What really gripes me is all this squawking and flustered wing-flapping amidst the flock of liberal ineffectuals er I mean intellectuals who backed the war. I don’t go to Andrew Sullivan’s site anymore, but from excerpts I’ve read elsewhere he seems nearly hysterical. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I just don’t get it, this global conniption fit over some resistance and some bad PR. What did they think, it was going to be L. Paul Bremer’s Dance Party? You know, if you get past the air-brushed and glorified and nostalgic coffee-table narratives of WWII, and get into the details and nitty-gritty, it seems like nothing *but* setbacks and bad PR. (Who remembers now that Germany had more allies (e.g., Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy) than the Anglo-Saxons?) And obviously this Mesopotamian muddle doesn’t even come close to WWII, but we have the huge disadvantage of being overwhelmed by circumambient anti-American propaganda, most of it generated by our own treasonous media. I dunno, maybe I escape the panic because I never watch television, but I’m far from sure that that disqualifies my evaluation, which is: it’s not so bad. Let’s tough it out, folks. Let’s do what we have to do to get the job done. Personally, I would have far preferred to have seen all these troops guarding our southern border rather than Iraq, but there were good reasons to go into Iraq, and now that we’re there, there are even better ones to succeed there. I’m just amazed that the so-called neocons are so flabby that they are left utterly invertebrate by the frenzied media demoralization campaign (which, if it were organized by our worst enemy, would not be one whit different from what it is).

Also, by the way, I really don’t understand the superior gloating of Steve Sailer and the TAC crowd, folks I used to hold in higher regard. “Hah! You see! There are problems! We told you so!” Yeah, gee, thanks. And I thought it was going to be like the first 10 minutes of ‘Bambi’. They seem, in their own special way, as utterly uninterested in the success of the American fighting man as the vermin in the Democrat party - as if what happens to the GIs is as nothing compared to the overwhelming necessity of scoring some ideological points.

Are things worse now, either geopolitically or in Iraq itself, than they were before we invaded? No. Okay, if one could push a button and return to the status quo ante it would be tempting to do it just to get the 700 soldiers back we’ve lost; but odds are that would merely result in the loss of many more soldiers, and civilians, later on.

And I’m already completely bored with this Abu Ghraib stuff. Yeah, the pictures look pretty seedy, but then it’s kinda hard to take a picture of naked people in a Middle Eastern prison and not have it come out looking pretty seedy. The soldiers certainly dishonored themselves, but as for this universal hue-and-cry over the supposed horror of some cutthroats getting spanked by randy trailer-trash…gimme a break.

Well, here I am again, in my moderateness, defending a writer, David Frum, whom I do not like and who, as Matt once pointed out, would chop my hand off if I extended it to him. But what Shrewsbury says is not correct. Frum is not hysterically running around like a chicken with his head cut off, but is making positive suggestions on what we need to do now in Iraq, including a more aggressive military posture, which happens to be the very thing Shrewsbury is advocating as well.

There is too much reflexive hostility toward and scapegoating of neocons. It’s something I run into with everyone I know. I consistently oppose and criticize the neocons on fundamentals, and I also feel that in many ways they have acted in bad faith, but I try to look at them objectively and avoid bringing any feeling of personal dislike into public discussion of them. Such hostility is not only not useful, but prevents us from understanding various issues clearly.

I have to say that Frum makes a couple of decent points in his NRO article, a very rare thing for him indeed. I think he’s basically on the mark about our failure to install Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. Now the administration’s wanting to install the much worse Republican Guard general. Frum is absolutely on the mark in his final point, regarding the failure to avenge the murder and mutilation of four Americans on March 31st.

I think Shrewsbury’s post was perhaps directed more at David Brooks than Frum. Wasn’t Brooks was the one who loved to use the “cakewalk” term before the war to summarily dismiss even valid concerns about the cost involved?

*Initial apology for long rambling post*

The biggest problem with the term “neoconservative” is that it includes the word “conservative” in the title. Neoconservatives are nothing more than classical liberals. There is nothing wrong with them, it is just that they are liberals who realized that liberalism was turning into socialism and therefore they wanted to bail out on the socialists. Which is great. But it shouldn’t be confused with a Conservative. There is a big difference. Conservatives are wasting their time wondering what is “wrong” with “neoconservatives.”

