Respect For The Military

By Big Tent Democrat, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Wed Jun 27, 2007 at 11:41:13 PM EST
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Yesterday, Matt Yglesias noted he was taken to task by Red State and other Right blogs for being a pointy-headed Harvard grad pontificating about things military. So it was great irony today to see, as reported by The Angry Rakkasan, General John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, being lectured to by pointy-head AEI scholar Frederick Kagan on things military. Rakkasan links to the Chicago Trib blog which reported:

Major Gen. John Batiste (ret.) who commanded the Army's First Infantry Division in Iraq, and is a respected critic of the war, said the insurgents have the initiative since they can pick where and when to explode a truck bomb for instance. But Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, rejected that view, saying that under the new strategy being executed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, the initiative was on the U.S. military's side. . . . It was one of those strange Washington moments where the military expert with real experience as a combatant commander in the battlespace at issue was being told he was wrong by an Inside-the-Beltway expert who likely never fired a weapon at anyone in anger.

I expect outraged posts throughout the Right blogs to protest this lack of respect for military experience. No I don't.

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Respect For The Military | 32 comments (32 topical)

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Not You (5.00 / 1) (#22)
by squeaky on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 10:56:43 AM EST

But your comment may have as well been calling al-Sadr uppity.

: Hmmm, Really (none / 0) (#24)
by Peaches on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 11:13:17 AM EST

That is a strange interpretation of what I am saying about Sadr, since I know nothing of him other than he is a popular Shiite religious leader commanding a military wing of loyalists who are said to be instigating violence against Sunnis and the occupation forces while also penetrating deeply within the Iraqi Gov't and Iraqi Security forces. I was not intending to make any judgments on him at all and was only repeating what I have been told of his influence in Iraq.
None of that has any thing remotely similar to a word (Nigger) used as a disparaging remark against African Americans with deeply antagonistic and racist roots.

Bad Idea (5.00 / 1) (#23)
by squeaky on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 11:02:22 AM EST

If our intentions were really to secure the Peace in Iraq, we would be going just as hard at Sadr is my point.

I believe that killing or capturing al-Sadr will be the worst thing imaginable for peace in Iraq. He will be a martyr and we will be having to deal with attacks on our shores for 10 times as long as we will for what we have done up till now.

Unoccupying Iraq and letting al-Sadr form a unity gov and reconcilliation project is the best thing we can do for peace in the region.

: So do I? (none / 0) (#26)
by Peaches on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 11:19:50 AM EST

and I am sure that the Military equally sees that they cannot solve the Iraqi situation easily and have chosen the easiest mission possible - Sunni Insurgents linked to Al Quaeda.
I also would not bet against Bush?Cheney going through with a bombing campaign against Iran after this mission is completed in an attempt to lesson the threat Sadr poses to the occupation forces. That is what I think Bush and our military leaders are thinking. I don't think it will work. I don't think like they do. I could be wrong on any or all counts.

OK... (3.00 / 2) (#1)
by Strick on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 07:37:25 AM EST

I'm confused. In things like this, either side can take the initiative. Both statements are right, neither excluding the other, but there's a significant difference.

The difference is that exploding a car bomb doesn't particularly provide any military momentum. It's a delicate thing. It might make headlines can convince people who don't know any better that this loosing, desperation tactic constitutes a victory (you know, like some people decided the Tet Offensive was a victory for the Viet Cong despite being in actual fact a devastating loss), but it also alienates the very population that any insurgency would need to support it. Bombing civilians is taking the initiative, alright, but to what end?

On the other hand, the US clearly has the initiative in the operations in the provinces around Baghdad. There's not a darn thing al Qaeda or the insurgents can do to prevent US and Iraqi forces from doing anything they want. That's the true definition of "the initiative". More to the point, these operations are slowly drying up the people, facilities and resources used to create those truck bombs.

So while either side can take "the initiative" only one side really control the situation through that initative. Well, unless the losers can convince some people that their eroding capability to set off explosions against soft targets (and with rapidly increasing rarity, a hard one) is a victory.

Umm (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by scarshapedstar on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 08:07:32 AM EST

You are indeed confused, but not for the reasons you think.

The difference is that exploding a car bomb doesn't particularly provide any military momentum.

