Iraq surge a failure

[wmenorr67]

Griz the short answer is yes.  Up until the last couple of days the violence has actually been down.  Of course some people decided it was a good idea to bomb the Sammra Mosque again.  And of course we were blamed because we didn't protect it.  But overall the general feel I get from the reports I am privy to that things are started to slowly turn the corner.

[Perd Hapley]

But overall the general feel I get from the reports I am privy to that things are started to slowly turn the corner.

But you don't slowly turn the corner in combat!  You've got to clear the fatal funnel, and secure the area!  Fast, decisive, violent action! 

Oh, wait, was that metaphor?   

[wmenorr67]

Fistful we pie the corner.

[Art Eatman]

From the very recent new articles, the manpower transfer for the surge is only now being completed.  It appears than only one "surge effort" has actually been made, with more to come.

Damfino.  If what I'm reading is correct, it's hard to claim failure before something actually happens...

[griz]

Thanks wmenorr67 for the answer.  It sounds encoraging and I believe everybody would like for that mess to get better.

[Paddy]

The 'surge' is not the solution because it is not a military problem.  It is an intractable socio/religious/economic problem.  There is no opposing 'army'.   The 'enemy' (insurgents, combatants, whatever we call them) are as busy killing each other as they are killing us.  There are an unlimited number of them, coming and going across the border. Do the math, they will never run out of people, as our troops continue to die in onesies, threesies and more.

Nobody has yet described what 'victory' in Iraq should look like.

[Balog]

Nobody has yet described what 'victory' in Iraq should look like.

What's the solution to the insurgency in Iraq? Deal with it the same way that the British dealt with the communist insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s. That took 12 years to quell, but it was crushed.

Wow, for once I totally agree with Mike Irwin!

Ok, so let's get it straight that the very idea of a "War on Terror" is so stupid as to be laughable; or it would be if it didn't involve so many guys dying. It's like declaring war on hatred, or intolerance, or any of that other bullshit feel good hippy crap. People are gonna hate and kill each other for as long as people are alive. But we could win the war in Iraq...... but we aren't gonna.

Look at the history of occupations. Moving in, destroying the existing power base, and then trying to get several warring factions previously only suppressed by violence into a state of happy happy joy joy in a few years is pretty much unprecedented. If we could just be honest enough to say "Ya'll are vital to the welfare of most of the world, ya'll are such colossal *expletive deleted*ck-tards you couldn't govern your way out of a paper bag (because your old tribal customs and attitudes are friggin retarded), so we're gonna make you our colony until we can trust you to not act like petulant children with bombs" then we could win. Not easily, not soon, and not with the puling bitches the "greatest generation's" kids have turned out to be.

[grampster]

Not having any inside knowledge whatsoever regarding Iraq I offer the following observation.  Merely myopinion set in place by reading about and observing the happenings in that precise area for the last 20 or so years and watching the general Mideast mess for maybe 40 some years.

Iraq has been said to have fallen into civil war.  I don't believe that's true because only a portion of Iraq has not been quieted down.  It doesn't meet the definition of insurgency either, in my opinion.  In my view Sunni and Shia are religious factions that are at odds, and have been for hundreds of years.  13 and 14th century tribalism and religious fanatacism hold sway, especially after you throw in Wahabbist Islam.  Saddam kept it in check by being brutal and building a society where a man could not trust his own family.  He was the quintissential tribal overloard.
 
Iranians are taking advantage of the situation by sending in fanatics to stir up the factionalism between Shia and Sunni.  There is also an internal revenge thing going on by both Shia and Sunni.

Meanwhile America is trying to turn Iraq into something it cannot grasp at the grass roots level.  Iraq does have many educated and sophisticated citizens.   There are not enough of them to build a stable government around as the grass roots Iraqi doesn't have a clue, or really care mostly, they are tribal.  They are frightened.  I do admire their bravery, though, to try and live a normal life in the middle of the chaos parts of Baghdad and the Sunni triangle.

I choose to support the decision to unseat Saddam.  Any open minded person who can read and think has only to look back to '91 and after.  Most of the political noise coming from Democrats and the Left is double tongued nonsense.  The all believed Saddam to be a danger to the world and they said so, till their political future shifted and they lost power.  Hypocrites.  They, with their politics, have helped make the place the mess it is by playing politics with war.