Conservatives believe in eternal values. Liberals have a hard time with this. So…what does this have to do with Iraq? Well…if you don’t really believe in God, the U.S., and its values, you’re going to have a real hard time calling for white phosphorus to be poured down on the residents of Fallujah when they stand outside their homes cheering the mutilation of American soldiers.

Yes, I can hear some of you saying “is this crazy nutball suggesting that being a Conservative means we have to be ruthless and kill everyone who opposes us?” No. I am not suggesting that. However, for America to advance its strategic goals in Iraq, it must believe, without remorse, that we are the superior civilization.

Our soldiers paraded Iraqis around naked. The world is in an uproar. Meanwhile, Nick Berg of Philadelphia just had his head sawed off on national television. He was screaming as these pigs did this and his parents are probably watching the video now.

Where are the foreign leaders crying about this outrage? This man wasn’t even a soldier!

Most Iraqis are probably decent people. These fundamentalists are insane and if the neoconservatives don’t have the guts to wipe them out, then we should pull out of Iraq tomorrow. I hope everyone says a prayer for Nick Berg. I also hope someone is this administration has the balls to avenge his death.

Mark’s above post brings up an important point, I think, as I too often wonder why so many here at VFR wonder aloud at “why neocons are a certain way, why they believe as they do”. I believe IN DOING SO (reacting so often to neocons and what they say and write), traditionalist conservatives and paleocons do themselves a disservice by giving too much importance to the neocon part of the base or the conservative movement. I’m not advising “ignoring” them, but I do feel sometimes that because many of these neocons are part of NR and other “respected” magazines or think tanks, that their importance is overplayed or overestimated.

Until I came to VFR, I knew very little about David Frumm and some of the other writers mentioned here. I have now read a few of Frumm’s columns and I am frankly unimpressed. He doesn’s surprise OR impress me in any way. I certainly knew about Bill Kristol, however, and know enough about his views to know he is NOT someone I would follow. I watched him prior to Clinton’s Impeachment and saw him go from a being somewhat conservative to “I don’t know what”. He no longer talked the talk. He had been “turned” somehow, perhaps by Clinton. He was obviously not a conservative any longer.

Perhaps Mark is saying what many of us feel—that the neocons are hardly “leaders” but are instead “wimpy men in bow ties that should NOT be in control of our military and our country.” I assume he is putting the president in the neocon camp, as the president is hardly a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. I am NOT however equating Bush with being “wimpy”—I am thinking more of Bremer, Powell et al. But the pull-back from Fallujah was seen by some—perhaps many on the ground in the military—as “a retreat”, and this was an outrage. Putting one of Saddam’s generals in Fallujah was another dunderhead miscalculation or simply effort out of pure desperation.

The skanks ARE making a mockery of us in the world press. But we can’t only blame the Press—the Brass knew about these photos many months ago and tried to supress them. The Brass evidently KNEW about the prison mistreatment for a long time—but they didn’t clean it up and now we are even more hated in the Middle East there than we were previously, whether Al Jazeera ran those phoney rape photos or not. Not that I want the U.S. “to be liked”. I want us to be “feared”. How can a group of terrorists “fear” the U.S. when we fight them with (as Rush always says) with one arm tied behind our backs? The gauntlet must come off. The PC War of Occupation by the president has failed. It’s time to get back to killing and breaking things.

Jonathan Last, one of the editors of Weekly Standard and, I assume, a neocon, takes on Bush’s double talk about Iraqis being democrats just like us and anyone who doesn’t believe that is a racist.

Here is the main point:

“SO WHY IS IT that Americans were
able to take the Falluja pictures in stride, yet President Bush is “sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures” in Iraq “didn’t understand the true nature and heart of America”? Is there something about the Iraqis and others in the Middle East that the president thinks makes them incapable of making reasonable distinctions?

Or could it be that there are cultural differences which cause people to react differently?

