"Taking Stock of the Forever War" (NYT)

[The Reaper]

March 10, 1783 - An anonymous letter circulates among Washington's senior officers camped at Newburgh, New York. The letter calls for an unauthorized meeting and urges the officers to defy the authority of the new U.S. national government (Congress) for its failure to honor past promises to the Continental Army. The next day, Gen. Washington forbids the unauthorized meeting and instead suggests a regular meeting to be held on March 15. A second anonymous letter then appears and is circulated. This letter falsely claims Washington himself sympathizes with the rebellious officers.

March 15, 1783 - General Washington gathers his officers and talks them out of a rebellion against the authority of Congress, and in effect preserves the American democracy.

April 11, 1783 - Congress officially declares an end to the Revolutionary War.

April 26, 1783 - 7000 Loyalists set sail from New York for Canada, bringing a total of 100,000 Loyalists who have now fled America.

June 13, 1783 - The main part of the Continental Army disbands.

June 24, 1783 - To avoid protests from angry and unpaid war veterans, Congress leaves Philadelphia and relocates to Princeton, New Jersey.

September 3, 1783 - The Treaty of Paris is signed by the United States and Great Britain. Congress will ratify the treaty on January 14, 1784.

October 7, 1783 - In Virginia, the House of Burgesses grants freedom to slaves who served in the Continental Army.

November 2, 1783 - George Washington delivers his farewell address to his army. The next day, remaining troops are discharged.

November 25, 1783 - Washington enters Manhattan as the last British troops leave.

November 26, 1783 - Congress meets in Annapolis, Maryland.

December 23, 1783 - Following a triumphant journey from New York to Annapolis, George Washington, victorious commander in chief of the American Revolutionary Army, appears before Congress and voluntarily resigns his commission, an event unprecedented in history.

Originally Posted by magician

Certainly.

I do not think that we are constrained to just these two choices.

I do not believe that the counterinsurgency in Iraq will be indefinite, and I certainly do not believe that reducing American involvement in Iraq, even if we leave behind a broken country "beset by chaos and civil strife," as the author phrases it, will be tantamount to handing Al Qaeda a major victory.

....

-

What I thought, but wasn't sure.

Thank You for the detailed response; Thanks TR.

[Solid]

Magician,
I think that the U.S. has become overly concentrated on technological solutions to war. I think that by 'owning the night' etc, we have a decided advantage- but as in Vietnam, this advantage can be largely nullified by a driven enemy using guerrilla tactics which leverage our democracy (and media) against our war effort.
As such, I reached the same conclusion as you- to win this war, and future guerrilla/anti-terror wars, we must concentrate on using the right PEOPLE to achieve the goal.

However, I am of the opinion that the U.S. military does not necessarily have enough of the "right people" to properly fight these wars. We may have had enough to win in El Sal, which has a 6.7 millian person population, but Iraq has 26 million people and over double the area of land. Even if all this land isn't used by the terrorists, and all these people aren't terrorists, unless they can be convinced to work against the terrorists (and doing so can be difficult), the U.S. will have to field a considerably larger force than in El Sal. I don't think we have enough people to field this force: just look at the 'personnel drain' in SF. Over at SOCNET they claim that this is a product of poor management within the military. If this is the case, it is pretty hard to reform.

A caveat: I am NOT attacking the U.S. or her military. I am simply saying that the tool is not yet properly shaped for the war I think we need to be fighting in Iraq, and that it will take time and money before we have the right tool.

Thank you,

Solid

[CoLawman]

Drawing a limited parallel to Viet Nam might be appropriate fodder for this discussion.

Syria and Iran roles in this war mirror Laos and Cambodia's during the Viet Nam war.

The discovery of escape tunnels in Tal Afar seems to buttress the parallel. Manpower and supplies come across the borders and then slither back as we approach.

Is it not time for the government to re-examine the difficulties this presented in Viet Nam and apply the lessons learned so as not to hamstring the military as we did in Viet Nam? Syria and Iran are part and parcel to the terrorists continued operations.

IN local and state law the pursuer (law enforcement) is allowed to cross borders under the "Fresh Pursuit" doctrine. I understand this is not a good analogy, but the same should hold true in Iraq. The message being, (to Iran and Syria) intervene or we will pursue regardless of the border.

President Bush clearly spelled out that our pursuit would not be restricted by borders if the offending nation was offering safe haven to the terrorists. It is time to show that his words were not rhetoric.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by CoLawman

Drawing a limited parallel to Viet Nam might be appropriate fodder for this discussion.