That being said, we are in a dammed if we do and dammed if we don't scenario.  The only political victory can be the rise of someone who can control the factionalism and keep the Iranians in check.  There is no one on the horizon.   Militarily, we can win by destroying Iraq and making it an example of our military might.  That would settle Iran and Syria down as they respect force and might , it is their culture.  We have the ability to do that, but not the will.
The third choice is a long and bloody occupation until the Iraqi strongman shows up, or we decide to destroy Iraq.  Either one not likely, soon.

Thus the quandary.  We went in with a noble purpose and we have tried to be noble with rules of engagement that kills our treasure.  I have read much about the culture of the area and it seems to me the only way victory can be had is the most distasteful of scenarios:  Iraq would have to be destroyed and then occupied and rebuilt.  I don't believe we have the stomach for it.

[Perd Hapley]

Ok, so let's get it straight that the very idea of a "War on Terror" is so stupid as to be laughable.

Your hyper-literalism is so stupid as to be laughable.  "War on Terror" is a slogan, a nickname, a short-hand phrase for a diverse and complicated set of policies.  It is not meant to be taken in a concrete sense of dropping bombs on a technique or an emotion.  You and many others need to quit pretending that it is. 

[Art Eatman]

Just because a problem is mis-named does not mean it's not a problem.  "WOT" is a verbal shorthand for a very complex set of problems, as fistful pointed out.

Real-world doings aren't as egregiously simple as seen on TV:  Both in prime-time crapola and the Sunday AM talking heads yawp-babble.

Art

[De Selby]

Militarily, we can win by destroying Iraq and making it an example of our military might.  That would settle Iran and Syria down as they respect force and might , it is their culture.  We have the ability to do that, but not the will.

I would say that we did do just that-destroy Iraq and make it an example of our military might.

Instead of settling Iran and Syria down, it made them more belligerent and has encouraged them to move into a post-destruction Iraq that the United States is incapable of governing.

"Their culture" is not that exotic and they're behaving exactly as you would predict almost any population would behave under the circumstances. 

Every time a new policy is anounced in Iraq, it's always "wait wait wait" for results.  The problem is that by every measure, it gets worse for us at all the turning points.  The appropriate comparison isn't Malaysia and the British (which, btw, is a place where the British are no longer), it's Vietnam.  The Iraqis can absorb unlimited casualties because they have the ideological fuel to keep the recruits coming. 

It's almost sad to see the Generals and Defense officials on the news anymore.  You can see that they realize how lame the claims of "slow progress" or "we're just starting to bite" are even as they speak them.

The entire project is lose-lose at this point.  If Iraq magically stabilizes (no telling how that might happen, and trying to flesh out a realistic scenario makes one realize just how unrealistic the hope is), it will be under a pro-Iranian, likely rabidly anti-American government.

If Iraq does not stabilize, regional warfare that will likely destroy our only "allies" in the Arab states will become a near certainty, and there will continue to be American lives lost. 

There's really just no remotely plausible scenario for an outcome that is good for the United States at this point.  I say get the soldiers home so at least their lives aren't risked any longer in defense of an Iraqi government that includes embassy bombers and Iranian puppets.

[Paddy]

I have read much about the culture of the area and it seems to me the only way victory can be had is the most distasteful of scenarios:  Iraq would have to be destroyed and then occupied and rebuilt.  I don't believe we have the stomach for it.

  Actually, there is another way, and it may be the only way.  The country of 'Iraq' is an artificial construct encompassing at least three different cultures who don't want to live together.  The Sunnis don't want to be governed by the Shia or vice-versa.  And the Kurds don't want to be governed by either one.  Each group needs their own sovereign country along with the right to self-rule.  Iraq needs to be broken up; that is, IMO, the only possible way to pacify it.

[The Rabbi]

I have read much about the culture of the area and it seems to me the only way victory can be had is the most distasteful of scenarios:  Iraq would have to be destroyed and then occupied and rebuilt.  I don't believe we have the stomach for it.