Whatever the case, perhaps the next time President Bush is asked about whether cultural differences might make democracy difficult in Iraq, he won’t simply dismiss his questioner as being racist.”

Read the whole thing:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/078tmkwa.asp?pg=2

Mr. Levin wrote: “Not that I want the U.S. “to be liked”. I want us to be “feared”. How can a group of terrorists “fear” the U.S. when we fight them with (as Rush always says) with one arm tied behind our backs? The gauntlet must come off.”

Being hated but feared is a viable strategy. Being hated and laughed at is a disaster. The handling of the Fallujah non-surrender surrender is making Iraqis laugh.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=323

I would like to second David Levin’s fine remark about the neocon’s perceived importance vs. their actual numeric influence within American conservatism. My own view is that the neocons are primarily a mouthpiece for the liberal wing of the Republican party - otherwise known as the “Country Club Republicans” - who currently control the party along with many of the very think tanks and publishing companies who the neocons depend on for their careers.

Bush, Rove, Racaciot and the rest have been working hard to consolidate CCR control of the Republican party and have been so successful that they felt comfortable in betraying the pro-life movement, who have been the loyal rank and file foot soldiers since the 1980s. Bush’s open campaigning for notorious pro-abortion Arlen Specter against the pro-life Pat Toomey in PA a couple of weeks back shows how brazen they are. Expect an all out war in Utah to prop-up the treasonous open borders advocate Chris Cannon, who now must face a run-off with an immigration reform candidate.

I am curious about the neocons taking exception to Bush’s use of the “racist” slander, a standard leftist smear tactic they themselves have used against open borders opponents like Mr. Auster and others. I think George Will has also taken exception to Bush’s use of this smear. Whether this represents a genuine change in thinking on the neocons’ part or a tactic to make them appear as something more than mindless cheerleaders for Bush remains to be seen.

It is to be hoped that the experience of being race-baited themselves will teach the neocons to drop this odious habit, but we had better not bet on it. The far left has regularly race-baited them over their opposition to affirmative action ever since the neocons appeared as a distinct faction; it didn’t teach them anything. Conceivably resentment against being attacked by a fool like Bush may be the last straw. I can’t agree that neocons and CCRs are really the same and still less that the latter are really liberals (in the usual American sense of the word); the CCRs have few principles at all, unless selling out their fellow Americans is a principle with them.
David Frum is not a typical neocon, but shows considerable libertarian influence (see his book on the 1970s.)

I find it hard to evaluate the neocons actual importance within the conservative ranks. I must say, however, that, however unfortunate it may be, they do form a disproportionate element of what conservatism can be said to exist in the academic world. I may be unduly stretching the meaning of conservatism her…..

I am glad Shrewsbury is kind of bored with the Abu Ghraib business. I fear it is unrealistic to think that other people, outside the US, share his attitude. This is a very bad black eye for us. Obviously, plenty of people either hate us or are seeking a way not to support us already, but this has given our enemies ammunition and alienates people who might be on the fence. It is a first class disaster and we should not fool ourselves about that.
By the way, I found his remarks about WWII not too comprehensible. The Germans’ allies may have outnumbered those of the British in 1940-1941 for a while, but hardly during the whole war. And what kind of allies were they? Italians, Romanians, etc. generally hated Germans. The normal attitude in the East European
Axis allies, even among those who supported the war effort (many didn’t) was that it would be nice if the Germans destroyed the USSR and their countries were able to pocket the lands they wanted to annex, but that it would be better if the war in the West ended with a compromise peace —- so there would be something to restrain the Germans.

Shrewsbury says that we can “succeed” in Iraq and that we should “get the job done.” I don’t recall his previous posts, so I would like to ask exactly what he believes would constitute “finishing the job.”
I think that it is possible to have a relatively benign outcome in Iraq if we have limited objectives - a partition, maybe, or else possibly we could find a local strongman and give him control on the condition that if he gets too bad, or if he does stuff which threatens us, we will kill him and put in a different strongman. (Indeed, sending in a special squad to assassinate Saddam and the top tier of the Baath Party might have been a better strategy than a full-scal invasion).

