Wage War Correctly or Withdraw: State of the American Union

[roxybeast]

Wage War Correctly or Withdraw:
The State of the American Union
By Bill Isbell

The United States is great at war. We have the best trained soldiers in the world, the most accurate and deadly weapons systems, the best communications equipment, and the most advanced radar, sonar, monitoring, and intelligence technology in the world. We will most assuredly clobber any enemy army that we face. Far more of them will die.

We suck, however, at occupation. While we are great at attacking, we are terrible at defending the territory we conquer. Not because of any deficiency in our military’s training, equipment, weapons or technology, but because we constantly let political considerations prevent us from implementing the most effective military strategies.

Iraq is the latest example. In a matter of weeks, our armies marched across the desert, crushing all resistance, invaded Baghdad, dismantled the Iraqi government and military, and just for show, helped Iraqis tear down the statute of their “beloved” leader. Which left us facing the inevitable question faced by all winners: Now what do we do?

We, of course, are a democracy, … and apparently, we wish all countries were. But implementing democracy in a war zone, an occupied territory, is simply a bad idea. In the name of self-determination, and because of our Constitutionally driven belief that all citizens should have the right to bear arms to protect themselves from the inherent evils of government, we allow Iraqi citizens, in occupied territory, to have machine guns, rifles, and other weapons, … to “defend” their families, business, and other interests. We allow our enemies to freely roam the streets because we are afraid of creating anti-American sentiment that would surely be caused by rounding up and imprisoning all Iraqi citizens that we are not 100% sure are not our enemies. Men and women, no exceptions.

In fact, in typical American foreign policy fashion, we broker “political” deals with faction and militia leaders who are known to be our enemies and openly announce and celebrate their hatred of America, its leaders, culture, and values. Mutqada al-Sadr. If you remember, we created the Taliban. We encouraged, trained and armed their militia to fight the Soviets. And thanks, in large part, to our support, weapons, intelligence, and special forces observers, the Taliban succeeded in keeping the Soviets from invading and occupying Northern Afghanistan. And all was politically correct, until they attacked us.

We allow al-Qaeda and their supporters to attack us from their bases in Pakistan and then retreat back across this “sacred” border. We cannot breach this “political cow.” We allow the Pakistani intelligence service to negotiate agreements with our enemies, thinking that will quell the violence, and forcing us to forgo attack, only to have our enemies break their promises to the detriment of our soldiers and their American families. The Pakistani intelligence service actively tips off al-Qaeda about our military plans, … without any American military consequence. They protect tribal leaders who actively and openly feed and support our enemies, & shelter and hide them to avoid detection.

If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. We could have won the Vietnam war. We lost not due to lack of a superior military, but lack of political will. We refused to cross the border into neighboring Laos to pursue North Vietnamese using Laos as a launching pad to attack United States forces. We failed to adequately round up North Vietnamese sympathizers in the South to the detriment of our forces safety. And, worst of all, instead of invading North Vietnam, we refused to cross the border fearing “political consequences.” China was willing to help support the North Vietnamese, but was not willing to go to war with the United States unless we crossed China’s borders. Our lack of political will cost US lives and ultimately cost us our respect in the world.

We fear that Pakistan’s government will crumble if we do what we should. We fear that our imposed “democratic” prop of a government in Iraq will fail if we withdraw. There will be chaos. Regional instability. The area will devolve into a terrorist training ground from which they will consolidate their evil plans and attack us on American soil. Typically and historically, our fears are misplaced, misguided and far worse than reality. It makes one recall FDR’s infamous words: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

If we withdraw from Iraq, there will be violence in the short-term. Sunnis and Sheites will kill each other, the Kurds will consolidate their hold on Northern Iraq, but eventually there will be a winner, eventually there will be some form of peace. To be sure, there won’t be a regime sympathetic to American interests, but there will be peace. For it is ultimately not in the interest of any government to allow open armed rebellion. Whatever entity takes control, their first and primary mission will be to suppress enemies. In our feeble attempt to impose our noble democratic philosophies on Iraqi citizens, we have forgotten the most basic principles of war and occupation, and establishing control. And here’s the kicker: there will be less Americans dead. Isn’t that our ultimate interest?

