Is Iraq This War’s Guadalcanal? (The Consequences of Victory)
By Skanderbeg Posted in Spotlight Blogs | War — Comments (40) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from diaries by Mark I.
When one is confronted with a difficult problem, it’s all-too-easy to begin looking at it through a microscope – and to thus forget about where it all fits into the bigger picture. It’s also easy to see the problem as being one of disaster prevention – and to concentrate on the consequences of failure.
But those are not the things from which triumphs are made. For example, in business a proper evaluation of dangers and risks is critical, but that alone will not do. One must always ask: Amidst those risks and dangers, what is the upside potential?
Maybe it’s time we reframed the Iraq problem. We’ve all discussed and debated the (potentially horrific) consequences of failure. But what is the upside potential? In other words, what might be the consequences of victory?
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In my line of work, I’m regularly subjected to international travel. During my frequent visits to the Red Carpet Club at the Frankfurt airport, I’ll often snarf up a copy of the International Herald Tribune. Other than the fact that it’s free at the Red Carpet Club, there are three reasons to bother with the IHT: 1) It has a comics section; 2) If you’ve been out of contact for a few days, it actually lets you catch up on goings-on in American sports; 3) The newsprint they use is really nice for starting fires.
I was getting some paper out of the fire-starter pile the other day, and there hiding near the bottom was a copy of the IHT from May 3, 2003. On the front page was a columnar story with the headline “US Forces to Depart From Iraq Swiftly.” That was the plan, but it didn’t happen. Was this all a fib back then? Well, this actually involves war, and in war… I’ll come back to this in a moment.
Lately, we’ve been awash in a variety of “reports” and such, with the most pre-ballyhooed being the so-called “Iraq Study Group.” But forget the specifics contained in all these reams of paper – these “studies” tell us a great deal more about the groupthink inherent these days in Washington DC than anything else. What’s most astonishing is the obvious “total-wonk” viewpoint of these studies – that everything is absolutely controlled to the n-th degree by what “policies” are set in Washington, while all other factors and players are simply going to mechanically respond as the “policy” expects. One of the tribal characteristics of the wonk-world is the inherent method of developing one’s “policy prescriptions” and then fighting steadfastly against the other wonks to see that your policy is the one that’s selected and adopted. Not surprisingly, this kind of approach, which is almost Pavlovian among the wonks who dominate Washington, is ill-suited to a wartime situation in which one must grapple continually with the active moves and counter-moves of a real enemy.
In the wonk-world, it all depends on what “we” do. “We” cause everything to happen. “We” have to figure out what to do, in a wonk-vacuum. Everything that happens is because of “us.” This kind of thinking is perhaps appropriate for the midstream analysis of an engineering project that is behind schedule, over budget, and in need of rework. But it’s totally out of place for a war situation, where we are engaged in moves and countermoves against an active enemy that is actually trying to defeat us. For ‘tis not we who can “define victory.” To win, only the enemy can “define victory” for us – and that will come when the enemy is decisively and thoroughly beaten. Period.
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So, why didn’t our troops “depart from Iraq swiftly” as originally foreseen? Was this some breakdown in “policy” due to a memo or a position-paper getting lost in the mail?
Hardly. Let’s revisit 2003. The original “plan” was clean and simple. We’d go into Iraq and topple the Hussein family government. Once that was accomplished, most of the troops were to leave (since the job was done), perhaps to be ready for other venues. Some troops were to remain to assist in the rebuilding of Iraq – since we weren’t going to repeat the “mistakes” (of both Afghanistan and Iraq) of the 1990s of defeating our enemies and then leaving those caught in the aftermath to fend for themselves.
