Always fighting the last war, or in this case, the last war once removed.

I'm not sure how anyone can think the army was fighting anything but a counter-insurgency from about month 2 onwards...

The school rebuildings, support for local politics, training...that's almost all counter-insurgency.

Bush has shown repeatedly that he won't hear what he doesn't want to hear, and that he'll fire anyone who tries to tell him what he doesn't want to hear. This character flaw surely also applies to counterinsurgency as a topic. Would you want to be the general who tells Rumsfeld or Bush that they don't understand the nature of the war?

"Would a focus on counterinsurgency ever have worked?"

Nope. The mouse in the bubble pulled the wrong lever.

Correct lever: State. If Bush had used State and built a consensus with normal allies to put diplomatic pressure on, it would have been a great success for a minute fraction of the cost.

What a bunch of clowns. It was a no-brainer.

McAristotle, do you think that the US Army, or the US for that matter, is well suited to carry out "nation building" in an Arab country?

McAristotle, do you think that the US Army, or the US for that matter, is well suited to carry out "nation building" in an Arab country?

Maybe they should do some practice in New Orleans first.

I would be more than surprised if all of this wasn't laid out in the pre-war planning that Rumsfeld threw into the waste basket in Spring '03.

Counterinsurgency was a verboten political word.

The president and the neocons are saying, "Give us all the resources, lives, and time and we'll produce utopia. Just don't get in our way until we're there." It isn't a world view. It's infantilism with guns.

The military knew, back when the figure of 500,000 troops was given to President Bush as being needed to adequately occupy Iraq. We didn't have them, but Bush wanted his war anyway and got it. It is not the fault of the military, but of our Codpiece-in-Chief who foolishly wanted a war for his own political advantage and his own vainglory.

It's not just Bush, it's Rumsfeld. Bush doesn't have the brains or the guts to fire him. I'd lay money that there were any number of people in he military who would have handled strategy very differently.

As we always say in the military. Leadership, baby, leadership. Who's to blame or credit? The leadership right up to the top.

Gotta adjust, improvise and overcome.

Haven't you heard? The insurgency is in its last throes. Victory is right around the corner.

There were strong incentives working against a focus on counterinsurgency tactics. First, in the military the conventional missions are more prized and rewarded. Fighting conventional wars it's their supposedly "real" job. Second, the whole military-industrial complex doesn't reward counterinsurgency because it doesn't sell as many toys. But third, and more important, because planning for an insurgency is a political decision as much as a military one; it's an admission that a significative part of the population actively opposes you and will have to be dealt with, militarily and politically. Because often this is seen as a failure, the first instinct is to see the enemy as bandits or "dead-enders" to be defeated by conventional methods. From the point of view of the occupying force, admitting that you are fighting an insurgency is admitting that you have failed in preventing the emergence of one, and they are usually reluctant to do it.

Would it, or anything, have made any difference, given the serial bunbles of the Bush administration's occupati plan? Even a better counterinsurgency strategy cannot work a miracle. The rule, only rule, of discussion of the Iraq mess, is to always get to the home truth: Bush/Cheney made this risky high-stakes mess all by themselves.

Bush wanted a cheap war and found people in the military who would promise one. Those people could promise a cheap war because they were too dim to think past collapsing the shakey dictatorship.

"bunbles"?

I meant bungles, or maybe bumbles

They should be reading:

Steel My Soldiers Hearts

-Col David H Hackworth.

A Bright Shining Lie

-Neil Sheehan

The Art of War

-Sun Tzu

If they were reading these texts, they would have the military, political and philosophical aspects nailed down.

But it seems like every time I point out that no one understands Fourth Generation War and that there are, literally, thousands of retired vets who conducted successful counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam, and have never been asked for their input on current training doctrine, it falls on deaf ears.

When an army meets with a problem it cannot solve on its own, it needs to look to the past and draw upon lessons learned because the institutional memory is severely lacking right now. They have to go out and find people with relevant experience so they can start inculcating people with the knowledge they need to stay alive. Unfortunately, the Army has too much equipment designed to fight on the continent of Europe and too many soldiers promised college money instead of an experience with a warrior ethos.

Do you know which war has produced the most experts? The American civil war. And yet, there is no lesson to be learned from any aspect of how that war was fought. Unless we start using horses and massed formations of men in long ranks against the insurgency, the thousands of civil war experts who populate the Army's institutions are good for exactly...what?

A review of the Hackworth book:

Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is retired Colonel David Hackworth's account of his tour of duty in Vietnam commanding the 4/39th, an infantry battalion operating south of Saigon in the Mekong River delta. Poorly led (the previous commander had based the battalion in the middle of a mine field), with frightfully high casualties (40 percent during the six months prior to Hackworth's arrival), and fighting in the most dangerous of terrain, the 4/39th was a dispirited and demoralized group when Hackworth assumed command in January, 1969. Upon arrival, Hackworth fired many of the senior officers and then put the 4/39th through "Combat 101," which made him so unpopular that at one point Hackworth was warned of a bounty some of his men had put out on him. Over the next five months, however, Hackworth would transform the 4/39 from "hopeless to hardcore," dramatically reverse the casualty rate, score some spectacular victories over the Viet Cong, and earn the undying respect of his troops. Here's a gung ho and earthy firsthand account of the Vietnam War that fans of We Were Soldiers Once... will appreciate. --Harry C. Edwards

What little ole jim said. Rumsfeld made it clear from the start that he had absolutely no interest in fighting the actual post-invasion war in Iraq. He was only interested in his high-tech transformation, which, whatever its merits, was almost entirely beside the point in Iraq. Bucking his views would only have shortened an officer's career - in this sense, the key battle for Iraq was fought and lost when Gen. Shinseki got slapped around for telling the truth.

Carlos: Yeah, you nailed it from a political point of view, which, in turn, complicates the military reaction. What a bitch to be a soldier.

If you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had, shouldn't you fight the war that you have, not the war that you wish you had?

I'm sure there were plenty of military experts who had thought of counterinsurgency plans and who had warned that the insurgency would take place at the time we invaded. But as in the domestic sphere, anyone who disagreed with the Bush plan either did not get heard or was demoted or in some way removed from the decision-making process. And just as in domestic issues so many bright people have left the employ of this Administration, knowing their words and ideas have no effect, Bush was left with a military establishment that, having no real leadership, was not encouraged to view the situation in Iraq realistically.

"why did no one in the military foresee the insurgency? And once it started, why did they turn a blind eye to it? And now that they've finally figured out what they're up against, why are they still only haltingly — and far from unanimously — willing to change doctrine?"

Kevin, remember please: politics over policy! it's just how these guys work.

PR-your post above is sobering.

WTF? Weren't we talking about how dirty the Iraqi army was going to fight before we invaded? Didn't guerrilla warfare come up zillions of times before the invasion? I guess now were there and there isn't an Iraqi army, per se, I guess you'd call it a counterinsurgency, but it doesn't seem that much different from guerrilla warfare to me.

I'm just saying...

ELMO: well yes, but when politicos like Wolfe boy feel totally free slap around our top military suit, what does that tell you about the Bush Administration.

Rumsfeld specialized in humiliating generals who disagreed with him.

Wolfe and Rumsfeld felt so confident because they were so incredibly wrong about everything military their entire adult lives, all the way back to their Group B days.

US Army, or the US for that matter, is well suited to carry out "nation building" in an Arab country?

Posted by: No Preference on December 13, 2005 at 10:06 PM | PERMALINK

No, but do you have anyone better?

Gadzooks, what the hell are you all bitching about?? Hell, they did all the right things. Lets see...they failed to protect the arms dumps from looting...they sent Bremer in to fire all the regular army guys.....they put the unemployed regular army guyse's enemies in power....then they stacked a bunch of them five high naked in a corridor with dear little Lindy leering at 'em. Heck, seems to me they covered ALL the bases. Whataya mean they didn't plan for an insurgency???

Dear Kevin,

This has been by far one of the biggest mysteries of the Iraq war: why did no one in the military foresee the insurgency? And once it started, why did they turn a blind eye to it? And now that they've finally figured out what they're up against, why are they still only haltingly — and far from unanimously — willing to change doctrine?

Your questions are relatively decent, but naive, misinformed, and misleading.

The fact of the matter is that numerous military, intelligence, and strategic experts at a wide variety of institutions DID predict the insurgency, predicted how it would start, predicted how it would grow and why, and predicted that the levels of troop strength, the strategy and tactics employed by our troops would, far from quelling or impeding an insurgency, would actually foster more rapid growth of that insurgency.

Here are some links for your reading pleasure:

USA-Today rundown from 2004

Chris Albritton outlines a devastating critique, based on an Army War College analysis, of the War on Terror as a whole There are multiple links to PDFs in that link. Read those PDF files.

Crane and Terrill, Feb 2003 Predicting the "post-conflict scenarios" down to a tee. here is the PDF of their report

An earlier (Jan 2003) report by the same authors again dealing with post-conflict issues and likely problems. And again, here is the PDF of their report.

What is the message, the take home lesson?

That the Military DID, in FACT deal explicitly with this issue, but the pentagon lunatic brigade over-rode, ignored, or pohh-poohed this kind of analysis, to the point of FIRING people who brought it up.

It is NOT a question of the military or intel analysts, historians or strategists being wrong or stupid...it is a question of idiots, fantasists and criminally negligent political hacks ignoring their betters and putting this nation into a serious hole.

Once again, They/We told you/them so. The peaceniks told you/them that this war would be a disaster from a human rights, political, foreign policy, moral standpoint...and they were right.

The hard-headed strategists (including MANY hawkish types) told you/them that this war was going to be a disaster from a historical, strategic, tactical, and material standpoint...and they were right.

No, but do you have anyone better?

Oh, that's funny. Enter the quagmire with the army you have, not the army you want, hey?

The US Army War College produced a paper just prior to the invasion. Bascially they laid out the scenario that unfolded, but they saw it coming long before. Not a single person in the Bush administration ever read that paper obviously. Why listen to experts? Rememeber that little fuck Gimli 'Paul" Wolfowitzz telling congress that the joint cheifs estimate of needing hundreds of thousands of troops do get the job done was 'wildly off the mark'

THat's why this war will never be won. It is being run by people like wolfie who believe their own hype, and not for one second ever considered a Plan B.

And on a slightly snarky note, remember all the laughter and giggles and "Baghdad Bob" fan clubs that arose during the invasion?

Remember "Baghdad Bob" and his predictions?

Anyone laughing now?

He was telling the straight up truth, bald as can be...and boy howdy was he ever on target.

After combating the insurgency for nearly three years in Iraq, the Army is finally starting, slowly and fitfully, to incorporate these lessons into doctrine

**************************************

It's a failed policy, and they're trying to gussy it up as a failed doctrine.

Can this war be considered a giant case of "Rope-a-Dope"?

Just what I need, another book to read on Viet Nam. My stomach is already churning. Thanks, Kevin.

Ever since the Iraq campaign in April 2003, even before, it was obvious that military planning and good military doctrine were at odds. If a planner said the US would need 250,000 trips, then it was pooh-poohed...and they were edged out. If a field officer said we needed more body armor for the trips, they were pooh-poohed and told to make due. If the war was over and more soldiers were dying, the critics of the current tactics were pooh-poohed and told to torture some "ragheads".

Now, the questions that comes to mind, with the resulting mountain of pooh-pooh rising in the distance, was who, who one might well ask, was full of pooh-pooh from day one.

Came across the perfect quote for Bush and his administration:

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) American inventor, patented more than 1,000 inventions

That we haven't combatted the insurgency well enough is indisputable, but why is it, as Kevin Drum says, "almost certainly too late now" to fight it? Is there a cut-off at three years?

McAristotle,

No, but do you have anyone better?

What, like the Chinese Army? Pretty good at killing students, not so good at actually killing people who shoot back.

The fact of the matter is that numerous military, intelligence, and strategic experts at a wide variety of institutions DID predict the insurgency

Oh, for fuck's sake. I predicted the insurgency. My knowedge of middle-eastern affairs is that of a reasonably read lay-person.

Only a moron, Mr. Drum (and I'm not mentioning any names I'll just look at them and hum - hmm hmm hmmm), would not have anticipated this resistance. Americans need to discover a little-known discipline called history. They teach it in some of the European colleges, you might want to look into it.

That we haven't combatted the insurgency well enough is indisputable, but why is it, as Kevin Drum says, "almost certainly too late now" to fight it? Is there a cut-off at three years?

No, but there's a tipping point at which the trends start to turn against you and in favor of your opponent. And since we're running out of soldiers while they have no trouble adding to theirs we've hit that point.

One reason not to think about fighting a counterinsurgency war is that it may well confront one with the unhappy fact that the war is effectively unwinnable.

I'd expect the very first thing one would have to figure out in fighting an insurgency is just what the aspirations of that insurgency might be, so that one can somehow find another way of satisfying the underlying goals or needs of the insurgents short of ongoing battle.

