insurgencies that we’ve known in the past. This one is
networked thanks to the wonders of technology. It’s primarily ideologically driven, fundamentalist
and extremist.”
A new class of regional and global actors have linked these movements in a global network of
ideology, financiers, document forgers, transportation experts and propagandists, he said. This
includes al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah and other affiliated theater movements, he said.
“It’s a collection or a confederation of movements empowered by regional and global
fundamentalist extremist insurgents,” Gregson said. “You can borrow an old phrase and say they
think globally and act locally.”
Winning the war will require more than just victory on the battlefield, he said.
“The center of gravity, the decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not
directly involved but whose support, willing or coerced, is necessary to insurgent operations around
the world,” he said. “Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and killing people.”
After 1973, the U.S. military quickly dropped the study of insurgency and turned back to so-called
“real war,” he said, but now officials need to study this form of warfare, “not as it once was, but as
it is now.”
Following Gregson’s initial remarks, a member of the audience noted in the Middle East the term
“war on terrorism” gets morphed into “war against Islam,” and suggested the term “war on
insurgency” should be used instead.
“I would certainly concur,” Gregson replied. “The global networked enemy that we’re fighting is
doing, very, very, very well in the information ops area and portraying our actions as anti-Islamic,
anti-Islam, anti-Muslim. And we have to find some way to counter that.” U.S. Central Command
has recently started “engaging very heavily with Al Jazeera with interviews and speakers and low
and behold Al Jazeera’s coverage has considerably changed,” he added. “We need to do more of
that.”
In answering the question Gregson said, “The main thrust of my remarks was that we know we’re
stuck with the name, it’s going to be the global war on terrorism. . . . But even though we’ve got
that name out there, we’ve got to at least in the security community and then further on through the
greater world . . . explain what we’re about here and get it into something that is properly
categorized and puts us on the side of the angels in various areas.”
Reaching out to populations in need before they become insurgents is very important, he argued.
“We don’t have enough ammunition to kill all the terrorists that the enemy can run at us,” Gregson
said. “We have to start working on the population from which the terrorist foot soldiers are
recruited.”
Repeated studies show there is a consistent pattern behind the molding of suicidal terrorists, he
said. Enemy recruiters use psychological conditioning, he said, targeting the second or third son
who has no chance of inheriting the family fortune. A bomber recruit is typically broke, unsuccessful
with the opposite sex, unemployed and living in abject poverty and misery in a place where political
authorities are not properly caring for the community, Gregson said.
“Other people move in there,” he said. “For a price they provide the schooling. They provide what
is taught. They provide jobs. They provide a sense of community and they condition the youngsters
that it’s better to die as a martyr then to live without hope. He starts going to all five [prayer]
services starting at [4 a.m.]. Especially the morning service, that’s where he runs into the recruiters
who convince him that if he dies fighting the infidels his name will live forever and his family will be
well taken care of. And it in fact happens.”
There are more Sunni Muslims in South and Southeast Asia then there are in the rest of the world
combined, Gregson said. Islam, especially in Southeast Asia, is still generally moderate, he said.
“We have a chance to start winning this war here and walk it back into the Middle East, but we
can’t just continue to admire the problem,” Gregson said. “We have to start doing something and
we have to start walking the propaganda back in the other direction and get ourselves on the right
side of this issue.”
Providing doctors, engineers, dentists, veterinarians and other aid to enhance the lives of people
living in very troubled parts of the world is “often far more important than projecting some type of
force,” Gregson said.
Michael Vlahos of Johns Hopkins University, who spoke at the same conference a day earlier, also
criticized the notion of a war on terrorism.
“The problem with fuzzy and ultimately self-serving rubrics that we come up with is we go blind into
something and I think we’ve ended up playing into the narrative of the enemy,” Vlahos said.