  Actually, there is another way, and it may be the only way.  The country of 'Iraq' is an artificial construct encompassing at least three different cultures who don't want to live together.  The Sunnis don't want to be governed by the Shia or vice-versa.  And the Kurds don't want to be governed by either one.  Each group needs their own sovereign country along with the right to self-rule.  Iraq needs to be broken up; that is, IMO, the only possible way to pacify it.

The "fall back" plan I saw in one book is to let the Kurds declare a Kurdistan.  We are very popular there and in general that part of the country is doing fine.  They will let us set a big base there and we can keep an eye on what happens in the south.
It wouldnt be my first choice and we would catch hell from the Turks but politically it could become the best option we have.

[grampster]

Breaking Iraq up might be a good idea, but has it's own set of problems.  No oil in   Sunnistan.  The oil is in Shiastan and Kurdistan.  Perhaps the answer to that problem is to have a tripartate oil cartel in which all three are vested and each individual citizen gets one share of ownership of all of the oil.  Kurds would also have to be convinced to cease pissing off Turkey.  Shiastan might get annexed by Iran.  There would also be a large population upheaval and displacement.  Sectarian tribalism is not easily displaced.

Regarding shootinstudent's comment that we did destroy Iraq:  Far from it.  Go back and look at pictures of post WWII Germany and Japan.  Those countries were conquered and begged for peace.  War is like revenge.  It is a dish best served cold.  We freed Europe and defeated Japan because we did not concern ourselves with collateral damage.  In Iraq we have rules of engagement in comparison is, well, there is no comparison.

In hindsight, we should have toppled Saddam in '91.  Unfortunately we stuck to the game plan that built the alliance.  It should have been modified when it became obvious that Iraq was ready for defeat  back then. 

I think we better be prepared to wake up some morning soon and find out that we had an airstrike inside Iran to destroy the bases that are training fighters to insert into Iraq.  Israel is NOT going to stand by and let Iran possess nuclear weapons.
On the other hand it might not be a bad idea to pull back and let Iraq collapse just to see what happens.  It might keep Syria and Iran occupied enough that they slow down other mischief.

[De Selby]

In Iraq we have rules of engagement in comparison is, well, there is no comparison.

There most certainly is.  No, we aren't carpet bombing like we did in Germany.  But yes, Iraq is destroyed.

But the destruction of basic infrastructure and death toll are most certainly comparable.  Pound for pound, Iraq has a death toll and an impact on infrastructure that is quite comparable what Germany suffered in world war II.  It's a country of about 30 million that's suffered about 600,000 deaths, 2 million refugees, and whose infrastructure is now almost entirely defunct.

Israel is NOT going to stand by and let Iran possess nuclear weapons.

Not only is it going to, it doesn't really have a choice as long as the United States is aligning itself with Iran on the Iraq problem. 

At this point, things are going so badly in Iraq that a nuke-program-ending strike on Iran becomes more fantasy than reality every day. 

I supported the war back in 2003 and for a good solid year after.  I still think there were good arguments in support of it; the problem is that they turned out to have been based on the wrong calculations.  I have to admit now that it backfired.

[Balog]

Ok, so if the "War on Terror" isn't really a war on terrorism, what is it? I've always taken it to be used in the same way as the "War on Drugs;" is that position faulty? I really am curious, given that a lot of my friends have died fighting it.

I'm also (so far as I know) one of two people on this thread who've actually been to Iraq this time around. I think the fact that I served in the WoT and yet apparently have a foggier notion of what it's objectives are than Art and fistful do are puzzling. I was always told I was in Iraq to kill terrorists, and rebuild the local fighting forces so they could eventually take over killing terrorists for me.

The strategic definition of war is the political use of force to make your enemy conform to your will, whatever that may be. Since we have no defined enemy other than "people who are terrorists" I'm just a wee bit sceptical of how we are going to accomplish our goals. Of course, I apparently don't even properly understand our goals!   


Really not trying to start something here; I have a great deal of respect for both Art and Fistful. I wasn't trying to "pretend" anything, and God help me but I'm a bit upset that I seem to be lumped in with all the blissninny hippy pricks who have spurious objections to the war in Iraq.