But what if those goals are wholly inconsistent with the goals the occupation is intended to achieve? Then one must reckon with the real possibility that one is doomed to failure from the outset, that there is really nothing that will make the insurgents go away or palpably weaken.

I believe that this is indeed what we are dealing with in Iraq. The insurgents, Sunnis nearly all, wish most importantly to reacquire the power they have been deprived of. Yet that degree of power is completely incompatible with democracy, in which the the Sunnis must come to terms with being a minority, and necessarily of marginal power. Certainly their goals may be "unfair", to our own democratic way of thinking, but, given their long history of hegemony in Iraq, how can they resonably think that re-establishing themselves is beyond expectation or sensible desire?

It's hard not to conclude that this is the real dynamic taking place in the insurgency in Iraq. What can we possibly offer them to help us achieve our own goals for Iraq? Nothing, I believe.

If you're a military leader, expected to deliver on the promises of your Commander in Chief, how do you come to terms with this possibility? Only, I think, by hoping that this is NOT what's really going on in Iraq, and basically ignoring the whole counterinsurgency issue and strategy.

Lots of good points have been made by posters above. I have only add a couple of small points to add.

First, the pressure on the higher brass to give Rumsfeld (and therefore Cheney, and bush) what he wanted was unbelievably immense. Not only was Shinseki canned, but also let's not forget that in the weeks immediately before the ground operation, Tommy Franks was reported to be asking for more troops and a different plan. Within moments after that we were told that Franks was going to be investigated for improper use of government funds (flying his wife on military craft, I think). Immediately after that leaked, he gave Rumsfeld what he wanted. A two-day story; no more talk of that little matter, and Franks is the big hero with the brilliant battle plan. We're talking about threatening to cut him off without a pension, if I understand the nature of these (spurious) charges. Just think about trying to talk about this being a different war-- you might as well slit your wrists.

Second, my own (very brief and distant) experience with the Air Force running something taught me that their idea of planning is to set things in motion and then see how it all shakes out. Then they can make whatever adjustments they want to-- I put it at the time as "Start out with a half-assed plan and figure out what they need to do as they go along."

If this represents at all the way the other services do things, no wonder we're where we are. The theory that approach expresses is that war is unpredictable and therefore there's no sense planning beyond the initial operation. And the Pentagon has been telling a whole lot from the start about how unpredictable war is, haven't it?

So maybe not planning is built into the system. Which would help explain a lot.

red dan! great to see you back.

i am with the peacenik crowd on this misadventure. no immoral, unjustified, illegal war will EVER be successful -- especially if success is defined as a relatively quick, neat and thorough victory. Maybe if the criminal act is accompanied by a ruthlessness beyond what modern times would accept, maybe then you can at least get a clear-cut 'victory' for the invading force. Short of that, you either lose and get the hell out, cutting your losses and realizing the idiocy of your ways, or you hunker down for a decade-long seige that slaughters aimlessly and accomplishes nothing but misery and destruction.

One reason not to think about fighting a counterinsurgency war is that it may well confront one with the unhappy fact that the war is effectively unwinnable.

That's a great point--this war is unwinnable in that we are not willing to do what is necessary to win.

The first thing you would have to do is seal the borders. Then, you would need to attack what is fueling the insurgency--namely, the cash pouring in from sympathetic countries. Then you'd have to make amends with the people who are attacking us out of revenge. From there, commit 500,000 US troops and begin adding tens if not hundreds of thousands of troops from all over the world to begin the process of separating insurgents from civilians. At least one million Iraqi males out of the four million who are currently sitting on the fence must decide to join the military, accept military training, and begin defending their own country. Next, allow for a legitimate political process. If that means a three way partition of the country, accept it and move on. Finally, the Iraqis must reject becoming a client state of Iran, reject Sharia law and embrace the idea of becoming a secular modern Arab state.

After ten years of what I just outlined, call me. Then we'll see if Iraq has a chance.

Plainly the military did not expect to have to midwife a new Iraqi government, and was never given orders to prepare to do this over a multi-year period.

In retrospect, clearly, this was unwise. But a "dereliction of duty"? There is something to be said for the idea that the most likely threats to American security may be found just about anywhere other than Iraq. Having disposed of Saddam and ascertained that Iraq had no WMDs, senior military officers, not unnaturally, assumed their job was 95% done. We had not insisted on a favorable political outcome after the Gulf War; why would we do so now?

And incidentally, the reason counterinsurgency was necessary in Vietnam is that the United States was not, until the 11th hour, willing to act against the flow of mens and weapons into North Vietnam from China and Russia, or to strike at the enemy capital. Counterinsurgency was not just the alternative to the limited conventional war we could not win; it was also the alternative to the less limited conventional war we were desperately anxious not to fight. There is no very good analogy to be made between this situation and the one in Iraq today, another reason for our armchair strategists here to be a little less smug about "generals fighting the last war."

Oops-- "hasn't it." Sorry.

Finally, the Iraqis must reject becoming a client state of Iran, reject Sharia law and embrace the idea of becoming a secular modern Arab state.

Why "must"?

This habit of second guessing the decisions about the war has a whiff of abnormality to it.

It's kind of like the guy who never got into the military because of flat feet who is always talking about WWII or the Korean War or the Vietnam War, whereas the real vets who had the bullets whizzing around their heads, never say a word about the real action they saw.

"Bring it on" is all you need to know.

Come on Kevin, many, many, many people, both here and at the Pentagram, and at DOD, and almost every Vietnam vet, saw the insurgency coming. at Baghdad+1 or before.

Why not mention it if you are the admin.? well thats easy.

There is no winning a counter insurgency. Its really really really hard to win one. And once you fuck it up. its fucked up. there will be no unbaking the iraq cake. We lost the Iraqis with Abu Gharib (if not before). And we just help enlist more and more "insurgents" every day.

since everyone except the bushcriminal hates rumsfeld, and since rumsfeld owns the iraq military operation, maybe the military wanted to fail so rumsfeld would get blamed for the failure.

grunts are fodder and dark skinned civilians annoying like cockroaches, so who cares if they get ground up in the great political and ideological battles raging in the minds of Washington inhabitants.

The problem isn't that a modern war of imperialist aggression isn't winnable, it's that no modern state is willing to do the things required to win it. Everyone knows Yanks are stunned, but the Brits figured this out in the late forties. God alone knows what their excuse is.

Pale Rider: "When an army meets with a problem it cannot solve on its own, it needs to look to the past and draw upon lessons learned because the institutional memory is severely lacking right now."

I am often impressed by the expertise you bring to these threads, thanks!

Corrobating anecdote: One of my first jobs was in the late 70s at Honeywell. I was the lowest peon in a corporate structure that was developing training for weapon systems. We were developing systems to fight the Russians in foggy conditions in Eastern Europe.

What surprised me then was that the military manuals that I read as part of my job talked about WW2 and the Cold War and then jumped right over Vietnam to the present day. It was as if Vietnam never happened.

It makes me wonder what will happen to the US military after having their noses rubbed in the mess that is Iraq. America needs a strong military.

I know what that whiff is: it's either compensating for something, or guilt. Either way, very unhealthy. Better to not support illegal wars no matter what propaganda the powers-that-be throw at you!

Another way of thinking about the insurgency in Iraq is that there's a great assymmetry in stakes and motivation between us and the insurgents.

The insurgents have every strong reason to fight and keep fighting nearly for the rest of their days; it's their country, and they are shaping how the rest of their lives, and the lives of their children, will be led.

We, the American people, have no such thing at stake. We have no compelling incentive to keep a presence in Iraq for a generation or more, and to continue to lose our soldiers for many many years. If we did, the calculus in the war would be utterly different, and the insurgency might indeed be defeated.

But the American people were never given a satisfying answer to the question of why we need to be in Iraq. Bush can say all he wants about establishing democracy in Iraq, but the American people have clear limits as to the amount of sacrifice they are willing to put into such an effort before there's a clear payoff.

What's become obvious to all but the ideologically impaired is that those limits have already been reached, and the payoff is absolutely nowhere in sight.

If Bush were a golden tongued orator, another Cicero, he couldn't convince the American people to keep up this fight. He is, in fact, something less.

Within moments after that we were told that Franks was going to be investigated for improper use of government funds (flying his wife on military craft, I think). Immediately after that leaked, he gave Rumsfeld what he wanted.

Yes, and a guy who never gets enough praise would be General McKiernan, the three star who led the ground assault and carried out the plan.

When a mysterious "thousand vehicle convoy" appeared just as the first sandstorm hit, McKiernan kept to the plan and stuck it out. Remember, he was seeing reports of what was happening to the combat support units (of Jessica Lynch infamy) and how his supply lines were tenuous.

The Marines fought extremely well in the opening phase of the war. But don't forget that the 3rd Infantry Divison had been training and wargaming a fight north of Kuwait for years. The fact that 3rd ID was locked tight and fought its way into Baghdad and rolled up onto their cloverleafs shocked the hell out of the Arab world.

And less than two months later (June 2003), the insurgents began hitting our troops...this was what calmed the region, the fact that someone was hitting back at the Americans.

To have a small American Army (really, barely an Army, just the equivalent of two small corps advancing parallel to each other) wipe an Arab army off the map and chase it out of existence was a lot to take. I would submit that that is when the wallets opened up and the money began to flow to the organizers of the insurgency.

This habit of second guessing the decisions about the war has a whiff of abnormality to it.

you are right; I am a Vet and I am not second guessing the decisions about the war.

I knew straight away it was fucked, and Rummy, Cheney, et al were incompentent beyond belief. And the whole thing would be a disaster, and their would be years of insurgency.

nope, no second guessing here. thats what experience will do for you!

There is something to be said for the idea that the most likely threats to American security may be found just about anywhere other than Iraq. Having disposed of Saddam and ascertained that Iraq had no WMDs, senior military officers, not unnaturally, assumed their job was 95% done. We had not insisted on a favorable political outcome after the Gulf War; why would we do so now?

Oh, for cryin' out loud. As just about everyone in the world but the most hard-core Bush revisioninsts realizes, your first sentence was true before we went blundering in. But by all means, keep trying to spin this as something we had to start an illegal, ill-conceived and ineptly conducted war to find out.

One of my first jobs was in the late 70s at Honeywell

Had they hired me in '96, I'd still be in Minnesota and wouldn't have joined the Army.

We need some more vets/ex-military to post. There is a guy named Yoshi who posts here once in a while who was an aviation guy in Kuwait--has a ton of great info that is much better than mine.

"We had not insisted on a favorable political outcome after the Gulf War; why would we do so now?"

Zathras, I hate to disagree because I am sympathetic about the position much of the brass was put in. But this war was *all about* a political outcome. At the start it was all about "decapitation," which is as political as it gets, and we'll all remember the house that was bombed to try to kill Saddam very early on.

At that time it seems the plan was to just graft a new head on all the old structures. It would look a lot like Chalabi's, probably. That was going to happen so quick that, heck, we didn't need to worry about anything stupid or obvious like a "surrender" (a political act anyway) or worry about securing stuff because, hey, well, we don't really know, but that's a political decision too.

But then somebody had other ideas about stuff like de-Baathification, and then the fun really began.

What's really criminal here is that this war was always a political war, fought for political aims, and no thought was apparently given to making the political aims happen. I mean by the people who actually made the decisions. And so the insurgency, like everything else that's happened there, was a surprise. To them.

To have a small American Army (really, barely an Army, just the equivalent of two small corps advancing parallel to each other) wipe an Arab army off the map and chase it out of existence was a lot to take. I would submit that that is when the wallets opened up and the money began to flow to the organizers of the insurgency.

I would submit that the insurgency was planned from the beginning. It is rather strange that a despotic government such as Saddam's would disperse munitions and ammunition throughout the country in such a decentralised way unless it was planning to use it later.

This was scorched earth/Napoleon's march on Moscow all over again. retreat and fight the battle on the ground of your choosing.

The US did it to the Soviets in Afghanistan - why wouldn't the baathists do it this time? God knows there was no way they could face the US army in a desert theatre without air cover - and in fact they learnt that lesson already from the first Gulf War.

I can't believe the Iraqi high command was entirely composed of morons - this was pretty much the only strategy open to them. And Rumsfeld and Bush fell for it hook, line and sinker..

this post gets near something that has bothered me a lot.

i keep wondering:

why the hell are our poor bastards driving poorly-armored humvees alongs road where they can be subject to the famous ied's (improvised explosive devices)?

didn't we learn in the french-and-indian wars in the 1770's that it is not a good idea to march shoulder to shoulder, rank on rank into the face of fire from people behind trees?

i got this from jr. high tennessee and american history.

so let me ask, most sincerely (i happen to have a personal stake in this):

will some reasonabley well-trained and analytical military person (and there are a lot of these in the american miilitary) tell me why we are taking the modern equivalent of the "marching shoulder to shoulder" tactic in iraq? can't we be guerillas, too? do we have to be so damned predictable?

why are our soldiers being sent on predictable patrols where they can be blow to bits.

were i an officer, i would be furious if my men were treated this way and i would do everything in my power to prevent that from happpenijng, as i am sure many officers do. but is it, in fact, happening?

military thinker and planners:

please comment here and tell me why.

or why not.

thanks

floop,

Well, that is a good point. I don't think it is in their best interests to end up like the young people of Iran, who aren't too pleased with their fundamentalist clerics running every aspect of their lives. Sharia law is applied in quite an evil and devious way against Iranians. Sharia law applied to Iraq--which has traditionally been secular and has given women rights--would make it more like Iran.