“What we’re doing is saying we’re fighting a war on terrorism but quietly everyone says to
themselves we’re fighting Islamofascism, which essentially to Muslims means we’re fighting them, all
of them,” Vlahos said. “That’s what they believe. All Muslims believe we’re out to deconstruct the
Muslim world. All of them believe that at this point. That’s how good a job we’ve done in letting
them know what our strategy is.”
This plays into the hands of apocalyptic fighters like al Qaeda and other groups, he said.
“They come from an apocalyptic tradition and rather then finding a way to just deal with them,
we’re also in a sense now the enemies of a far more reasonable and historically grounded Muslim
tradition of resistance which I call civil militia,” Vlahos said. “So we’ve found ourselves fighting all
sorts of people recently in Iraq, you know, who aren’t part of that.”
If the United States can support revolution in the Muslim world “that is rooted in this civil militia
paradigm of resistance and overthrow of tyranny we’ll be fine,” he said. “But we can’t figure out
how to do that. We don’t even recognize that these two traditions exist.” By conflating most
Muslims with this apocalyptic strain, which is an outsider tradition, very much at the margins of the
Muslim world, the United States has helped fulfill the narrative of people who otherwise never had
a chance in history of aspiring to leadership, Vlahos said.
While Vice President Dick Cheney recently told CNN that the insurgency in Iraq is in the “last
throes,” Vlahos painted a much darker picture.
“We don’t know the difference between power on the one hand and authority and legitimacy on the
other,” Vlahos said. “Authority always trumps power. It’s a strange thing to see in history, but it’s
true. And we have to understand that if we lose authority, that’s as bad as losing thousands of
men.”
Vlahos continued, “We’re in the process now of having an erosion of authority which I think is
much more significant in many ways than actual military performance. And our approach is so
fixated on material instrumentality as the basis for power, not understanding that power itself is
subordinate to authority. And as a result I think we miss much of what’s going on.”
Vlahos also criticized the way U.S. officials characterize enemy fighters. “Look at this term of
irregular warfare,” he said. “All the ways we define the way the enemy fights . . . it’s always a ‘not’
word. It’s irregular, it’s asymmetrical, it’s unconventional -- like they’re not doing it right!” The
conference attendees, many of whom were active or retired military members or students at the
college, filled the auditorium with laughter, signaling they understood the point.
“We’re the ones who are clinging to a war that nobody wants to fight anymore,” Vlahos said in a
reference to traditional warfighting methods.
Sammy, that's an interesting article.
Sammy thanks for that article. It was indded very insightful.
In future, rather than pasting the entire article int the comments, just paste the link. Maybe also post a short excerpt as a come-on.
But it was well worth reading.
Mary: Do you agree with Dyer’s idea that neo-cons are objectively pro-al Qaeda?
That's not what Dyer said. He said that they were objective allies, which means quite something else in the context of his article.
That's not what Dyer said. He said that they were objective allies, which means quite something else in the context of his article
We could waste bits and pixels debating what Dyer’s true intent is, but what’s the point?
Dyer believes that al Qaeda and the Bush administration are morally equivalent, objective allies. He believes that a terrorist attack in a major American city would be "clever." These positions, at least in America, are considered to be extreme.
Why do you, as a moderate, consistently and favorably quote and link to this extremist? I’m sure that if I favorably quoted equivalent extremists from the Right, like David Duke or Pat Buchanan, you would wonder why.
Dyer believes that al Qaeda and the Bush administration are morally equivalent, objective allies. He believes that a terrorist attack in a major American city would be "clever." These positions, at least in America, are considered to be extreme.
(a) No he doesn't think they're morally equivalent
(b) The term "clever" does not imply moral agreement.
Really, why do you insist on this bizarre interpretation of his analysis?
And to tell the truth, I'd have thought that you would have a different take on his speculation that al-Qaeda would try to influence the US election with a terrorist attack (which wasn't just his speculation, by the way, others, including some on the pro-war side, speculated the same thing without being condemned as extremists).
His reasoning was that the Bush administration was responding to al-Qaeda in the way that al-Qaeda wanted, so that al-Qaeda probably wanted another four years of a Bush administration. If that were true, then the best way to influence that would be to make a moderate-scale terrorist attack on America.
