It's Not Winning When You Cannot Leave

This is an interesting, but delusional piece, from the Associated Press:

The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

What I find interesting is that the piece all but acknowledges that former "insurgents" are now part of the Iraqi government. How is that a successful conclusion to any war? The enemy we have been fighting--and that has been killing Americans--has now been integrated into the government that we have been supporting with our blood and treasure. The enemy is not defeated--the enemy is working for the people we kept from being killed.

In any other situation, that would be a serious defeat. We have simply given up, signed off on a massive compromise, and now the killers of American troops draw weapons we provide to the Iraqi government and go about their business in the open. Imagine if we, in 1969, found ourselves supporting the South Vietnamese government's program to integrate Viet Cong guerrillas into the South Vietnamese security apparatus, and if we found ourselves working with the people who had killed tens of thousands of Americans rather than against them.

We have not "won" the war in Iraq. That was won in the first three weeks. We have lost the occupation by accepting the legitimacy of the insurgents who took up arms against us and by doing nothing to stop them from being integrated into the Iraqi government. We looked the other way. Did we even have a ceremony for this?

Since when does victory mean leaving the enemy in command of the government, the field of battle, with partial political power and his forces largely intact and fully armed? Your tax dollars are putting weapons in the hands of men who, until recently, were killing Americans. Where is the outrage?

And, just so you know, it's also not considered winning when your former enemies run a shakedown scheme to get more money out of you.

Where do these people come up with this crap? If we could leave Iraq, maybe then you could claim we've won. This story from the AP is ridiculous and premature.

--WS

The insurgency gins up

The Surge™ troops are leaving and it sure looks like insurgent fighters are resuming their attacks against Americans, as well as the Iraqi government and symbols thereof.

Four Marines died in Anbar province on Friday in a roadside bomb attack. Anbar, once the hotbed of the insurgency and the most dangerous place to be in Iraq has been touted as a success story in recent months as the "awakening councils" were formed and funded - and frequently armed by - the United States. (Some of us said a year ago that the weapons we were distributing were likely to be turned on American troops. We still hope we were wrong, but it doesn't look like we were from here.)

In other signs that the worm has turned in a most unwelcome direction, on Sunday a motorcade carrying Iraq's first lady to the National Theater to attend a cultural festival was attacked by a bomb blast. Four bodyguards were injured, but the First Lady was unharmed.

As the violence escalates, the American military spokespieces work al Qaeda into their responses to the press.

Despite new reports of violence, military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll told reporters on Saturday that attacks carried out by al-Qaida declined last month after increasing earlier this year.

He said there was ''no place for al-Qaida'' to hide in Iraq and U.S. troops were continuing to hunt them down in Diyala province and the city of Mosul, where many are believed to have fled north from Baghdad.

The biggest problem in Iraq right now is intra Shi'ite conflict between the Sadr and Hakim factions, and twas ever thus. And neither of those Shi'ite factions is going to throw in their lot with the Sunni fundamentalists of al Qaeda. Hell, if America left Iraq tomorrow the five or six al Qaeda members in Shi'ite Iraq would be hot on our heels to avoid getting slaughtered, and everyone with three functioning brain cells knows it.

Admiral, working the words "al Qaeda" in when there is no connection to current events is just a dog-whistle to the 28%ers and fortunately the American people are waking up to the scam.

If they weren't, Rudy "a noun, a verb and 9/11" Giuilliani would be the Republican nominee.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER 9:45PM

This is huge--huge--and it undercuts EVERY SINGLE LIE we are being told about the war in Iraq if it's true:

A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no "conclusive" evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq does not want trouble with any country, "especially Iran."

Al-Dabbagh was commenting on talks this week in Tehran between an Iraqi delegation and Iranian authorities aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to some Shiite militias.

Asked about reports that some rockets made in 2007 or 2008 and seized in raids against militias were directly supplied by Iran, al-Dabbagh replied: "There is no conclusive evidence."