If the Shia in Iraq want to become a client state of Iran, let them do so. I think we're messing around in their politics too much, trying to influence the outcome. Ultimately, I see that there are a lot of Iranians who would prefer a secular form of government and I think the Iraqis would not be well served by Sharia law.

I do believe we never should have started the war, that we need to bring our troops home now and give a huge Mea Culpa. The thread was about winning the war and I was trying to put up some things that would be options. Options that I don't think are within our reach, actually. Please don't confuse me with the trolls tonight--I'm working hard not to cuss.

This has been by far one of the biggest mysteries of the Iraq war: why did no one in the military foresee the insurgency?

It is pretty damned obvious that it is not true that "no one in the military" foresaw the insurgency. Gen. Shinseki's estimate of troop requirements for occupation makes no sense unless it was premised on the assumption of a need for a robust counterinsurgency campaign.

For this perception, he was hurried out the door. This probably had the effect of keeping anyone else with the same realization quiet.

Contrary to current conventional wisdom, which suggests that it's OK to criticize the war but not criticize the troops — including the top brass — the fact is that the military leadership's longstanding refusal to take counterinsurgency seriously is little less than a dereliction of duty.

It certainly is OK to criticize the troops, including the top brass, when you have some substantive basis. However, you provide no reason to believe that the problem here is with the uniformed brass rather than the civilian leadership.

They've insisted on planning for the kind of war they'd like to fight instead of the kind of war they should have known they were likely to fight.

This is certainly true -- of Donald Rumsfeld, et al., and their preconceived theories of fighting quick wars with small military forces and increased reliance on outsourcing traditional military functions to civilian contractors.

But is it true of the "troops"? Once the leadership made it clear that their preconceptions about how to fight could not be challenged, there was no choice for anyone in the uniformed leadership -- at least while remaining in the service -- but to salute and try to salvage something workable from the disastrous fantasies of Rumsfeld & Co. until the civilian leadership was willing to accept the possibility of their own error.

This has been by far one of the biggest mysteries of the Iraq war: why did no one in the military foresee the insurgency?

Are you serious? The military didn’t NOT foresee the threat of an insurgency and it’s not a mystery why. It was part of the Bush war at all costs propaganda and intimidation machine—take out Saddam and count not the cost. The insurgency was the MOST LIKELY of all outcomes in Iraq and the Bush machine ignored it for the same reason they exaggerated the threat.

Truly Kevin, as a long time reader and admirer, this had to be one of your most boneheaded posts.

orionATL,

You have really hit on the problem--we can't hear from the officers who are rejecting shopworn tactics and are doing the right thing to keep their guys alive.

The problem is with their equipment and with where they are located. Moving them over the horizon--Rep Murtha's idea--originates from the thinking within the military that being mortared every night and sniped at wears down the troops.

Believe it or not, living in shitty conditions and getting shot at wears a person down, as does constantly being short of the right weapons, vehicles and enough troops to accomplish the mission. Worn out people make mistakes and get killed.

To summarize the thread, why don't we ever learn from our mistakes?

Kevin is a smart and honest guy, but he is almost always clueless when it comes to military matters.
I think it comes from the liberal anti-military perspective. He now claims that out of all the military, who have spent the last few years fighting for their lives in Iraq, "no one" foresaw the insuragency, derelection of duty by military leaders, refusal to take insurgency seriously, and now almost certainly too late for good anti-insurgency plan.

I don't know which is worse -- that Kevin knows virtually nothing about any of this or that he speaks so glibly demeaning the military people who are pouring their heart and soul into the fight and the effort to protect Kevin and the rest of us.

brian,

shh...the adults are talking.

The school rebuildings, support for local politics, training...that's almost all counter-insurgency.

ah yes, the local elections the marines were preparing for before the CPA cancelled them, I suppose.

"We musn't underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918."
- Captain Renault, "Casablanca"

PR: I know you're not being a troll, mate! I was only making the point (which I'm sure you know!) that we can't really put any conditions on what Iraqi society ends up like.

Regarding Iran - I've been interested in getting a job with my uni in Tehran for ages - I's love to live there for a while and see the inevitable reformation of Islam happen cup close.

Iran is the best hope for the liberalisation of Islam and the Middle East. Much of the political struggles in that country are exactly that: political. Whatever the immense faults of the Iranian system, by and large the struggles between reformers and hardliners have taken place within the political system.

Hell, the Iranian parliament has a Jewish member, elected by the small Jewish Iranian population...

Saudi Arabia is the viper in the Middle East - not Iran.

Also, because I'm not American, I don't probably view Iran in the same way Americans do - we don't have the same difficult shared history. We have heaps of Iranian students studying here - Australia does a lot of trade with the Iranian republic.

I don't know which is worse -- that Kevin knows virtually nothing about any of this or that he speaks so glibly demeaning the military people who are pouring their heart and soul into the fight and the effort to protect Kevin and the rest of us.

I better leave. I'm really starting to feel...inspired. But not before pointing something out to our delightful friend brian:

There isn't exactly a whole lot of 'anti-US soldier' sentiment in my posts. Those people pouring their heart and soul into protecting us? A small number of them are people I happen to have served with. I don't speak for them--I speak for myself, and myself only.

When I speak to you, and remember--I'm speaking for myself--I didn't spend seven years on active duty protecting your right to be a jackass in public because of anything to do with being a Republican or Democrat.

Kevin, you are finally starting to grok it!

floop,

You should go! What a great opportunity.

PR: sure, if I ever get a job there...

:)

From Maureen Dowd-

Jack Murtha: "The military tells me that when they were planning the invasion, the administration wouldn't let one of the primary three-star generals in the room."

Maybe he wanted to discuss a possible insurgency?

No matter. We are ruled by the Self-Refuter-in-Chief:

"Whether or not it needed to happen," the president told [Brian Williams], "I'm still convinced it needed to happen."

Savor that one, it's a gem.

There is something to be said for the idea that the most likely threats to American security may be found just about anywhere other than Iraq. Having disposed of Saddam and ascertained that Iraq had no WMDs, senior military officers, not unnaturally, assumed their job was 95% done. We had not insisted on a favorable political outcome after the Gulf War; why would we do so now?

There's actually an important truth in this, and a great irony.

The great irony is that nothing even remotely resembling WMDs was ever found in Iraq, despite the very reasonable expectation that we might at least find some chemical weapon stockpiles, which would have most certainly have been spun by the Bush WH as being a grave threat to us.

Can anybody doubt that if such weapons had been found, in any number, we would have been treated over the last several years to an ongoing litany of the supposedly massively lethal powers of those weapons to American citizens?

That, you see, was the REAL plan of the Bush administration, namely a purely political one: find the "WMD", however ineptly so described, and, by absurd, over-the-top rhetoric, turn them into great bug-eyed monsters that would kill legions of American citizens in their innocent sleep.

If those weapons had been found, the entire discussion and context of the Iraq war would have taken on a vastly different content, and likely to this day the American public would have been far more tolerant of the losses we are suffering than they are today.

And that is most probably why the Bush WH never bothered their pretty little heads with the possibility of fighting a counterinsurgency: it would be politically irrelevant, which means it simply would not exist as a problem in Bush World.

Sometimes I think God wanted to give Bush and the neocons their comeuppance, and sprung this no-"WMD" surprise on them. Indeed, it's as good an argument for God as I can muster up.

Sometimes I think God wanted to give Bush and the neocons their comeuppance, and sprung this no-"WMD" surprise on them. Indeed, it's as good an argument for God as I can muster up.

We have a cartoonist in Melbourne, Leunig, who is a national treasure. He had a cartoon of Bush standing at a podium, intoning "God Bless America".

Up above him in a cloud is God, looking thoughtful, who muses "Maybe it's time for a blessing in disguise?"

floop,

Oh, come on--everyone who posts here is practically unemployable.

Your pal Don P is calling himself MJ Memphis or something stupid like that now--we figured out where he worked and he totally freaked on us.

A guy at his company e-mailed me back and said he was somewhat harmless.

Somewhat.

PR: I am most certainly employed here at my company. I just don't work here.

Subtle difference.

Your pal Don P is calling himself MJ Memphis or something stupid like that now--we figured out where he worked and he totally freaked on us.

How did you manage that? Color me impressed.

Btw, Pale Rider, I've been critical of you in the past, but for the record, I think you have literary talent.

Your pen could take you far.

If we leave Iraq to widespread ethnic cleansing and ultimately partition doesn't that argue in some sense against earlier intervention in the Balkans? If there is (and I don't take it for granted that there is) going to be a bloody internal reshuffling of peoples in Iraq, and the ultimate disintegration of the country could we really have prevented that same process in the former Yugoslavia? At least in the case of Yugoslavia, it was the ethnic plurality the Serbs who were most invested in the idea of holding the country together. The religious majority Shiites don't seem overly preoccupied with idea of Iraq. They would apparently be happy taking their own private Idaho in the south.

You think he has the write stuff?

Ouch.

Pale Rider--I have been subjected to your tripe on this site for a couple of years now, and I have decided that you are the biggest horse's ass I have personally encountered on the internet. You are unfailingly misinformed, self-absorbed, hostile to any dissent, condescending without evidence of qualification, dully predictable, and just plain asinine. You are like a juke box that only plays one lousy song over and over again. Give it a rest, or get some new material, because you are a fucking bore.

If we leave Iraq to widespread ethnic cleansing and ultimately partition doesn't that argue in some sense against earlier intervention in the Balkans?

No. If our intervention that caused the chaos in Iraq left us no realistic way to prevent widespread ethnic cleansing and, possibly, partition, that says nothing about our intervention to stop ethnic cleansing (and, incidentally, in some cases to enforce partition) in the Balkans. Two different scenarios, with different reasonably expected outcomes from US action.

If there is (and I don't take it for granted that there is) going to be a bloody internal reshuffling of peoples in Iraq, and the ultimate disintegration of the country could we really have prevented that same process in the former Yugoslavia?

Um, we didn't try to prevent the dissolution of Yugoslavia, we did try to control ethnic strife. And since we largely did do that, its pretty hard to say that anything in Iraq would retroactively change the truth of the results in Yugoslavia.

At least in the case of Yugoslavia, it was the ethnic plurality the Serbs who were most invested in the idea of holding the country together.

You say that like its a good thing.

The religious majority Shiites don't seem overly preoccupied with idea of Iraq. They would apparently be happy taking their own private Idaho in the south.

Based on what, exactly?

Kevin - This has been by far one of the biggest mysteries of the Iraq war: why did no one in the military foresee the insurgency? And once it started, why did they turn a blind eye to it? And now that they've finally figured out what they're up against, why are they still only haltingly — and far from unanimously — willing to change doctrine?

I'm sure this has already been said, but here are five good answers: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith.

If we leave Iraq to widespread ethnic cleansing and ultimately partition doesn't that argue in some sense against earlier intervention in the Balkans?

How many US troops were killed in the Balkans? How much fanatical anti-Americanism, worldwide, did our intervention there stir up? How many allied countries contributed in strength to the peacekeeping effort?

We should make a good faith effort to prevent Iraq from falling apart. But we should recognize that our chances of success there are much lower than they were in Bosnia, in large measure because of the monumental stupidity of our intervention so far.

Pffff. Everyone - even the liberals - in 2003 knew that Saddam had planned an insurgency all along.

British intelligence had learned that Iraq attempted to acquire quantities of IED tactics from Africa.

Pale-freankin'-rider is brillaint in this thread. I am in awe, and I have been educated.

If that's not obvious, you need to examine your meds.

Why don't they want to fight an insurgency?

Procurement fraud.

It's harder to steal when you're managing a transaction to buy 300,000 rifles that actually have to work, or 300,000 bullet proof vests.

But when you've got a black-ops fund for high-tech gizmos that will never actually be used (and therefore never actually tested), like nuclear bunker busters, dude, that's 100% profit!

Republicans want a high-tech video-game war so they can steal.

Perhaps just a minor point, but why do Kevin, Lawrence Kaplan, or David Ignatius assume that General Abizaid and other senior officers in Iraq were reading Lewis Sorley's A Better War for the first time?

General Abizaid is registered Republican?

The counterinsurgency would have been directed at whoever was in power after So Damn Insane. So until a viable structure was formed there was no gaming senerio that would lead to a success. I will define success, as a steady increasing flow of oil, a country not a threat to other nation's, and not likely to be controled by a hostile country that could disrupt global commerce, by trading oil in a currency other than USD.