As that didn't happen, there are at least three possibilites:
(1) Dyer's model of al-Qaeda is in error.
(2) Al-Qaeda actually didn't want Bush to win the presidency, or
(3) Al-Qaeda no longer has the capability to attack the US.
I'd think that you'd be happy with any of those scenarios, and would be promoting at least one of them instead of the somewhat bizzare contention that Dyer is "advising" terrorists.
d-p-u,
4) Al-Queda already realized that Americans would re-elect Mr. Bush and so sat back with smiles on their faces. ;-)
As for why Mary keeps interperting things oddly, well thats what happens when the brain stops assesing each piece of information seperately and begins to try to fit everything into a pre-ordained picture. If something doesn't fit the picture, the brain seems to remodel it until it does fit the picture.
I must say, at the very least, Blogs are great places to examine the human mind and psyche. ;-)
dpu - Are you trying to convince us that someone who prattles about human rights for apes is playing with a full deck? Good luck.
Back to the useless argument:
David Duke echoes Dyer:
Most importantly, this Neocon war has fueled volcanic fires of hatred against America. For every actual terrorist we have killed, a thousand more have been inspired to take their place. Since this insane, unprovoked, lying war, including scenes like the tortures and rapes at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad – millions more Muslims and others around the world have come to hate America and devote themselves to our destruction. Bin Laden has gone from being a marginal character to now being loved by hundreds of millions! Now that’s what I call fighting terrorism!"
Pat Buchanan also echoes Dyer, as does every other standard extremist from the right and the left. All of these extremists share the same mistaken belief that bin Laden & his ilk cared about the outcome of the US elections.
Why should Islamists have cared about the outcome of American elections? Both parties have little interest in fighting terrorism, both follow realpolitik strategies, and both will continue to be allied with Islamist terror-supporting nations. In Cheney’s words, the war in Iraq, based on the Carter doctrine, was fought to protect “America’s friends” from Saddam and the WMD’s he was apparently developing.
America’s current efforts to win Arab hearts and minds (what the Ayatollah Khomeini called the ‘headless chicken strategy) are also based on Carter’s ideals. In some ways, the last election was Carter vs. Carter and the outcome, to the terrorists and their supporters, was irrelevant.
We’re not fighting terror supporting states, we’re allied with them. If elected, the Democrats would have followed the same basic policy.
Motivated by their loathing of America and Bush, Dyer & co. are arguing against a war on terrorism that doesn’t even exist.
In my opinion, their arguments aren’t the problem, their openly expressed hatred of America and Americans is. But at least they’re being honest about their feelings.
dpu - Are you trying to convince us that someone who prattles about human rights for apes is playing with a full deck? Good luck.
I don't know what Dyer's position on animal rights is, nor do I really care, as it isn't pertinent to his analysis on the Mideast. And should I disagree with his position on animal rights, why would that automatically negate his opinion on other things?
rat: If something doesn't fit the picture, the brain seems to remodel it until it does fit the picture.
Heh. I just posted something along those line myself here.
Mary,
You're not using logic, dear.
1. A person may be a complete nutter on animal rights, and still know a thing or two about another subject. Your first paragraph is simply an Argumentum ad hominem. This is a logical fallacy.
2. The truth, veracity or wisdom of what Dyer says cannot be judged based on how many other people do or do not agree with him. This is yet another ad hominem.
Please, please if you're going to argue or debate, at least try to debate the issue and not simply give free reign to your feelings. They seem to be distracting your thought processes.
dpu, tosk -
this is your response to the fact that Dyer (and you, plural) are criticizing a war on terrorism that doesn't exist?
I'm wasting my time and annoying the leftists again. nevermind.
this is your response to the fact that Dyer (and you, plural) are criticizing a war on terrorism that doesn't exist?
