Make Them Choose

Hoagland hits on a couple things in this column that I want to note. At the level of annoyance is the idea that "since we broke Iraq we have to fix it." This attitude popped up shortly after the invasion. But since it was most widely present in those who opposed the war but thought we needed to stay and stabilize Iraq I thought a little annoyance on my part is a small price to pay for getting support for the post-war mission. Hoagland writes that this view is just wrong:

It would relieve Saddam Hussein and foreign jihadists of their responsibility, or credit, if you will, for the hell on earth that central Iraq has long been. It would deprive Iraqis of their obligation to break the spell of passivity that Baathist dictatorship, past American betrayal and an oil economy have cast on them. It would reduce the Iraqi elections a little over a fortnight away to being a function of George W. Bush's brilliance, or his stupidity.

My reaction has nothing to do about relieving Iraqis of their responsibilities or blame--at least not directly. In my view, we did not "break" Iraq. We liberated Iraq and gave the Iraqis a rare chance to benefit from the direct application of American power (not to disparage our allies who provided significant help, but they could not do this on their own). Iraq, with its broken-down infrastructure, torture, oppression, and fear was nothing if not "broken" well before 3rd ID and I MEF crossed the berm and plunged into Iraq. The success of this war was always going to rest on how the Shias, Kurds, and even the Sunnis react to this opportunity to decisively toss the past aside and build a better nation.

Which leads to the next point of Hoagland. We must make the Sunnis choose where they want to stand:

The so-called Pottery Barn rule is one of several self-defeating myths that have grown up around Iraq and need to be dispelled by the Jan. 30 vote. Another is that the "legitimacy" of the elections will hinge on how many Sunnis vote or boycott.

Legitimacy is a relative concept, as the collection of democracies, dictatorships, kleptocracies and authoritarian regimes that make up the United Nations demonstrates. There is no magic formula for participation by any religious or ethnic group to establish legitimacy. The practicality of power politics does that, for better or worse.

Holding the elections forces Iraq's Sunnis into a similar practical choice: They can vote or they can fight. It would be a major error to let them off the hook of that choice, as those who argue for a substantial delay of the elections explicitly or implicitly advocate.

The neighboring Sunni monarchs in Jordan and Saudi Arabia want to delay the day when Iraq's political order will reflect the fact that Shiites make up the large majority of the population, a fact that Sunnis must at some point acknowledge and accept.

It is bad enough when war opponents elevate the blood-drenched Sunni population into the role of victim who have to be cajoled into voting and ending their active or passive support for the Baathist/jihadi insurgency. Must we and our Iraqi friends make the same mistake? The Sunnis are lucky we liberated them (yes, even most Sunnis were not the beneficiaries of Saddam's wealth). Who else would have set up a system that gave them freedom and a chance to participate in the new government? In their part of the world, losing was the short route to poverty and oppression. We have changed that pattern and they don't want to go along?

Well, screw 'em. Letting them off the hook for choosing between voting or planting car bombs just lets them use killing as a weapon to get more goodies than their numbers justify. Why would any rational actor choose peace when the enemy doesn't insist on making them choose to be peaceful?

The talk of the El Salvador option I think is real--or at least just a reflection of reality that will happen without any specific US plan. With elections completed, the Iraqi government will see if the Sunnis have chosen voting or bombing. If the Sunnis have chosen bombing, the Iraqi government will not likely just sit and take it any more. The government, with legitimacy as office-holders with a public vote, will go after the insurgents with a brutality that matches the insurgents.

If we play our cards right, as I've mentioned before, we can portray the fight as a national resistance against the foreign jihadis running around Iraq trying to kill Americans and Iraqis with no thought to achieving anything but death and chaos. Give the Sunnis a reason to join the government that doesn't look like surrendering and we can get most of the Sunnis to end their support or acceptance of the Baathist-led insurgency.

The Shias and Kurds may be the ones voting in the largest numbers, but their numbers guarantee they would win power whether they use elections or raw violence to enforce their numbers. The really significant choice is being offered to the Sunnis. They can choose the ballot or the bullet. We must make them choose.

Iraq the Vote

Ralph Peters addresses some of the ridiculous assertions being made about why we should delay the Iraq elections because of the violence there:

The critics whine that the poor Sunni Arabs aren't ready. The truth is that the Sunni Arabs, who benefited under Saddam at the expense of the majority Shi'a and the Kurds, will never admit that they're ready for elections. Elections mean they lose.

I am continually amazed that the progressive elements of our society continue to wring their hands over the fate of the neck-stompers of the last four centuries of Sunni rule and three decades of Saddam's gentle mercies to the non-Sunnis. How can so much ink be spilled defending those who spill so much blood to this very day? How twisted can their thinking be that they reflexively defend the Baathist thugs?

And what would we get if we delayed the elections? Do the proponents of delay think the voter turnout would be 20% greater? Ten? One? Indeed, do they even care about what the result would be other than being represented as a defeat for the US?