With that as a determination of success, we can now look for a method that will achieve these goals. First we must get by these elections, second the American forces need to retreat to a minimal pressence inside Iraq with an ability to respond in the areas at risk of instability. This will require base lease's of lets say 10 years. Which can not be entered into until there is a legitamate government. This will also require each natrual autonomous region to have a strong role in local administration of commerce, and order. This will require a focus on making sure the ability to conduct oil operations can be done in a manner that creates a positive cash flow after security cost's are factored in, before it is a success.

Those are the objectives that need to be accomplished before we can withdrawl from Iraq. This will not be easy. It may be a pipe dream of a bunch of Neo-con chicken hawks who have never seen war from the prospective of one bullet at a time. At this point it does not matter. What matter's is if these goals are to be achieved they need to put on the table. Sometimes the cards an't worth a dime if you don't lay them down. It is time to lay our cards on the table, in a public manner so that the Iraqi people know what we need to declare victory and leave.

I think that the simplest way to understand the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the 78-day American air blitz against Serbia is to realize that Bill Clinton was careful to do and say everything that would please the Germans, while generally ignoring the French. The U.S.A. basically implemented German policy in the Balkans.

Sure, sure, as soon as I'm done laughing, William H. Depperman...

Do you do parties?

It's a little late in the thread for this, but I guess I should clear something up. When I said that "no one in the military" foresaw the insurgency, that was sloppy wording. What I meant was "no one in the military leadership." As several people have pointed out, there are people in the military who are counterinsurgency experts and have been trying to recommend counterinsurgency techniques almost from the beginning. For the most part, though, they have been ignored until very recently.

No, but do you have anyone better?

The Iraqi army? DeBathification had to be the worst idea in the history of stupid ideas. Worse than cloning dinosaurs.

I would submit that the insurgency was planned from the beginning. It is rather strange that a despotic government such as Saddam's would disperse munitions and ammunition throughout the country in such a decentralised way unless it was planning to use it later.
Posted by: floopmeister on December 13, 2005 at 11:10 PM | PERMALINK

Except for the fact that much of the munitions dispersal was accomplished by the failure of Rummy to secure Iraqi arms depots (eg. Al Qa Qaa, etc.)

It's almost as if it was on purpose. In fact, I can see more purposeful intent in Rummy's actions than Saddam's. While it makes sense that Saddam would try to invest some military capacity for post-invasion survivability, I don't see much in the way of signs. I mean, if he did it, that effort's pretty much indistinguishable from what we're seeing; explainable by looting of unguarded weapons depots, and smuggled-in IED technology from Iran or Al Qaeda. I would think that if Saddam had been saving up a package for future use, it would have consisted of some heavier equipment, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft stuff to harass coalition helicopters or combat air patrols, or to frustrate close air support. But we're not seeing ANY of that in any element of the insurgency today.

Speaking broadly, there are three constituencies with differing opinions about Iraq:

1. Based on Military Times polls, active service personnel support the Iraq war and Bush by a 3-to-1 margin.

2. Iraqi sentiment and a great deal of other information can be gauged from the statistics collected in the Iraq Index at the Brookings Institution website. According to a poll from October 11, 2005, Iraqi citizens feel their country is moving in the right direction rather than the wrong direction by a 47%-to-37% margin. Their reasons for optimism include: petroleum supplies reaching 88% of pre-war levels and electricity at 94% of pre-war levels; per capita GDP 30% higher than in 2002; twice as many cars as before the war; and 5.5 times as many phones. They are also holding an election right now where the result won't be 100.0% for the incumbent.

3. The American public appears to be far more pessimistic about Iraq than the first two groups, even though the first two groups are the ones who are bearing most of the costs of the war. This pessimism does not appear to be based as much on direct information from Iraq as on analogies with Vietnam.

I believe that Joe Lieberman is right. There is much reason for hope, and the war is not already a lost cause.

Oh, and one more point. The civilian leadership is obviously more to blame than anyone for what's happened in Iraq. They were clueless about what they were getting into and refused to believe that the war would be anything besides a glorious liberation.

However, I've made this point so many times that I didn't feel like I had to make it yet again. My focus on the military just happened to be the focus of this post.

BTW, I'm not sure Shinseki looks all that great on this score either. It's true that he wanted more troops, but that was primarily for peacekeeping, I think, not to fight a counterinsurgency. I'm not aware of an increased focus on counterinsurgency during his tenure, though if anyone knows more about this I'd be interested to hear it.

Whenever I read one of these analyses from Kevin, I'm reminded of comedy routines about people with extremely short term memories. It's as if he's forgotten the last time he wrote about our chances for "victory" in Iraq. Just once, I'd like to see him say that the moment we went in, we lost. That we don't deserve victory. That you can't turn mass murder into justice.

But he won't say those things. Is it because he's afraid Al or tbrosz or Cheney--or Bush himself--will call him a TRAITOR!!? Nah, I don't think so. It's because, with a political agenda not really that far removed from any of them, he would think himself a traitor. Meanwhile, like the others, he betrays humanity with his hopes that those who wield their killing weapons and their selfish brutality will somehow be able to come out of this with a win.

jayarbee - in your opinion, did we come out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a "win"?

trying to recommend counterinsurgency techniques almost from the beginning. For the most part, though, they have been ignored until very recently.

Posted by: Kevin Drum on December 14, 2005 at 1:14 AM | PERMALINK

Unsupported fact. What do you define as counterinsurgency tactics? I suspect I can show examples of the action taking place.

------------------

The Iraqi army? DeBathification had to be the worst idea in the history of stupid ideas. Worse than cloning dinosaurs.

Posted by: osama_been_forgotten on December 14, 2005 at 1:15 AM | PERMALINK

No one knows what would be happening if you used the Iraqi army. The people lobbying for their disbanding were local Shiite's and Kurds, the clear majority of the population. Perhaps you'd be fighting less Sunni's and more Shiite's ....and Shiite's outnumber Sunni's by far.

A huge problem with fighting the insurgency and successfully installing a democratic government is that Iraq is not a homogenous state. The Allies didn't give a shit about Shiites, Sunnis, Turks, or Arabs when they split The Ottoman Empire into colonies after World War I.

We destroyed Germany and Japan in World War II and installed democratic governments. Both countries rapidly became extremely successful and are behind only the US as top 3 economies in the world.

Kevin,

The point of putting in hundreds of thousands of troops at the onset, ostensibly in the name of "peacekeeping," is to prevent the birth and growth of anything like a large-scale, popular, effective insurgency in the first place.

Prevent looting, prevent score-settling, prevent ethnic squabbles over land/water/holy areas, and tamp down on unrest and secure the rebuilding BEFORE an insurgency can develop.

That way, when someone organizes an insurgent group or cell, that group or cell is easy to identify, and more importantly, isolated from any potential support bases (assuming that most people would rather NOT have a guerrilla war in their neighborhood as long as the water, electricity, and public infrastructure is functioning).

The key to winning any insurgency is preventing its development in the first place, and the key to preventing its development is serious attention to "hearts and minds" - serious attention to hearts and minds entails serious attention to stomachs, wallets, roads, toilets, air conditioners, and so on.

Once the insurgency is up and running, once to public services are shot to shit and can't get running due to security problems, once the occupiers and their chosen local leaders cannot deliver basic necessities, then the insurgency holds all the cards and has more appeal to a larger number of people. Those people then start working with, for, and in the insurgency. Those people get whacked, arrested, or whatever, and ... they all have extended families...and then those families join.

And then you get to where we are now.

That's why Shinseki was right on the money, in fact a bit under even at that.

Again, the only way to "win an insurgent war" is to prevent it from starting in the first place.

"No. If our intervention that caused the chaos in Iraq left us no realistic way to prevent widespread ethnic cleansing and, possibly, partition, that says nothing about our intervention to stop ethnic cleansing (and, incidentally, in some cases to enforce partition) in the Balkans. Two different scenarios, with different reasonably expected outcomes from US action."

Yes, but the bulk of ethnic cleansing had taken place before the arrival of American boots on the ground in the former Yugoslavia, and with a directed purpose (to purge ethnic and religious minorities from mixed areas). How would we have dealt with all those pluralistic enclaves in the earlier part of the 1990s, told Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and others to move to their own neighborhoods? I appreciate the fact that our actions in Iraq have precipitated the present chaos, and that we had next to nothing to do with the tragedy in the Balkans, but what could we have done to prevent the bulk of the bloodletting there, and what exactly could we do to prevent a similiar bloodletting in Iraq (if that is in fact the direction things are going)?

Ether Breather,

That Military Times Poll is what it is...and I remain unconvinced that it is an accurate reflection of military opinion:

Those polled differ from the military as a whole in important ways. They tend to be older, higher in rank and more career-oriented. Even so, it is perhaps the most representative independent sample possible because of the inherent challenges in polling servicemen and women, according to polling experts and military sociologists.

Taken from their own analysis of the poll.

Iraqi sentiment is not pollable, nor has it been accurately reflected in any poll. The polls I have read indicate that most Iraqis want the US out, now. Regardless of ANY poll, however, is the bare fact that enough Iraqis are unhappy enough with the situation that they are joining, supporting, and activel or tacitly helping the insurgency...which apparently numbers in the tens to hundreds of thousands.

American public pessimism arises out of a classic case of "sticker shock" or "reality check" - the bill is huge, the cost in blood and tears is immense, and the impact, from Katrina all the way on down is staggering.

I believe that Joe Lieberman is a fool, a liar, and a doltish sycophant angling for an administration job so that he can avoid getting hammered by Lowell Weicker.

Ignore "Robert," by the way -- it's merely the thread spammer Charlie/Cheney under a new pseudonym. He's not worth engaging in discussion as he has a tendency to spam the thread with Bush speeches.

EtherBreather:

Below are some other poll results, from http://www.juancole.com/ on Dec 13.

Sorry, the Joementum now is just as illusory as it was then. The criminal and incompetnet civilian leadership manage to make the wrong decision every time. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and no one else brought the US to the situation where we face a dilemma of choosing between very bad and possible diasaster, and it we don't even know which is which. Trolls and apologists and bleat their feeble apologetics. Fact is, lots of folks who knew history, foreign affair, military affairs, both military and civilian saw this coming.

Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's fault. Period. Not the military's, nobody but those incompetent murderous criminals.

***from http://www.juancole.com/ on Dec 13****

ABC/Time Poll on Iraq

The full tabulation of the new ABC News/Time, et al., poll on Iraq is in pdf format on the web. Although a lot of Iraqis are optimistic about the future, and a lot say things aren't going so badly for them personally, their view of where the country is at presently is quite dark. In fact, these attitudes are almost the opposite of the impression we are given of Iraqi attitudes in most of the US mainstream press.

Let's look at some key findings:

Things are going badly in Iraq today: 52% (30% say "very badly").

There has been no improvement since Saddam fell or things are worse: 60%

It was wrong for the US to invade Iraq: 50%

(Only 19% say it was "absolutely right" for the US to invade)

Oppose presence of Coalition troops in Iraq: 65%

Iraq needs a government made up mainly of religious leaders: 48%

Iraq needs a government made up mainly of military leaders: 49%

Iraq needs a strong single leader: 91%

Iraq needs an Iraqi democracy: 90%

40% of Iraqis want a dictatorship and/or an Islamic State ((down from 49% in Feb.)
58% of Iraqis want "democracy" (up from 49% in Feb.)

Counter-insurgency isn't "sexy." The Army doesn't focus on it because you don't need fancy new tanks or armored vehicles for it, and nobody makes general winning over "hearts and minds." Whatever else has been said here in the comments, that much is a fact.

The Pentagon is preparing a request to Congress for another $100 BILLION for 2006 to fight the war(s).

I knew that it would be necessary to fight an insurgency in Iraq, as did every other liberal who tried to get a public discussion going on Bush's threats against Saddam, but were shouted down as "unpatriotic."

"The Pentagon is preparing a request to Congress for another $100 BILLION for 2006 to fight the war(s)."

And where do they suppose they will get that?

I dunno, Mr. Chinese Banker, do you want to get this round, or should I pick this one up?

I'm cashing out.

Further to Alexander Wolfe's comment above, a colleague of mine had an interesting take on this before the war even kicked off. He'd served in the British Army and has several close friends who are active duty officers.

His view (and he said it was widely held in the British Army) is that the US Army is nearly laughable when it comes to counterinsurgency capabilities. He pointed out that the British Army had extensive experience in Northern Ireland, where units were regularly circulated through. He admitted that today's Tommy may not have served in Northern Ireland, but lots of non-coms (the backbone of any army) and plenty of officers had.

He also said that in the typical British view the US Army liked to shoot first and ask questions later, with priority given to concentration of firepower.

He predicted that the British Army would fare far better than the US Army in the aftermath of the initial large-scale operations. We had a few heated go-rounds about the whole thing.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of his opinions, but he's not uninformed and appears to have been more correct than not.

My question is this: If the British Army does have superior capabilities in situations like the one in Iraq today, why aren't we taking our closest ally's expertise and applying it to improve our own capabilities ?

(Of course I can think of a few reasons - intra-service rivalries and the like - or maybe I'm just off the mark.)