Yes, because a civil war is when everyone puts on gray and blue uniforms and meets on a battlefield with their breech loaders. Welcome to the 21st century. Go to Sudan and tell me that the Janjaweed are just twiddling their thumbs as well. Go to Afghanistan and tell me that the Taliban are shooting themselves in the foot by shooting women in the head.

There's not a darn thing al Qaeda or the insurgents can do to prevent US and Iraqi forces from doing anything they want.

Besides putting on their civilian clothes (or, more realistically, Iraqi Army/Police uniforms) and melting away, you mean? Love the al-Qaeda shoutout, by the way. Are you a Pentagon psyops agent or did you just drop the brown acid?


Really? (3.00 / 2) (#8)
by Strick on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 08:50:58 AM EST

Besides putting on their civilian clothes (or, more realistically, Iraqi Army/Police uniforms) and melting away, you mean?

To go where? The provences that would have welcomed them 6 months ago are all exeriencing the same thing: Sunnies turning the insurgents as govenment control of the provence is re-established. Who's going to harbor them? The enemies they made murdering innocent civilians? The people who suffered under their cruel so-called Islamic State? Turn them in more likely.

This isn't the old "wack a mole". The difference is the hammer stays down on the tope of the hole this time, leaving no place for the mole to come back up. They don't have to die in the inital attacks to become less and less effective. They simply have to loose the bases they've been fighting from.

Don't get me wrong, all this could fail. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, particularly politically here or in Iraq. But if it goes wrong, it's not going to be because of some military "initiative" al Qaeda or the insurgents took. They're completely outclassed when our troops are used correctly, as Petraeus, who wrote the book on counter-insurgences based on successful British and American efforts in the past, is using them.

And either way, there's a world of difference in the meaning of "initiative" when used to decribe the ability to set off a truck bomb and the ability to mount massive, crippling military operations, which the post seems to fail to comprehend.

The rules have changed in Iraq since General John Batiste made his statement, that's all.


Agreed (5.00 / 1) (#11)
by scarshapedstar on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:09:45 AM EST

I believe this is the very definition of assymetric warfare, yes. But I don't see why you're so sanguine about it.


Er (5.00 / 1) (#12)
by scarshapedstar on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:10:44 AM EST

Asymmetric. "Assymetric" is more like a good neologism for logic like "we kill 10 of theirs for every 1 of ours!"


That's a reasonable question... (none / 0) (#13)
by Strick on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:34:27 AM EST

I believe this is the very definition of assymetric warfare, yes. But I don't see why you're so sanguine about it.

That's a fair point, but not the one the original post was making.

For assymetrical warfare to be successful, any insurgency requires the support of the people. The objective of current operatons is to deprive insurgents of that support.

It is true that you really can't achieve that militarily when the support is genuine, but that's not the problem here. As was the case for the Taliban in most of Afghanistan, the insurgents appear to have made themselves unwelcome guests. The way the Sunni militias have turned on the insurgents and "foreign fighters" and the local populations have responded to incoming troops are evidence of that.

What these operations intend to do is free the populations that have been forced to support the insurgents. That worked for the British in Malaysia and the US in other insurgencies. Like any military operation it could fail for many reasons (often political ones), but for now it seems successful.

Tomorrow? Who knows? But for now, we have the initiative, and as I said, if that changes, it's not likely to be for military reasons.


Sunni, insurgents and Al Queada (none / 0) (#14)
by Peaches on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:52:44 AM EST

Are one aspect of the fight. We might be able to force the insurgents and foreign fighters out of safe havens in Iraq with the help of the Sunni population. The Sunnis are desperate and want the help of the Americans to stave off the complete elimination of Sunnis from Iraq it the Americans leave. So, in a way this is still whack-a-mole, when the US decides that the time is right to focus again on Sadr, Iran and the Iraqi Security forces (largely Shiites). You still have the problems of the Kurds to deal with as well in Northern Iraq.

The larger problem remains Sadr and the influence Iran has on the Iraqi Gov't, Shiites, and the Iraqi security forces. The emphasis on the insurgents, whom are identified as affiliated with Al Quaeda, is as much a public relations strategy to keep up support for the surge in congress and America as it is a military strategy for winning, whatever that would be, in Iraq.