This is what we could expect from delay:

The issue the critics avoid like a leper's kiss is that any delay would hand the terrorists a victory. Wringing their hands about the level of violence in Iraq, democracy's opponents on the Upper West Side insist that voting requires higher levels of security.

Do they imagine that an election delay would make the violence subside? On the contrary, the terrorists and insurgents would believe — rightly — that they had triumphed. Attacks would increase, more recruits would flock to terror's cause (everybody loves a winner), and democracy would recede beyond the far horizon.

Having set the date we must proceed. And if it isn't perfect? Well the next one will be better. And the one after that even better. We sure know that the election will be better than any of the sham elections in Saddam's Iraq and will be better than any other election held in the Arab world. The only election to come close is the recently held Palestinian election.

Why Americans would support a delay when it so clearly would bolster the enemy is beyond me.

No delay. Vote at the end of the month. The Sunni resistance is doomed and there is no reason to throw it a lifeline.

Iraqi WMD

The New York Times has weighed in on the apparent end of the WMD hunt in Iraq:

The fact that nothing was found does not absolutely, positively prove that there wasn't something there once, something that was disassembled and trucked over the border to Syria or buried in yet another Iraqi rose garden. But it's not the sort of possibility you'd want to fight a war over. What all our loss and pain and expense in the Iraqi invasion has actually proved is that the weapons inspections worked, that international sanctions - deeply, deeply messy as they turned out to be - worked, and that in the case of Saddam Hussein, the United Nations worked. Whatever the Hussein regime once had is gone because the international community insisted. It was all destroyed a decade ago, under world pressure.

What, are they taking lessons from CBS?

So the possibility that under pressure from the US that Saddam may have sent his WMD into Syria for safekeeping is irrelevant?

Are we really to believe that the international community had anything to do with Saddam's lack of WMD in April 2003 when the editorial even admits to the possibility that they are in Syria? Is the fact that Saddam was building up assets and weakening the sieve-like sanctions while asserting he still had WMD of no matter at all?

And Saddam's arsenal was destroyed a decade ago? Was Desert Fox, the four-day air campaign against Saddam in 1998 an exercise in bouncing rubble? Did we not destroy missiles that violated range limits as late as the eve of the invasion?

Is the Times serious in asserting that Saddam would not have been off to the races once sanctions collapsed as they were clearly heading in early 2001? Saddam clearly wanted to pretend he had WMD as a deterrent to his enemies and once sanctions were gone he would have made good on that bluff as soon as he could. If he didn't want WMD why did he bluff? Is anyone seriously arguing that Saddam would have just bluffed forever?

The whole argument of the Times relies on the memory hole. Opponents of the war with Iraq did not claim Iraq did not have WMD. Indeed, as the editorial shows, they still do not assert that. Opponents of the war said we could deter Iraq and that invading them would just provoke WMD use! For them to claim that lack of WMD vindicates their stand is to forget what their stand was. They opposed regime change--period.

And the sudden insistence that WMD was the only issue over which we invaded Iraq is stunning considering the repeated complaints by war opponents that the administration could not settle on one single reason for war and instead lofted various reasons for war. I never understood why we could only have one reason and the present claims that only WMD were a reason for war are just a blatant rewriting of history.

We were right to overthrow Saddam for all the reasons put forth in 2002 and early 2003. And anyone who thinks that Saddam would not have acquired nukes and bugs and whatever else he wanted had we failed to destroy his regime in 2003 is in denial.

As a bonus, we will soon have a free and democratic Iraq. Not bad for a "mistake."

And I will repeat what I've said before. We will find the WMD that Saddam had. I do not believe that every intelligence agency in the world with an opinion on Saddam's WMD was wrong. He had them on the eve of the war and only our year-long "rush to war" gave Saddam the time to hide or scrub them from Iraq.

Prepare to Move Out

I cannot recommend this article enough. Podhoretz should lay to rest any doubts that the President will follow through with his vow to destroy threats before they arise and that the Axis of Evil will be dealt with.

The President may not be successful in overcoming the wide variety of opposition in this country--let alone the evil targets--but he will try.

As I've noted, this war must be won and if the President won't defeat the threats to us that he has identified, why did we reelect him at all?

Given the emphasis on Social Security reform and tax reform, I have had a few worries that defeating our enemies has taken a back seat. And since nothing is happening with Iran in the new year I've had a few doubts so far this year.

But the Srategic Petroleum Reserve won't be full until April, I think. And Congress could act on the President's proposals on Social Security this spring. Much depends on when Iran will go nuclear. Perhaps the Euros have stalled Iranian developments a few critical months. Or maybe we have better intelligence on how close Iran is to nukes. I just don't know.

But I am feeling better that we will deal with our enemies and that we are not going to rely on the nice words of thug regimes for our security.

What Will the Standard Be?