If we withdraw, perhaps Iran will invade parts of Iraq, perhaps Syria, maybe Iraq’s borders will change. Perhaps Pakistan’s government will fall or its borders change if tribal leaders are brought to bear for their support of terrorist interests. But so what?

The reality is this: that whatever new regimes emerge, our vision will be clearer. We withdraw, they kill each other, they inevitably consolidate their power, and then, depending on the outcome, if necessary, we re-attack. But this time, we allow no dissent. When we invade a territory, we systematically seize all weapons, all communications, all threats and we round up all citizens who we are not absolutely sure are on our side, and we incarcerate them and only release them once peace, safety, control and their loyalty have been firmly established. We impose marshall law. We kill anyone brandishing a weapon. We quell and expel all political dissent. And only after such measures have been implemented, do we begin to rebuild the country and efforts to foster democracy. The reality is that in the Muslim world, they do not respect any less. They laugh at our current strategy. While brutal in appearance, such complete domination is the only true and historically proven way to win a war and successfully occupy a conquered nation.

If we do not have the political or societal will to be ruthless in war, we should not be waging war. We should withdraw. We should not endanger any more soldier’s lives. The only lesson the current administration has seemed to garner from Vietnam is that they should ban all pictures of flag-draped coffins of US soldiers because such images helped foster anti-war demonstrations and helped undermine support for the war. It is interesting that we seek to impose freedom of the press in Iraq, but quell it by Executive Order on our own home front when it does not serve this administration’s interests. An administration that misled us about the existence of nuclear weapons technology in Iraq, while it continues to ignore real verifiable nuclear threats posed by Iran and North Korea.

The President’s plan to send 20,000+ more troops to Iraq is a recipe for disaster. There is no plan to win, only a plan to attempt to defend. Putting our troops into 20 or so neighborhood police stations in Baghdad only leaves them more vulnerable to attack in buildings which aren’t properly fortified and largely indefensible from missile weaponry. There will only be more attacks on US forces, more loss of American lives, and likely, even more instability. Until we relinquish ideas of political niceties and become ruthless, we will continue to unnecessarily endanger the lives of our brave American servicemen. We owe it to our troops, their families, and our national interests to wage war correctly.

Or not at all. We should withdraw immediately and re-evaluate our strategy. I’m betting this is not the view President Bush will espouse in his State of the Union address tonight. Perhaps it is time for Americans to rise up and finally exercise true democracy.


“Among educated men, it is well-considered dissent,
and the sincere desire to quell it peaceably,
that propels a society forward towards freedom,
dignity, and respect for all of its citizens.”
Bill Isbell, January 23, 2007

[mnaz]

Bill, I agree with most of your conclusions at the end of this post; however some of your intermediate comments I'm less certain about.

Re: Vietnam. We should have crossed the border into N. Vietnam to "win".... Cross the border and do what? Occupy? But we suck at occupying.... And besides, what was "winning" in that pointless conflict anyway?

Perhaps a better m.o. is to stay out of distant affairs that are basically none of our business to start with and have little real bearing on our national interests and security.

Re: al Qaeda. Good observations. I suppose Pakistan has been guilty of tolerating terrorism operating from within its borders, even since 9/11. Same with our so-called Saudi "allies". Not that this is overly distressing to Bushko and its so-called "War On Terror". The Bushite neocons haven't pursued al Qaeda to the degree thay vowed in Sept. of '01, opting intead to focus mainly on an aggressive, empire-building war of choice in Iraq that was (and remains) the brainchild of corrupt ideologues and major corporate overreach and graft.

My two cents, at least.

[roxybeast]

Hey, by the way, so that I'm not misconstrued here,
had I been President at the time, we would not have
invaded Vietnam, South or North. I did not agree with
the "domino-theory" for stopping the spread of communism.