No, it was the response to a bunch of ad hominem attacks on the individual instead of his analysis. Throwing around statements like "...their openly expressed hatred of America and Americans.." without backing up the statements tends to lower my inclination to take your argument seriously.
For example, what is your basis for thinking that he's anti-American? Because he's critical of the Bush administrations tactics? Similarily, where does he express admiration or sympathy for al-Qaeda, as you have asserted?
*tries to keep his jaw from hitting the ground*
Mary dearest Mary,
Please, please go learn about logic and debate. You sound like a little child.
I wasn't arguing for or against what any political buffon said. I was pointing out your own logical fallicies. I have no idea why you say no war on 'terrorism' exists (I read your earlier statements and wondered when you were gonna fill in facts as opposed to your own conjecture). This isn't leftism, it's logic. I know that for somebunall on the right, the two seem particularly abhorrent, but don't worry you too can use logic and your brain and not become a leftist.
No matter how many examples there are to the contrary.
Wow, I haven't seen a catfight like this since junior high.
Anyway, girls, you're not getting the power structure here. As the presumed right-wing patriotic Bush supporter, de facto ruler of the universe, I don't have to prove anything. Your job as powerless peons is to convince me, so get to work. Maybe I'll check in later.
Then again, maybe I won't.
I hereby award Mary with the "You're Eris for a Day" button.
Confusion like that is rare.
One important characteristic of a leader, be it a person or a state, is the ability to treat others justly.
The US is certaily not treating Muslim countries justly. Both the Muslims and the rest of the world are quite aware of this.
This Iraq war is considerably lowering the respect and understanding for America's policies worldwide. Even European, western, countries are wondering, 'When will they turn on us?'.
And btw, nobody, nobody at all, buys the lies about WMD's, supposed connections to Al-Quaida or that America really wants to install democracy in Iraq.
The Bush presidency has done the US a great disservice. It stands, in the eyes of the world, for amorality, dishonesty and disrespect of other nations.
Back in the sixties and seventies leftist people in Europe disliked the US for the Vietnam war. Nowadays the US are equally loathed by right, middle and left.
Someone mentioned 'blaming the Serbs'. I think that the Clinton administration in that case did exactly the right thing. The Serbs were blamed because they were the crooks in that conflict.
If you have difficulties understanding why, then just count the numbers of foreign tanks and soldiers present on Serbian soil at the time, and compare them to how many serbian tanks and soldiers were in neighboring countries. Hint: The answer to the first is zero. The answer to the second is 'plenty'. It's that easy.
Now do the same with Iraq and the US.
Iraq, as it seems today, is a prelude to the coming WW3. By controlling Middle East oil and in effect strangleholding China, the US is pushing China to make the same choice imperial Japan was forced to make: Die slowly from lack of oil, or chance it and bite back.
The Japanese, made the only reasonable choice, as will China too. It will bite back and that will be Judgement Day for all of us.
The thin thread that our time's Damocle's sword is hanging from has grown even thinner by foolish and destructive policies of the world's most powerful nation.
What to do?
The american people should realize that *they* are the people. Not George Bush and Paul Wolfowitz. That the people don't have to put up with any shit the administration throws at them.
I can't see why Bill Clinton was about to get court marshalled for a banal blowjob, while GWB gets away with grossly lying to the nation, starting unnecessary wars and destroying America's economy?
What happened between then and now?
America used to be the awe of the world, even it's nominal enemies admired it. Now it's a moral cesspool and even it's nominal friends loathe it.
In my country's constitution the very first paragraph reads "All power comes from the people". Present in paragraphs or not, I believe this to be true for all states.
Have that in mind and do something. Now.
Well, normally the burden of proof is on the claimant, and in the past when I have offered proof that your assertions about someone were in error, you have resorted to the tried-and-true "Well, they claim they aren't pro-terrorist..."
But what the heck, I'm an optimistic guy, so I'll do the googling for you.
-----------------
"...as for telling Americans that they will be safe if only they stop attacking Arab and Muslim countries -- "Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush, or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security" -- it is a cynical lie."