With historic Iraqi elections approaching, skeptics are gearing up to challenge the results. The press is noting with some satisfaction that the Bush administration is trying to warn people that the Sunni areas may not vote at the same rate as the Kurds and Shias:

The Bush administration played down voter turnout yesterday in determining the elections' legitimacy and urged Americans not to get bogged in a numbers game in judging the balloting, a reflection of the growing concern over how much the escalating insurgency and the problem of Sunni participation may affect the vote.

The article goes on:

For months, the administration has promoted the elections as a major milestone in its efforts to bring democracy to Iraq and then the wider Middle East and Islamic world. But the continuing insurgency and the inability of U.S. forces to stabilize Iraq almost two years after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein has forced the administration to redefine the context, goals and role of this first vote.

Oh sure, the press reported on Saddam's sham elections as if they were real so the new Iraq won't be able to match 100% of the vote for one candidate and no ballots will be cast in blood as a sign of devotion, but I'm not talking about contrasting the upcoming elections with Saddam's last resounding reelection. How did the press view the virtually uncontested Abbas election?

Mahmoud Abbas was elected Palestinian Authority president by a landslide, results showed Monday, giving the pragmatist a mandate to resume peace talks with Israel — but also leaving him with the tough task of reining in powerful armed groups.

Yes, a landslide against no oppostion:

Abbas won 62.3 percent of the vote, the Central Election Commission said. His main challenger, independent candidate Mustafa Barghouti, won about 20 percent. The remaining five candidates scored in low single digits.

Given the emphasis on turnout as a factor in determining whether a vote is legitimate, surely the voter turnout was high in this election. Well that is in doubt:

Questions about voter participation are a possible point of contention between Abbas' Fatah movement, which was pushing for a high turnout, and the Islamic militant group Hamas, which had called for a boycott.

Read waaaaaay down in the article and we find out:

The Central Election Commission changed voting procedures midway through the election, keeping polling stations open an additional two hours and allowing voters to cast their ballots at any location, not just in their hometowns One election official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the changes came after heavy pressure from Fatah, which feared a low turnout could weaken Abbas.

No questions about this irregularity from our hyper-vigilant press? None at all? This isn't odd and doesn't cast doubt on the victory of Abbas? I read elsewhere that the Palestinians simply threw open the balloting stations to anybody whether or not they were registered.

But the President hailed the election, as the article noted, so who am I to complain? I hope the President's pronouncements on the Iraqi elections are equally reassuring to the press.

We need to press forward with elections. If this one isn't perfect, then the next one will be better. And the one after that better. This is more than can be said for Saddam's elections. And quite possibly more than can be said about the Palestinians' elections despite the hope that things will be different after Arafat. I hope so. In both places.

But compare the turnout in the two elections. I'm sure somebody will report the Palestinian figures by the time of the Iraqi elections. And then compare the press coverage.

All I ask is that we keep Jimmy Carter far away from this election.

Carrying Things to Other Places

In part, I'm posting this to remind myself of China's naval capabilities for future reference. From the always useful Strategypage:

January 13, 2005: The Chinese navy is actually a pretty large organization, especially when reserve ships are mobilized in wartime. This gives the navy a strength of some 4,200 ships and amphibious craft (those larger than a LCVP). This fleet includes 391 commercial ferries, 1,156 merchant vessels, 272 support ships, 1,076 amphibious vessels, 895 patrol vessels, 282 large patrol craft, 70 major warships (25 destroyers and 45 frigates) and 85 submarines (including 23 older ones laid up in reserve, but still capable of being mobilized.) The fleet is distributed between three fleets; North (22 percent), East (facing Taiwan, 44 percent) and South (34 percent). The Chinese navy is big on ships that can carry things, which is why Taiwan treats the threat of an amphibious invasion from China seriously.

"The Chinese navy is big on ships that can carry things." Well you don't say?

Pre-War Planning Failure

In National Resistance I speculated that we could rally Sunnis against the Islamist foreign jihadis in a national resistance to these foreigners despoiling their country with suicide bombings and car bombs that kill lots of Iraqis. I thought this would be possible because the Baathists had made a mistake in allying with the Islamists a year ago. By doing so they forfeited the ability to portray their fight as a national resistance to US forces.

It seems that the Baathists are starting to realize that allying with the foreign killers has hurt them:

Osama bin Laden has vowed to turn Iraq into the front line of his war against the United States, but Iraqi insurgents seem worried that he's out to hijack their rebellion.

This of course helps us:

"We have concrete information that a sharp division is now broiling between" Iraqis waging a nationalist war and foreign Arabs spurred by militant Islam, said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi government's national security adviser. "They are more divided than ever."

Al-Rubaie said one reason was the perception among Iraqis that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whom bin Laden endorsed as his deputy in Iraq, was of little help during the American onslaught on the Iraqi insurgent hotbed of Fallujah in November.

"Al-Zarqawi and his group fled Fallujah and let the Iraqis face the attack alone," al-Rubaie said in a telephone interview.

The Sunni Baathists want to lead a nationalist revolt to rule Iraq. The foreign jihadis want to bleed America in a campaign in a worldwide struggle to defeat America, and Iraq be damned.

