In defense of a brave man.
The unreason of his detractors.
By Paul J Cella Posted in Blogosphere — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Josh Trevino, founder and former Director here, has written an elegant article assaying what it might actually take, in his view, to pacify Iraq. It is obvious that Josh has given serious, informed and analytic thought to the matter, and his conclusion is a grim and portentous one indeed. He thinks it would take an effort of the complexity, determination, and ruthlessness as great as that undertaken against the Boers by the British at the turn of the 20th century. This consummate act of imperialism, requiring all the above qualities in abundance, succeeded in, as Josh puts it, “slowly ground[ing] into submission” an insurgency of guerillas.
Josh’s essay (or at least the segment dealing with the Boer War, for there is much more to it) has an unmistakably clinical edge to it. It is, in the older parlance, an effort of “scientific” reason. As such, it is not averse to making shocking discoveries. It aims at an answer approaching the character of “objective”: what would it actually take to put down a guerilla war waged among civilians?
It is an elementary step of reason to realize that such an analysis is not perforce a prescription. That a whole horde of Leftist commentators do not grasp this elementary principle seems something of a revelation, were it not so wearingly predictable. That revelation is that the Left, the “reality-based community,” the citadel of Reason, the seat of the New Freethinkers, has no firm grasp of reason. The old fact-value distinction is obscure to them! One of the denouncers called on the name of Nietzsche in the course of a commentless and essentially mechanical condemnation. I’m told this blogger is a philosophy professor, and I believe it: only a philosophy professor could cite Nietzsche against a man for standing boldly on Reason in defiance of convention.
Others among the mob of Josh’s unreasoning contemners say they too are prepared to endorse cruelty. One at least even arrived at the insight that war is inseparable from cruelty. This did nothing to stem or even appreciably affect the invective that followed. They have vitiated their idol, Reason, so that when we talk to them, even we, the Conservatives and skeptics of Reason, cannot use it.
These are the wages of the madness that has conquered so many in the West. If we survive it, we will owe a debt of gratitude to men like Josh, who did not fear to use reason on the problems that confront us.
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(I am assuming you reject the Left's mute unreason that Josh's article marks him as a Fascist.)
There is a famous story (perhaps apocryphal) of Black Jack Pershing's tactics with Muslim insurgents in the Philippines that may be worth revisiting.
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
for a lot of reasons, the attack on people for realizing that this is not a Marquis of Queensbury war and wanting to take action that at least has the possibility of returning positive returns is less than helpful.
Personally, I am all in favor of redenditions, repatriation of prisoners to which ever country will inflict the most discomfort, and disappearing jihadi supporters, whether they be spokesmen or moneymen, wherever they be found.
I think a critique of Josh's proposal can be made on its merits, see the first comment, but "fascism" isn't much of a critique.
I am aware of that story of how Cpt. Pershing dealt with terrorists, and it is probably true (only an ignorant fool believes that war is not essentially brutality). However, that anecdote gets far more play that it should. The genius of Cpt. Pershing, and why he was given station higher than his rank would normally allow in the conflict, is not because of a few instances of focused brutality for a purpose, but for the masterful diplomacy he was able to generate with the various tribal leaders. We put down the Moro Rebellion (which was no more a “rebellion” than the fighting in Iraq is a “civil war”) because we co-opted the tribal leaders who could be persuaded to ally/follow the government we installed. Just like in Iraq, actual battles were few and far between, but persuading the tribal chiefs to cooperate and stop their aggression was the key to our victory.
I assume (hopefully correctly) that when our politicians and military leaders describe a “diplomatic” solution” in Iraq they are indirectly speaking of co-opting the tribal leaders, exactly like what is currently happening on the ground in Anbar.
I’m beating my head against the wall, but I believe that what we are doing now is working. It is simply that the media scrutiny and instant reporting is swinging American opinion against the effort faster than they can make progress, and every bomb that goes off gets every once of explosive multiplied by a thousand thanks to the efforts of the media.
Just my opinion…
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." - President Ronald Reagan
And Paul, I love you for reclaiming Reason. You and Josh and the Pope. She will make us good company.
John E.
But true reason deserves neither the capitalization nor the personal preposition [except perhaps in occasional rhetorical flourishes :) ].