But “the plan” didn’t happen – because the enemy chose not to go along with it. Guerrilla and terrorist warfare is the warfare of the weak against the strong – and the best strategy to adopt when faced with an overwhelming conventional military confrontation is to retreat to another place and carry on the fight another day. That would have been the sensible thing to do – but our enemies chose to do otherwise. As the late and unlamented Abu Musab al-Zarqawi wrote in one of his early letters, having just been chased from Afghanistan it would be a pity to retreat once again and abandon yet another country. So the enemy chose to contest Iraq. Given the overall situation, this was probably a mistake for the reasons cited above. (And let’s not forget that al-Qaeda has been everywhere all-but-invisible over the past few years, except in Iraq – something unlikely to be merely coincidental.) But when one’s enemies make a mistake like that, our job is to adjust our strategy accordingly – and to punish them mercilessly for making this sort of mistake.
But enough of the here-and-now. Is there some parallel situation from our history that can prove useful to understanding our present difficulties?
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In June of 1942, the U.S. Navy inflicted a catastrophic defeat on the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway. After six months of running amok, the Japanese navy was badly mangled, having lost two-thirds of its fleet aircraft carrier force and hundreds of its best flyers. Japanese expansion in the central Pacific had been thwarted at the International Date Line. In this situation, American strategic eyes turned to the South Pacific. Early in the war, Japan had rapidly overrun the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), which was a major strategic goal – this is an oil-producing region that could supply critically-needed fuel to Japan and to the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japanese troops had overrun the Solomon Islands and most of New Guinea, and were thus able to be a direct threat to both Australia and New Zealand; in fact, Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft had bombed Darwin, Australia on Christmas Day, 1941.
While the main Japanese air and naval base in the south Pacific was located at Rabaul on New Britain Island, the outer limit of Japanese-held islands ran some 600 miles further southeastward, toward the eastern end of the Solomons. This “bulge” in the Japanese perimeter threatened American communications with Australia; with the Imperial Japanese Navy seriously diminished in strength, thoughts turned to offensive operations to better secure those lines of communication. As the historian Edward Jablonski wrote in 1971,
The directive, issued by the Joint Chiefs and dated July 2, 1942, ordered the South Pacific force (Vice-Admiral Robert L. Ghormley commanding) to seize and occupy the “Santa Cruz Islands, Tulagi, and adjacent positions” in the Solomon Islands chain. One of the “adjacent positions,” not even mentioned in the directive, was an island named Guadalcanal.
However, new urgency soon came to this endeavor. During July of 1942, American aircraft began flying reconnaissance missions over the southeastern Solomons in preparation for the landings. During this reconnaissance, it was discovered that the Japanese were building a sizeable airfield on previously-ignored Guadalcanal. This airfield represented a serious and alarming threat, as it would push Japanese aircraft basing some 600 miles further east – and into striking range of the shipping lanes running between North America and Australia. Faced with this new reality, plans were hastily changed. As is always the case in war, limited information on both geography and enemy dispositions led to confusion; as Jablonski notes, the operation
…was made with less than adequate planning and equipment, plus mixed emotions at high level. Ghormley was not too certain as to what his objectives were: Were we beginning on the road to Tokyo, or merely stopping the Japanese before they became too well entrenched in the Solomons?
Not everyone in the American high command was convinced that this whole operation was even a good idea. The U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier commander, Vice-Admiral Frank Fletcher, was loath to concentrate his carrier strength in the far-reaches of the south Pacific and expose these precious assets to Japanese attack,
…in an undertaking which he “opposed” and which he felt “sure… would be a failure.”
But in the bigger picture, that soon-to-be operational Japanese airfield on Guadalcanal was simply unacceptable; the orders went out, and on August 7, 1942, backed by powerful naval and air support, the First Marine Division stormed ashore on Guadalcanal and seized the nearly-finished airfield.
In the grand strategic scheme, this was a minor setback for Imperial Japan; Guadalcanal was on the fringe of the Japanese perimeter, and had been lightly-defended. With the main base at Rabaul remaining as a virtually-impregnable strongpoint, the best strategy would have been to forget about the Guadalcanal adventure.