Since Saddam planned on using jihadis long ago, I guess the Baathist pundits will be pretty savage in ridiculing his failure. He clearly should have planned more.

Let's Be Clear

I've written that China wants to conquer Taiwan very badly; that China can pull off an invasion; that China is adding to its capabilities to invade and to thwart US internvention; that Taiwan is vulnerable to invasion for the rest of the decade; that China doesn't think American will defend Taiwan; that we can't afford to let China capture Taiwan; and that China could very well invade Taiwan on the eve of the 2008 Olympics.

Our ambiguous policy made sense when China could not even think about invading Taiwan but that era is over. It is time to let Peking know that we will fight them over Taiwan--period. No errant Taiwanese statements over being independent will nullify our commitment to Taiwan and that no law China passes purporting to make the issue an internal question will keep our fleet away:

But above all, the United States must be candid with the American people, with our democratic allies and friends in Asia, and above all with the Chinese dictatorship, about the American commitment to help Taiwan defend itself.

We may think that the war on terror requires us to be quiet to keep Chinese support; but waking up one morning to find that Chinese troops are landing on Taiwan will be a far greater distraction.

Netwar? Netwits.

In "The Forever War" article (via Real Clear Politics), the author thinks we are losing the war on terror and that we must do something radically different. The enemy is "networked" and we are not so we are losing, he says. This is typical of a way of thinking about warfare that is like some Atkins Combat Theory with fighting taking the role of the bad carbs: "High victory but low fighting! Adopt it now!" It is only the latest fad that promises the end of ugly death and destruction in warfare. Should we adopt, develop, and exploit technology? Absolutely. But war is still death and killing and suffering.

I rarely fisk, but the idiocy is so thick that I cannot help myself. Let's look at the author's statements and arguments. His are in Italics and my comments follow in bold (I don't know why but I could not erase the italics on my comments--even in html edit mode):

During the last half century, the conflicts that continued for decades have outnumbered those that lasted just months or a few years. Colombia and Sudan feature civil wars that have dragged on since the 1950s. The "troubles" in Northern Ireland and the Palestinian uprising have been under way since the late
1960s. Afghanistan has seen constant warfare since 1979, with no end in sight. There are many more, including Sri Lanka and Kashmir.

Well, two can play at this game. Let's look at the quicker wars of the last 50 years, with a couple years at most: The 1956 Suez War. The Six-Day War. The October War. The Ogaden War. The Ethiopia-Eritrea border war. The Soccer War. The Falklands War. The China-Vietnam border war. Toss in a couple Indo-Pakistani Wars. I could go on, too. If we added them all up, would we have more long wars than short wars? The very idea of short wars is harder to define than a long war which is obviously a war. What is the difference between a short war and an incident? And is the experience of the last fifty years unique in the long history of warfare? His assertion appears quite weak.

All these conflicts have two things in common: combatants on each side unwilling to compromise and unable to land knockout blows.

Um, that would be why they are example of long wars.

Now comes our self-styled war on terror, which snugly fits this pattern. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are full of zealots dedicated to eliminating the shadow cast by American power over the Muslim world. But they cannot hope to defeat American military forces in the field.

For our part, we believe that by conquering and democratizing rogue nations we can somehow defeat the terrorist networks arrayed against us. Yet we can't ever find enough of their fighters to stage a decisive battle, nor can we stem the tide of their recruitment. Isn't this the definition of stalemate -- a recipe for war that goes on year after year after year?

He asserts we are incapable of winning and then uses this assertion to prove that we are in a stalemate? Well, I assert that Jennifer Aniston secretly pines for me and that therefore we will soon be dating. Personally, I think we can win. (And I'm under no delusions about Ms. Aniston) I see trends in the Moslem world that indicate that recruitment is under pressure. Certainly, we've curtailed their ability to train whatever recruits they get. As to being unable to find enough of their fighters to stage a decisive battle, ever hear of Afghanistan? Or Fallujah? (I'll return to this battle a bit later)

In an introspective moment, President Bush told NBC's Matt Lauer it was possible the war could never be won. He later backtracked, but the damage was done. Victory, it was clear to many people, not only wasn't at hand but perhaps wasn't attainable.

What?!! The President was referring to the idea that there will be no formal peace treaty ending the war. It will go on, fading away, until one day we kind of notice that it has been a while since the Islamists struck anywhere. How do you provide an endpoint to a struggle such as we are in? No backtracking was involved and no admission of the impossibility of victory was made.

Bush's statement, coming from a self-described "war leader," was most disturbing. Why are we spending more than $1 billion per day of taxpayers' money on the military if there's no hope of winning the war?

Why the quotes? Are we not at war? Is President Bush not our leader? Even if we could not win, the reason we would spend the money is because the enemy is trying to kill us. Is the author really trying to argue that if we can't win we might as well bank the money we are spending? Is efficient surrender preferable to costly stalemated fighting?

