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The Iraq War
Djinn
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The coalition's involvement in Iraq is entering its final chapter. The 'surge', generally considered the last card America has to play, is currently in full swing.
What exactly is the surge doing? Dave Kilcullen is the coalition's senior counterinsurgency advisor. He recently wrote up a piece well worth reading explaining the philosophy behind current operations:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/06/understanding-current-operatio/
Some key points:
How's it going? According to a recent op-ed by Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack in the New York Times, signs are positive: A War We Might Just Win. Pollack and O'Hanlon argue that the insurgency has been if not defeated, at least suppressed, that the Iraqi people have turned en masse against the Sunni militias in particular, and that Iraqi army is finally becoming an effective, independent force.
Pollack and O'Hanlon's piece has been severely criticized by several sources.
Most persuasive is Slate's Phillip Carter, who argues that any military success while US troop numbers are inflated are immaterial, since as soon as troop numbers are reduced -as they surely must be soon- the situation will deteriorate once again:
Who is right? How can we tell whats going on in Iraq when the argument is so polemic? Both the war-is-winnable and war-is-lost sides seem to ignore or dismiss any information that contradicts their arguments.
One way is to look statistics. Statistics are imperfect, though from a credible source are at least more indicative than the impressions of journalists gleaned from brief tours. Heres a detailed breakdown of life in postwar-Iraq by the Brookings institute: http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf. The whole thing is worth a quick skim.
While Iraq no longer makes top headlines, this is probably the most important period for the country since 2004. What do people make of these figures, the current troop surge, ongoing US involvement and the future of Iraq?
What exactly is the surge doing? Dave Kilcullen is the coalition's senior counterinsurgency advisor. He recently wrote up a piece well worth reading explaining the philosophy behind current operations:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/06/understanding-current-operatio/
Some key points:
These operations are qualitatively different from what we have done before. Our concept is to knock over several insurgent safe havens simultaneously, in order to prevent terrorists relocating their infrastructure from one to another
...
When we speak of "clearing" an enemy safe haven, we are not talking about destroying the enemy in it; we are talking about rescuing the population in it from enemy intimidation. If we don't get every enemy cell in the initial operation, that's OK. The point of the operations is to lift the pall of fear from population groups that have been intimidated and exploited by terrorists to date, then win them over and work with them in partnership to clean out the cells that remain – as has happened in Al Anbar Province and can happen elsewhere in Iraq as well.
How's it going? According to a recent op-ed by Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack in the New York Times, signs are positive: A War We Might Just Win. Pollack and O'Hanlon argue that the insurgency has been if not defeated, at least suppressed, that the Iraqi people have turned en masse against the Sunni militias in particular, and that Iraqi army is finally becoming an effective, independent force.
Pollack and O'Hanlon's piece has been severely criticized by several sources.
Most persuasive is Slate's Phillip Carter, who argues that any military success while US troop numbers are inflated are immaterial, since as soon as troop numbers are reduced -as they surely must be soon- the situation will deteriorate once again:
The moment when Americans might have persuaded Iraqis to embrace them as liberators has long since passed. We have failed to make good on too many promises. In our heavy-handed efforts to root out insurgents, we have too frequently mistaken the innocent for the guilty. However inadvertently, we have killed and maimed too many civilians. Sadly, in places like Abu Ghraib and Haditha, we have committed too many crimes. We have just plain screwed up too many times. If it is true that victory, or anything close to it, lies beyond our reach, we can no longer justify the cost of persevering in Iraq. It is time to begin the long march home.
Who is right? How can we tell whats going on in Iraq when the argument is so polemic? Both the war-is-winnable and war-is-lost sides seem to ignore or dismiss any information that contradicts their arguments.
One way is to look statistics. Statistics are imperfect, though from a credible source are at least more indicative than the impressions of journalists gleaned from brief tours. Heres a detailed breakdown of life in postwar-Iraq by the Brookings institute: http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf. The whole thing is worth a quick skim.
While Iraq no longer makes top headlines, this is probably the most important period for the country since 2004. What do people make of these figures, the current troop surge, ongoing US involvement and the future of Iraq?
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I have seen a decent amount of progress in the last couple of months. The trick is getting the will of the people on our side.
We have been giving money away like candy in order to accomplish this. If someone has a piece of thier property broken, we pay for it's replacement. We have been paying people to fix water and sewage pipes, electricity lines and generators, and roads fixed among other things such as giving away air conditioners and making gas more available to them. We do these things even if it has been damaged or stolen by the local insurgents/
Now, because we are starting to win some of the people over, we have been getting a lot of good (I mean fucking good) informants in our area. In the past two months, every tip we have gotten has been genuine. My platoon even managed to capture the number two Al Qiaeda member here in Iraq last month.