But the Japanese high command immediately decided instead to contest Guadalcanal – vigorously. Fresh troops were rushed to Guadalcanal to prevent the Marines from securing the entire island, and Imperial Japanese Navy task forces steamed south to contest the seas around Guadalcanal and the eastern Solomons. The Americans countered with a similar build-up of troops and ships.
For the next six months, a titanic struggle raged for Guadalcanal. The Americans held the airfield and the territory around it, while the Japanese held most of the rest of the island; neither side was strong enough to dislodge the other. With control of now-operational Henderson Field on Guadalcanal and with dominance in aircraft carriers, the Americans controlled the sea and air by day. However, the dark of night neutralized American airpower; Japanese surface ships dominated the sea by night, and the cover of darkness allowed the Japanese to rush supplies and reinforcements down from Rabaul.
For months, fresh Japanese troops were continually thrown at the Henderson Field perimeter – and were bloodily repulsed. By January, it was becoming clear to both sides that the Americans were slowly gaining the upper hand – in particular, new American surface ships were arriving, and the Imperial Japanese Navy was losing its prior dominance of the night. The Japanese made one last desperate attempt to bring in more troops, but the convoy was intercepted by American aircraft and completely destroyed.
On February 7th, 1943, six months to the day after the Marines had stormed ashore, the Japanese withdrew their last troops from Guadalcanal under cover of darkness. There was no mistaking the outcome – the Americans had tenaciously fought their way to a significant victory, and the Japanese had been beaten.
Amplifying what had happened at Midway the previous June, the strategic balance tipped further against Japan. Later in 1943, the big two-pronged American push began – the run up the Solomons and beyond that was to lead back to the Philippines, and the island-hopping campaign that moved across the central Pacific to the Mariana Islands and then on toward Japan itself.
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The impact of Midway had been obvious, since the battle had been sharp but brief – and American naval flyers had literally seen the Japanese ships sink. Guadalcanal had been a longer and murkier affair; it was clear that the Japanese had lost, but the extent of the victory wasn’t known.
It was only after the war, when the Japanese naval archives were read, that it became clear that for Japan, Guadalcanal was not – as it seemed at the time – a modest setback. The archives revealed that Guadalcanal was – both tangibly and psychologically – a catastrophic defeat for Japan. The Japanese high command had made a grave error in deciding to contest Guadalcanal, and the resulting defeat was therefore cataclysmic.
How cataclysmic was this defeat for Japan? To judge that, we can turn to the 1957 memoirs of Saburo Sakai, a veteran Japanese fighter ace and the highest-scoring Japanese pilot to survive the war. Ironically, Sakai had been put in the air from Rabaul on August 7, 1943, to escort Japanese bombers hastily sent on a mission to try to attack the American forces landing at Guadalcanal. During the air battles that developed, Sakai was horridly wounded, but somehow managed to remain conscious and fly his badly-damaged plane back to Rabaul. Now blind in one eye, Sakai was sent back to Japan, where he became a flight-trainer and staff officer. In his new position, Sakai was cleared to see the secret internal reports about what had really happened at Midway and Guadalcanal. While he was astounded at the extent of the defeat at Midway, it was Guadalcanal that stunned him – as it was obviously the greatest catastrophe for Japan. As Sakai himself wrote,
Several days after my arrival at Toyohashi, [Commander] Nakajima wordlessly showed me the report of our withdrawal from Guadalcanal on February 7, 1943, exactly six months after the Americans had landed. The radios blared of strategic withdrawals, of tightening our defense lines, but the secret reports revealed a staggering defeat and appalling losses.
Two full divisions of Army troops were gone, annihilated by the savagely fighting enemy. The Navy had lost the equivalent of an entire peacetime fleet. Rusting in the mud off Guadalcanal were the blasted hulks of no less than two battleships, one aircraft carrier, five cruisers, twelve destroyers, eight submarines, hundreds upon hundreds of fighters and bombers, not to mention the crack fighter pilots and all the bomber crews.