So, whatever the ramblings of presidential candidates, it seems likely we are in for a long struggle, something like the increasingly pointless, unending strife that science fiction writer (and Vietnam veteran) Joe Haldeman described in his classic novel, "The Forever War."

So keeping the enemy from killing us is pointless? And although it has been many years since I read Haldeman's book, that forever war started from a misunderstanding between Earth and the aliens. What misunderstanding started our current war? What did I mis-read about 9-11?

But perhaps there is a way out. Or, in this case, two ways to end the terror war. First, one side might make a stunning military breakthrough. Or second, both sides could agree to a negotiated settlement. Neither outcome is very likely, but both are worth examining.

But the fight against terrorism--except when the fight is against a state sponsor--is not a military struggle. I'm shocked at his lack of nuance. As to negotiations, I am eager to hear the author's suggestions on whether we should negotiate the veiling of woman or the stoning of homosexuals. And do the terrorists give up beheadings or truck bombs in exchange? I mean, you give a little, you get a little, right? But since he says the enemy can't beat us, why is he in a hurry to negotiate? Isn't an endless stalemate better than losing a little?

The terrorists will win if they develop or obtain nuclear or biological weapons because we cannot effectively threaten their stateless networks with retaliation. We just wouldn't know what to hit.

I dare say that if our enemies go nuclear, we will go medieval on them. We will nuke somebody or we will have declared nuclear open season on ourselves. Any hope of maintaining deterrence will be gone. Would we nuke Tehran? Probably not. But a Pasdaran military base or two would be a sheet of glass at the end of the day.

Although we have spent every effort to stop the spread of such weaponry, and once again are busily scooping up loose nukes in Russia, this eventuality is a real risk. Donald Rumsfeld put it quite succinctly in his congressional testimony in May 2002: "It is inevitable that terrorists will obtain weapons of mass destruction, and that they will use them against us."

He makes the mistake of assuming a statement about WMD must mean nukes only. This includes gas, as in the Tokyo subway Sarin attack, or bio weapons.

Yet we do have a chance of winning outright before terrorists can acquire weapons of mass destruction. If we ever decided to wage "netwar" (i.e., network-style conflict) against the terrorists with smaller, more nimble, more flexible forces, we would have a real capability to rip al Qaeda apart, cell by cell.

Here is the biggest and loopiest idea. Ah, "netwar." Recall the first celebrated practioners of netwar--the Mexican Zapatistas in 1994. You remember them, they netwarred their way into power, seizing Mexico City. No? Then they succeeded in creating an independent state. No? Then they convinced the Mexican government to spend more there. Wow. This example of so-called netwar was a guy with a colorful name, some college education, an internet connection, and a bunch of ill-armed indigenous peoples following him. Add an adoring press and presto! Netwar!

Unfortunately, for more than three years our primary concept of operations has been to rely on heavy mechanized forces augmented with strategic bombing. "Shock and awe." We have kept taking a sledgehammer to a ball of quicksilver. And all the signs are that the U.S. military remains staunchly resistant to creating the networked strike forces needed to win this war in the field. The recent flattening of Fallujah is proof the military is sticking to old-style warfare.

So after complaining that we can't find enough of the enemy massed to strike hard blows against them, he argues that we should not strike them hard and disperse them. By what insane logic is it better to leave them alone free to train and plot? Why is it smart to leave them in a sanctuary? Our enemies are not quicksilver. They are people who need organization and assets to kill us in the numbers their sick ideology demands. As for Fallujah, didn't the author earlier complain that we couldn't find enough of the enemy to strike them? What should we have done, declined to kill a thousand and capture another thousand? Send in a hundred special forces in ones and twos to harass them? I guess if you call it netwar it will be all cool and cutting edge.

All this suggests we face some important choices in the main battlefield in the war on terror. We must either start fighting in new ways against al Qaeda, or else commence some form of diplomatic negotiations with them. Perhaps we should do both at once. But we must do something.

Bush has a real opportunity at the start of his second term to strike out in bold new directions. His margin of victory and his party's control of Congress make it possible to act in ways less influenced by the push and pull of politics. Charting a new course designed to curtail the "forever war" against terrorists might even reduce the gaping partisan rift in Washington.

Good grief. Why is retreating always portrayed as a "bold new direction"? But if you've started off assuming we can't win, I guess surrendering is doing "something."

In practical military terms, this means undertaking a thorough organizational redesign of the armed forces. The biggest part of the problem is that our senior officers think only in terms of the 33 brigades that make up the Army. Most of these are tied down in or committed to going to Iraq, severely limiting our ability to mount a broad, networked offensive against al Qaeda cells around the world.

We must shift to smaller "units of action," the term Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker uses when he thinks of creating a more nimble force. He was brought back from retirement to undertake a real transformation of the military, but both he and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have faced bitter bureaucratic resistance from traditionalists.