Al-Dabbagh said Iraq wants friendly ties with Iran and stressed both countries share common interests.

"We can't ignore or deny we are neighbors. We do not want to be pushed in a struggle with any country, especially Iran," he told a news conference.

"We are fed up with past tensions that we have paid a costly price for because some parties have pushed Iraq (in the past) to take an aggressive attitude to Iran."

Now, if this guy is bought and paid for by Tehran, fair enough. The Iraqi government is an inherently corrupt, bribe-oriented kleptocracy only slightly less sadistic than the last one, and no one should confuse what's in place with anything resembling a Republic. But he's a member of the government WE are propping up with OUR troops. And every time a Republican goes in front of a camera right now, they are bleating about the connection between Iran and the attacks on our troops. So, either they need to make this guy go away or he's on to something. Given that the current pack of liars faces electoral oblivion and are paddling for their lives, I suspect there's a grain of truth to what the Iraqi minister is saying.

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER 10:55PM

There's plenty about the story I added to doubt, but I forgot to add one other crucial point--

The US probably isn't sharing much, if any, intelligence with the Iraqis. Anything we give them could be sold or traded away, so I'm certain that we have everything we really know about Iran as "close hold" and I also suspect we're spreading a fair amount of disinformation through the Iraqi government, as needed. We would do so in order to keep operations secure and to ferret out anyone we suspect of being a turncoat or an agent of a foreign power working against us. There's no incentive to share anything with the Iraqis--we don't know who will be in power five or ten years from now. We captured a treasure trove of documents that will never be properly sifted through or categorized in my lifetime. Dictatorship governments tend to favor a lot of paperwork.

GIVEN all of that, I still think there's plenty to doubt about the veracity of what we're being told. The spokesman could be the last honest man in Baghdad for all I know.

Fueling the Insurgency

"Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will." Richard Perle, chair, The Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, July 11, 2002

Let's just cut to the chase - American forces in Iraq aren't fighting jihadists. They are fighting an insurgency that is fueled by economics, not ideology - and the profits that fund it come from pilfered petroleum products that are diverted to the black market after being refined at facilities guarded by American soldiers.

From the New York Times today:

In fact, money, far more than jihadist ideology, is a crucial motivation for a majority of Sunni insurgents, according to American officers in some Sunni provinces and other military officials in Iraq who have reviewed detainee surveys and other intelligence on the insurgency.

Although many American military officials and politicians — and even the Iraqi public — use the term Al Qaeda as a synonym for the insurgency, some American and Iraqi experts say they believe that the number of committed religious ideologues remains small. They say that insurgent groups raise and spend money autonomously for the most part, with little centralized coordination or direction.

Money from swindles in Iraq and from foreign patrons in places like Saudi Arabia allows a disparate, decentralized collection of insurgent cells to hire recruits and pay for large-scale attacks.

It's a Libertarian paradise over there, a black-market bonanza, a free-market free-for-all. And the American officers on the ground get it -

Maj. Kelly Kendrick, operations officer for the First Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division in Salahuddin, estimates that there are no more than 50 hard-core “Al Qaeda” fighters in Salahuddin, a province of 1.3 million people that includes Baiji and the Sunni cities of Samarra and Tikrit.

He said most fighters were seduced not by dreams of a life following Mr. bin Laden, but by a simpler pitch: “Here’s $100; go plant this I.E.D.”

“Ninety percent of the guys out here who do attacks are just people who want to feed their families,” Major Kendrick said.

The First Brigade’s commander, Col. Scott McBride, concurs. “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard one person say, ‘I believe in a caliphate,’ ” he said.

Abu Azzam, a prominent leader of American-backed Sunni militiamen in Nasr Wa Salam, between Baghdad and Falluja, estimated that only 10 percent of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s members adhered to extremist jihadist doctrines.

“Many joined Qaeda for financial and personal reasons,” said Abu Azzam

John McCain is in Iraq right now - he will be back next week, slinging the same line of shit, my friends, that al Qaeda is in Iraq and we can't give up now. So read th whole thing and be ready to counter the coming media blitz.