One of the bigger problems here is the poverty. It is so hard for some of these people to get a decent job and that is where most of the insurgents are hiring their people. A large part of problem comes from these guys paying regular, but broke, guys to implace IED's and act as mules to transport weapons and explosives. We recently caught a man implacing an IED on a road where we operate. When asked why he did it, he said that he had no job and a man approached him and gave him $20 to place the bomb by the road and hook up the wire. It is so easy for them to recruit.
On the combat side, we are getting some really nifty gadgets and weapon systems. One of the biggest successes I've seen is my new truck. It's called the Vanguard and it's pretty much an unmanned turret that sits on my truck. I can't get into the details, but let's just say that an 'auto-turret' function exists.
So back to my point. We can win, but is America willing to wait that long and continue to sacrifice?
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Iraq is a clusterfuck. Our leaders severely screwed up nearly every aspect, and now ask for patience while they toss more money and people at the problem in a "hail mary" attempt to pull off something they can point to as "progress".
How can there be a victory in a situation where that victory has constantly been downgraded?
I think the answer is probably 'no' unless there are clear and unmistakable signs of improvement.
One of Pollack and O'Hanlon's arguments is that US troop morale is at an all time high. How would you describe US troop morale at the moment?
If most Americans haven't personally felt the brunt of the war, why do you think they are not prepared to continue to support it?
Essentially a reporter says "hey, I'm going to Iraq", and he's greeted by the happiest green zone troops they can find to give a good impression. Remember kids, this is the military in Iraq that was busted for planting positive stories in Iraqi papers to try and make things look better. It's a PR war at this point, and not enough reporters are willing to step outside the military's protection and go live outside the green zone and outside the military's protection for an extended period of time.
Until people are feeling safe to just hang out without an armed escort and report on the city, I'm having issues believing it's going well. Especially with a dozen or so daily deaths or the locals.
It's hard to win hearts and minds, it's eventually winnable, but do we really have the armed forces needed to do it?
I think a lot of it is perception.
Most of what I hear about the war in the news is just the daily body count of how many soldiers and Iraqi civilians were killed that day. I don't usually hear a whole lot about what our forces are actually doing or trying to accomplish.
Now I'm not going to get into a whole "media bias" discussion here...that's best left to another thread. But regardless of what you may or may not believe in that regard, all I'm saying is that when I listen to news on the radio or see mentions of the war on TV, it's mostly body counts, explosions in populated areas, and controversy about something the military did wrong.
If you're not taking the time to actively seek out information about what they're doing right, I'd say it's easy for the general public to have a negative perception of the war. My wife, for example, doesn't like to keep up with the news unless it's regarding which celebrity is having a baby. She now tries to stay away from coverage of the war because in her opinion, our soldiers are just standing around on street corners waiting to be killed. They're not actually doing anything, they're just target practice. I caught her telling a neighbor the other day that all the soldiers from our area are coming back dead, she "checked the statistics". (She did no such thing, and no they aren't)
Needless to say, discussion of this or other political topics is off limits at our home, as it never ends well.
Most pollsters say that the public is willing to support wars as long as they feel that they can be won. Once that belief goes, the support drops off.
That's why saying Iraq was having a civil war was such a political touchstone a year ago. Civil war = can't be won.
An end to sectarian strife and the restoration of an independent but unified Iraqi state with a democratic government?
Of course I'm not really describing the end of a "war," since there's no real coherent enemy to be fought. But then again, it wasn't really much of a "war" to begin with.
How do you reconcile that with recent good news? Is it false or just unimportant in the long run? And presuming its true, then whats the best thing we can do now?
Ironic, given that America won the civil war. If it came to all out civil war, there'd be a winner- though I can see why the United States wouldn't want a hand in it.
Interestingly, most Iraqis don't think their country is in a civil war.
As for other people besides the soldiers sacrificing, don't forget about the families too. I'm an infantryman, I go to the shitty places. My wife and the rest of my family get scared shitless when they hear about soldiers dieing on the news.
'Winning' is Iraq able to secure it's own land like any other country. When Iraq can handle it's own security, economics, and politics with out outside help, we win.
Sectarian violence will never end in the middle east. Ever. It's been going on for hundreds of years, we just only started hearing about it. Most of the militias that kill other sect members were already here before the US invaded Iraq. The loss of their dictator just gave them another excuse. I've seen entire families killed in their houses before we started to hunt these people down. We would simply wait untill we saw some masked dudes with guns, then kill them.