Cheers,

You guys want to go for drinks after we wrap this up? There is a Hooters out by the Dehli Airport. I often see Tom Friedman there. It is where he can be found when he is not gathering unusually insightful quotes from corporate executives or cab drivers in Bangalore explaining the whole of globalization in a single, image rich sentence.

Did you notice you guys spend 465 billion on social security, 160 billion in medicaid, 210 billion in medicare, 55 billion in unemployment and 150 billion in other income secutity programs. All in 2003 dollars - all per annum.

So 50 billion per year on a war on terror is well within your economic means...

That is if investing in your country's long-term security by trying to get some progress in the middle east is worth it over your "knee jerk" causes....

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=53149

The real MCA would never say that.

huh?

And yet another reason why our political leaders can't let go of Iraq is because idiots like Norman Podhoretz egg them on.

McAristotle doesn't know who MCA is; he was brought up in a country whose strict Confucian standards prevented him from exercising his right to party.

How much does a license to ill run you in Kuala Lumpur?

McAristotle doesn't know who MCA is; he was brought up in a country whose strict Confucian standards prevented him from exercising his right to party.

How much does a license to ill run you in Kuala Lumpur?

Rofe: My question is this: If the British Army does have superior capabilities in situations like the one in Iraq today, why aren't we taking our closest ally's expertise and applying it to improve our own capabilities ?

Because the US army refuses to admit that any other army can be superior to it in anything.
Eric Alterman has an "Iraq correspondent", a gung-ho thug called Major Robert Bateman. Last year he wrote that he had been receiving mail asking the same question Rofe asked, specifically on dealing with IEDs: and he replied "In fact, the British Army has no experience with IEDs."

I have no idea how many of Major Bateman's troops have been killed so far. But if this mind-warpingly ignorant statement is typical of the man, I should say "lots". And if the major is typical of US company and battalion commanders, that could explain a lot. (I pointed out the major's error to Alterman; no effect. His letters are still getting printed, lots of 'but we're painting schools' rubbish for the MSN tubefeeders).

Yes, it is common knowledge in the British army that the US army is terrible at counter-insurgency. I know people who put it down to sheer xenophobia. The "Island USA" syndrome on US bases overseas is well known, but this applied even to SF bases in Germany during the Cold War; the very troops who were supposed to go underground in Germany when the Russians invaded and start organising resistance never set foot outside their own bases in peacetime, and despised the Germans.
The NCO cadre is good. The mid-rank officers are very bad indeed. The equipment is excellent. The mechanised warfare doctrine is moderately good. The light infantry doctrine is poor. The average soldier is reasonable. The peacekeeping/low-intensity/COIN doctrine is a joke.

How much does a license to ill run you in Kuala Lumpur?

You'd think he'd know something about brass monkeys.

When you've got a drooling sociopathic idiot as commander-in-chief, bad things happen.

Damn right I hate him--he's crapped all over the troops, my country's flag and my children's future.

Impeach him--but Cheney first.

Where was Colin Powell? He was a vet of Viet Nam, but was either to timid or interested in furthering personal goals to raise holy hell. At one time I thought he would make a good POTUS, but not now. When his moment of truth came, he went along with this idiocy.

How much does a license to ill run you in Kuala Lumpur?

Posted by: brooksfoe on December 14, 2005 at 5:39 AM | PERMALINK

Why do you care?

You don't sound like someone who will get further than Canada or Mexico to me.

Than's more to the world than the liberal interpretation of it.

And Confucius was the man...showed the general tendency to favor the commune over the individual that was prevalent in Asia though.

Pale Rider--I have been subjected to your tripe on this site for a couple of years now, and I have decided that you are the biggest horse's ass I have personally encountered on the internet. You are unfailingly misinformed, self-absorbed, hostile to any dissent, condescending without evidence of qualification, dully predictable, and just plain asinine. You are like a juke box that only plays one lousy song over and over again. Give it a rest, or get some new material, because you are a fucking bore.

Sorry--didn't start posting here until August of 2005.

But thanks for playing...

The peacekeeping/low-intensity/COIN doctrine is a joke.

Posted by: ajay on December 14, 2005 at 6:13 AM | PERMALINK

Well, subtlety was never an American strength.

Having said that did you see a subtle power who gave a shit enough about the middle east, to fix the middle east without a second holocaust? I don't see any, and since your existance and oil-based economy is the one targeted by Islamic Facism ...its your turn to batter up.

obscure:

How did you manage that? Color me impressed.

Google. Refine search terms, repeat. Then, start e-mailing some folks. It ain't hard. I should teach all of you guys how to do that before I go.

Btw, Pale Rider, I've been critical of you in the past, but for the record, I think you have literary talent.

obscure, you often come up with great stuff, too. I am a mere newbie and need to work very hard on how I conduct myself and how I present things.

Your pen could take you far.

Tell that to the people who run the bottle washing factory.

Why do you care?

For someone who claims to be international, you sure don't sound intergalactic.

Heck, McMao, given your love for the ChiComs and their enablers in Washington, I'd bet you're here for a little sabotage, hm?

So whatcha want?

Pale Rider-"Sorry--didn't start posting here until August of 2005."

As in having a tooth drilled, it seems much, much longer.

Billy Bob,

When a hillbilly like you has that one tooth worked on, it can certainly seem like an eternity.

Here--this might be useful to read:

On War #140: Militant Tricks
William S. Lind

Militant Tricks: Battlefield Ruses of the Islamic Insurgent is the title of John Poole's latest book. Poole, a former Marine NCO and officer, is America's best writer on small unit tactics and techniques. His first book, The Last Hundred Yards, should be in every fire team, squad and platoon leader's pack. More recently, he has written a series of books that attempt to explain the Eastern, indirect way of war to Western audiences. Militant Tricks is the most recent work in that series.

This is really three books in one, and all of them are good. The first book is a detailed description of how our opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan fight. Here Poole's subtitle, Battlefield Ruses of the Islamic Insurgent, sums up his offering. Unlike Western forces, which seek a head-on clash, Eastern warfare relies on tricks. Nothing is what it seems to be. Poole writes,

The military heritage of Asia Minor is quite different from that of France, Britain, and America. In Asia Minor, loose encirclements and tiny probes are more common than mass assaults. There, one can often win by running away. . . Like the Chinese, southwest Asian insurgents practice the "False Face and Art of Delay." First, they show the Westerner what they want him to see. Then, they wait for him to make the first, incorrect move. Finally, they secretly launch a maneuver that he would not choose under similar circumstances.

Poole lays this way of fighting out in detail in Part II of his book. Using the ancient Chinese book 36 Stratagems of Deception as his framework (I do not share Poole's view that Chinese thought directly influenced our current opponents, but the framework is still useful), he provides exactly the sort of material our soldiers and Marines need in Iraq and Afghanistan if they are to understand their enemies. Here is a sample from one stratagem, "Feign Lack of Military Ability:"

Irrational behavior normally generates a sound or motion signature. But one can unobtrusively feign tactical ignorance. Literally this stratagem says, "Feign foolishness instead of madness."

Most U.S. and British troops have come to see all Muslim insurgents as tactically inept. They don't yet realize that their foe intentionally places poorly trained martyrdom volunteers in their path. With little strategic value, those volunteers are considered expendable. It is their handlers -- the enemy recruiters/trainers/advisors -- who must be stopped. Many are Iranian special operators and as tactically proficient as their U.S. counterparts. Their "throwaway" personnel have accomplished two things: (1) fooling the Coalition as to the real source and sophistication of the insurgency, (2) facilitating the handler's escape.

In addition to this useful discussion, Militant Tricks offers two other important themes. One is Poole's view (and mine) that we are losing both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Until Washington and America's senior field commanders face up to this fact, no improvement is to be expected, because there will be no incentive to change.

Poole's third theme is how we can win in both places. Here, I think he is over-optimistic. Even if we do adopt his recommendations, I think we will do so too late. But what he writes is valuable for what may still be achieved, namely avoiding outright and obvious defeat. Poole's diagnosis differs from the common one, because he does not see the Sunni insurgency as the core problem. Rather, he believes the main actor is Shiite Hezbollah, working hand-in-hand with Iran. If he is correct, the door might be open to the deal with the Baathist insurgents I believe America needs in order to leave Iraq.

On the tactical level, Poole agrees with virtually every other expert on counter-insurgency that the key to success (however defined) is a variant of the Vietnam war CAP program, where our troops defended the local population instead of bombing it. Poole writes,

While the Vietnam war may not have had a happy ending, it did produce some very effective ways to handle guerilla activity. One of the most farsighted – and strictly of U.S. Marine Corps design and implementation – was the Combined Action Platoon (CAP). Lone Marine squads were stationed in scores of villages to help local residents organize their own defenses. There is an urban equivalent to the CAP concept that would work in a neighborhood setting. If the Muslim militant has widely dispersed throughout Iraqi society, must not the occupying force do likewise to beat him?

Regardless of the outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan, America will face other wars against Islamic militants, though a correct grand strategy would work to avoid such conflicts. If people at the top will give John Poole's work the attention it is rightly receiving from those at the battalion level and below, we would have a better chance of winning them.

This column was written in early November, and is also relevant to the discussion because Lind lays out a very realistic way of leaving Iraq.

On War #138: Exit Strategy

William S. Lind

One day late in the Vietnam war, a Senator called his defense staffer into his office. Like too many Senators (though neither of the two I worked for), the distinguished legislator depended entirely upon his staff but treated them like peons. Although the end of the day had come and gone, the Senator snarled at his hapless staffer, "I want to give a speech on the Floor tomorrow morning on the Vietnam war. You can stay here tonight and write it."

The next morning, the Senator found the text of his speech on his desk, neatly typed and bound. Without bothering to look it over, he took it to the Floor of the Senate where, with the voice if not the mind of Cicero, he shared it with the world. About half way through, he read a page that concluded with the words, "I will now offer my five-point plan for ending the Vietnam war." Turning the page, he found an unexpected message from his despised staffer: "You're on your own now, you SOB. I quit."

Like the Senator, I think it is time I offered my own exit strategy for Iraq. Everyone in Washington except those in the Bushbunker knows we need an exit strategy; few have offered one. While I have had a bit more time to consider my proposal than did the Senator in the story (which was current during my early days on Senate staff), I am sure my proposal will have holes in it. Nonetheless, it may help move the discussion along, from whether to get out of Iraq to how to get out.

Please note that I am not talking about how to win the Iraq war. The war was lost from before the first bomb fell, because the strategic objectives were never attainable no matter what we did. Further blunders, from de-Baathification and sending the Iraqi Army home through mistreating the civilian population, have moved us from mere failure to incipient disaster. The question, rather, is how we might get out without our defeat being so obvious as to be undeniable.

So here is my proposal:

First, announce that we will leave Iraq soon, and completely. Not one American base or soldier will remain on Iraqi soil. The spin should be, "We came only to remove Saddam from power, and we have accomplished that mission. Iraq now has a constitution and an elected government; we have no reason to remain."

Second, open negotiations to set a date by which we will be gone. The formal negotiations will be with the Iraqi government. Behind the scenes, we will have to set a deadline for achieving an agreement, failing which we will announce a withdrawal unilaterally. Governments established by foreign powers may be reluctant to see foreign troops leave.

The critical (and secret) negotiations, however, will not be with Iraq's puppet government, but with the Sunnis. Here, what we need is what is sometimes called a "diplomatic revolution." Instead of siding with the Kurds and Shiites against the Sunnis, we need to offer the Sunnis an alliance. The terms would be roughly these:

1)We will set and adhere to a date for complete withdrawal;

2)We will cease all attacks on the Sunni resistance, as part of a mutual cease-fire; and

3)We will use such political influence as we retain with Iraq's Shiite-Kurdish condominium to protect and advance the Sunnis' interests.

In return, the Sunnis will:

1)Enforce a cease-fire in the Sunni provinces, and

2)Clean up al Qaeda in Iraq. If they need and want our help to do that, we will help. I doubt they will need any assistance from us, beyond stopping our attacks in Sunni areas, and I doubt even more they will want it, since it would de-legitimize them.

Third, while we will cease our useless "sweeps" and other clearly offensive actions, we will also quietly institute the "ink-blot strategy" in some mixed Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish areas. While the ink-blot strategy (like the CAP program in Vietnam) represents a strategic offensive, which allows us to keep pressure on the Sunnis to make a deal, it requires de-escalation on the tactical level, so as not to alienate the local population. That should help reduce both Sunni and American casualties while negotiations proceed.

As I have noted in previous columns, a problem in Fourth Generation conflicts is finding someone with whom to negotiate, someone who can deliver once a deal is made. Here, events in Iraq may have given us an opportunity. According to the October 27 Christian Science Monitor, Iraq's key Sunni political parties have formed a new coalition. That coalition is, to quote the Monitor, "Islamist, vehemently anti-American, opposed to foreign troops, and discreetly pro-insurgency." I think it is safe to add that it is closely tied to the Baathist elements of the insurgency, which are both a large part of the resistance and strongly opposed to al Qaeda.