Here's my problem with statements like this (5.00 / 1) (#15)
by scarshapedstar on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 10:01:47 AM EST

We might be able to force the insurgents and foreign fighters out of safe havens in Iraq

If China came here to "liberate" us with an army that spoke no English and was commanded by a buffoon, and then they started leveling entire cities while the death toll crept up to the millions, I'd sure as hell try to pick them off or blow them up whenever I got a chance. And I'm pretty sure my neighbors would cover for me. How hard is it to say "no" when they have to find an interpreter to even interrogate someone?

And then, when they claimed that the resistance wasn't coming from peance-and-freance loving Americans but from Canadians sneaking across the border, I'd know they'd truly lost the war.


I certainly agree (none / 0) (#18)
by Peaches on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 10:30:01 AM EST

My point was an answer to Strick's point that our military having some success in its campaign against Al Queada led insurgents that was not just Whack-a-mole strategy by its own measurements.

So, the military goes into Sunni regions and kills some insurgents and captures some weapons caches and claims to be welcomed by the Sunnis in the region. I don't know if that is true or not. But, I still don't have an answer to what the surge is going to do about Sadr, Shiites, Iran and the Iraqi security forces that are also fueling a sectarian/civil war in Iran and fueling anger towards the American occupation when is suits them. My fear is once the Surge campaign against the Sunni insurgents is completed the air campaign against Iran begins.


Oh... (none / 0) (#25)
by Strick on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 11:18:09 AM EST

But, I still don't have an answer to what the surge is going to do about Sadr, Shiites, Iran and the Iraqi security forces that are also fueling a sectarian/civil war in Iran and fueling anger towards the American occupation when is suits them.

I realize that the war isn't that well reported, but you do know that the current operation is taking on the Mahdi Army, too? From what I just read, the main for in that part of the operation is Iraqi Army.

While the major offensive operation is occurring in the Baghdad Belts against al Qaeda and Sunni insurgent holdouts, major raids continue against Sadr's forces and the Iranian cells in Baghdad and the south. Two major engagements occurred against Sadr's forces since Monday -- one in Amara and one in Nasariyah. Scores of Mahdi Army fighters were killed during both engagements after Iraqi Special Operations Forces, backed by Coalition support, took on Sadr's forces.
The Iraqi government and Multinational Forces Iraq are sending a clear message to Sadr: when the fighting against al Qaeda is finished, the Iranian backed elements of the Mahdi Army are next on the list if they are not disbanded. Also, the Iraqi military and Multinational Forces Iraq possesses enough forces to take on Sadr's militia if they attempt to interfere with current operations.

Bill Roggio As quoted at Q and O

I admit I have no idea how that's going to turn out. Sadr at least is not going to get a free ride. (BTW, I expect the Kurds will take care of the relatively small Kurdish independence movement over time. The Turks are offering them a lot of motivation to do so.)

As to the occupying force analogy, let's firm that up and see what happens.

If the guys shooting at the occupying forces were Christian fundamentalists who imposed a "Christian State" complete with stonings for violating Old Testament based laws on you, how much support would you give them and for how long? Particularly when you see how prosperity is returning to another part of the country that remained mostly calm and took over its own governance under its own terms (pick some place to fit the analogy to the Kurds for me, OK?).

I'm not sure, but the reports of religious leaders cutting off the index and middle fingers of people accused of smoking in the "Islamic State" that controlled the area where current operations are occuring seem even more extreme than I would expect from our hypothetical Christian extremists. And I do know some Christian extremists.


: And I think (none / 0) (#27)
by Peaches on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 11:34:28 AM EST

that when our limited resources make the transition of emphasis from Sunni insurgents to the Sadr loyaltist, it will be like Whack-a mole, in that the Sunni Insurgents will use this opportunity to regroup, rearm, attack Shiites, and target occupation forces once again with IEDs, etc.
There is too many targets and threats against the occupation forces by common Iraqis of many persuasions, for the US to succeed in this campaign to make Iraq peaceful. But, I don't think the people making the decisions have such delusions that we will eventually leave Iraq a peaceful democratic state. They know and want perpetual war there, imo.