My comments on the points made by David Frum:

(Responding point-to-point on the numbered points in his column,viz.
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary051104.asp )

1) Mostly I agree with him here. More training for prison guards would be a good idea, and having a large number of people specifically trained for the job makes sense if occupation is going to be a large role for the army in the future.

2) While there are merits to the idea that we should have sent in more troops, I’m not entirely certain how this would have prevented the Abu Gharib scandal, so I agree with David Frum as far as this goes. I suppose it does showe that we should have sent in larger numbers of trained military police, if there were any to send, but it doesn’t appear that more regular soldiers would have improved the conditions at the prison.
As for turning over security to the Iraqis, I think that Mr. Frum overestimates the support that the Iraqi National Congress would have had. Putting the Republican Guard general in charge of a force was a flub-up, apparently due to a case of mistaken identity, however, I don’t think that Chalabi’s cronies would have necessarily been able to effectively lead a force either. Other than the fact that the fiogureheads of Iraq would be the Iraqi National Congress rather than the Iraqi Governing Council, we’d probably still be in the same position we are now. We would probablt have had to take over “order-keeping” pretty quickly (just as we did in March, after terrorists were attacking Iraqis with increasing ferocity after we pulled back in February).

3) Early elections is probably a good idea from a PR standpoint, and is probably a good goal overall, but it won’t necessarily make things easier for the US on the military front.
“[Early elections] will… transform the nature of the combat in Iraq. Early elections will make clear that those who have taken up arms are really fighting—not the Americans and the Coalition—but popular government in Iraq. “
Only if the popular government is friendly to the US, if not, it may increase attacks on the US. More likely, the US will take steps to make certain that the Iraqis cannot elect a government that is not friendly to us; and so Iraqis who feel that their ballot choices were restricted might not see attacks against the US or the Iraqi government as attacks on democracy and popular sovereignty.

4) Probably right. Reparations for the people abused would be fairly cheap and could help us to bribe a lot of them to forget or at least repress their grievances.

5) True, but a siege may not be the best bet. I say, get some spies to find out who did it, compare the faces of our suspects to the faces on the camera, try them, and if they are found guilty, hang them publicly. Don’t be gratuitous, or humiliating. Simply bring them one at a time to the scaffold, and drop them. Then burn the bodies so that they cannot be used as symbols by the Iraqis.

It is quite interesting to see neocons like Tammy Bruce and others arguing for a brutal, violent response to the acts of rebellion in Fallujah and Najaf. For me this raises an interesting question since it gets at the real reason for war, and the role our military should play in bringing this strategy about. Do the neocons regret that Saddam Hussein did not murder Muqtoda al-Sadr back in 1999 along with his father and two brothers? Do the neocons regret that Saddam didn’t slaughter more people in Fallujah to make it easier on our troops?

While most of the world rightly opposed the war yet also didn’t support Saddam’s brutality, it seems the neocon complaint with Saddam is that he didn’t kill enough people.

Neocons: picking up the bloodshed where Saddam left off.

I myself don’t believe in brutal responses to the cities of Najaf and Fallujah. Heck, I don’t even want us to be particularly harsh on insurgents that we capture (on the battlefield, of course, deadly force against insurgents is necessary). However, the specific people who have mutilated bodies, brutally murdered a true civilian like Nick Berg, or who deliberately blew up children’s buses - if you find them, they should be executed.

Mr. Jose’s responses to David Frum’s article give a sense of how tough our dilemma in Iraq really is. He shows that the proferred alternative policies (more troops, quicker elections, greater role for the INC, etc.) would not necessarily have avoided the terrible difficulties we now find ourselves in. We are in one heck of a spot.

It seems as if the current choices are:

(1) Use much greater force on the insurgents to get control over the country. The objection to this approach is that we may not be able to achieve such control even with much greater force, or, even if we do achieve such control, it will only be temporary, since, as soon as we hand power over to an Iraqi government, the situation would very likely deteriorate again.