Huh? Has he not been paying attention? We are reorganizing our ten active divisions into these units of action, adding one brigade combat team to each division. We may add a fifth to each one. We are also going to organize our National Guard brigades this way and eliminate the divisions. As for our units being tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, limiting our ability to mount broad networked offensives against al Qaeda cells around the world, just how are brigade combat teams going to be used against terror cells! Isn't that using a sledgehammer to fight mosquitos? Does he even know what a UA is?! I really want to know just what area is going to be on the receiving end of a networked, UA offensive? The Horn of Africa? Hamburg?

On the diplomatic front, the challenges are even more daunting. First, there is the problem of our policy of no negotiations with terrorists. This hurdle can be cleared by noting that we already deal openly with Khadafy, a terrorist with a rap sheet as long as his forearm.

We did not exactly negotiate with Khadafy. We accepted his complete surrender of his WMD programs and will start to normalize relations. If the author means we should be willing to accept the surrender of the enemy, I agree. If not, just what is he going to negotiate about with people who see our total destruction as their goal? I don't consider it a diplomatic triumph to get them to agree to seek only the death of 4 million of us.

Some will say we can negotiate with a nation, even a roguish one, but not with a terrorist network. Why? Because networks don't have embassies or formal legal status. Yet, negotiation is more important with the networks because they are harder for us to fight. Doing battle with them requires inventing new tactics that radically differ from those we traditionally employ against national armies.

Again the silly "network" thing. Fighting our terrorist enemies is like fighting past irregulars and terrorists. They have the internet to communicate but we do it much better. Our soldiers are far better net warriors than their guys. Yes, fighting irregulars requires different strategies and tactics than fighting national armies. So I have to ask, just what does he think those UAs he wants to send out on networked offensives are going to do? Hack their bank accounts and deface their web pages?

Of course, negotiating with networks will require a similar amount of innovation. For example, we must accept that there might never be a treaty signed. But there could be a tacit agreement among the combatants, after which terrorist attacks almost entirely cease and U.S. forces begin an exodus from Muslim countries. Both sides have been saying they want the latter anyway.

Good grief, does he really think this is about exiting Moslem countries? Does he really think that our leaving Moslem lands--even if that was a reasonable demand--wouldn't just encourage them to follow us and attack us at home? Or does he insist that Moslems leave Christian--even nominally Christian--land, too? On the other hand, I'm glad he agrees with the President on the fact that no treaty will end this war on terror--even if the author doesn't know he agrees with the President.

At his best, Bush has shown his steadiness and resolve. But if we are to have any hope of ending this forever war, it is time for him to show intellectual suppleness and imagination as well. If he doesn't exhibit these traits, we are in for an endless slog.

I'll take steadiness and resolve over his idea of intellectual suppleness and imagination. The author's ideas will just lead us to The Forever Retreat. Netwits.

I have truly not read such a concentrated dose of idiocy in a long time. Such elevated idiocy will surely be rewarded with tenure. I do draw comfort from the disclaimer following the article: "His views do not represent offical Defense Department policy."

Teaching to the Test

The military isn't releasing precise attacks-per-day statistics although they are willing to give rough numbers and rough trend ideas. I've used these myself (a September 2004 post on Effectiveness used the numbers). But like body counts, they've become too hot to be useful.

This press conference explores some of the issues in keeping the number quiet:

Q Thank you. Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder. I was wondering if you could compare daily contact numbers today versus daily contact numbers pre-Ramadan, and if you could also tell us perhaps why those numbers are not made available now, as they were before. There was a time when during briefings there were daily contact numbers given and even trend lines given, sort of, you know, this week versus a week, a month ago; this month versus last month. I think that we're all -- you know, when we hear that attacks have gone down since Ramadan, it would be helpful if we could have numbers to compare to other time
periods.


GEN. METZ: One of the reasons I think it's less and less fruitful to look at too much of the data in trend lines is because of the changing situation. And that data that was collected a year ago has a different context -- is in a different context than the current data. Obviously, we prepared for and knew that there was going to be a spike in the Ramadan time frame, and you couple that with the activities around Fallujah, we did have that increase.


The other thing we have done is we have looked at periods like pre-sovereigncy, post-sovereigncy and begun to break those up. We can probably show and try to normalize that data, but really to me it has less and less value, based on the continued changing of the situation. But we have seen -- we did see the rise in Ramadan, we have seen the tapering off. But as I said in my opening, I am fully anticipating, as the corps commander, a surge as we go into these last three weeks before the election. And that surge would be in the neighborhood of, let's say, 70-some attacks a day may surge to 80, 85. That's the kind of magnitude of numbers of attacks across the country we're talking about.


Q If I could, again, I understand that there was a spike during Ramadan, but what I'm asking is, you know, if you're looking at this graph of Ramadan now, how do the numbers today compare to numbers in the week before Ramadan, for instance? If you take what happened during Ramadan as being something separate from the normal trend line, if you looked at pre-Ramadan and post-Ramadan, how does that line up?