What had happened to us?
What had happened was that the Japanese high command had made the mistake of throwing everything they had at a distant outpost of limited strategic significance. They had also fatally underestimated both the capability and the tenacity of their American adversaries, who persevered beyond expectation and inflicted a crushing and irreversible defeat on Imperial Japan.
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So let’s think of Iraq as Guadalcanal. The enemy shouldn’t have chosen to fight there, but they did. They chose to turn Iraq into a major battlefield – not us. We still can – and should – win. When we win, we will probably all – like the Americans after Guadalcanal – breath a sigh of relief that somehow it all ended up turning out okay.
But for our enemies, defeat in Iraq will be for them what defeat at Guadalcanal was for Imperial Japan – crushing, catastrophic, and cataclysmic. That is the “upside potential.” Those are the consequences of victory. And these alone are reason enough to push on boldly.
Keep in mind this it is not enough to defeat this enemy. It’s not even enough that it be obvious to everyone that they have been beaten. It is critical that they know that they have been beaten.
So how will we define victory? That’s simple.
Victory will be when the enemy is beaten.
When they know it.
And – because they are loquacious and florid, and will be writing letters similar to what Saburo Sakai wrote in his memoirs – when they say so.
“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”–Margaret Thatcher
is being out of power for twelve years. That is the sum of their historical knowledge.
A certain Democratic senator, noted for both his swimming ability and reckless driving, has laid down the word," We hold the purse strings" his handlers have told him to say.
The writing is on the wall, a stall in the men's room in the senators case, there will be no repeat of the Japanese Imperial staff's decision to fight to the end, though their end and ours may have some similarities.
At a basic level a war is fought in one of two places, the enemies territory or your own, you don't carry the fight to them then they'll carry it to you. And by God, or Allah, [it doesn't hurt to start practicing] our enemies will.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Who could be ashamed of being an American after reading this piece?? If you are....well you know where you can go.
"You never need a firearm,until you need it BADLY!"
If we can't stomach the fight anymore, we are doomed to the dustbin of history.
I love the way you frame the idea that the enemy has chosen to make it's stand in Iraq. It's obvious that they have. The Bush Administration has tried to point this out, but the message simply hasn't stuck. Their ineloquence on this point is their greatest failure.
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
If we can't stomach the fight anymore, we are doomed to the dustbin of history.
Please explain why this particular has the fate of the United States hanging in the balance? People said the same thing about Vietnam and yet we miraculously survived. Same for the Korean War.
I love the way you frame the idea that the enemy has chosen to make it's stand in Iraq. It's obvious that they have. The Bush Administration has tried to point this out, but the message simply hasn't stuck. Their ineloquence on this point is their greatest failure.
Who is the enemy you are referring to? Al Qaeda? Do you think that Al Qaeda will disappear if Iraq becomes peaceful?
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
In Vietnam and Korea, the U.S. was attempting to stem the spread of an ideology to smaller states -- fearing a "tipping point". In this war, we are the stated enemy.
When we quit Vietnam, we ceded Southeast Asia to the communists. They never aspired to use that as a base of operations to grow their movement and attack us domestically. They always felt that the ideology would simply overwhelm us.
This enemy has already fire-bombed lower Manhattan. If they take on an air of invicibility (which is what would happen if we left Iraq, then the movement would grow exponentially.
I'll expand the enemy to be all of the Jihadis, but al Qaeda is still a useful tag.
Simply put, if al Qaeda is defeated in Iraq, they will lose the momentum they created on 9/11. every statement they have made about America will prove true.
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
If not, every...
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
So this war is about achieving anything other than an appearance of not quitting against Al Qaeda?
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
It's impossible to argue that we started this war to encourage al Qaeda to make it's stand in Iraq, so we could then defeat them there. We started this war for a variety of reasons, but the most pre-eminent was the threat that Saddam would give WMD to terrorists. There was also the secondary neo-con vision of viral freedom.