All those characteristics make it a credible negotiating partner. Negotiations with Sunni Quislings serve no purpose, because the Quislings can't deliver what we need, a quieting down of the fighting while we get out. There is good reason to think the new Sunni coalition could deliver that. In turn, we could deliver what they need, which is political support vis-à-vis the Shiites and Kurds.

Could it work? Maybe; in such business, there are no guarantees. Would the new Sunni coalition talk with us about a deal along these lines? It's worth a try. Would the Bush administration make such an attempt? Aye, there's the rub. The Bushbunker may be so detached from reality that it still thinks we can win this war militarily.

If that is the case, then it is time for America's senior military leaders, the Chief and Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to have a little talk with the President. Another Vietnam war story, a true one, is how the JCS failed to give President Johnson the advice he needed though did not want, namely that the military had done all that it could and it was time to seek a political solution.

So that's my exit strategy. If someone else comes up with a better one, I will be happy to defer to it. But the time is past for arguing whether we need an exit strategy; the discussion should be about what that strategy might be. "Staying the course" in a lost war is not a strategy at all; it is merely a recipe for disaster.

Contributing Editor William S. Lind, a veteran defense policy analyst, is Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.

I encourage people--whether they are conservative or liberal--to check out William Lind's writings and other works. You can find his stuff at

http://www.sftt.org

This has been by far one of the biggest mysteries of the Iraq war: why did no one in the military leadership foresee the insurgency?

Colin Powell did in the first Gulf War, remember?

McA: Well, subtlety was never an American strength.

I can hardly disagree with this observation, but that it should come out of the mouth of McAristotle makes my freakin' day.

shortstop,

Don't go towards the light...don't go into the light...come back to us...come back to your friends and family, shortstop...

Bush wanted a cheap war and found people in the military who would promise one. Those people could promise a cheap war because they were too dim to think past collapsing the shakey dictatorship.

I'm still laughing at that "subtlety" remark coming from McA.

I must donate more money to this site. It's far cheaper than satellite, going to the movies or even hitting my favorite used-book stores, and you get so much bang for the buck.

Do you know which war has produced the most experts? The American civil war. And yet, there is no lesson to be learned from any aspect of how that war was fought.

Sorry to disagree with you, Pale Rider, but Gettysburg taught the folly of charging uphill against an entrenched position -- even for an infantry unit as elite as the Army of Northern Virginia. (It also taught, again, the importance of battlefield intelligence, as the absence of Jeb Stuart's cavalry surely led to poor choices by the Confederates). Would that the combatants in WWI had realized the same lessons.

"posting since August of 2005"

Well, it took time to ride from Mono Lake up into the high Sierras and don the cloth.

As the US Army not adapting to foreign military methods, reminds of a day in Germany in 63. A West German paratroop squad came to our 8 inch self propelled artillery kaserne. They brought a new 75 m mountain howitzer with them. They spent a rather warm August afternoon demonstrating the features of the weapon. The howitzer could be elevated and fired almost like a mortar, then dropped quickly and fire almost like an 88 in the hedgerows. The paratroopers were working very fast and sweating profusely. They all had much longer hair than we were allowed at that time.
I was standing with a group of NCOs who all had combat experience from either WW11 and/or Korea.
With no combat experience, I was impressed with the skill of the Germans. However, all of the combat types simply made one comment about the Germans. Although impressed with the weapon, they, to a man, agreed that the German soldiers needed hair cuts.

"While the Vietnam war may not have had a happy ending, it did produce some very effective ways to handle guerilla activity. One of the most farsighted – and strictly of U.S. Marine Corps design and implementation – was the Combined Action Platoon (CAP). Lone Marine squads were stationed in scores of villages to help local residents organize their own defenses. There is an urban equivalent to the CAP concept that would work in a neighborhood setting. If the Muslim militant has widely dispersed throughout Iraqi society, must not the occupying force do likewise to beat him? "

The problem is that this has to be done well before the insurgency gets underway. A squad stationed in a hostile village is quite vulnerable.

P.S. I am not "Robert" but he does have some good points above.

You're a lying sack and you know it.

What is with our trolletariat these days? We have them flipping handles, running around in circles, not a single one of them has made a substantive point in weeks and they are absolutely demoralized and pathetic.

I think the tipping point was when Cheney/Charlie/Chuckles/Robert/??? decided to shut down discussion by spamming the Howard Dean thread. That was the trolletariat waving the white flag.

You can almost smell the fear on these bastards. It's worse than flopsweat. It's like they've jammed a decade-old pine-sceneted air freshener into the armpit of a suitcoat they've worn all summer without having it drycleaned. It's the musky scent of people who know their time has passed..

Gregory,

Would that the combatants in WWI had realized the same lessons.

Not sure where you're going with this. The tactics of the Civil War were tried in World War I and were eliminated by the invention of the machine gun.

There's very little that is useful from the study of the military strategy lessons from the Civil War, what with signals intelligence analysis, imagery analysis, satellite imagery, fire and manuever strategy and plain old common sense.

Its antiquated, almost like being an expert on the phalanx or knowing how to use brass cannon.

"but Gettysburg taught us the folly of charging"

Well, apparently not. The "Brilliant" Victor Davis Hanson wrote how we used our expertise from the Civil War to win WW1. (After reading so much tripe from Hanson, why should I believe anythine he has said about the great Alcibaedes?)

If, we had "learned" so much, why did we participate in trench warfare and send our boys charging machine gun fire?

Best to ignore Charlie. He gets off on the attention, and does anyone here really want a visual on that?

too bad you can't just address the substance instead of these silly attacks.

Too bad that you still haven't admitted spamming the Howard Dean thread to censor and stop discussion and too bad you had to go and threaten to keep on doing it.

Charlie/Cheney/Chuckles--you're done and you just haven't figured it out yet. Do you really think you can just spam a thread and close discussion and then go on about your business as if nothing happened?

What part of "you're done" failed to register inside that amphibian brain of yours?

However, from "lessons learned" - McArthur did learn the folly of trench warfare and tried as much as possible to use flanking movements and even leap frogging in the Pacific.

As to conjecture, I do believe that Shineski's methods were far superior to those of Rumdumb. When the inevitable insurgency developed, Shineski would have had the mental skills to adapt more quickly to change.

Rumdumb wanted to prove his method, which that Great Military Tactician, Slice and Dice dearly loves, so he would only have sycophant military leadership on board The Runaway Train with him.

PR,

Ever notice that with the use of Abuse and Spam supervision at Huffpo, Chuckling Charlie or perhaps Charly never seems to appear?

Just like Tookie

What, you've just been executed by lethal injection? Might want to think about your analogies before you spew them.

Oh, that's right--you're carrying out your threat to continue spamming threads.

Not sure where you're going with this. The tactics of the Civil War were tried in World War I and were eliminated by the invention of the machine gun.

That's my point, PR...the tactics of the Civil War (i.e. frontal assault against an entrenched position) led to horrendous bloodshed given Civil War-era technology; the invention of the machine gun made it worse, but that sure as hell didnt stop the generals from trying it over and over, more's the pity.

There's very little that is useful from the study of the military strategy lessons from the Civil War, what with signals intelligence analysis, imagery analysis, satellite imagery, fire and manuever strategy and plain old common sense.

I don't disagree with you, PR, but the fact that not charging uphill against an entrenched position is now "plain old common sense" indicates, to me, that the lessons of the Civil War have been learned so thoroughly that they are in fact common sense now. I think we agree that they weren't common sense in 1917.

pale rider:

thank you for your citations and comments. they are very informative for this non-military person.

i sure wish there were a public space in the wlw (web log world) where this issue (of useful tactics when you are fighting in other peoples's back yards) could be discussed

and

current tactics by americans in iraq could be evaluated.

"do we want to see visuals of that"

Well, speaking for DonP and myself and probably Walter E, when he finishes his first quart of Cognac this morning, WE WOULD ALL LOVE IT. Don P has a lot of experience in selling on the net with similar "turn-ons" - maybe we could all make a few bucks, ala the free market way which you liberal pinko ilkie types wouldn't understand.

Now, I have to go to Toys R Us - They are having a sale on GI-Joe Kurt Adler CHRISTMAS tree ornaments - I especially love the one with the blond hair - CHRISTMAS you pinkos - O'Reilly Rules.

Please post that visual - Will that be the one of Dick with Ann Coulter or Jeff Gannon or both?

This is a little thing I put together detailing Cheney's spam attack on the Howard Dean thread:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007759.php#776809

Gregory,

Not sure what we're disagreeing about exactly. I think it is a waste to have so many people studying and writing about the Civil War who would be better suited to expanding on the idea of Fourth Generation warfare and how we can adapt our tactics and equipment to fighting it.

My initial point, perhaps badly stated, was that the service academies ignore Vietnam and spend too much time on Clauswitz (beyond irrelevant and outdated) and the Civil War.

If there was thing to be learned from Gettsburg, it was the misuse of artillery.

However, I wonder how much of Nathan Bedford Forrest's wreaking havoc behind enemy lines is studied?
Just because he formed the Klan and is now the co-titular head of the present NeoConfedrePublican Party should not disqualify his military tactics.

PttO,

I wonder how much of Nathan Bedford Forrest's wreaking havoc behind enemy lines is studied?

Cowardly attacks on soft targets with cavalry isn't held in high esteem; it's a form of guerilla warfare.

Aren't the Republicans going to sandblast Mt Rushmore and put Nathan Bedford Forrest up there with Reagan, Gingrich, and Strom Thurmond?

What sets 'Charlie/Cheney' off is reminding him how GW Bush said 'imminent threat' in reference to invading Iraq. That sets him off almost as much killing unborn children.

"Mt Rushmore"

Brilliant idea - I'll start a campaign immediately - And, by God, if we can't do it there, we'll move the mountain to Pennsylvania and put it along side of the Turnpike with a Howard Johnsons beneath it.
Merry Christmas, heathens.

Iraq the Model writes about tomorrow's election.

We now return you to your regular program.

You don't sound like someone who will get further than Canada or Mexico to me.

As you ought to remember by now, if you have decent reading retention skills, I know Southeast Asia, West and South Africa, Western and Eastern Europe, and bits of China and the Middle East like the back of my hand. Or like the back of my kneecap, anyway.

I would check your head, if I were you.

You're still not getting these jokes, are you?

"will get further than Canada.."

Well, it looks as though our esteemed friend Conspiracy Nut did get much further than Canada. Hey, CN, how was your seven day cruise in the Caribbean with the Tories and their pundits?

brooksfoe,

McA writes 'em, he doesn't read 'em.

Iraq the Model writes about tomorrow's election.

Iraq the Model blog is, in fact, brought to you by Pajamas Media...

And who is PJ media?

PJM Editorial Advisory Board
Glenn Reynolds, Chair (aka: Instapundit)

Michael Barone
Austin Bay
Adam Bellow
Tammy Bruce
Marc Cooper
David Corn
Richard Fernandez
Jose Guardia
Jane Hall
Larry Kudlow
Michael Ledeen
Clifford May
John Podhoretz
Claudia Rosett

When does tbrosz admit that half the stuff he reads is so tainted by propaganda and lies that it isn't even worth following his links? That blog he links to is bought and paid for with conservative money and every shred of information on it is approved by the Republican National Committee, token liberals notwithstanding.

Well, I should take that back--at least he knows how to link to sites.

PR,

And now for a serious question. Isn't there a "Dummies" book for the "html impaired"?

Freedom is on the march..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10456750/

Kurds riot and burn offices of political party..

i'm goin' out on a limb and there are alot of holes in what i'm sayin, but there's something here: rumsfield and co. aren't geopolitical novices; if we had gone into iraq and settled things immediately; if we had gone in and done everything right, then guess what? int'l banks and lenders would have been ready to come in and iraq wouldn't have needed to accept the strangling p.s.a. oil deals with "big oil" (do some research on these "non privatized/p.s.a deals for iraq's oilfields)...now that things are so ----ed up, the only capital lender that is "willing" to take a chance with iraq, is "big oil"...didn't wolfie or someone mention early on about the positives of chaos in the region...i think its naive for people to think that our guys "in charge" are simply stupid...they've got a perspective on this that we can't begin to imagine....

Isn't there a "Dummies" book for the "html impaired"?

Who's got the time? Besides, html is a dead language. I'm learning Etruscan.

Pale Rider:

Your abysmally ignorant comment on the Iraqi blogger is a sterling example of how tightly you cling to your safe little echo chamber here, apparently leaving only long enough to harass other sites with song lyrics. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Mohammed and Omar have been blogging on that site since November of 2003, and only recently became one of the bloggers on the Pajamas Media site. A third brother blogs here. But then, as far as the Left is concerned, the only blogger in the entire nation of Iraq is Riverbend, and there are no military bloggers at all.

There's a long list of Iraqi bloggers at the first site, and many more extensive lists out there. Opinions come from all directions. Try a few.

You can go back to your cocoons, now.