-----------------
"Relatively few Arabs are willing to risk death to overthrow the corrupt, worn-out, sold-out regimes they live under, if what they are going to get instead is rule by a band of violent religious fanatics who will just ruin their lives and their economies in a different way."
-----------------
"All bin Laden can do is go on making his videos and hope that his ideas and his example will take root in many parts of the Muslim world. So far, it isn't working."
-----------------
"Saddam Hussein joined the Arab Socialist Baath (Rebirth) Party as a teenager, and has shared its secular and even anti-religious views all of his life. But last Monday, he wrote this in an appeal to the Iraqis and the broader Arab and Muslim worlds: "The aggression... against the stronghold of faith is an aggression on religion... and on the land of Islam. Jihad is a duty. Whoever dies will be rewarded by heaven...."
Iraq the stronghold of faith? Jihad as a duty? Give us a break. Iraq's Baath Party is modelled on the Eastern European Communist parties of the 1950s (including party militias, torture chambers, and hostility to religion). Saddam's hero is Joseph Stalin, not Osama bin Laden. But just as Stalin enlisted the Russian Orthodox Church in his struggle against the German invasion in 1941, Saddam is willing to ally himself with popularIslamic sentiment in his moment of supreme crisis."
-----------------
-----------------
You may not agree with Dyer's views or analysis, Mary, but misrepresenting him as an extremist or a flake reflects badly on you, not on him. Especially when you just make stuff up about him.
He's a military historian with a life-long interest in the region he's discussing. Then again, Juan Cole is fairly knowledgeable in that field as well, and there's a whole lot of hysterical screeching about him too, largely because his opinion isn't a welcome one to some ears.
Par for the course these days, I suppose. Attack the person when the analysis can't be attacked.
tatters said:
"And btw, nobody, nobody at all, buys the lies about WMD's, supposed connections to Al-Quaida or that America really wants to install democracy in Iraq."
Except those deluded people in the Middle East who want freedom.
Of course they don't count, right tat?
J. S.
Except those deluded people in the Middle East who want freedom.
Of course they don't count, right tat?
J. S.
Which makes it that much more sad and pathetic.
dpu - Really, you didn’t have to respond to my bossy diatribe.
I've often criticized Juan Cole’s support of the apartheid Arabization movement, as many Lebanese and Iraq bloggers have. Does that say more about us than it does about Cole. I hope so.
Before Cole slandered the Iraq the Model bloggers with his claim that they were CIA agents, he was able to "pass" as a reasonable, balanced, informed commenter on Arab/Muslim issues. He was sort of a "stealth" extremist, who managed to pass under everyone’s radar.
Not anymore. Dyer is a reasonable replacement for Cole, and he’ll probably continue to pass, until he, like Cole, says something undeniably stupid. My goal wasn't to change your mind, since you agree with Cole, Dyer and their ilk, but to point out Dyer’s bias so that random readers can decide for themselves.
Tosk - I have no idea why you say no war on 'terrorism' exists
Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Sudan are our allies. What else is there to say?
... but to point out Dyer’s bias so that random readers can decide for themselves.
Everyone has a bias, and their bias is apparant to whoever is reading their material. It shouldn't need pointing out.
Dyer is concerned about democracy in the mideast, and about the failures of the war on terror. He, like Cole, have been saying that it was a flawed strategy for a long time now and that we'd end up FUBAR in Iraq, and sunofagun if they weren't right.
..and I predicted that if we don't destroy all of the fascist/terror orgnanizations in the Middle East before installing our grand Marshall Plan for democracy there, the whole thing will be FUBAR. Does that make me an expert?
..and I predicted that if we don't destroy all of the fascist/terror orgnanizations in the Middle East before installing our grand Marshall Plan for democracy there, the whole thing will be FUBAR.
Heh. No you didn't.
Heh. No you didn't.
April 2, 2004
According to this study, hate crimes and the growth of fascism are caused by a combination of social change and systematic campaigns by political organizations.