GEN. METZ: Let me do it this way. Pre-April was a level, April was obviously a time that there were lots of attacks because we not only had the fight in Fallujah and the parts of former regime areas and throughout the provinces in the south, so that the April level was an elevated level. That stayed rather constant through April-May and into sovereigncy. After sovereigncy, we saw some tapering off, so the summer was a little lower. August was obviously a spike, with Muqtada al-Sadr's militia fights in August, tapered off again after August to a level about the April-May level, then not as much a spike as we saw historically from the previous Ramadan in '03, but still a spike in Ramadan, and then now a tapering off again. But again, I'm anticipating that spike to come back as we move into the elections.

And later:

Q Eric Eckorn (ph), New York Times. You mentioned something like 70 attacks a day. Does that include every attack you learn about on Iraqi police or National Guard or government officials in cars or in stations or whatever? And secondly, over the last month or two, has the mix changed dramatically, as it seems to from the news that we see, away from attacks on American forces and toward attacks on Iraqi forces and government officials?


GEN. METZ: I would tell you that the attacks that we record and put in a big database are still a majority against the coalition, although we, as you mentioned, we have seen an ever-increasing focus of the enemy on Iraqi security forces and intimidation of or murder of senior leaders. The recent example is of the governor here in Baghdad, and other officials. The 70 is a metric of everything that we're -- that's available to us -- attacks on us, attacks on Iraqi security forces, on civilians and infrastructure. So what I personally watch is about a seven-day average because that gives me kind of the time frame that I'm interested in as it moves. And then there's a database that goes as far back as -- and then it becomes a little less meaningful because of the changing situation. So we look at those attacks, and they are in total at about the 70 level over the past week, over the past seven- day window. And of that, we're in the 50s against the coalition.


Q But if you measured attacks by their severity and effect, I mean, we see every day 10, 15, 20 ING or police killed, some days no Americans killed. So are you in that list sort of comparing a shot fired at a convoy versus a car bomb?


GEN. METZ: See, that is the reason I don't want to put too much stock and weight into the data that we have been collecting for, to my knowledge, probably about a year, because you're absolutely right: The small arms fire against a convoy that drove by has very little to do with the major vehicle-borne suicide delivered vehicle that killed 20 or 30 Iraqi citizens. I mean, you're absolutely right. And that's why we shouldn't put too much stock in too much of the data. We need to use it for what it's valuable for.

As long as soldiers and Marines reported the numbers quietly with no worries about how they were used and the military analyzed them for internal purposes, these numbers were fine. But once the press seized on them and gave them significance without necessarily giving them context, the numbers became useless. The danger became that everyone would teach to the test, so to speak. Soldiers would report knowing that increases would look bad. Staff would analyze knowing the press was looking for upticks. Insurgents might even attack just to get the numbers up knowing the press would protray it as insurgent progress. Leaders might then make decisions based on numbers that weren't telling us anything about the war but were telling us about the importance of the number. Add to this the problem that in April 2004, the basis for the numbers changed making my chart prior to April worthless to the numbers starting in April. Add that the types of attacks change over time as we correct weaknesses, and long-term trends are not trends at all. How do you compare rifle and RPG attacks to IEDs or to attacks on civilians or to assassination attempts? How do you fit in contacts intitiated by coalition forces as opposed to those initiated by the enemy? The number needs perspective but once it was publicized it took on a value separate from analysis.

So I won't be able to update my chart. That's fine. The number got too hot to be useful for public consumption.

How Effective?

The destruction of one of our Bradley Fighting Vehicles in Iraq and the death of the seven crewmen led me to ask whether the press reports of an increasingly effective Baathist-led insurgency is true. I did worry that casualties would creep up and the spikes of particularly effective strikes would grow. After the Mosul mess tent bombing, this seemed like a real problem coming true.

So I saw this article with interest, listing the more lethal attacks thus far. Some attacks don't include any American dead so I'll restrict this to attacks with at least 5 American military personnel killed. I also limit them to single attacks, otherwise you have to add in the two Fallujah battles and various anti-Sadr operations.

The list starts with a Nov. 2, 2003 attack that left 16 Americans dead. About two weeks later, on November 15, 2003, 17 were killed. Almost two months later, on January 8, 2004, 9 were killed. Six months later, on July 8, 2004, 5 Americans died in an attack. Nearly four months later, on October 30, 2004, 8 Americans are killed. The Mosul attack took 14 American soldiers and 8 others on December 21, 2004, two months after the last attack. Finally, 7 Americans were killed on January 6, 2005, only a couple weeks after the Mosul attack.

The casualty spikes were: 16, 17, 9, 9, 5, 8, 14, 7.

The time between attacks (in months): 6, 0.5, 2, 6, 4, 2, 0.5. (I count the first attack as 6 months after major combat operations are declared over).

First of all, in the 20 months of fighting the Baathist insurgency, there have been 8 particularly effective attacks that killed at least 5 Americans in one blow. Second, there is no apparent increase in the numbers of troops we've lost in each of these attacks. Third, the frequency may be decreasing but with so few numbers it is hard to say for sure overall. But since the middle timespan of 6 months from the previous attack, the particularly effective attacks have come with briefer gaps from the previous attack. It is possible that they are getting more effective. Although if we go four months before another such attack, there goes the low-data trend.