It can be convincingly argued that once we discovered there were no WMD, we should have left. It can also be argued that the secondary motivation for the war has failed.
However, I agree that the enemy morphed the war and not us. So, yes, at this point I'd argue that it's critical to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq, as they have chosen to stake the future of the jihad on it.
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
I can understand that position and even support. However I just don't know how we do that. The vast majority of the actual combatants in Iraq are Iraqis.
So how can we ever feel confident that we defeated Al Qaeda? By rendering the Sunnis utterly impotent?
Is Al Qaeda even a notable foe in Iraq? Wouldn't you say that Hizbollah and Iranian support of the Shia is a greater problem for us?
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
Wouldn't you say that Hizbollah and Iranian support of the Shia is a greater problem for us?
I would say it is at least an equal problem. I'd say it is essentialy the same problem.
What do you think we should do about Iran?
Why is quitting the fight against Islamists in Iraq or anywhere on the planet even an option??
Or is this all part of the strategy to get a politician in the White House who has a (D) after his name?
It's really not about which party has it's butt in the main chair in the oval office,it's about defeating America's enemies PERIOD!
"You never need a firearm,until you need it BADLY!"
Is the objective to defeat terrorism or is the objective to fight it to the bitter end without achieving any material gains?
Because it is certainly far from certain that our presence in Iraq is helping defeat terrorism in the Middle East.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
is to defeat terrorism. How do you propose we go about doing that, given that you disagree with our current actions?
Al Qaeda is about to take control of Washington D.C.?*
* - Insert random jibe at Democrats/MSM being no different than Al Qaeda.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
That does not in any way suggest that our sovereignty is at stake.
Was our sovereignty at stake when Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrow building in Oklahoma City?
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
You're kidding right?
If Mcveigh acted without foreign influence, then no.
"Brevity is the soul of wit."
US Losses
1,768 dead (ground),
4,911 dead (naval),
420 dead (aircrew),
4 captured,
29 ships sunk,
615 aircraft destroyed[5]
Japanese Losses
24,600 dead (ground),
3,543 dead (naval),
1,200 dead (aircrew),
1,000 captured,
38 ships sunk,
683 aircraft destroyed[6]
A very thoughtful and well written piece. However I must say, and I am sure this will surprise exactly no one, that I disagree with your conclusion.
What made Guadalcanal such a painful defeat for the Japanese? While the Japanese lost more than we did at Guadalcanal it certainly wasn't a strategic loss in terms of manpower. 25,000 Japanese died versus 2,000 Americans or so over the course of nearly a year. While that was painful for the Japanese it wasn't, in itself, a crippling blow.
The more significant impact involved the resources depleted in fighting guadalcanal. About 40 ships lost and over 600 aircraft. These were resources that the Japanese simply couldn't replace easily. The United States, otoh, was easily outpacing that sort of attritional loss and could see just about any attritional resource battle waged with the Japanese as a clear win for the United States. Japan was battling the clock in the war against the United States and every major loss the Japanese incurred accelerated the deadline.
In other words the United States could accept attritional warfare against the Japanese whereas the Japanese could not tolerate it. They were vastly inferior to the United States when it came to replacing resources. So the two headed beast of Midway and Guadalcanal effectively ended any sort of offensive operations the Japanese could sustain. From there on out it was almost exclusively defensive battles for Japan.
Now compare that to contemporary Iraq. The insurgents in Iraq are vastly outgunned and simply have nowhere near the resources that we have. But one thing they have is manpower. Attritional warfare for them is acceptable. If they lose 100 people for every 1 American soldier killed that is acceptable to them. Because they realize that every single dead American soldier is one step closer to America losing its resolve in Iraq.
As a point of comparison look at the US Ranger raid into Mogadishu in 1993. It is estimated that over 1000 Somalis died, most of them gang members for Aidid. The US lost 19. And yet that raid was seen as a horrible defeat for the US and a great victory for Aidid. Why? Because we value our soldiers vastly more than the Somalis value the people who died in the war.