What I am saying, however, is that we too often let
political borders and considerations get in the way of
sound military strategy, in Vietnam, Afghanistan & Iraq.

While I would be loathe to authorize any war, and certainly
not one for the false & flimsy reasons we are in Iraq,
once war is initiated, we owe it to our troops to take all
military actions necessary to win it and to do so decisively.

Bill

[mnaz]

I appreciate what you're saying here, subject to one caveat, or prerequisite: Is the war worth pursuing? Or was it ever worth pursuing? This question should exert prime influence on our course of action. If a war is started (and extended or expanded) based on lies, half-truths, and bully tactics by a small group of self-serving ideologues and profiteers, and never sufficiently justified, perhaps it really isn't worth the terrible toll that an all- out push to "win" is liable to entail.

... we owe it to our troops to take all military actions necessary to win it....

.

Alternatively, as much collective pressure as possible should be brought to bear against misguided leaders who'd otherwise escalate a lost cause of ongoing death and destruction indefinitely, in clear and extended violation of the will of the nation(s) involved.

[roxybeast]

Entering any war should only be as a last resort,
and even then, only if there are no other good options.
My personal standards for such a decision are quite high.

I agree that this war was unjustified, misguided,
and based on false reasons and self-serving intelligence.
I think Frontline recently had an excellent show on this.

I'm personally in favor of an orderly, but fairly immediate,
withdrawl. After which, we reassess our options, and
if there is a threat which still needs to be addressed,
we consider our options for addressing it and proceed.
Again, re-attacking or war should be the last option.

However, if, after exhausting all options, we must go to war,
then we must do so correctly, ruthlessly, and win decisively.
mnaz, we are saying the same thing here, basically, except
that while you may never favor war, and I, like John Lennon,
wish for such a world, the reality I think it that sometimes you simply
have no other real option, and in that case, my advice is correct.

To make a short story, longer, ... Bush made two critical mistakes:
(1) going to war in this instance, and (2) conducting it badly. But, both are equally good reasons to rally democratic forces for change.

I'm posting a couple of responses that I got from my e-mail
blog readers who aren't studio 8 members yet below:

(1) Paul W., Chicago, Ill., writes:
"The argument that 'if we don't battle terrorism over there we are ultimately doomed' is to me pure rot. It seems that for the last fifty years or so we have equipped ourselves to fight the Soviet states who have nuclear warheads, planes, rockets and computer technology. I dont think they even produce a car in these Arab states. Anti Western sentiment in these uneducated third world regions is no new thing. The only way they are a threat to us is by terroristic means ie 9/11. The only idea more stupid than using American troops as peace keepers in the Arab world would be to use the Israelis as a moderating force to implement democracy and peace..sound like a good idea? I also suspect that people shooting at U.S. forces are not nessecarily 'terrorists ' but people who just dont want them in their country.The Iraqis have been killed in two wars by hundreds of thousands is it reasonabl of us to assume they will forgive and forget in just a few years? There are other more efficient and cost effective ways to combat this menace.....cheers paul"

(2) Ernest of Dallas, TX, writes:

"I have read your article on the state of the union-- and I like what you have to say. I was struck by the similarities with Jim Webb's rebuttal to the President. There are a great many military professionals who are strongly opposed to what the President is doing in Iraq. I'm one of them. There was no good reason to attack Iraq even if all the intelligence were true. They are not a real threat to our security, nor is any other country in the middle east-- except Israel. Israel remains the biggest threat to our peace because of their unreasonable actions towards the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. They will drag us into some war with them if Bush has his way with his policies. He has been a disaster as President. He should have listened to Colin Powell. NONE of the advisors he listened to have ever heard a shot fired in anger, nor do any of them have any family threatened by being sent to fight for the nation. Send his twin girls over there .... Can anyone else do better-- good Lord I hope so. I'm about ready to vote Democratic."

[Lightning Rod]

well said and well reasoned, roxy

the only issues that I had with it were pretty well covered by mnaz

you are a closet realist like me