This is making me crazy!!! The "inkblot" or "oil spot" theory of counterinsurgency/nationbuilding was invented by the French General Lyauty, and applied in North Africa, particularly in Morocco as part of France's mission civilatrice in the late 19th Century.

Secondly: The British expertise in counterinsurgency has kept Basra fairly quiet,and tacitly handed its administration over to Shiite fundamentalists. The latter are terrorizing any inhabitants who dare to do such things as having co-ed picnics at which music is played. Certainly the British sector has been more peaceful, and British and civilian casualties are very low. I worry that it has been acheived by handing power over to extremist factions.

tbrosz,

Your abysmally ignorant comment on the Iraqi blogger is a sterling example of how tightly you cling to your safe little echo chamber here, apparently leaving only long enough to harass other sites with song lyrics. You have no idea what you're talking about.

What echo chamber? I take as much hell from the left as I do the right on this blog. I have taken hell for defending you and others. Maybe if you would help us fight spammers, such as Charlie/Cheney, who deliberately spammed the Howard Dean thread, you'd have some credibility on this issue. When conservatives come here and spam the site, I respond in kind. Pardon me for not 'pre-emptively' attacking them. And the only reason why you even know what I do to those sites is because I owned up to it. What mistakes have you owned up to lately? Stefan was doing his endzone dance the other day and I still haven't seen you admit your mistake and I'm waiting for the Commissioner to issue him a fine. Ain't happened yet.

Mohammed and Omar have been blogging on that site since November of 2003, and only recently became one of the bloggers on the Pajamas Media site. A third brother blogs here.

Enough said. Anything associated with the list of people that I published above--and how much startup money did PJ Media get?--is tainted. Tainted in that, no one is going to blog freely and bite the corporate hand that feeds it. Well, unless they're an anti-capitalist, anti-business Democrat telling the truth about something.

But then, as far as the Left is concerned, the only blogger in the entire nation of Iraq is Riverbend, and there are no military bloggers at all.

Huh? No member of the military on active duty is allowed to blog freely and independently. Who the hell is Riverbend? The reason why I don't read any of that stuff is because of my background in the Army--too much of it is laughable wannabe amateur hour posturing. This has been pointed out many, many times--the folks I know who have rotated in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan are subject to the UCMJ, there are DoD rules that can be used against them in an Article 32 hearing, and many have either been shut down and punished or have ceased writing altogether.

As for military bloggers--sorry. Too much of what I have seen on milblogs crosses into FOUO and small unit tactics that reveals way, way too much order of battle information to our enemies.

There's a long list of Iraqi bloggers at the first site, and many more extensive lists out there. Opinions come from all directions. Try a few.

You obviously have serious issues with hearing an opinion from the likes of me, so where does this 'try a few' suggestion really come from? I could give a damn if you disagree with me. Just quit whining when I call you out for posting a link to a PJ media site and when I show PJ media for what it really is. Propaganda, financed by the RNC. What? You guys condemn propaganda funded by the DNC, don't you?

You can go back to your cocoons, now.

Really? When can I start?

I know why???
It is because we will nuke the insurgents with our Strategic Missile Defense System!

no kidding!

Ken Wada

How good is anyone really at counterinsurgency in another country? Its not like there are all these glowing examples of success at the venture. Its a mug's game.

A counter insurgency program is not needed.

The Baathist militia operates legally in Sunni provinces. They walk around in their uniforms, sometimes even guarding the polling places when the election is important enough for them. This militia is the legal military wing of some political Sunni coalition. They cooperate with police and regional governments.

Do they plant IUDs? Sure, but so does everyone else, including Iran and probably another two or three secret services are in there practicing the trade.

We are not looking at an Iraq counterinsurgency, we are looking at dysfunctional Pan Arabism, and this is what needs fixing.

They plant IUD's? I'm shocked! And so will the religious right be. Next thing you know its abortion on demand.

Do they plant IUDs?

I don't think you mean IUDs.

I think you meant Improvised Explosive Devices.

And IUD is an Intra Uterine Device used by women as a contraceptive.

floopmeister wrote:

"Can this war be considered a giant case of "Rope-a-Dope"?"

Posted by: floopmeister on December 13, 2005 at 10:36 PM | PERMALINK

No, because the Bush admin knew it was going to be something like this and they're not just caught up in the passion of the moment (the way a boxer might be). They decided this is the way they wanted it. They don't seem to care that our soldiers are dying for nothing. They don't care because their highest priority is money. The longer we stay the more money they can suck out of the US government, via the war effort, and make it all look legal. It's Vietnam all over again. I wonder when we start hearing stories of the soldier's guns jamming. Of course, there was already the 'unarmored humvees and lack of flak jackets' story.

PR,

God damn, thanks man - got to get a hold of my girlfriend fast - tried to save a few bucks on an OB-GYN and do it myself and what do I get..............

Norman,

Just shove a rolled up copy of the WSJ editorial page in there and pray to the triune God...

We destroyed Germany and Japan in World War II and installed democratic governments. Both countries rapidly became extremely successful and are behind only the US as top 3 economies in the world.

By what standard are Japan and Germany behind only the US as top 3 economies in the world?

Pale Rider:

Just quit whining when I call you out for posting a link to a PJ media site and when I show PJ media for what it really is. Propaganda, financed by the RNC. What? You guys condemn propaganda funded by the DNC, don't you?

You're not doing anything to change my mind about your ignorance.

Very slowly now...Iraq the Model has been blogging since November of 2003 using blogspot.com, a free service, as many Iraqis do. How long has Pajamas Media been around? Do the math.

Pajamas Media is funded by venture capital and ads. If you have one single source other than your own hat about RNC money flowing there, post it.

tbrosz,

Very slowly now...

Where do they get their money from now?

And when did the Pentagon's $300 million propaganda campaign start in Iraq?

Late 2003, when the Lincoln Group was awarded the DoD contract.

Am I to conclude that what you are linking to is not propaganda originating from Iraq, directed either by CENTCOMs hamfisted public affairs people or indirectly supported by DoD? Sorry, there's just too much doubt about the veracity of anything anymore. When the Bush administration engaged in an orchestrated campaign to lie about virtually everything related to the conduct of the war in Iraq, it sort of tainted everything and left those of us who have been following things with the funny notion that we can't believe anything that is funded with startup money that indirectly arrives via the RNC or conservative donors.

Is it your position that PJ Media started up with a grant from Arianna Huffington and Hillary Clinton?

Breathe in, breathe out. Sorry, just want to keep you around as long as possible before you hyperventilate and explode.

A little thing about Internet access/broadband services/cellular services in Iraq:

We created those markets in Iraq. The gateway, the infrastructure, everything--we signed off on it. Anyone using them pays money for those services to companies awarded their contracts and licenses by the former CPA and the current Iraqi government. Just try getting broadband/wireless/VSAT service in Iraq when you publish anything derogatory about the US-backed regime.

Now, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that voices of dissent have effectively been squashed when you realize that there simply isn't a free and open exchange of ideas in a country where your Internet/broadband/wireless/VSAT services are controlled by entities that are 100% controlled by people who do NOT want anti-US messages 'blogged' or issued from Iraq.

Pajamas Media:

Pajamas Media, a new media venture designed to bring together bloggers, journalists and commentators under a single umbrella, today announced it has closed its first round of private financing in the amount of $3.5 million. Pajamas Media will use this investment to build out its operations and marketing efforts and to expand its news and opinion coverage. Pajamas Media will be renamed at its official launch on November 16th in New York.

The investor group is led by Aubrey Chernick, angel investor and technology entrepreneur, and also includes Jim Koshland, a leading member of the Silicon Valley venture capital and technology community, and a DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary venture capital investment partnership.

Aubrey Chernick:

Washington Institute for Near East Policy (AIPAC) Year 2000 Trustees:
(Source: Internal Revenue Service)

[snip] Joyce and Aubrey Chernick

And what is AIPAC?

American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

The FBI’s decision in early May to arrest Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon analyst accused of disclosing classified information about U.S. forces in Iraq, has put in the spotlight the work of an influential pro-Israel lobbying outfit, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as well as its many supporters in and outside government, including Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and Douglas Feith.

So what do you know? tbrosz issues a challenge, the challenge is met...

As far as Pajamas Media is concerned, I posted a source. You posted hallucinations.

Your view on the Internet access solutions available in Iraq, based only on your own speculation and no hard data at all, confirms that you're basically making it up as you go along. I guess we have to leave it at that.

BTW, there are a lot of Iraqis on the net in Iraq who don't like the war, and it's used for communication by members of the insurgency, so apparently your theory that the Great Conspiracy controls all information flow from Iraq must have a few holes in it.

Do they plant IUDs? Sure, but so does everyone else, including Iran and probably another two or three secret services are in there practicing the trade.

I just...I don't know where to start. There are literally dozens of jokes I could make out of this typo. I'm paralyzed with choices.

Do they plant IUDs? Sure, but so does everyone else, including Iran and probably another two or three secret services are in there practicing the trade.

OK, I've tried and I can't. I'm overcome with laughter every time. I'll just let those sentences stand there by themselves as a grim reminder of the folly of careless typing.

Stefan,

Don't you get it?

Freudian slip. The poor guy wants his girlfriend to explode and inject burning shrapnel into his gonads.

As far as Pajamas Media is concerned, I posted a source. You posted hallucinations.

The Internal Revenue Service is now a hallucination?

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Have a nice day, Tom.

Your view on the Internet access solutions available in Iraq, based only on your own speculation and no hard data at all

Actually, I get all of my info from sources my employers here at the bottle washing factory pay huge $$$ for.

Every single VSAT, ISP, and wireless company doing business in Iraq derives their license to operate from what entity that is currently aligned with the US? Did I miss the part where Rumsfeld gave up control of the reconstruction efforts in Iraq?

Freudian slip. The poor guy wants his girlfriend to explode and inject burning shrapnel into his gonads.

Well, who doesn't?

Pale Rider:

Yeah, hallucination. I probably have a stronger fiscal connection to the Democratic Party than the financial connection you tried to generate between the Republican Party and Pajamas Media. An investor donated money to a pro-Israel interest group that is also supported by some people in the administration? Can't you even find a direct donation to the RNC?

Still waiting for hard facts on the Iraq internet system. So far, still just your hat talking. Also waiting for your explanation about how anti-American Iraqis manage to keep their webpages running.

"..why did no one in the military foresee the insurgency?"

Actually Bush pointed out that "insurgents" have the right to be pissed and attack Yanks. I have seen his comment posted a number of times.

Everyone seems to miss a basic point, we have no beef against Baathists. There is no ideological struggle between Baathist ideology and U.S. interests. Baathists are secular, we actually like them. Allawi the U.S. appointed prime minister was an ex-Baathist. We did, have, and will continue to get along with Baathists. Dick Cheney did business with Baathists, and probably dreams of the day he can do so again.

Before the war, we actually tried an alliance with Baathists generals. We were over-ruled by our SCIRI masters.

Where is the ideological struggle? It ain't there, it cannot be manufactured, it cannot be imagined.

Good grief men and women, if the Baathists proposed a joint war againts the French, we would probably be allies.

If you want to talk about Jihadis, that is another story. If you want to talk about the temoporary alliance between Baathists and the Jihadis, then you will be talking about a timetable for withdrawal, for the Baathists and the U.S. government have already agreed on the timetable for withdrawal.

But do not complain about our friends the Baathists, we just have this momentary squabble. Quit labeling them insurgents, they are our friends.

Riding across the land, kicking up sand
Saddam's posse on my tail cause I'm in command
One lonely 10th Mountie I be
All by myself without nobody
The sun is beating down on my boonie hat
The air is gettin' hot the beer is getting flat

So whatcha want?

Posted by: Dustbin Of History on December 14, 2005 at 7:57 AM | PERMALINK

OK. Americans are nice people who buy our products.

Unfortunately they are also buying Middle East oil and economically supporting the worse governments in the world. Unfortunately, these governments have made an already violent culture, more violent giving birth to militant Islam. Which spreads....which is why we now have militant separatists in many Asian countries (Southern Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia). I don't like this trend.

I don't think Americans with their directness and lack of Machiavellian tendencies are good counter-insurgents...but no other country has deployable forces large enough.

The Europeans were masters at controlling large amounts of land with very little forces by being willing to compromise and put up with local forces. Ever wonder how the Brits (60 million today) ran India (one billion today)?

However - Americans are all we got in terms of capability. Europeans no longer have deployable armies. They spent the post-war era for a defensive war against Russian tanks. They have more draftees and less volunteers, and everyone knows from Vietnam draftees can't fight a counterinsurgency.

Secondly, militant Islamists would wipe you of the face of the earth before us. I can't think of any other cultures that ran a practicising Jew called Lieberman as deputy head of state except Israel. So you have a practical incentive to clean it out.

Thirdly, since your enviromental movement refuses to allow any drilling in your offshore regions and artic wildernesses - you are the oil consuming nation that makes Arab failed states more dangerous than other failed states in Asia (Burma) and in Africa (whole continent).
So you have a moral obligation..