Syria and Iran roles in this war mirror Laos and Cambodia's during the Viet Nam war.

The discovery of escape tunnels in Tal Afar seems to buttress the parallel. Manpower and supplies come across the borders and then slither back as we approach.

Is it not time for the government to re-examine the difficulties this presented in Viet Nam and apply the lessons learned so as not to hamstring the military as we did in Viet Nam? Syria and Iran are part and parcel to the terrorists continued operations.

IN local and state law the pursuer (law enforcement) is allowed to cross borders under the "Fresh Pursuit" doctrine. I understand this is not a good analogy, but the same should hold true in Iraq. The message being, (to Iran and Syria) intervene or we will pursue regardless of the border.

President Bush clearly spelled out that our pursuit would not be restricted by borders if the offending nation was offering safe haven to the terrorists. It is time to show that his words were not rhetoric.

I disagree with your analogy.

Who is North Vietnam, in this case?

TR

[CoLawman]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

I disagree with your analogy.

Who is North Vietnam, in this case?

TR

I intentionally stated that this was a limited parallel to the Vietnam War. However, your question is an excellent one, not considered in my original post.

In my analogy there is no North Vietnam per se, but there is the requisite combatants . The Terrorists assume the role of the NVA without defined geographical consideration. I might add that North Vietnam, geographically, was not of extreme importance in the prosecution of the Vietnam war. During that war we were fighting in a "friendly" country with an allied government. All the more illustrative in drawing the similarities between Cambodia and Laos to Iran and Syria.

Before I responded to your question I was reminded of Kennedy's questioning of Judge Roberts today. Unfortunately, I am no Judge Roberts and your considered question was not a softball from the likes of a Kennedy.

By your leave!

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by CoLawman

North Vietnam, geographically, was not of extreme importance in the prosecution of the Vietnam war.

Who were we bombing in the VN War? What third country are we bombing now?

Who did we negotiate a treaty with in the VN War? Who would we negotiate with now?

Whose troops and tanks took over Saigon in 1975? Who will invade Baghdad and take over?

External support for an insurgency does not equal the power required to win a war militarily. Read Mao and study the phases and requirements of a true insurgency to succeed.

TR

[CoLawman]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Who were we bombing in the VN War? What third country are we bombing now?

Who did we negotiate a treaty with in the VN War? Who would we negotiate with now?

Whose troops and tanks took over Saigon in 1975? Who will invade Baghdad and take over?

External support for an insurgency does not equal the power required to win a war militarily. Read Mao and study the phases and requirements of a true insurgency to succeed.

TR

With all do respect, you are still missing or refusing to acknowledge that my analogy was "limited".

Obviously our bombing campaign was against North Vietnam. Most notably the bombings in Hanoi were to force the NVA to the table for peace talks. The "Breakfast bombings" were carried out in Cambodia, but against the NVA.

Mao's tenets of Insurgency are well known and used by Al Queda, Chechnians, and the Taliban. In fact his tenets were used successfully against the French and the Americans in Vietnam. We, the Americans, won all the battles in Vietnam, but did not "win" the war.

Mao did not invent Insurgency warfare but did transform it into a modern effective means to overcome a superior military force. Not a Mao scholar but understand the principles of his style of warfare.

1. Mao believed that political, military, economic and social attrition rather than outright force results in the defeat of a superior military force.

2. Mao's tenants of warfare are meant to convince the enemy's decision-makers that victory was too costly.

Mao also believed in retreat...........so as to fight another day! So pardon me while I employ that tactic.

Since I don't know the answer, whose works should I read that best details how to defeat Mao's game plan.

[Solid]

CoLawMan:
Mao advocated 'attacking on the external line'. By this he meant that it was best to attack the enemy as he advanced OUTSIDE of the city into the countryside (usually through an ambush).
In Iraq, the majority of attacks reported in the media suggest that the insurgents are targetting people WITHIN the cities. As such, this is drastically different than Mao's concept of guerrilla warfare.

In otherwords, learning how to defeat Mao is not necessarily a good way of learning how to beat the insurgents in Iraq.

JMO,

Solid

[magician]

AKA "talk talk, fight fight, talk talk."

Two steps forward, one step back.

Repeat.

As a method of warfare, for the weak confronting the strong, I do not believe that the approach has ever been solved.

As a method of governing....well, let's just say that communists can get subversive better than anyone else. They cannot actually govern successfully.

There are few genuine Maoist movements at work at this time. One which is enjoying much success is in Nepal.