Uppity N*gger? (5.00 / 1) (#17)
by squeaky on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 10:29:43 AM EST

The larger problem remains Sadr ......

He is about as homegrown as you can get. Not to mention one of the most popular leaders in Iraq. And apparently you believe that the US should have more influence over Iraq than their neighbors.

Never thought of you as the colonialist type, I am surprised, sort of.


: No, (none / 0) (#19)
by Peaches on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 10:36:30 AM EST

I am answering the Military's claim for success. I don't believe that Al Queada insurgents are Real targets, but political ones attempting to keep up fear in the states of terrorists.
I have all along believed out intentions are to stay in Iraq for a long long time. I don't believe that what we are hearing about the campaign in Iraq has any intentions of ending an occupation is all.
I was not claiming Sadr is not homegrown, but it appears he has some support from Iran and also has incredible political support in Iraq that makes him a much bigger threat to our occupation than the Sunni Insurgents the military strategists have labeled Al Queada. If our intentions were really to secure the Peace in Iraq, we would be going just as hard at Sadr is my point. I fear this will come in due time.

Try reading the post again (5.00 / 1) (#31)
by Big Tent Democrat on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 12:23:39 PM EST

You write:

The post is NOT about who has the initiaitve, but about the hypocrisy of the Right on who can discuss Iraq.

Try reading more carefully next time.


I agree with you (none / 0) (#28)
by libertarian soldier on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 11:53:43 AM EST

That having the initiative is not a zero sum game--it can be with either side or both, varying according to the level (strategic/operational/tactical), the geographical area, and the time frame being examined. As noted elsewhere in this thread, this is not some classical convention conflict where at any given level one side is clearly on the attack and the other on the defensive.
I don't see why it would take combat experience in Iraq (or elsewhere) to be able to make the distinction--just knowledge of both current operations there and military history, both of which Kagan has.


Both of which Kagan has (5.00 / 1) (#29)
by Big Tent Democrat on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 12:03:33 PM EST

well, do you think it is ok for Matt Yglesias to opine?

Fact is Kagan should know no more about current operations than the rest of us. He is not a member of the government.


: Absolutely (none / 0) (#33)
by libertarian soldier on Fri Jun 29, 2007 at 07:25:07 AM EST

He can, you can, I can and everybody else can--as long as we are not supporting Bong Hits 4 Jesus.
As far as knowledge goes, I think you need to make the distinction between knowledge and access. Certainly any private citizen basically has/ought to have equal access to the knowledge. On the other hand, he and similar national security focused scholars/pundits may be willing to dedicate a lot more time and effort into accessing available open sources on the issue than others, and consequently gain more knowledge. For example, he might be reading a number of daily military blogs that others--like me--don't have the time or inclination to follow.

A general on NPR this morning (none / 0) (#30)
by Peaches on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 12:10:59 PM EST

I was listening to a General on NPR on the way to work this morning in charge of a Mission to remove Sunni Insurgent in towns along the Tigris river. He stated that the insurgents are mounting increasingly complex and well-thought out initiatives in attacks on US patrol posts with small-arms fires from all directions, charges, IED's planted on routes where defensive manuevers by US forces countering the attacks may pass, etc. He stated as you state, that so far, they are successfully meeting their objectives in this mission and defeating the insurgents, and I would not call these complex attacks crippling military attacks, but I wouldn't term them just setting off truck bombs either.

The insurgents appear to be getting more knowledgeable and sophisticated as our occupation continues and their overall threat to our forces and to the security of the Iraqi people has yet to be significantly reduced.


Love (1.00 / 1) (#5)
by Wile ECoyote on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 08:21:35 AM EST

the personal insult at the end of the post.


: Fetch me the fainting couch (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by scarshapedstar on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:07:39 AM EST

I've never been one to pass moral judgement on the use of psychedelics. It's just that the Iraq he's describing has no apparent relation to the one that exists in what we call "consensus reality."

Not Exactly (3.00 / 2) (#2)
by jarober on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 07:50:11 AM EST

What many people take Yglesias to task for - and I include TL in this - is the utter defeatism. The surge has been portrayed as a failure, even though all that's completed with that thus far is the actual troop buildup. The actual military actions predicated in the buildup have only just begun - but you, Atrios, and Yglesias have declared it a failure (for months).