The problem with talking about Reason is that its tends toward the effacement of "her" source. We are made in the image of God; therefore we have reason. "Her" parricide has been the doom of our age.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
While I respect someone who is willing to engage in an honest debate regarding staffing/tactics in Iraq, there are several problems that I see with this article:
1) The Boer War is not a good good comparison. The "concentration camp" model is not applicable to a territory with the population of Iraq. Even if you assume we are only locking up people in Baghdad and we are only locking up 25% of the population, you are still talking about locking up 1.5 million people, which is totally unrealistic. The "blockhouse" strategy, as described, does not appear to be applicable to densely populated areas. We tried something similar, with roadblocks and checkpoints, but this does not appear to have had much impact the ability of insurgents to move through the population.
2) Staffing level calculations, even considering their "back of the envelope" nature, are totally unrealistic. As LE points out above, there is no reliable way to compare our military situation to a military situation from the 1800s. I would argue that you couldn't even compare our military situation today to one from 20 years ago. Our technology can have a huge impact, reducing troop requirement. But battlefield conditions (eg, fighting in a city) also has a big impact, and increases troop requirements. That said, once the author arrives at his 300,000 active combat troops calculation, he completely neglects to factor in the support troops necessary. Giving the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that some significant percentage of the troops manning his "blockhouses" are actually support troops, you are still looking at something on the order of 500,000-800,000 troops (plus all the additional contractors that come with them). That's way more than even Shinseki suggested.
3) Finally, regarding the nature of the essay, I think it is pretty easy to see why someone might come to the conclusion that the author does, in fact, support "Nazi-style concentration camps and indiscriminate killing" as the solution to victory in Iraq. The author says, "I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly" and then goes on to only use extremely brutal counter-insurgency examples in his article. Yes, at several points, he refers to the article as a "thought experiment" but he never explicitly says that the tactics he talks about would be wrong. Even in the update, he says that "genocide and murder are the last items on any sane wartime agenda", thereby seeming to indicate that he still considers them valid, though last resort, options for Iraq.
The best time to be having these types of discussions was four years ago, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still valuable now. Considering that his troop level calculations are meaningless (except to say that we need more) and his suggested hypothetical tactics are ones that would never be applied, I'm not sure that this particular article add much to the debate.
... address your argument on the merits of his analysis, but your point 3 leaves something to be desired. The Boer War concentration camps are just not the same as the Nazi DEATH camps. There is a decisive difference of purpose and of effect. I would accept the charge that Josh is on similar grounds as Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment or a hypthetical book An Apology for Sherman's March to the Sea. But these policies, ruthless and brutal though they were, simply do not rise to the level of wickedness as the Final Solution. Not even close.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
You are certainly correct, but the policies were very brutal. From what I understand, there was something like a 25% mortality rate due to disease and malnutrition. The camps were so bad that citizens of Britain during the time were outraged when the conditions came to light.
One would hope that we could more humanely administer our camps, but the fact still remains that all the policies he discussed are significantly more brutal than anything we would be willing to apply to Iraq.
Yes they were brutal. Like some of the more infamous POW camps in during the Civil War, and a thousand others in history. The non-Western way of war would not have built camps, because it would have had no women and children to house outside the slave caravans.
he fact still remains that all the policies he discussed are significantly more brutal than anything we would be willing to apply to Iraq.
Which was precisely Josh's point.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I hope you will understand why I have no patience for assuring the leftosphere on all the things, in explicit detail, I would not do.
We are but warriors for the working-day.
I can't imagine how one would get the impression that you approve of the methods you discuss in your article. Except for how, in the article you link, you say:
It is indeed difficult to imagine now the methods that transformed the Philippines for us, and South Africa for the British, from bitter foe to steadfast friend being applied in Iraq. Would that they were.
Then, LeanLeft explains some of those "methods". You respond:
Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by...
If your thesis really is these are horrible thing that I would never suggest doing, but I'm going to use them to demonstrate how the escalation is inadequate, then you did a fine job of hiding that fact in the fourth paragraph, second sentence.