(2) Withdraw from Iraq now, since we have no way of “winning,” and therefore the lives we take and the lives we lose in an atttempt to “win” will all be wasted.

Another possible approach, suggested recently to me by Robert Locke, is that we withdraw from immediate involvement in Iraqi affairs, but continue to exert influence there by tilting to one side or the other in any civil conflict that breaks out. Instead of being the one in charge, whom everyone hates, we would become the kingmaker, whose favor everyone would want to solicit. This way we could keep serious bad guys like the jihadists from gaining control over the country, while not running the country ourselves. In this scenario, an Iraqi civil war is not an outcome to be feared or avoided.

Mr. Auster writes:

“It seems as if the current choices are:

(1) Use much greater force on the insurgents to get control over the country. The objection to this approach is that we may not be able to achieve such control even with much greater force, or, even if we do achieve such control, it will only be temporary, since, as soon as we hand power over to an Iraqi government, the situation would very likely deteriorate again.

(2) Withdraw from Iraq now, since we have no way of “winning,” and therefore the lives we take and the lives we lose in an atttempt to “win” will all be wasted.”

These are some of the choices, there are other choices some are/could be better for us in the long run.

1. As I pointed many times, more troops may or may not be a good idea. It is certainly means more our boys are dead.

Besides, troops are not interchangable 2”x4” boards. It is not clear that we have more troops of the kind that is needed in Iraq.
For example we have a huge supply of nuclear submarine crews that really have nothing to do. Obviously they cannot be used in Iraq.

2. Definition of winning is whatever we say it is while at the same time Jihadis silently admit they lost. A semi-sane strongman, hopefully Pinochet-lite or Putin-lite, would be the absolutely best we can hope for. A guy who will open up country economically and will allow growth of democratic institutions from the bottom-up. South Korea, Taiwan and Chile provide excellent models. But we have to understand it is a plan for 30 years.

3. US leaves but it doesn’t go too far. Kurdistan, a de-facto independent country, will be our best friend in the Middle East and biggest military base in the world. HongKong is an economic and political model for Kurdistan. Turks will have to take it after stabbing US in the back. All indications are they are ready for punishment. Kurds will have to accept independence-lite as a condition for protection from Turks.

4. Mr. Locke’s solution: Risks are huge, probability of success is low. Law of unintended consequences fully appllies.

Is there a country where US so cleverly and successfully manipulated local politics in the Middle East? In the last 30 years? Given that CIA resembles US Bureau of Labor Statistics much more than it resembles Lawrence of Arabia, who exactly will do all that clever manipulative politicking? Bremer? Wolfowitz? Tenet? Bill Clinton?
Actually between 4 of them I would like Clinton chances better. Except he will go native in no time and will revert into working against US interests.

I think that some of David Frum’s ideas have merit, and would help the situation, although they wouldn’t bring us anything close to a solution.
I think a strongman wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. However, I think it would be best to have a strongman who has lived in Iraq for most of his life and who would command the respect of a large portion of the populace. Al-Sistani is obviously not the man because he has no political aspirations (i.e. does not want to serve), but he might be able to direct us toward a list of good candidates.
In any case, we need to respect de facto independence for the Kurds - I wouldn’t say that Turkey stabbed us in the back, we pressured the government into making promises that the people would not let them keep, and as someone else pointed out in an earlier thread, we never made good on earlier promises to Turkey. However, although I think that trying to spite Turkey is a foolish idea, we probably need to give de facto independence to the Kurds for other reasons.
The concern I have with the way that we are going is that casualty-wise, things keep creeping up.
Looking at the timelines of deaths
http://lunaville.com/warcasualties/Timelines.aspx
it seems that the death toll per month is slowly rising, I predict about 50 hostile deaths by the end of May. Other than the unusual spikes of November and April, and the sudden drop in February, we find that last summer (June-September), monthly combat deaths were 18-28, while during the fall/winter (October-March) they were 32-39. Also notice that the spike in November was 94 hostile deaths and that in April was 135. I suspect that this summer monthly deaths will hover around 50. In the end I think that this slow uptrend may be more dangerous than the few unusually deadly months like April.