[grampster]

Balog,

     The fact that you have served in Iraq totally cancels out any observation that you would be "lumped in with all the blissninny hippy pricks who have spurious objections to the war in Iraq."  Quite the contrary, sir.  You, perhaps are the only one to have any credibility, and have a valid opinion worth contemplating when you express your confusion about how the mission is accomplished.  That is if there is a mission that is able to be accomplished.  Frankly, since we wrecked Saddam, his sons, and most of his tribe, I think we need to pull back, not pull out, seal the Syrian and Iranian borders and let the Iraqi's sort it out for themselves.  We don't have a very good track record at border security, though.  We can't even do it in our own country and most of us would help.

What you have to say would carry more weight than something I was fed by the media or a "Breck Girl" politician in a $5,000.00 suit.

[The Rabbi]

With the end of the Cold War action shifted from Nation States to other types of organizations.
al Qaeda is a difficult enemy to define.  It isnt a nation-state since it has no territory of its own.  It doesnt really even have a very defined power structure.  It has a system of loose alliances based on common interest.  Thus Hamas, al Qaeda, abu Sayyaf, and a few other no-goodniks have alliances, share personnel, funding, resources, and goals.  They are united mainly in their Islamic beliefs and in their desire to harm the West, especially the U.S.
Even though these groups are really NGOs, they depend in part on nation states to facillitate their projects.  They need territory in, e.g. Afghanistan, to train.  They need end-user certificates from e.g. Iran to procure weapons.  They need passports and funding conduits.
The Bush Administration, much to its credit, recognized the 9/11 attacks as the opening salvo of a war.  The Clinton Administration saw terrorist attacks as isolated events and thus "police issues."  In a police issue, you gather evidence, track down suspects, and bring them to trial and punishment.
In a war you degrade the enemy's capacity to make war.  The enemy needs men and materiel and communication and leadership.  Bush has tried, with a lot of success btw, to deny those things, tracking complex financial transactions, freezing assets, shutting down fund raising operations, and jailing or killing the leadership.  Bush has also, with less success, sought to pressure nation states not to allow themselves to be used by al-Qaeda and its related orgs.
This, in a nutshell, is the "war on terror."  People serving in Iraq are part of it, but only a small part in one theater.  People in the FBI tracking bank account activity are equally involved in the WoT, but in a different theater.

[Gewehr98]

Balog, thanks for the clarification, and the time spent over there.

Here I thought my special government-paid vacation in the Green Zone was solely to give RileyMc something to bitch about on APS.   

[griz]

In a war you degrade the enemy's capacity to make war.  The enemy needs men and materiel and communication and leadership.  Bush has tried, with a lot of success btw, to deny those things, tracking complex financial transactions, freezing assets, shutting down fund raising operations, and jailing or killing the leadership.  Bush has also, with less success, sought to pressure nation states not to allow themselves to be used by al-Qaeda and its related orgs.
This, in a nutshell, is the "war on terror."  People serving in Iraq are part of it, but only a small part in one theater.  People in the FBI tracking bank account activity are equally involved in the WoT, but in a different theater.

To me this brings up two questions that sum up the objections to our involvement over there.

1. Of the things you describe as the WOT, the main part our troops (thank you Balog) are doing is killing the leadership.  So are our guys over there chasing the leaders of AQ or are they trying to stop Iraqis from killing each other?  I hope you see the distinction.  If our main objective is to defend ourselves from people there, the best way to do that is to leave.  And again I ask this because it is much harder to get an unbiased  real answer than a slanted point of view.

2. If we are unwilling to force "nation states not to allow themselves to be used by al-Qaeda and its related orgs", why are we bothering to fight the foot soldiers in the WOT?  To use the war on drug analogy, it would be like aressting the addicts, but being careful not to offend or financially impact the cartel.

[The Rabbi]

The WoT has a number of aspects.  Obviously terrorists go for places with unstable governments, like Sudan.  Or France.
Restoring Iraq to a stable, democratic country is a goal of US foreign policy.  It should be obvious where that fits in with the WoT.  So a side show is the attempt by the US to suppress the Iraqi insurgency.  Part of that insurgency in fact is made up of foot soldiers for al Qaeda, Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians.  Killing them off isnt a bad idea anytime.
The US is also going after the command and control structure there, trying to identify leadership.  You will notice al Sadr is no longer in Iraq.  Other leaders have been killed or captured.
As for as action in regard to nation states, you will also notice that Libya seems to have reformed itself to some degree and given up its nuclear program.  That is a major success that Bush does not get credit for.