Had you been alive in 1864, you would have called the Petersberg siege a failure no later than the crater incident.

If you can't see the difference (5.00 / 3) (#3)
by andgarden on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 07:57:23 AM EST

between the morass of Iraq and the U.S. Civil War, then you are an intellectual failure yourself.


: Reading anything from the War College (5.00 / 2) (#7)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 08:27:22 AM EST

if he really wants a war instead of AEI could help him a lot too.

We are 100,000 troops short on the (5.00 / 4) (#6)
by Militarytracy on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 08:25:23 AM EST

ground there to really be able to address anything so we having nothing left to happen but fail. The military actions will likely stir up new insurgency for the future and we have no soldiers who want to fight that and die in Iraq for lies while attacking people who never did a damn thing to us before we did something to them!


: The main reason it is such a mess now (5.00 / 2) (#32)
by Edger on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 12:31:47 PM EST

is that Bush has put the military into an impossibly conflicted situation.
They are now fighting to defeat the very people Bush claimed to have invaded to liberate.
The "insurgency" IS Iraq. It is Iraqis.
By arming Sunnis to ostensibly help fight al-Qaeda (who was NOT in Iraq before the invasion and is such a small minority the Iraqis will slit all their throats the moment they are not distracted by throwing the US out) but who will use the help to fight Shias Bush is now taking sides in a civil war with people who composed Saddam's Ba'ath Party, against the very Shia backed puppet government Bush set up in the first place.
And the lies get more idiotic as Bush and the GOP (with complicity from the Democratic Leadership now) flail blindly trying to save their own political asses:
With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.
11 days later:
The number two US military commander in Iraq on Friday denied that US forces were arming insurgents willing to fight forces of the Al-Qaeda network, but said the military was "reaching out."
"I want to make one thing very clear: we are not arming these groups," Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno told reporters via teleconference from Baghdad.
It was "lost" more than fours years ago.
It was a lost cause the day the invasion began.
It is a lost cause now.
It will be a lost cause until the last US Soldier leaves Iraq.
The only question remaining is how many (besides their own, of course) American, and Iraqi, deaths are the people arguing for continuance of this debacle willing to sacrifice to be able to remain in their denial?
It is US Soldiers and Iraqi civilians who are paying the price with their lives for this idiocy.
Remember that when they come begging for your votes next year, from either side.

What amazes me (5.00 / 3) (#16)
by Repack Rider on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 10:22:05 AM EST

Is the refusal to recognize reality.

What many people take Yglesias to task for - and I include TL in this - is the utter defeatism.

Are you a military veteran? Do you have any sympathy for the people who have long ago abandoned any "mission" beyond trying to live through another day?

There is nothing to fight for in Iraq except to salvage the pride of cowardly leaders, at the cost of the blood of those who did not make the decision to invade the place. I am reminded of nothing so much as the futile charge of the Light Brigade.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

When there is nothing left to gain, and even standing still has a horrendous cost, you have lost, and throwing more precious resources and killing more people just to put off that recognition is an atrocity, to which all who encourage this madness are complicit.


Only just begun? (5.00 / 2) (#20)
by Edger on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 10:42:20 AM EST

The actual military actions predicated in the buildup have only just begun

Sahel:

Listen to Iraqis engaged in the fight, and you realize they are far from exhausted by the war. Many say this is only the beginning.
...
"No country in the world is fighting such terrorism," said Adel Abdul Mehdi, an Iraqi vice president and leader in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a powerful Shiite party, on the day he made his pilgrimage. "Every time we give more martyrs, we are more determined. This is a big battle, there is no such battle in the world."
...
"No country in the world is fighting such terrorism,"

Mehdi is not talking here about what Bush would refer to as terrorists.

He is talking about Americans and Sunnis.

Riverbend (from Iraq):

...as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It's worse. It's over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq's first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

Video (none / 0) (#9)
by Edger on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:03:27 AM EST

IRAQ - The Ground Truth: After The Killing Ends

"An upsetting but mesmerizing series of interviews with veterans of the Iraq war." "'The Ground Truth' is an emotionally potent work."
- David Denby, THE NEW YORKER