170 Million rounds of ammo for the enemy-of-my-enemy

I reported last week that the United States military has made a deal with the devil. In a desperate, last-gasp effort to salvage something that doesn’t look like an abject, mockable failure in George Bush’s splendid Iraq misadventure, Americans have begun to form alliances with the very insurgent fighters that have in the past attacked and killed Americans. Part of that alliance involves arming the very people who have tried in the past (and will undoubtedly return to that MO in the future) to kill American troops.

Well, we are arming them alright. And we are giving them over 170 Million rounds of ammunition. Here is how the two-batch purchase breaks down:

Batch A:

-- Bullets for AK-47 Assault Rifle: 55,200,000
-- Bullets for Glock Pistol: 24,000,000
-- Bullets for PKM Machine Gun: 18,000,000
-- Grenades for RPG-7 Launcher: 20,000
-- Bullets for Mossburg Shotgun: 2,500
-- Bullets for SVD Sniper Rifle: 2,500

Batch B:

-- Bullets for AK-47 Assault Rifle: 36,800,000
-- Bullets for Glock Pistol: 16,000,000
-- Bullets for PKM Machine Gun: 12,000,000

170 million rounds for the enemy-of-our-enemy who will never be an ally.

Magical thinking runs amok, and sanity has long since departed.

A Radical Notion Worth Considering...

Dr. Steven Metz, Chairman of the Regional Strategy and Planning Department and Research Professor of National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute has a radical idea on how we can deal with the Iraqi insurgency that is claiming ~30 American GI’s per week. Stop fighting insurgents and propping up an inherently weak government; and instead concentrate on peacekeeping and neutral mediation.

As is my wont, I read the report. The entire thing is worth reading, but it is 77 pages, and realistically, I know most of you won’t download the .pdf, so I have pulled the following passages:

On the nature of insurgency:

If, in fact, insurgency is not simply a variant of war, if the real threat is the deleterious effects of sustained conflict, and if it is part of systemic failure and pathology in which key elites and organizations develop a vested interest in sustaining the conflict, the objective of counterinsurgency support should not be simply strengthening the government so that it can impose its will more effectively on the insurgents, but systemic reengineering. This, in turn, implies that the most effective posture for outsiders is not to be an ally of the government and thus a sustainer of the flawed socio-political-economic system, but to be neutral mediators and peacekeepers (even when the outsiders have much more ideological affinity for the regime than for the insurgents). If this is true, the United States should only undertake counterinsurgency support in the most pressing instances and as part of an equitable, legitimate, and broad-based multinational coalition. (emphasis added) [introduction].

[Insurgency] arises when a group decides that the gap between their political expectations and the opportunities afforded them is unacceptable and can only be remedied by force. Insurgents avoid battlespaces where they are at a disadvantage—often the conventional military sphere—and focus on those where they can attain parity, particularly the psychological and the political. [p.1]

On rethinking the concepts of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

It is less the chance of an insurgent victory which creates a friendly environment for transnational terrorism than persistent internal conflict shattering control and restraint in a state. During an insurgency, both the insurgents and the government focus on each other, necessarily leaving parts of the country with minimal security and control. Transnational terrorists exploit this. And protracted insurgency creates a general disregard for law and order. Organized crime and corruption blossom. Much of the population loses its natural aversion to violence. Thus a society brutalized and wounded by a protracted insurgency is more likely to spawn a variety of evils, spewing violent individuals into the world long after the conflict ends. [p. 9]

And

This means insurgency is no longer a “stand alone” conflict; it is “nested” within deeper and broader struggles. It is still about power (as it was during the Cold War), but it is also about economics, services, and social identity. The other dimensions of the conflict and the other participants both effect the insurgency and are affected by it. Simply asking states to exert or re-exert control over increasingly uncontrolled spaces is inadequate. [p.12]