If you think that the strategies you discuss (concentration camps, forced relocation, civilian massacre) are unacceptable, then fine, we are in agreement. But you don't say anything in your article about ruling them out, and you make several comments that strongly indicate you would support them.
Yes, like we did in the Phillipines. You know, one of the wars you held up as an example?
Are you going to actually state whether you do or do not consider the strategies discussed in your article to be some of the "cruel things" that you support during wartime?
I don't recall "civilian massacres" or (Scott Lemieux, Ph.D.'s preferred fantasy phrase) "indiscriminate killing" being among those.
I referred to "the methods that transformed the Philippines for us, and South Africa for the British, from bitter foe to steadfast friend." For the record, killing unarmed teenagers in Samar almost certainly -- unless my understanding of the history is seriously amiss -- did not advance that end.
That's all I'm going to say about this. I'm not going to engage in a concerted effort to prove -- as if I could -- that I am not a genocidaire in spirit. At least not before you tell me when you stopped beating your wife.
We are but warriors for the working-day.
Are you willing to comment on what specific strategies you found to be effective during those campaigns? Browsing through your links, the only thing I could find was the Morice Line.
Warning: liberal content
Had Josh only been SecDef 4 years ago perhaps we would not be having this converastion.
My only problem with this essay is how to reconcile the last two paragraphs. As a liberal my opinion on what constitutes morality is very different from Josh's, but I just cannot understand how one is on a "moral plane above the mass of the American left that thinks defeat a wholly palatable option" for fighting a war using tactics that he feels will not result in victory ("A desire to win is small consolation without the means to win, and those means were not announced tonight.")
If 20,000 more troops are not the means to achieve victory then, by Josh's reasoning, we will be defeated. If that is the case are we not then fighting a war for the sake of fighting a war, or will the surge make our delayed defeat somehow more palatable (moral?) either through a better outcome for Iraqis or US?
I thinks its safe to say that the left has considered the war to be unwinnable from day one. (Or considered it expedient to say so, which amounts to the same thing.) Given that, any discussion with the left as to how the war may won is futile. It's an article of faith with them that the war cannot be won, and probably should not be won.
The first prerequisite to winning a war is not technology or good tactics, but the will to win. A large segment of America does not have the will to win this war. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that many Americans have the will to lose.
The war in the Middle East will be won or lost on the battlefield of public opinion here in America. On that battlefield the WH has been routed, if it even took the field at all.
How is it more moral to make a half-hearted attempt at winning (when you recognize that attempt costs tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars) than to never make the attempt at all? Why doesn't the author address this point? If he thinks that Bush's plan is inadequate to bring us victory, why does he still support keeping troops in the field?
This isn't like basketball where, even if you are almost guaranteed to lose, you go out and "give it the old college try". This is war, and the author is asking men and women to give up their lives for something that he does not think will ultimately bring us success.
We should have two options when it comes to war: we commit 100% of what we need to guarantee victory, right from the start or we don't go.
The President tried to split the difference, he is still trying to split the difference. Winning in Iraq would take a commitment and a level of sacrifice that the American public is not willing to give. We probably wouldn't have been willing even in 2003, which is why the President tried to split the difference in the first place. That decision is now coming back to haunt him.
RE: willing ourselves to victory
Obviously, will is necessary to win. But it isn't the only thing. We can't just will ourselves to victory. It still takes planning, troops and material. I think that you misunderstand the dissatisfaction that people have with Iraq. It is not that they don't want to win. It's that they don't think we can win because Bush is incapable of leading us to victory.
If we stayed in Iraq for the next 10 to 20 years at current strength, we could probably "win". In that the American public would never support that, you are correct that we don't "have the will to win". But you aren't just talking about some crazy leftists. You are talking about a sizable percentage of the population that recognizes that committing 15 to 20 years to remaking Iraq is folly.
We can't just will ourselves to victory. It still takes planning, troops and material.
We have the troops and the material. It's possible that we don't have the plan which will lead to victory. But as this thread demonstrates, the left will not support a plan which would result in victory if that plan will result in a large number of deaths. I think you would conceed as much.
So when you say that "It is not that they don't want to win", what you are actually saying is that they (you?) want us to win, but only under certain preconditions which make victory highly unlikely.