The insurgents in Iraq are not a sovereign nation that needs to defend borders or protect its citzenry. Trying to defeat them attritionally seems to be unlikely to achieve the goals we hope for.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
... it suggests no alternative. The most important thing suggested in the original post is that the enemy has chosen Iraq to make a stand. This is obviously true. This is not something I'm guessing at. They have said so repeatedly.
They (the enemy) know that what you are saying is true also, and they are assuming that we will pull another Vietnam by leaving when things heat up at home. That is their stated strategy. It's working.
I'm going to draw a concept from a strange source: Ghandi. Ghandi talked about how an enemy can be weakened by his own brutality. Every day that this struggle continues, the enemy kills more and more innocent civilians, and loses a bit more of their collective souls in the process. People are not stupid. They know who the good guys are. They know who is building the hospitals and who is blowing them up. They simply can't stand the violence anymore, and are hoping it will stop when the Americans leave.
But it won't. History tells us that upon our departure, the "cleansing" will begin. And America will cease to be a player in the GWOT because the "good guys" in the Middle East will permanently and forever realize that it doesn't pay to risk your life for a promise made by Americans.
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
it suggests no alternative. The most important thing suggested in the original post is that the enemy has chosen Iraq to make a stand. This is obviously true. This is not something I'm guessing at. They have said so repeatedly.
I don't mean to suggest that there is no alternative. I simply don't like the comparison to guadalcanal because the circumstances are noticeably different.
I don't know if the enemy are making a stand in Iraq. I know that domestic forces in Iraq are making a stand. I know that Hizbollah and Iran are covertly supporting their boys and Al Qaeda is likely supporting their boys.
I don't believe that Iraq is a stand in the sense of being a last stand. If we do manage to secure peace in Iraq I believe they will simply move on to other targets while continuing to foment dissent in Iraq.
They (the enemy) know that what you are saying is true also, and they are assuming that we will pull another Vietnam by leaving when things heat up at home. That is their stated strategy. It's working.
Yes it is. And while the people here love to blame Liberals and/or Democrats for this lack of resolve the simple fact that this is the reality of living in a Democracy. The longer a war goes on with no material victories and more dead soldiers, the more that the voters will oppose the war. I also don't think this is a bad thing. If our leaders choose to entangle us in foreign wars they must either create clearly defined objectives and show that we are progressing towards them or they must convince the American people that the war is necessary regardless of whether we have achieved any victories or not. FDR did the former and Lincoln did the latter, albeit just barely.
But it won't. History tells us that upon our departure, the "cleansing" will begin. And America will cease to be a player in the GWOT because the "good guys" in the Middle East will permanently and forever realize that it doesn't pay to risk your life for a promise made by Americans.
Huh? What is the promise we made and who are the good guys you are referring to?
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
You aren't really interested in knowing other than to ridicule my positions by taking points wildly out of context or by pointing out that I didn't write an exhaustive treatise that covers all contigencies.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
is that different from all the comments that you make here, on each and every topic?
You contribute nothing whatsoever to any discussion on RS.
The wonderful thing about RedState is that you aren't obligated to respond to people. If you find someone else to be mostly petty and not worth talking to you, you can simply ignore them.
And as a fine example of this wondrous option, I will no longer respond to your comments. Obviously you find my comments worthless and I find your constant personal jabs at me to be worthless so there is little reason trying to pretend that I can have a reasoned discussion with you.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
you never have responded to my comments. You never respond to anyones comments. So all you are saying is that you will contine to behave as you have been doing. As will I.
I don't believe that Iraq is a stand in the sense of being a last stand. If we do manage to secure peace in Iraq I believe they will simply move on to other targets while continuing to foment dissent in Iraq.
Maybe, but they have said repeatedly in their internal communications that victory in Iraq is a do-or-die proposition. Are they just pumping up the troops? Perhaps. But in the past they have consistently and openly laid out their strategy and we have consistently ignored it.