I say, give the Kurds their state. Who cares what Turkey says? The Kurds were the only group in Iraq who eagerly helped us. Why should we stab them in the back ? They certainly deserve a state more than the Palestinians, and seem to be running their autonomous area pretty efficiently already.

You can expect a spike in casualties if and when anything happens to either of the major Shia mosques. As of yesterday, American positions were within a thousand yards of the Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala with fighting two miles from the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf.

In general, though, Mr. Jose has described the classic guerilla warfare strategy. Guerillas don’t try to take and hold territory. They’ll get all the territory back when the occupier leaves. They don’t deliberately expose themselves to superior firepower in open battle. What they do is inflict a steady stream of casualties as invisibly and anonymously as possible with a carbomb here, a roadside Improvised Explosive Device there and an ambush someplace else. The occupier will win every single battle, but the ground he takes doesn’t stay taken and when the casualties are counted up at the end of the year he realizes he’s losing the war. The guerilla’s objective is political, getting the occupier to make the political decision to just forget the whole thing because the costs aren’t worth it.

The best exposition of guerilla strategy is General Giap’s “People’s War, People’s Army,” and both the Afghans and the Iraqis have read it. The book’s tagline — and it’s not original with Giap, it’s also in Sun Tzu, Five Rings of Power, Mao’s Little Red Book and the director’s cut of Enter the Dragon — is, “When he advances, I withdraw; when he stops, I harass; when he tires, I strike; when he withdraws, I pursue.”

I have a genuine question here, not rhetorical. The army’s institutional memory contains every lesson learned from every convential battle since the beginning of time. Why is it the lessons of guerilla warfare seem to last for about a generation and then they need to be relearned again the hard way?

Expanding on Mr. Hechtman’s question, how is it that our government leaders did not think that this might happen in Iraq? How is it that almost nobody, even the anti-war critics, emphasized this possibility? All the opponents talked about was that the war was bad because it was a neocon-led crusade for empire or Israel. Almost no one said, the war may be necessary, but if we do it, we’re going to face a bloody occupation with no clean exit.

Prior to the war the thought came to me that we might end up like the Israelis with the Palestinians, facing terrorist bombings, but that thought was drowned out by the other debates that were raging. Also, the fact that the _majority_ of Iraqis would welcome us, which was TRUE, did not mean that a violent minority of Iraqis might NOT welcome us, and that it only takes a small violent minority to render a political order impossible. How could our leadership reduce the issue to such a simplistic thought as “Since some or most of the Iraqis will welcome us, that means in effect that ALL of them will welcome us, and therefore we don’t have to worry about those who won’t”? Yet that was basically the thought process.

Another question. What is the difference between guerilla warfare, as described by Mr. Hechtman, and William Lind’s portentously named “Fourth Generation Warfare”? Does Lind’s concept add anything useful that is not included in the concept of guerilla warfare?

Here is the key question for me: How could our leadership not understand the resistance that they would meet if they tried to install an Anglo-American style government in Iraq? What is the predictable reaction of Sunnis to the thought of a majority-Shiite “democracy” with universal suffrage?

My answer is that our elites don’t appreciate our own heritage, thus they don’t understand the unique conditions required to make our system work. That is why they don’t understand the implications of immigration. They see cheap labor, and wiser men see Balkanization.

Mr. Auster asked: “How could our leadership reduce the issue to such a simplistic thought as — either ALL the Iraqis will welcome us, or none of them will — ? Yet that was basically the thought process.”

It took me a long time to get even a shaky grasp on Iraqi politics and I have a lot of free time to spend on the internet as well as access to Iraqi exiles who will answer my questions when I get confused. Iraqi politics makes Afghan politics look simple. Just as an example, you had the Shia leader Mohammed Hakim, whose philosophy of Islamic government was a lot closer to Khomeini’s than anyone else’s, but who was also more interested in friendly co-operation with the Americans than any domestic leader alive today.

When the debate was going on, spring to early fall of 2002, nobody who didn’t speak Arabic and have a prior interest in the region really knew anything about which Iraqis wanted what and how far they’d go to get it. These groups were still underground then, not putting out much material and almost nothing in English.