The results of these studies are proven every day, in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq.
The Marshall plan was a generous and successful attempt to avert the growth of fascism. But it worked only because it was applied after the relevant political organizations were destroyed beyond all recognition."
Mary, you could have predicted that things would be FUBAR in Iraq if we didn't all wear tinfoil hats and cut down trees with herring, and you could still claim victory on that one.
Some of us were predicting failure long before your Marshall plan stuff because al-Qaeda and Bin Laden simply weren't in Iraq quite a bit before that. Remember? And some of us said that you couldn't install democracy in this way too. I seem to remember guffaws from you on that one.
Where is Osama these days?
Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Sudan are our allies. What else is there to say?
Well, we might say that this indicates that this is a WAR on Some Terrorism (Sort of like the US War on Some Drugs). We might also say that this is a facade of a War on Terrorism, in order to stir up nationalistic fervor and get people to be emotional instead of rational.
A "War on Terrorism" exists... it's actual goals though, don't seem in line with the publicly pronounced ones.
Ratatosk I think you missed my sarcasm.
It's the fact that the "left" is no longer on the side of the oppressed that has me so disgusted.
It's the fact that the "left" is no longer on the side of the oppressed that has me so disgusted.
Yes, we on the left hate the oppressed. There was that option of going in and killing a whole bunch of the oppressed in a war, which was pretty attractive, because we really hate the oppressed. But it looked like an expensive way to do it. We're kicking ourselves now, because it looks like somewhere between 15,000 and 100,000 of the oppressed have been crushed, blown up, or shot in Iraq. (We're not sure of how many exactly, the occupation forces block every attempt to count the dead for some reason). Never mind, 20-20 hindsight and all that.
The left is also more interested in complaining and complaining and complaining about prison abuses and murders by the US military when we should really have been complaining about the poor word choices of those bleeding hearts reporting on the abuses. Idiots that we are. Some of us are so in denial about the oppressed that we give thousands of dollars to the very organizations using those awful word choices.
Then there's the bitching and moaning about how the abandonment by the US of its international leadership is due to cause all kinds of risks of diplomatic destabilization and risk of future wars and unrest that could cause millions of the oppressed to suffer and die. Ah, but that's only a possibility. Why worry about the future risks when there are bombs to drop today and allies to insult and cast aside?
Oh well, we on the left may have to give up our support of the oppressed to those who would happily and smugly wield it as a useful club against their ideological foes. Let's just hope that the support for the oppressed isn't just as happily tossed aside once it becomes a burden, or at least not as useful a tool. Meanwhile, we the left, will lazily sit by our pools sipping drinks and giggling at the plight of the oppressed. As usual.
Now, what are the new champions of the oppressed going to do in, say, the Congo? I hear several million of the oppressed have died there in the last few years.
Mary, you could have predicted that things would be FUBAR in Iraq if we didn't all wear tinfoil hats and cut down trees with herring, and you could still claim victory on that one.
Before the Iraq war I predicted that things would be FUBAR if we didn't eliminate the Saudi Royals and sonofagun if I wasn't right - which makes me about as much of an expert as Juan Cole or Dyer. You listen to them because they're leftists, you're leftists and they say that America is the cause of everyone's problems.
So, other than 100 million dead from Communism, what has the Left ever done to help the oppressed? (Not liberals, the Left).
which makes me about as much of an expert as Juan Cole or Dyer.
Funny, you've never mentioned your degree in Middle East studies that these two fellows have. Maybe they're just boastful.
You listen to them because they're leftists, you're leftists and they say that America is the cause of everyone's problems.
Dyer is not a leftist. He's a conservative. Cole is not a leftist, he is a liberal. Please get your facts straight, Mary.
Also, please find me a single instance where either they or I have said that America is the cause of everyone's problems. Just one. If you can't, then you've imagined it, and are displaying signs of persection syndrome.
Me: ..are displaying signs of persection syndrome.
Well, that's both rude and cheap pop psychology, as well as bad spelling. Apologies.
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