I think that comparing the current global Al Qaeda campaign with the principles of Maoist people's war is not so useful. Looking only at the campaign being fought by the insurgency in Iraq, it is clear that only some tactics are comparable. In terms of ideology, which is all-important, there are few points of comparison.

I do not think that such a distributed, decentralized form of warfare, magnified by modern mass media, has ever been mounted before on a global basis.

In that respect....what we are living right now is historically unprecedented, and likely to become even more so.

I do not think that it can be effectively countered unless we are able to harness our technological advantages to win the intelligence war, and then effectively and surgically target the infrastructure of terror.

We also have to wage a war of ideology, and in this way innoculate broad populations, indeed, entire cultures, which now breed Jihadis. It goes without saying that media outlets like Al Jazeera, (and perhaps, CNN), must either be coopted or eliminated. In this way, we need to practice a brand of social prevention that interdicts dissidents before they make the leap to undertaking independent operations inspired by Qaeda theological cant, rather than centrally directed by Qaeda operatives.

It is also imperative that we effectively monitor and exploit the internet. Everytime a Jihadi posts to a bulletin board, or sends an email, the next thing that he experiences should be a rude home invasion by masked men with cattle prods. He should next awake in the belly of the beast, tied to a chair, with a bright light in his face.

Broad political measures like fostering democractic evolution and the emergence of free enterprise among the regimes of the Middle East creates a context. Within this context, a new type of Phoenix Program, with a global ambit, driven by an ability to discern targets across multiple cultures and societies, and precisely negate them, is the next logical step.

This will require horrifying advances in terms of intelligence collection and analysis. Surveillance societies, in short. It may also require a virtual suspension of our most cherished judicial processes and political freedoms.

I see no other way. And even this....can be vulnerable to those who are able to live and operate off the grid, so to speak.

If Al Qaeda never uses a satellite phone, or a cell phone, or a radio....or the internet....if it moves funds through alternative mechanisms and its money never hits the global financial system....then how will we ever track and target them?

Worse, if we are never able to isolate their communications from the infinite bits and bytes streaming unceasingly through the interconnected networks of the internet....we may be doomed to an unending struggle that will distort our societies, and still be vulnerable to failure, in the long run. Al Qaeda just needs one or two nukes....or a couple of biological epidemic agents....and armageddon truly could be the result.

I doubt that we have the capability to penetrate them with human assets.

And exactly what, would we seek to penetrate?

When we cannot prevent multiple simultaneous bombings in Spain and the UK, mounted, particularly in the case of the UK, by previously unidentified homegrown terrorists who craft their bombs from household ingredients and ubiquitous cellphone components....the enormity of the problem becomes clear.

We very well may have to create technological police states, utterly inimical to the ideals of the democratic tradition.

Would this, in the end analysis, be "victory?"

[The Reaper]

Magician:

I like the way you think, Brother.

TR

[magician]

Thank you, brother.

[Solid]

Magician,
I completely agree with your argument, but shy away from this constant emphasis on technological advances saving the day. While technology should be exploited to the maximum degree to yield opportunities and advantages by the U.S. and her allies, learning how to improve our personnel is equally, if not more, important.
I feel that the U.S. soldier, while still by far the best in the world, could benefit from a lot more attention than he/she recieves. I also feel that to do so, the U.S. will have to counter some strongly implanted 'instincts', or at least fiscal incentives.

As a quick example: what does a congressperson prefer in his/her district- an annex to a training facility specializing in Psy Ops, cultural training, or whatever... or a factory producing multimillion dollar munitions?

Again, I want to point out that I am not ragging on the brave men and women who defend my freedom to breath at every second.

Thank you,

Solid

[magician]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...781036,00.html

September 15, 2005

Terrorists unite to plot Iraqi civil war
From Anthony Loyd in Baghdad

A TERRORIST mastermind has united insurgent groups in Baghdad to target the Iraqi Shia Muslim community with the aim of bringing civil war to Iraq, The Times has learnt.
According to US military intelligence sources, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man responsible for the bloodiest acts of terror in Iraq over the past two years, now commands thousands of fighters from various rival groups and is set to order further waves of bombings.

Yesterday the self-styled “emir” of Iraq was blamed for a dozen co-ordinated bombings in Baghdad that killed 152 people, the single worst death toll in the city since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Most of the dead were poor Shia labourers killed by a huge car bomb in a busy square.

“The al-Qaeda organisation in Mesopotamia is declaring all-out war on the Rafidha [a pejorative term for Shias], wherever they are in Iraq,” said the 38-year-old in an audio message released on an Islamic website. He urged Sunni Muslims to “wake up from your slumber” and joint the fight.

