Bush started his speech last night warning about those forces who are threatening to topple the Iraqi government. Anyone else see the irony
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Your spelling of Al-Anbar is correct. Or at least, I never saw a variant spelling during my deployment. As to the "Anbar Awakening", I strongly suspect that the tribes' alliance with us is one of convenience. This isn't necessarily problematic so long as one's goal is imperialism and not nation-building.
I weary of comparisons between Iraq & Vietnam; IMHO, they're often facile, and indicative more of ignorance than enlightenment. Of course the tactics (on both sides) are different. Both have sanctuaries, but Vietnam also featured sponsoring nation-states; with Iraq there's just an open border to Syria, and the consequences of our own undermanning. Lots more troops involved in Vietnam, especially on the enemy side: hundreds of thousands, as opposed to tens of thousands (at most) in Iraq. Of course casualties were an order of magnitude higher in Vietnam. Vietnam was of course fought with conscripts; Iraq is being fought with a professional standing army of volunteers. In Vietnam we had a cooperative puppet government that we were gradually able to bring to functional status (see the Easter Offensive for details); alas, even Thieu's RVN would be a step up from the current Iraqi government. In Vietnam, the American objective was to prevent a North Vietnamese conquest of the South. In Iraq, it's simple pacification (which, in theory, should be easier). The importance of Vietnam to the Cold War was, IMHO, far clearer than the relevance of Iraq to today's Black September War (aka the "global war on terror"). As far as atrocities, My Lai was far more, um, atrocious, than anything thus far in Iraq. (Abu Ghraib? Haditha? Oh please.) And so on.
There are some similarities, of course. Both are counterinsurgency campaigns; both involve nation-building. Both involve fighting a weaker enemy, for whom a prerequisite of victory is breaking the American public's will to continue fighting. In this regard, in both instances, American antiwar movements serve as de facto adjuncts of the enemy's strategy for victory.
As for an American strategy of victory, nowadays I think the best we can hope for is something like this:
...preferably executed (no pun intended) by auxiliaries, not our own Legionnaires.
Withdrawal may well have upsides; but those who advocate it must not be blind to the costs. If we withdraw without victory, irregardless of the platitudes we might utter about self-determination, or respecting sovereignty, or peace & goodwill, or domestic political considerations, or the like...the perception will be that the world's greatest superpower was defeated by a handful of ragtag thugs. Our enemies, correctly or not, will perceive that the United States is a paper tiger; and given such irrefutable proof of American weakness, irresolution, degeneracy, etc., it will be only a matter of time before one or more of those enemies concludes that they can attack the United States with impunity. That we could (probably) survive such attacks shall be cold comfort to the American citizens killed in them.
There is also the question of civil-military relations, which I discuss in greater detail here:
I weary of comparisons between Iraq & Vietnam; IMHO, they're often facile, and indicative more of ignorance than enlightenment. Of course the tactics (on both sides) are different. Both have sanctuaries, but Vietnam also featured sponsoring nation-states; with Iraq there's just an open border to Syria, and the consequences of our own undermanning. Lots more troops involved in Vietnam, especially on the enemy side: hundreds of thousands, as opposed to tens of thousands (at most) in Iraq. Of course casualties were an order of magnitude higher in Vietnam. Vietnam was of course fought with conscripts; Iraq is being fought with a professional standing army of volunteers. In Vietnam we had a cooperative puppet government that we were gradually able to bring to functional status (see the Easter Offensive for details); alas, even Thieu's RVN would be a step up from the current Iraqi government. In Vietnam, the American objective was to prevent a North Vietnamese conquest of the South. In Iraq, it's simple pacification (which, in theory, should be easier). The importance of Vietnam to the Cold War was, IMHO, far clearer than the relevance of Iraq to today's Black September War (aka the "global war on terror"). As far as atrocities, My Lai was far more, um, atrocious, than anything thus far in Iraq. (Abu Ghraib? Haditha? Oh please.) And so on.
There are some similarities, of course. Both are counterinsurgency campaigns; both involve nation-building. Both involve fighting a weaker enemy, for whom a prerequisite of victory is breaking the American public's will to continue fighting. In this regard, in both instances, American antiwar movements serve as de facto adjuncts of the enemy's strategy for victory.
As for an American strategy of victory, nowadays I think the best we can hope for is something like this:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view466.html#Friday
As for tactics, here's a possibility:
http://gravitron5.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-collective-punishment.html
...preferably executed (no pun intended) by auxiliaries, not our own Legionnaires.
Withdrawal may well have upsides; but those who advocate it must not be blind to the costs. If we withdraw without victory, irregardless of the platitudes we might utter about self-determination, or respecting sovereignty, or peace & goodwill, or domestic political considerations, or the like...the perception will be that the world's greatest superpower was defeated by a handful of ragtag thugs. Our enemies, correctly or not, will perceive that the United States is a paper tiger; and given such irrefutable proof of American weakness, irresolution, degeneracy, etc., it will be only a matter of time before one or more of those enemies concludes that they can attack the United States with impunity. That we could (probably) survive such attacks shall be cold comfort to the American citizens killed in them.
There is also the question of civil-military relations, which I discuss in greater detail here:
http://gravitron5.blogspot.com/2007/03/premature-withdrawal-and-fury-of.html
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