I can think of one writer (Juan Cole) who specialized in the subject before Sept. 11 and in the run-up to the war he was on Campuswatch’s blacklist so nobody was listening to him. The State Dept may have had people who knew the Iraqi domestic opposition well, but nobody ever listens to the State Dept. The way we tell the story is that Washington had been turned into an echo chamber. Anybody who would normally have had the job of providing that kind of information to the decision makers had been retasked to create talking points to sell a decision that had been made long before.

Robert Fisk brought up the Lebanese experience, where the Shia initially met the Israelis with rice and flowers (that’s where the phrase comes from) but also told them, “Thank you for liberating us. Now don’t forget to leave.” So the idea that the majority would initially welcome us and then lose patience over time was out there but it didn’t make it into the mainstream American press until after the invasion.

http://www.iht.com/articles/91616.html

Mr. Auster also asked: “Does Lind’s concept add anything useful that is not included in the concept of guerilla warfare?”

Absolutely. Mao, Giap and other 20th century guerilla leaders used the tactics of unconventional war to pursue the conventional goal of state power. The objectives of Fourth Generation forces are equally unconventional. It has helped other groups gain state power with varying degrees of success — Bosnia completely, Chechnya briefly, most others not at all — but Al Qaeda itself does not seek state power. When they can handpick heads of state as far away as Spain, they don’t need it. The medieval Assassins are the obvious parallel here. “They have arguments which cannot be refuted.”

There are a number of examples of Muslim militants fighting, not to replace their government but to induce the existing government to adopt Sharia. Many of the Afghan warlords, Ismail Khan in particular, have bought peace in their provinces by restoring Taliban-interpretation Sharia. The same thing happened in Pakistan ten years ago. The Frontier Province districts of Dir and Malakand are nominally governed by secular authorities, but the law that’s enforced is religious law.

A more general take on the same subject, not limited to Muslim non-state forces is the RAND corporation’s Networks and Netwar, free in PDF.

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/

The idea of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW for convenience) is not Lind’s alone, and it is a valuable way to look at the sort of conflicts we find ourselves in today, which transcend guerrilla warfare as we have traditionally understood it. Mr. Hechtman’s distinction between guerrillas who want to take over a government or establish one and 4GW actors like al-Qaeda who seek to destroy an existing order or impose another (Sharia) without themselves taking on the burden of running a state is a good one. Read these and see if Lind and his associates were prescient: http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/4th_gen_war_gazette.htm and http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/hammes.htm .

One of the strengths of 4GW analysis is the stress it places on control of mass communications and media. Obviously, that is something al-Qaeda understands. To a certain extent, the Pentagon, burned by the gross disparities between the Vietnam War as fought and as covered, understands it too. Our propaganda effort re the Iraq invasion and occupation is breaking down, but our control of the media in the Gulf War was superb.

Mr. Hechtman asks about the Army’s institutional memory, and why we seem to forget the lessons of previous campaigns against guerrillas. Lind has an answer to that one, one that I think makes sense. Formal armies and formal institutions are creations of states. They find it easier to understand and fight other state actors, other uniformed armies, which is what soldiers tend to believe they exist to do. Army v. army, state v. state battles are Real Wars. The messier and harder-to-define conflicts we have today are something else, and far less congenial to a formal warrior’s way of thinking. 4GW opponents do not conform to our warrior code, and the problem they present is very confusing.

In a post-Soviet world, there is less excuse for the U.S. armed forces to ignore 4GW threats. To give them credit, they have been grappling with the problem for years. The fiasco at Abu Ghraib shows that the Army still has lessons to learn about the all-important cultural aspects of fighting a 4GW foe. HRS

Mr Sutherland wrote: “One of the strengths of 4GW analysis is the stress it places on control of mass communications and media. Obviously, that is something al-Qaeda understands.”

Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. The Nick Berg murder video was a PR disaster both in content and in timing. Even the radical Muslim press is beating up on them for it. If Hamas can take time out from holding the body parts of dismembered Israeli soldiers for ransom to issue a statement condemning you, you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere.