Last night the threat was being taken seriously by US and Iraqi officials, who have offered a $25 million reward for his capture. “We have got reason to believe that al-Zarqawi has now been given tactical command in the city over groups that have had to merge under him for the sake of survival,” an American intelligence officer in Baghdad told The Times yesterday.

An intelligence summary, citing the conglomeration of insurgent groups under the al-Qaeda banner to be the result of rebel turf wars, money, weaponry and fear, concluded that of the estimated 16,000 Sunni Muslim insurgents, 6,700 were hardcore Islamic fundamentalists who were now supplemented by a possible further 4,000 members after an amalgamation with Jaysh Muhammad, previously an insurgent group loyal to the former Baathist regime.

Al-Zarqawi’s rise to supremacy will cast a long shadow in the run up to the October 15 referendum on Iraq’s new constitution and general elections due in December.

His organisation is believed already to have gained domination of smaller resistance groups in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq and a centre of gravity for the Sunni insurgency. An Iraqi resistance insider there last week told The Times that al-Zarqawi’s men had already caused thousands of Shia to flee the city over the past six weeks.

“His men announced through leaflets that all Shia should leave Ramadi or face ‘the iron fist’,” the Ramadi resident said. “At first local Sunnis didn’t want anything to do with it. But they know how powerful Zarqawi’s group is, that it doesn’t hesitate to kill and is not afraid to die.”

“They control Ramadi now. They have the best weapons and the most money, and more and more men. They walk openly on the streets when the Americans aren’t around. So the Shias left, by their thousands.”

The man, himself a supporter of the insurgency, claimed that public executions of coalition informers were a regular occurrence, and happened during daylight in the street. Such is the breakdown of any official authority in Ramadi that it was impossible to stop.

Coalition intelligence sources said that a culmination of signal, image and human intelligence had alerted the coalition to a huge al-Qaeda attack planned for Baghdad in August, which had been aborted at the last minute.

They said the yesterday’s attack was likely a rescheduling of the original operation, and broadcast for propaganda purposes as retaliation for recent government successes in Tal Afar, northern Iraq.

In Tal Afar itself yesterday, where some 10,000 US and Iraqi troops have been engaged in a massive offensive to recapture the ethnically divided town from Sunni insurgents, commanders spoke of the “horrible” abuses they had uncovered. The details were prophetic reminder of what al-Qaeda’s supremacy may bode.

“The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine, in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child’s body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents,” said Colonel H R McMaster, a senior American commander in the town.

Yesterday commanders said they were in full control of the town after the insurgents melted away, but their victory appears quickly overshadowed by al-Zarqawi’s subsequent gore-splattered stamp acoss the very centre of Baghdad.

[magician]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle312735.ece

Baghdad: The bloodiest day
Al-Qa'ida in new offensive. More than a dozen Baghdad attacks. 150 are killed and 540 injured. Iraq plunges towards civil war

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 15 September 2005
A suicide bomber sparked Baghdad's worst day of slaughter since the fall of Saddam 30 months ago when he lured labourers desperate for work towards his van by offering them jobs and then detonated explosives that killed 114 and injured 156 of them.

On a day when more than a dozen co-ordinated attacks thundered across Baghdad from dawn into the late afternoon - claiming 152 lives and wounding 542 - al-Qa'ida in Iraq said it was retaliating against a US-Iraqi operation directed at the insurgents' northern stronghold of Tal Afar. And as the hours passed with car and roadside bombs shattering the relative calm of the past few days, fears of civil war intensified.

A posting on the internet by al-Qa'ida in Iraq said: "To the nation of Islam, we give you the good news that the battles of revenge for the Sunni people of Tal Afar began yesterday."

In Aruba Square, in the Shia district of Qadimiyah, the crowd cried: "Why? Why? Why," as the dead and dying were carried out. Severed heads and limbs were stacked beside burnt bodies inside the gates of the local hospital, its floor slippery with blood.

"We gathered and suddenly a car blew up and turned the area into fire and dust and darkness," said Hadi, a worker who survived the blast. Along with some 1,500 others he had gone at dawn to the square where labourers traditionally wait to be hired. Most of those who died were impoverished Shia workers from Iraq's deep south who have come to Baghdad for jobs and sleep rough or in squalid hotels around Aruba.

Oily black smoke rose into the blue sky over Baghdad as more than a dozen bombs exploded across the city throughout the morning. Terror mounted as we heard the detonations. People stayed at home to avoid being caught by the blasts.