You have all three requirements for a just war as far as I'm concerned. Capability, practical need and moral obligation - so grow up and get to it.

And on the 'patriotic' dissent, you are engaging in...can't losers like Kerry and Murtha just wait a week?.

They are having elections right now.

After, they are done you can send whatever messages you want with or without the help of the elected government* - but if these fail, you'll have no legitimate representatives of all Iraqi people to hand over too.

*Just take an ad, in the Iraqi people saying. "Find a peace that doesn't depend on us - 'cos if we ever win an election, us Democrats would 'cut and run' and blame the new 'killing fields' on Bush".

You don't need to be in government to send messages to the Shiites and Kurds to give a little to the Sunni's to speed up the peace - and you certainly don't need a withdrawal visit.

Just send Kerry 'I nearly won' and Gore 'I did win' to Iraq to tell the Shiite's they would love to cut an run in a private message.

tbrosz,

Yeah, hallucination. I probably have a stronger fiscal connection to the Democratic Party than the financial connection you tried to generate between the Republican Party and Pajamas Media. An investor donated money to a pro-Israel interest group that is also supported by some people in the administration? Can't you even find a direct donation to the RNC?

Okay--real slow here. The guy responsible for the start up financing of PJ Media is Aubrey Chernick. Aubrey Chernick, according the Internal Revenue Service, is a TRUSTEE of AIPAC, which is heavily linked to the Bush Administration's 'neocon' movement.

Unless you are donating tens of thousands of dollars to Nancy Pelosi, you do not have the same level of attachment to Democratic causes as Mr. Chernick has to AIPAC.

There is nothing wrong with Mr. Chernick's position as a trustee with AIPAC or his involvement with anyone who identifies him/herself as a conservative.

What I plainly and clearly refuted was your assertion that there was NO connection with a political ideology/group/the Republican National Committee/etc AND PJ Media. That is clearly not the case.

How many members of the Republican National Committee give money to AIPAC? Well, so far we know that David Wurmser and John Bolton have been heavily involved with AIPAC, as have Douglas Feith, Condoleeza Rice AND quite a few Democrats and Republicans.

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING AFFILIATED WITH AIPAC. Let me stress that before anyone starts throwing around charges of 'anti-Semitism' or some other bullshit like that.

What you've been refuted with is a link between the guy who's financing PJ Media and a known conservative lobbying group through records published by the IRS.

Around here, I'd say that's a fairly good amount of hard evidence and data refuting your claim.

Still waiting for hard facts on the Iraq internet system. So far, still just your hat talking. Also waiting for your explanation about how anti-American Iraqis manage to keep their webpages running.

Mr. Tbrosz is supplied broadband/dialup/DSL or whatever via a delivery method and service provider. In California, where he lives, he can choose several methods of having broadband delivered to his home--the cable company, the phone company, a VSAT dish in the yard, a dial-up ISP. The idea that Mr. Tbrosz would be denied service because of his political affiliation is hilarious--this is America. Mr. Tbrosz would have the right to sue, and would win.

Iraqis can get the Internet service through a variety of methods developed since the end of the Saddam Hussein era--Internet, cellular, VSAT type service was forbidden and censored. They do not enjoy the same rights as Mr. Tbrosz and they do, in fact, live in a country with a provisional type government that holds elections today.

After the inital invasion, Iraq was flooded with VSATs and satellite phones, satellite serice providers delivering Internet service over a sat modem device shaped like a laptop (Thuraya, Inmarsat, Globalstar, the Regional BGAN product, Arabsat, etc.)

Iraq's cellular system is Global System for Mobile, or GSM in nature and is broadcast in a freq range between 800-900 MHz for GSM900.

Fixed lines in Iraq are rare, but they do exist. Remember that a cellular system is linked to the local Public Switched Telephone Network and this allows for telephone traffic to pass through switches that link the various networks together. These switches handle all wireless, fixed-line and Internet dial-up/DSL traffic. The ISPs deliver Internet service either through dialup or some type of DSL--don't know if they have started DSL broadband as of late. Perhaps they will get it soon. Either way, this all goes through a series of very, very, very important switches.

The primary method for getting Internet service in Iraq if you choose not to use the satellite/dial-up network is through an Internet cafe hooked up via a VSAT or some other type of gateway that can deliver broadband which must pass through a gateway which is similar to that thing that I was talking about earlier, that is, a switch. Thuraya BGAN can deliver Internet cafe quality broadband, but its expensive.

Now, this is the important part--why do you think that I can explain to you how this all works and why no one in Iraq should say/write/publish anything critical of the Iraqi government or the Coalition?

No fair remembering what I did when I spent seven years on active duty.

You have to figure this one out on your own.

Cue theme from Jeopardy - No, TBrosz, he was not in Kitchen Police the entire 7 years - think, man, think - don't let the pressure get to you - it is almost da dada dadadadah. Cue Alek

PttO,

No fair giving them the theme to jeopardy--that'll just confuse them and then they'll put their answer in the form of a question.

Alek just wants us to stop feeding the trolls. Perhaps Alek is correct. I wouldn't classify tbrosz as a troll, but I'll probably get shouted down for that one...

Pale Rider: Wow, you put a lot of work into that. But unless you have set up a network to pass every data packet from a single person through one central switch, you're going to have a hell of a time silencing one internet user.

Our internet uses "switches" too. Big deal. The only way you could shut me up would be to pull my individual phone line out, and I could go down to another WiFi zone and post away.

And you still haven't explained how the Iraqis who do have anti-government and anti-American points of view (like Riverbend) are still on the net and doing fine, thanks. Kind of blows your whole theory, regardless of technology.

The pantload you are trying to sell is similar to the one that says the only reason we're getting good news and positive views from our troops in Iraq is because their superiors are standing behind them with a gun to their head. I'm sure some people buy that.

The pantload you are trying to sell is similar to the one that says the only reason we're getting good news and positive views from our troops in Iraq is because their superiors are standing behind them with a gun to their head. I'm sure some people buy that.

Nice try Dr. Goebbels. A number of soldier bloggers have admitted they were silenced by their superiors, which Rider has pointed out to you before. The UCMJ also prevents them from criticizing Bubble Boy and by extension his war.

Also, I've been in some pretty horrible situations that I was not able to extricate myself from, and I seem to remember irrational optimism in the light of grim facts as the only way I kept myself plodding forward.

And we're not "only getting good news" from soldiers in Iraq -- as evidenced not only by the soldiers who come back and say it's a disastrous shithole, but also and more importantly by the 17,000+ casualties and deaths on the American side and 100,000+ casualties and deaths on the Iraqi side.

That's not good news, neither is 90 attacks a day up from six the first year.

How do you sleep at night spewing this shit? Anything for the cause, is that it?

Windhorse:

Like I said, I'm sure some people buy that.

When real criticism is suppressed, the usual result is silence. I'm talking about troops who are quite open about their positive views. Somehow I don't see an anti-war Marine responding to suppression by suddenly writing a pro-war blog.

But by all means, point me to the soldiers who back up your point of view. Odd how somehow they can manage to violate this supposed impenetrable censorship.

I'd skip Massey if I were you.

Also:

Aubrey Chernick has donated to Rogan, Kyle, Specter, and Wyden -- R, R, R, and D.

http://newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=&zip=90404&last=Chernick&first=Aubrey

What, a millionaire give $1,750 to Republicans and $500 to a Democrat, all before Bush was ever elected, and this somehow makes him Karl Rove?

Keep digging.

Windhorse,

In Oregon, there are many of us who are starting to question that D behind Wyden's name. He sold out the seniors on the Medicare bill.

P.S. Jim Koshland, the other investor, donated $1,000 to Democrat Pat Quinn.

Kevin Drum gave $250 for Wesley Clark's presidential run. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Once again Tom, you've been proven wrong and now you're forced to change the subject and misdirect with cutesy "look over there's" and "how about that other thing?"'s.

You demanded proof of connection between Chernick and the Republican Party, two primary connections were provided, you lose.

Your tactics are predictable: cast aspersions, attack the source, obfuscate, misdirect.

Still time to decorate your Christmas tree TBrosz - Kurt Adler has GI-Joe ornaments at $9.00 a pop - why you could do the entire tree for a few hundred - use your old slide rule from engine school at UMinn - calc it out and be patriotic - they have rocket launcher guys, machine gunners, one guy has blond air - just think a miniature Paul Bunyon in mufti - don't know whether they are connected with GI bloggers.

Then you can put on Sinatra's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" just like the scene in The Victors where they reenacted Eisehhower's shooting of the deserter accompanied by the above tune.

I really do not wish to denigrate our troops, but when you CHICKENHAWKS come out from under the garbage heap and extoll the wonders of combat that others perform while you keep your rearend safe and sound in your little garage making toy rockets, you truly sicken me.

Pale Rider served honorably - You did not serve - You know absolutely nothing about the military except for playing with your GI-Joe toys.

Windhorse:

Pale Rider's original statement:

That blog he links to is bought and paid for with conservative money and every shred of information on it is approved by the Republican National Committee, token liberals notwithstanding.

I pointed out that this description of Pajamas Media was bat guano.

In response, I am then told triumphantly that one of the three original investors donated in 2000 to an Israel support group, along with donations in the 90s to three Republican and one Democratic politician. The only donation I found from the other investor was to a Democrat.

Sorry, but that's one hell of a long ways from "every shred of information approved by the RNC."

Add to that his contention that an Iraqi who has been blogging from Iraq for over two years and was invited to join the Pajamas Media group only in the past couple of months is somehow not only bought and paid for by Pajamas Media, who, as far as I know, pays him nothing except exposure, but is a shill of the Coalition, which supposedly censors all Iraqi internet connnections to keep the Truth from being heard.

I'm sorry, but you people are, frankly, nuts. I try to overlook the paranoia, the fantasies, the outright fabrications. It's bad enough from the brainless ones, but you and Pale Rider aren't brainless.

PS - Since I get paid by the word I just made a boat load of cash. Thanks dimwits

You're not brainless either, Tom, but you're intellectually dishonest.

I think you can forgive Rider for using a bit of hyperbole with the "every shred" qualifier.
But he's absolutely right that Pajamas Media is a right-wing media enterprise, and if you're going to quote from it expect the same level of outright rejection that you extend to us when we quote from actual unbiased and primary sources that conflict with your take on reality.

Pretend that you're an impartial sociologist from the future, and that for just one moment you're not carrying water for this administration like Aquarius. After digging through the records, here's what you find. The founder of Pajamas Media:

* contributed to a majority of Republican candidates

* has ties to AIPAC

* made much of his money through disaster management conracts as a private contractor to Homeland Security

* has a blogroll that features a right-wing pedigree of such "unbiased" commentators as Malkin, LGF, the Jawa Report, Instapundit, SoCalpundit, Another Rovian Conspiracy, Volokh, and a host of other equally weighty minds. Curiously, every single major blog I read is absent from the blogroll, including the ones that get the most traffic on the web. Hmmm.

Given these facts, what does future sociologist Tom conclude about the political leanings of this "media" enterprise? If you guessed "center" or "left-leaning" you're incorrect.

Yeah, maybe not "every shred" of information passes by the Republican fact checker -- because they need to maintain a veneer of respectability. But clearly PM is nothing but a mouthpiece for neo-conservative views whose stories are filtered through a pro-war lens and who's aiming to be the "hipper" Fox News Radio of the Internet.

tbrosz takes the fun out of winning.

Apparently, he missed the part about where AIPAC was implicated in the transfer of classified material to another country. I thought we were going to be consistent and denounce that, as well as disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame plus all the damaging leaks from the Pentagon.

And, apparently, he forgot that Mr. Chernick did not just 'give money' to AIPAC but is identified by the IRS as a trustee of the organization. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does identify the political affiliation of said individual in a way that completely refutes his ORIGINAL point that PJ Media was started up with completely independent and non-affiliated venture capital. Whatever way you want to spin the fact that the guy was a trustee of the organization is your business, and whatever intellectually dishonest argument you want to continue using to get over the embarrassment of having be refuted on the topic is also something well beyond my level of concern.

The fact is, PJ Media was started up by people with strong ties to the neocon movement who were able to finance an endeavor that leans a bit more to the right than it does the left. The fact that the conservative movement is highly organized, connected and operates as a nearly-perfect message dissemination machine is well known and well documented. Weren't people crowing about all of this when Bush was reelected?

As to the technical stuff, I'm not about to risk getting in trouble for something I try to explain on a blog thread.

Just something found on the PJ Media site:

Iraq Election - Blogger Update

Iraq the Model
This section will now be used to link blogosphere reaction to the election Iraq and to the coverage of that election by Pajamas Media/Iraq the Model.

First up, ongoing coverage by Bill Roggio who reports on ThreatsWatch from Barwana, Iraq. Stay with that too.

Also, readers my post their own reactions to our coverage here.

[Bill Roggio? Oh yeah. He's the 'milboogger' who puts small unit tactics, procedures, and detailed accounts of their activities on his blog for the enemy to read. What a fantastic guy. Plus, he writes for the non-partisan National Review Online.]