How is it more moral to make a half-hearted attempt at winning?
One half of the countries heart is 100% behind winning. The other half, its safe to say, is not behind winning, at least as long as Bush is President. The result is that the national average is "half-hearted", yes. But it seems a bit disingenuous of the left to bitterly oppose the war in every way they can from before its inception, and then remark on the divisions within the country using the passive voice, as if their own freely made choices were not a factor, even the factor, in that division.
It's that they don't think we can win because Bush is incapable of leading us to victory.
No, thats not it. Bush is simply the latest in a long line of Republican Presidents to be depicted as a stupid incompetent stumblebum. I have no idea who the next GOP president will be, but as soon as the sun will rise tomorrow whoever he is will be treated the exact same way. Bush and the war are simply convienent proxies for the left to carry on their ideological struggle. The names and issues may change, but that struggle goes on forever.
We have the troops and the material.
The whole point of the article under discussion is that the author believes that we don't have enough troops or material. You are right that the left would not support a plan that would "lead us to victory". You leave out the part where most of the country would probably also refuse to support such a plan. Such a plan would probably entail several hundred thousand troops in Iraq for a very long time.
One half of the countries heart is 100% behind winning. The other half, its safe to say, is not behind winning
I'm sorry, but you are just wrong. Support for the war was very high to begin with:
70-75% were happy with Bush's handling of Iraq, 03/03
70% thought it was going very well or moderately well, 05/03
75% thought invading was the right thing to do, 03/03
The reason that the public has turned against the Iraq war is that Bush has failed to prosecute the war effectively and has failed to make the case as to why staying in Iraq is important. I wish that "the left" had, over the past 6 years, all the power you prescribe to them, but the reality is that Republicans have been in control of the Iraq war all along. Republicans have made all the decisions on how to prosecute the war.
Bush is simply the latest in a long line of Republican Presidents to be depicted as a stupid incompetent stumblebum.
Yes, because when Republicans disagree with Democrats, it is an honest, fact-based critique of policy and procedure. But when Democrats disagree with Republicans, it is because we are unthinking automatons that are just getting our hate on.
Such a plan would probably entail several hundred thousand troops in Iraq for a very long time.
Nothing of the sort is needed. We're actually doing quite well in Iraq with the current force levels, and could do even better with better ROE. We don't need some wonderful plan, or massive amounts of troops. We do need the one thing which is a prerequsite to winning any war - the will to win. That means determination and patience and persistence.
The "insurgents" attacks have zero military significance. They are aimed at winning the propaganda war here in the US.
Support for the war was very high to begin with:
Support for the war was non-existent from the outset amoung the leaders of the Democratic party and amoung the media.
The reason that the public has turned against the Iraq war is that Bush has failed to prosecute the war effectively ..
How, in your view, could he have prosecuted the war more effectively? How could he prosecute it more effectively now? This accusation is dishonest. There is simply nothing Bush could have done or could do now which you will support. You've practically admitted as much already.
I wish that "the left" had, over the past 6 years, all the power you prescribe to them
The left, in the form of the Democratic party, voted for the war, so they had some power. I think everyone understands and understood from the outset that they did so only for the most base of motives. And the left contines to control the bureaucracy of government. The State Dept, CIA and other supposedly executive branch agencies have fought tooth and nail to undermine the Presidents policies at every turn.
when Democrats disagree with Republicans, it is because we are unthinking automatons etc.
Thats an odd way to characterize what I said, since I pretty much said the opposite. The Democrats are very much thinking of what they are doing.
A question for you: who was the last Republican President to be regarded by the intellectual class in this country as worthy of respect? Have they all been a bunch of dim bulbs, or are they depicted as such for ideological reasons?
We're actually doing quite well in Iraq with the current force levels
You should take that up with the original author, since he seems to disagree with you. I'm not going to threadjack into that rat's nest, maybe in a different thread.
From the story above;
He thinks it would take an effort of the complexity, determination, and ruthlessness as great as that undertaken against the Boers by the British at the turn of the 20th century. This consummate act of imperialism, requiring all the above qualities in abundance, succeeded in, as Josh puts it, “slowly ground[ing] into submission” an insurgency of guerillas.i
I take from this that what the author feels is needed is greater ruthlessness and determination, not a lot more troops doing the same things as they are currently doing. I'm basically agreeing with it, and you are not. I don't see the threadjack.