Fearing another suicide bomb, police and soldiers stopped vehicles entering Qadimiyah, at the centre of which are the golden domes of a much venerated Shia shrine. But angry and distraught people raced on foot to the nearest hospital to see if friends or relatives were alive or dead.

"Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! God is Great! God is Great! This is a terrible disaster," chanted Sayef Ali Abed as he walked with a nervous gait as if frightened of what he would find at the hospital. "I heard what happened on the radio and came directly because I know my brother was looking for work there. I did not even tell our parents where I was going." In the hospital, Abbas Rada Mohammed, a distraught middle-aged man, was vainly studying a list of the names of 162 injured. "I am looking for my brother. Maybe he is dead or in another hospital."

The people torn apart were not the only ones to die in Iraq yesterday. In a Sunni village 10 miles north of Baghdad near Taji, men dressed as soldiers - and who possibly were soldiers - moved in just before first light and took away 17 men whom they handcuffed, blindfolded and shot. The dead included one policeman and several men who worked as drivers and construction workers at a US base.

One of the many reasons why Iraqis are becoming more terrified by the day is that they do not know if the policemen or soldiers who wake them in the middle of the night truly work for the government or are a death squad.

Another suicide bomb in northern Baghdad killed 11 people as they queued to refill gas cylinders. The attack in Qadimiyah was clearly aimed at killing as many Shia as possible since few Kurds or Sunni would have been present. Along with the other bombings, it was later claimed by al-Qa'ida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Zarqawi also declared war on Shias, Iraqi troops and the country's government in an audio message on the internet last night. The speaker, whose identity was not immediately authenticated, also said his militant forces would attack any Iraqi they believe had co-operated with the US-led offensive on Tal Afar. "This battle was timed to cover up the scandal of God's enemy, Bush, in failing to deal with [Hurricane] Katrina," it said.

Tal Afar, a city of 200,000, is an ethnic and sectarian mosaic. About 70 per cent of its people are Sunni Turkmans, sympathetic to the insurgents, and 30 per cent Shia Turkmans supportive of the Shia-Kurdish government in Baghdad. The Iraqi soldiers that stormed the city along with US troops were mostly Kurdish and Shia. The attacks came only hours after Iraq's President, Jalal Talabani, had stood beside President George Bush at a press conference in Washington.

Sa'af Jabber Ajmi, a Shia labourer from Nasiriyah, lying in the Noman hospital in the Adhamiya district, with shrapnel in his leg, shoulder and back, said: "I thought what happened was a reaction to the Iraqi President's visit to the US." In another bed was Ali Ghazi, also a Shia from the Iraqi deep south. "I believe it is the Americans who are doing this, pretending it is the Sunni, so there will be a civil war and they can control our wealth." Many survivors lying mangled by this morning's bombs subscribed to a conspiracy theory according to which the US wants to rule Iraq by fomenting differences between Shia and Sunni.

Near Noman hospital, gunmen killed a police general and other senior officers. When peoplewent to help them there was a second attack by a suicide bomber, which killed three soldiers and three policemen. These secondary attacks, now frequent, make it very dangerous to approach understandably jittery policemen and soldiers after an explosion because they may shoot at any vehicle approaching them.

At least three of the bombs were aimed at US patrols, with one Humvee being destroyed on the airport road, said witnesses. At least two soldiers were badly wounded. One US convoy was attacked just north of the Green Zone and the bomb injured 14 policemen. For 10 minutes afterwards there was the sound of heavy machine-gun fire.

Sectarian strife is increasing. In the mainly Sunni but hitherto mixed districts of Daura and Amariyah in south and west Baghdad, Shia residents have been shot and others intimidated into leaving. But at the same time many of those wounded denied there would be a war between Shia and Sunni. Mohammed Abdul Karim, an injured Shia at Noman hospital, pointed out that he was in a Sunni district and the Sunni doctors were doing everything to help him.

In the midst of this mayhem, Iraq finally agreed a constitution to be voted on in a referendum on 15 October. But it seemed hardly relevant yesterday.

Worst attacks

28 August 2003 - 85 dead

Among those killed by the car bomb attacks at Najaf shrine is the Shia cleric Muhammad Baqr Hakim

1 February 2004 - 109 dead

Twin attacks on Kurdish parties' offices in Irbil

2 March 2004 - 181 dead

Suicide bombers attack Shia festival-goers in Karbala and Baghdad

24 June 2004 - 100 dead

Co-ordinated blasts in Mosul and four other cities

28 February 2005 - 125 dead

Suicide car bomb hits government jobseekers in Hillah

16 July 2005 - 54 dead

Suicide bomber detonates fuel tanker in Musayyib