[roo_ster]

We have been conditioned to want every effort to be a sprint, when many are actually marathons. 

Remind me, how long was the US engaged in hostilities with the Barbary Pirates?

[The Rabbi]

The U.S. had soldiers stationed in China for close to 100 years.

[Paddy]

Comparison of the Iraq 'war'  to other conflicts is apples v. oranges.   In prior conflicts, the rules of engagement were not limited to political 'correctness' and prior authorization and there was an identifiable enemy (except of course in the case of Vietnam, which closely resembles this Iraq situation).

[Phantom Warrior]

Due disclosure, I'm sitting in southwestern Baghdad as I type this.  Don't thank me.  I'm here because the Pentagon said go and I think we shouldn't be here any more...

No, we aren't carpet bombing like we did in Germany.  But yes, Iraq is destroyed.

But the destruction of basic infrastructure and death toll are most certainly comparable.  Pound for pound, Iraq has a death toll and an impact on infrastructure that is quite comparable what Germany suffered in world war II.

Okay.  I'm not sure if you are implying that this is the fault of coalition forces or not.  It's a little hard to tell.  But you seem to be implying that.

Let's be clear on this.  The majority of that destruction is because these people are busy VBIEDing (car bomb) the crap out of each other or shooting their neighbors execution style.  In the time I've been here, we've killed relatively few people (all of whom were actively shooting at us) and destroyed a handful of (abandoned) houses that were being used as bunkers or hides to detonate IEDs from.  Also, those people blowing oil pipelines and stuff.  That's not us either.

I still can't quite determine what you are trying to say w/ that post.  If you are implying that it is the fault of coalition forces that Iraq is destroyed I'm going to get very heated.

So are our guys over there chasing the leaders of AQ or are they trying to stop Iraqis from killing each other?  I hope you see the distinction.  If our main objective is to defend ourselves from people there, the best way to do that is to leave.

griz,
We are doing both.  al-Qaeda is definitely a big target for us.  But we are trying to stop the sectarian violence and targeting people like the Shia Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) militia.  JAM is a local, as opposed to international, organization and really just wants to kill Sunnis and doesn't want us to get in the way.  But since we are getting in the way, they are going after us too.  One thing someone pointed out to me that really hit me was that Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) are a *expletive deleted*it weapon, because they come from Iran, not an al-Qaida weapon.  And believe me, EFPs are the big boogeyman for soldiers today.  It takes a LOT of armor to stop one and most vehicles are vulnerable to them.  Those thing will wreck a vehicle and kill soldiers in a big way. 

Our battalion commander likes to compare our job to trying to break up a fight at the Rock Fabrique (a bar back in Germany).  Which is what most of the upper military and civilian echelons like to say.  I prefer to compare it to jumping into a fight between several angry drunks armed w/ knives and broken bottles.  Even if you pull one or two of them out of the fight they are still going to keep fighting and no one has a problem stabbing you either.


To summarize, the Sunni and the Shia do NOT want to get along.  They don't want to work together.  They want to kill each other.  That's why I believe that ultimately the solution lies with homogenizing the Iraqis.  Whether that means the Shia eventually drive out the Sunnis or partitioning Iraq into sections.  It's interesting to note that "Kurdistan", the northern Kurdish area of Iraq is doing well.  They have a functioning government and are largely very peaceful.  But that is because they are all Kurds, without the Sunni/Shia tensions.  A good analogy might be Yugoslavia, which settled down once the hostile ethnic groups were separated into their own little countries, rather than being thrown together and given the opportunity to fight.

The U.S. had soldiers stationed in China for close to 100 years.

Yes, but were they doing patrols and getting blown the *expletive deleted*ck up (there's no other word when you see a HMMWV blown away down to the floorboards with the whole crew dead)?  I think a continuing presence in Iraq is necessary and even a good idea, since it gives us easy access to much of the Middle East.  But it needs to be along the lines of Germany or Japan.  Not keeping one third of ALL of our Army Brigade Combat Teams (active AND reserve) stationed there with the soldiers going out, doing patrols, and getting killed every day.