Did you even read the linked article, the one we are talking about?
The beginning and the end of the surge’s probability of success lays in its numbers, and the President’s numbers are too low.
How many soldiers are necessary to secure Iraq? One of the many tragedies of this war is that General Eric Shinseki was essentially correct: “something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” was and is what is needed to run an effective occupation — and by extension, quell an insurgency.
... you’re talking about c.300,000 Americans necessary to make Iraq quiescent.
A desire to win is small consolation without the means to win, and those means were not announced tonight.
I have no idea whether he feels that greater "ruthlessness" is necessary, because he refuses to concretely state the kind of tactics he feels are necessary. But it is pretty clear that he feels that more troops are necessary, and have always been necessary.
why don't you go to his site and comment on it?
This thread relates to Pauls diary.
If you would rather not answer the question put to you, as to whether you could ever support any policy put forth by President Bush which could speed the successful conclusion of the war in Iraq, just say so. No need to act concerned about a possible threadjack. Thats the kind of evasive behavior that gives your side a bad reputation.
Yes, but the diary is entirely about the linked article. Well, it is actually about how brave the author is for posting such an article, but that probably amounts to the same thing.
For the record, I did initially support the invasion. With 20/20 hindsight, I realize that I was wrong and, no, there is no military solution that I would support. I think it would take something on the order of 300,000-400,000 troops to pacify and "remake" Iraq. And I don't think that democracy promotion is worth that.
In that same vein, there is no reasonable solution that I see to the situation as it stands right now. Would sending another 200,000-300,000 troops do it? Would planning on staying for another 10 years do it? Maybe. Probably. But I don't think that either option is realistic (voters would never go for it) or worth it.
I think that Bush has so bungled the Iraq war that it is probably unrecoverable now. Here are the facts, as I see them: we are going to be in Iraq for a maximum of two more years and there is no way we can win in that timeframe, thus all we are doing is putting off the inevitable, at great cost to ourselves in lives and money. Hence, it is foolish for us to stay. I realize that you disagree with me 110% on how the situation in Iraq is going, but the political reality that you need to face is that most voters agree with me and disagree with you. That could certainly change, and I'll eat my crow if it does, but I don't think it is likely.
but I would argue that it ignores American force multipliers, and advantages that are still not negated by the “Heavy Ground” and fanatic nature of our enemies in Iraq.
I preface this comment by saying that I am firmly in the camp of military thinking that believes technology is no substitute for the same principals of warfare as described by Clausewitz, Tsun Tsu, W.T. Sherman etc.. Technology is only a tool, and only an advantage. It does not win battles or wars; soldiers do.
In terms of real numbers, and determining the optimal force to reach definable goals, I think this thought provoking piece leaves out some realities of 21st century warfare:
How many block houses is a small fleet of Predator drones supplemented by 24/7 satellite coverage worth?
How many cavalry, fast reaction forces is a single, rapidly deployable A-Team or Seal Team worth?
How many cannon is a C-130 gunship, attack helicopter, or an A-10 worth?
The list goes on. Looking at troop numbers gives an inaccurate picture, because we have force multipliers and a quality of soldier that the illiterate conscripts in British SA could never even dream about.
In terms of absolute coverage and battlefield, the situational awareness the British relied on came from eyeballs and dispatches of individual soldiers in order to cover that amount of territory. The situation in 14 of 18 provinces of Iraq is not bleak at all, and out of the four that are problems, only two are the reason behind the defeatism that now permeates our country. If we keep that in mind while thinking about this “surge”, and then add our advantages and force multipliers that are not completely negated by the tactics of the enemy and the battlefield they’ve chosen, that 8,000 or so combat soldiers may be more like 50,000 or even more.
In terms of increasing our brutality in order to win faster, we should not only resort to foreign military exploits for examples. An even more instructive history to study would be the way that our own country put down the Moro Rebellion, especially giving their similarities with our current enemies, and the distinct differences between the Boers and Jihadis.
Just a thought…
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." - President Ronald Reagan