Not all of the press goes to the 'nice' part. As much as I hate reporters for usually being self serving assholes, I've met a nice one. He let me borrow his phone to call my wife when I hadn't spoken to here in over a month (different story). But then again, he was kinda pissed that we didn't let him photograph the deaths of over 20 Iraqi Police members who were killed in a big fucking car bomb. So there you go.
Al Qaeda is used pretty loosely by the Generals and press too. I've only seen them this tour and not my previous one. And they haven't been here the whole time either, perhaps only in the past eight months. But they are a great deal more dangerous than other insurgent. The good news is that the people hate them completetly and give them to us whenever possible. There was a big incedent about two months ago that killed five of us, but also about 20 locals, including a pregnant woman and children, that really opened the eyes of the people here. They are finally starting to realize that we will help them and AQ will kill them.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
No al-Qaeda is Sunni. The U.S was arming Sunni militia in Lebanon to fight Hezbollah, who are Shiite. But yes, those militia were linked to al-Qaeda.
"Victory" in this conflict is a nebulous term almost to the point of being nonsensical. I don't think there ever were, nor are there now, any means to gauge a "true" victory for America in Iraq--at least not when you weigh what all this has cost the U.S. The architects of this war never thought beyond: "We go in BOOM BOOM and then they give us flowers and say thank you."
It's been proven time and again that a unified Iraq is a pipe dream. The best hope at this point is a federalized system. Right now the Iraqis seem to be down with the feudal system. I'm hoping, at some point, that carving up some territories and everybody wanting to play nice on an oil sharing agreement will start to calm the bloody waters. But we need to have some serious diplomatic action taking place and a realization that the ship has sailed on Happy Unified Iraq. At present, diplomacy is laughable.
"The Terrorists" is another tenuous expression--I don't even know what the fuck that means or to whom it applies anymore inside of Iraq's borders. I think "enemy" simply applies to whomever is shooting at you or trying to blow you up at any given moment, and everybody is shooting at and blowing up everybody else.
Iran does not want a completely distabilized Iraq, but Tehran loves having the U.S. tied down in the region and I see no reason for Iran to do anything to help the current situation--they have no incentives to aid or assist in supporting a unified Iraq at this point.
I think the bottom line is that nobody knows how this will shake out regardless of when the United States leaves... or doesn't leave. I've listened to the pontificating from all sides ad naseum and the conclusion that makes the most sense to me is: nobody knows what the fuck they're talking about and nobody knows how this will eventually play out.
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U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies
Unimportant. I mean, it is inevitable that Iraq will fall into chaos once the US military leaves. Even if, by some wonderful miracle, they start out well, Iran will never let go the opportunity to mess with a weakened Iraq.
Cover your asshole if anyone tells you that US morale is high, because they're probably going to drill you one back there when you turn around.
Weren't soldiers told that everything they told the public through blogs and whatnot now had to be approved by their superiors first, to make sure that they were giving the impression that morale was high? I recall something like this happening a few months ago.
So yeah, I wouldn't believe it if I heard that morale was high.
They were told to, because of "security reasons" or some other bullshit, but I know I never reported mine to my superiors. I'm sure if they knew that I was talking about some of the insanity that went on they wouldn't be pleased by it.
Wanting to prevent accidental opsec leaks is one thing, but it very much creates a culture where it's simple to suppress obvious low morale, and simply present the face you want to. Corps do it all the time with what people are allowed to say or not. You can break a lot of rules if you use it to be nice to the corp, but if you break the same rule the same way to say something negative, you are probably on a short list.
Whose definitions of "security, economics, and politics" are we talking about? Those of the Western world or those of Iraqis?
By that time I had been stop lossed for six months, so it was kinda a "what else can they do to me" situation.
Forgive me for betraying my ignorance of history here. What civil war did America win?
Yeah, but it makes me question any "hey, all the troops are THRILLED to be in a combat zone with extended tours away from their families!" commentary.
None of the troops I know are happy to be anywhere near the middle east, but they're all medical command.
Uhh, The American Civil War
The one where our country was almost torn part.
If America won that one, who lost?
You can't "win" a civil war. Yes, the Union beat the Confederacy. They were both the "United States"
Technically, the south lost, but in the long run everyone won since we managed to (mostly) move past it.
So, yeah, the "bias" in this case is pretty understandable.
So, "technically," you are saying that "the south" is not part of America?
Not at the time.
I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make or how it relates to the thread.
I am supporting Shinto's argument that whether Iraq can be classified as being in a state of civil war is important, and that America can't win if it is. My argument is that no country can win a civil war.
Thereby, I am refuting Djinn's assertion that America (the country, not the continent) won The American Civil War. I tried to disprove his statement by contradiction.
My question was intended to find out whether I had satisfactorily shown (to you) that no country can win a civil war.
The American Civil War is hardly "the civil war".