Somewhat OT but an interesting article about doings in Iraq. Notice an openly traitorous attitude openly expressed by a well known, accordigly to the writer, journo. She also says that her editors celebrate every American setback in Iraq.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?table=old§ion=current&issue=2004-05-15&id=4605

Michael Jose writes:

“we need to respect de facto independence for the Kurds - I wouldn’t say that Turkey stabbed us in the back, we pressured the government into making promises that the people would not let them keep, and as someone else pointed out in an earlier thread, we never made good on earlier promises to Turkey. However, although I think that trying to spite Turkey is a foolish idea, we probably need to give de facto independence to the Kurds for other reasons.”

US was the best friend Turkey had for 50 years. US was not an ideal friend, nobody is.
Frankly the complaint that the bribes due to them in 1991 were not paid is rather pathetic. If that is the way they want it, how are they different from our other “close friends” like Egypt or Saudis?

Turkey’s goverment promised and then failed to deliver a major thing, hundreds of our boys are dead because of that.
It is true that 70-80% of Turks were against the war and against Turkey helping. The people and the goverment made their choice, now they have to live with consequences.

If we fail to punish them it will send a signal (as it is needed) that one can stab US without consequences. So they and French and Germans and Russians are overdue for an object lesson. Other considerations are involved and not all these lessons could be practical. In case of Turkey the punishment takes a back seat to the strategic interest in de-facto independent, approximately democratic and very friendly Kurdistan.

Allan Wall writes:

“I say, give the Kurds their state. Who cares what Turkey says? The Kurds were the only group in Iraq who eagerly helped us. Why should we stab them in the back ? They certainly deserve a state more than the Palestinians, and seem to be running their autonomous area pretty efficiently already.”

All of this is absolutely true except Turkey’s concerns. They are minimally friendly country (who knows for how long) and a reginal power. There is no need to rub their face in their feces.
There is a minimal difference between independent Kurdistan in Iraq’s part of Kurds lands and de-facto independent Iraqi Kurdistan. A truly independent Iraqi Kurdistan will destabilize Turkey in a major way, before that will happen Turkey will fight a war. This is a perfect situation for the US to arbitrate between Iraqi Kurds and Turks, even our mortally incompetent State Dept and CIA could manage that.

“US was the best friend Turkey had for 50 years.”

Yes, and Turkey was a very good friend to the U.S. for a long time. Why does everything have to be phrased as a one-way street, with other countries owing something to the U.S. ? Turkey fought on our side in Korea, in significant numbers. Turkey provided (and still provides) military bases to us. Turkey provided secret listening post locations for our intelligence services. We valued Turkey because they have long been a check on Russian expansion in that direction, and that became very valuable to us after World War II. Turkey funded a large military as a NATO member when other NATO members were not really pulling their weight in the alliance. When things looked bleak during two different points in the Iran-Iraq war (i.e. when it looked like first one side, then the other, would win outright and control a huge portion of the world’s oil supplies), Turkey vowed to send its military in to seize the Kirkuk oil fields to prevent this from happening. Turkey permitted our submarines to pass the Bosporus so we could go spy on the Soviet Black Sea fleet. Etc., etc.

Do you ever wonder why people around the world say America is “arrogant”? Do you suppose it could have something to do with our one-sided summary of relationships? For example, France was crucial to the American War of Independence. If they lorded that over us the way we do the same with World War II, we would find it intolerable.

We had better face a few facts if we are going to have friends in the world:

1) We don’t have the commitment to have the kind of huge military that can dominate the whole world. We are stretched thin right now in just one major involvement (Iraq) and one lesser involvement (Afghanistan). Soldiers cannot even receive their promised leave.

2) Most countries don’t see the need for American protection, even if we could provide it. The threat of Warsaw Pact invasions has subsided. South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are probably the only places on earth that are concerned about whether we are available to help if they are attacked.

We don’t have a one-sided relationship in which everyone is counting on us to prevent their country from being conquered. Turkey has no such worries, for example. We had better get used to dealing with other countries with some respect.