On rethinking power structures

The profusion and diffusion of information alters this (at least to some degree) by amplifying the effects of psychological operations, whether violent or nonviolent, and in part by changing the power asymmetry between insurgencies and the state. When power was strictly a factor of tangible resources like money and troops, the state held a distinct advantage. But as information becomes power (or generates power), the asymmetry between states and other organizations declines. A decentralized, networked structure allows even small insurgencies to accumulate and use information-based power (such as terrorism) and thus remain viable. And with the decline of state sponsorship, violent groups like insurgencies must be self-financing. Globalization and the information revolution provide the means to do so. As Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman phrase it, “rapid economic globalization and the replacement of state-led economic development by market-driven free trade have created new and abundant opportunities for more systematic forms of combatant self-financing.” A decentralized network is better able to capitalize on shifting economic opportunities than a hierarchical one (although less able to harness the funds accumulated for the attainment of overarching objectives). [p.13]

And

Decentralized, networked insurgencies without an overt state sponsor have a limited ability to undertake conventional military operations (or other complex activities which require extensive coordination). This is one more factor leading to a greater reliance on terrorism. It is both necessary and effective. Information profusion and the availability of diverse means of communication amplify the psychological effects of terrorism. In terrorism, it matters less how many people were killed than how many people know of and are influenced by the deaths. The terrorism of contemporary insurgents is thus designed to influence both a proximate audience and a distant one. [p.14] (emphasis added)

On Rethinking Social Dynamics of Conflict

That contemporary insurgents emulate corporations in a hyper competitive (and violent) market shapes their operational methods. Specifically, insurgents gravitate toward operational methods which maximize desired effects while minimizing the costs and risks. This, in conjunction with the profusion of information, the absence of state sponsors providing conventional military material, and the transparency of the operating environment, has increased the role terrorism plays for insurgents. Insurgents have always used terrorism. But one of the characteristics of this quintessentially psychological method of violence is that its effect is limited to those who know of it. When, for instance, the Viet Cong killed a local political leader, it might have had the desired psychological effect on people in the region, but did little to shape the beliefs, perceptions, or morale of those living far away. Today, information technology amplifies the psychological effects of a terrorist incident by publicizing it to a much wider audience. This includes both satellite, 24-hour media coverage, and, more importantly, the Internet which, Gordon McCormick and Frank Giordano note, “has made symbolic violence a more powerful instrument of insurgent mobilisation than at any time in the past.” [p.48]

Rethinking Counterinsurgency

At the strategic level, the risk to the United States is not that insurgents will “win” in the traditional sense, take over their country, and shift it from a partner to an enemy. It is that complex internal conflicts, especially ones involving insurgency, will generate other adverse effects: the destabilization of regions, resource flows, and markets; the blossoming of transnational crime; humanitarian disasters; transnational terrorism; and so forth. Given this, the U.S. goal should not automatically be the defeat of the insurgents by the regime (which may be impossible, particularly when the partner regime is only half-heartedly committed to it), but the rapid resolution of the conflict. In other words, a quick and sustainable outcome which integrates most of the insurgents into the national power structure is less damaging to U.S. national interests than a protracted conflict which leads to the complete destruction of the insurgents. Protracted conflict, not insurgent victory, is the threat. [p.50]

And

In cases where a serious insurgency cannot be managed, the state and its supporters might consider an approach designed to deliberately encourage the insurgency to mutate into something less dangerous such as an organized criminal organization. This is never desirable, but there may be rare instances where organized crime is less of a threat than sustained insurgency. Call this strategic methadone. [p.52]

What Dr. Metz proposes is a radical new approach to the way we think about counterinsurgency. Nothing like this is found anywhere in the current doctrine. However, the defense community must apply some new thinking to the problems at hand. No one ever got out of a jam by applying more of the same thinking that got you in trouble in the first damned place. Stubbornly continuing to fight the last war, even though it is obvious that it isn’t working, is not the kind of thinking we need right now.

[Cross-posted from WTWC]