Huh? What is the promise we made and who are the good guys you are referring to?
The answer requires doing something that most liberals seem loathe to do: Listening to Bush. He made such a promise explicitly in his second inaugural speech, and has repeated it frequently. Reagan and Thatcher made similar promises during the Cold War, and we know know that the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain took those promises very, very seriously -- to the point of using them as inspiration.
We get wrapped around the axle with our self-flaggelation. America can be and is still a beacon of hope in the world.
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
Maybe, but they have said repeatedly in their internal communications that victory in Iraq is a do-or-die proposition. Are they just pumping up the troops? Perhaps. But in the past they have consistently and openly laid out their strategy and we have consistently ignored it.
Well I think that the Al Qaeda leadership believes that. But that doesn't necessarily make it so. They fight each battle as a the last stand because that is the style of organization they are. They are fighting purely political battles. They need take no ground nor overcome any specific enemy. They simply need to continue to exist and continue to foment trouble to claim that they are still fighting the fight.
The answer requires doing something that most liberals seem loathe to do: Listening to Bush. He made such a promise explicitly in his second inaugural speech, and has repeated it frequently. Reagan and Thatcher made similar promises during the Cold War, and we know know that the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain took those promises very, very seriously -- to the point of using them as inspiration.
Agreed. But I also think that they both had a far better understanding of their political landscape than the current Administration has of their's. They understood that the message was just as important as the actions, if not moreso.
We get wrapped around the axle with our self-flaggelation. America can be and is still a beacon of hope in the world.
I agree that many people in the world see us as a beacon of hope. But I also think that some people in America are unwilling to take a critical look at our actions and see how they damage that view.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
You have written a very lucid exposition of the reason our previous strategy, which indeed was one of attrition, has not been successful in Iraq. Our plan was to wear down the insurgents until they gave up, while building the Iraqi national defenses so that we can reduce our forces.
This plan has the advantages of being relatively low-risk, low-intensity, etc, requiring a smaller force and a smaller commitment. However, it has the disadvantage we are seeing now, namely the fact that over time popular support will erode, as the public sees increasing casualties and no visible signs of victory.
Our new plan calls for us to either kill or drive out of the country enough of the enemy so that the rest give up. You mention Somalia and our defeat there in the 1990s. I would say, look at Somalia today. The jihadis have been killed or driven from the country by a combined force of Ethiopian soldiers, doubtless including some of our special forces, along with US air and naval support. Iraq should be Somalia writ large.
I'm not familiar with the plan that you are referring to. It certainly doesn't seem that we have taken on a more hostile posture towards Sadr and the other insurgent political groups.
I do see that we are trying to secure Baghdad. But city fighting is usually pretty low intensity.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
Iraq is analogous to Guadalcanal in that both are accidental meeting battles where even though neither adversary really intended battle there, each committed more and more troops once battle was joined - Gettysburg was a similar circumstance. In both cases, neither side at the time saw them as pivotal battles; the only thing thought significant at the time at G'burg was that for the first time since Sharpsburg, the US held the field and similarly, at Guadalcanal, for the first time the US held the ground after a confrontation with the combined forces of the Empire of Japan.
And I don't believe, as you seem to, that the jihadis can withstand the "bloody arithmetic" of a true battle of attrition. They are almost totally unwilling to go toe to toe with American troops now, and because of domestic politics we have allowed them to fight their kind of battle of attrition; hide in the shadows, avoid fights, and blow up convoys and soft targets confident that the US is so constrained by its ROE that it won't come after the perps forcefully. A few weeks of it being clear that the American response will be to break things, kill people, and make lots of smoke and noise will make it evident that it is no longer a profitable enterprise to pull the Tiger's tail. And frankly, I don't give a tinker's damn about the "collateral damage;" I'm quite content with a period of "kill them all and let God sort it out." "Insurgents" can only swim in a friendly sea, so there aren't many true innocents wherever the bad guys are hiding out.
The Tiger has chosen to let them pull its tail with relative impunity for fear of the domestic consequences. Well, we got those consequences anyway as evidenced by who's running the Congress today; that is the foremost policy failure of GWB and the Repubican leader- they tried to tamp the violence down by not acting aggressively and the jihadist re-ran the Tet Offensive and with help from their allies in America gained a victory the same way the North Vietnamese did, in the hearts and minds of the American people.
In Vino Veritas
If they lose 100 people for every 1 American soldier killed that is acceptable to them.
From what I'm reading, the terrorists from other countries are now avoiding Iraq because ther life expectancy there is so short.
If we lose 1000, they lose 100,000. Do you really think there is an infinite supply of people ready to give their lives to try and kill Americans? This is more of the mindset which takes it for granted that the enemy simply cannot be beaten by military means. That belief seems to be more akin to faith than to any rational examination of the facts on the ground.
It doesn't matter the odds. The North Vietnamese lost men in odds like that too. So did the Japanese. The only reason the Japanese stopped was being the threat of total anhilation was made real by nuclear weapons. In Iraq, there is no threat that the United States will kill everyone. There is, rather, a greater threat that the Shiites will kill all the Sunnis or the Sunnis will kill all the Shiites. Thus the violence will continue until one side defeats the other.
International Affairs is just Political Science with an accent.
The problem we face in Iraq is that we have notified our enemies that we simply cannot tolerates any losses on our side, even the very low numbers we have taken so far. Our public lamentation over every death simply encourages our enemies to kill some more.
War is a matter of resolve and will-power. One you announce that you have none of these things, you have already lost.
Thanks for the post, and although the comparison is not a 100% match, I think it's pretty clear from what people like Zarqawi have said that the terrorists are making a stand in Iraq. I think it's a mistake, but one we should take advantage of. The only question is whether we will quit before we win, because Iraq is similar to Vietnam in this sense - wars against insurgencies (or terrorists) are long affairs.
If there is an alternative, love to hear it. It looks like Bush is going to give it one last push - hope you are rooting for victory, flyerhawk, because I think lots of liberals would be very willing to pitch Iraq under the bus so Bush doesn't get a win. And that sickens me.
But the "consequences of victory"are much greater than were expressed. Let's define "victory" in the Iraq battle as a stable, moderately pro-western, modestly secular country (eg, Turkey) strong enough to assure independence from its neighbors. Not too much to ask, though maybe a long time coming. The geo-political consequences are enormous.
To contemplate, consider the Muslim world pre-9/11. From Algeria to Indonesia the countries were, if not openly pro-terrorist, at least satisfied if the terrorism was directed at the Little and Great Satans, and not themselves. Our response to 9/11, especially the overthrow of Saddam, aided by the al-Queda errors in spreading the violence to Bali, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and even Jordan, tipped most such countries at least to neutrality, if not reluctant and limited support (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) of our position. The result was most obvious in Libya and Lebanon.
It is correct that war is a two-sided affair. The counter-attack by our enemies, both foreign and domestic, supported resistance to our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, cranked up anti-US actions in Iran, and tried to take over Somolia and destabilize Lebanon. Meanwhile, even the thought that we would "cut-and-run" has Pakistan making nice with their border tribes and Maliki chatting with Amahdi-Najad.
It is my hope that the speech tonight will initiate a renewed offensive that will result in such a victory. Rational Muslim governments can be convinced that irrational violence, directed at Muslim and Infidel alike, is not the best route to the Khalifate. They have the Chinese alternative of conquest-from-the-cradle (but by emigration) to try.
Who at the time could have known what a minor battle like Cowpens or a quick thrust to get some shoes would ulitmately mean?
This, I'm afraid, is the price of our instanteous society. We don't know any history, our elites deny the validity of history, so we don't learn from it.
In Vino Veritas