Of course, these are different types of attacks. The first three are helicopter downings and we adjusted and haven't lost others with high loss of life. The last was a really huge bomb that destroyed a Bradley. With our trucks largely armored now, the enemy found they needed to go for really big bombs in reaction to our defensive measures. We will adjust and they will adjust as two thinking enemies seek to win.

This briefing discusses this with some interesting answers.

Q (Through interpreter.) You have mentioned the -- you have talked about the decrease in numbers of the terrorist operations, but you have also mentioned higher qualities of such operations. So does this indicate a higher level of professionalism within these terrorist forces? Thank you.


GEN. METZ: That is a very good question, and let me answer it broadly because I think you hit on some very important points. The decrease -- we have seen the decrease. You say that there's a higher quality. I don't think there's a higher quality. There are some more spectacular attacks, and on occasion, where they have some success, they bring that focus.


But we're finding, even in the past couple of days as an example, suicide bombers that were going to attack a convoy did it poorly and detonated early and were very ineffective against the convoy. In cases that they wanted to attack traffic control points, they did that very poorly. In some cases, we have seen vehicles that were built to be explosive devices explode where we could not determine the target, so we are making the assumption that it exploded accidentally. In fact, in one case not only did the vehicle explode accidentally, it was such a large explosion the vehicle traveling behind it also exploded, which tells me that they were moving two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices to a future location and they had an accident. So in many cases the quality of the people doing the operations I think is down, and maybe the assembly of those are down because they accidentally
exploded.


And so, again, you've got a very ruthless, valueless enemy who wants to kill anybody, and he is going to be successful doing that. We're going to work very hard for him to be unsuccessful, but I'm seeing the numbers of attacks decrease and I'm seeing the quality of those attacks decrease. But that is a different issue than the catastrophic or the attention which a particular attacker gets. So -- and he does get that attention, and we've got to work against that equally.

In the sense that the enemy is causing more casualties, that is certainly an indication of effectiveness. But as far as the skill of the enemy, it does not appear to be better. In the long run, lack of proficiency will make it easier to finally beat them. Of course, if simply causing casualties on US forces is enough to break our will to win, then it doesn't matter if tactically idiotic insurgents are dying in large numbers to inflict the casualties on us.

It may be up to us at home to determine how effective the enemy is.

Thank God for the US Navy

Instapundit notes Varifrank's self-described unprofessional response to a group of Euros yucking it up over the "stupidity" of President Bush for sending an aircraft carrier to help the Indian Ocean tsunami victims. While Varifrank's comments are good, his friend's are better:

The room fell silent. My hindi friend then said quietly to the Euros:

"Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they dont have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didnt have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..."

He left the room, shaking and in tears. The frustration of being on the other side of the globe, unable to do anything to assist and faced with people who could not set aside their asininity long enough to reach out and help was too much for him to bear. I just shook my head and left. The Euros stood speechless.

The sad part is, for so many--both Euros and the Euros at heart--the hatred is all they have. Nothing we do is good or done with good motives. We are scorned while our sailors and Marines are rushed to the scene to help when the locals may not even care.

Thank God for the US Navy. And for the nation and people who send it out to protect us and help strangers in need.

You know, "coalition of the willing," which is used to describe us and our friends who help in Iraq or in rescuing tsunami victims, is insufficiently descriptive. I suggest "coalition of those who give a damn."

What About the Guard Divisions?

This article about extending reservist tours of duty makes no sense in how it frames the problem of getting enough troops for the war effort:

Army leaders are considering seeking a change in Pentagon policy that would allow for longer and more frequent call-ups of some reservists to meet the demands of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Army official said yesterday.

Reservists are being used heavily to fill key military support jobs, particularly in specialty areas, but Army authorities are having increasing difficulty limiting the active-duty time of some normally part-time soldiers to a set maximum of two years, the official said. He described the National Guard's 15 main combat units as close to being "tapped out."

The fifteen main combat units referred to here are the 15 enhanced separate brigades of the Guard. They are intended to be mobilized and used with 90 days of training. They have the best resources of all the Guard combat units. The three-month timeframe is a bit optimitic for whole brigades but battalions were called up and used successfully in the large-scale combat operations phase of the war. Fifteen battalions were used in this part of the war. The rest are getting used for rotations to suppress the Baathists and their jihadi friends.

But how is this tapping out the Guard? The Army National Guard also has eight combat divisions in its ranks. It is disturbing that we haven't figured a way to use these units in war (I updated the link to an old synopsis with a link to the article in Army Magazine). Even with lower readiness, we've been at war for three years now. We have had time to train and provide resources to these 24 brigades of troops plus divisional combat support and service units. [NOTE: Actually, I think the divisions have 19 brigades, now.] Why can't we call up the brigades even if the divisions can't be called up as entire units? Heck, we actually have 12 active-duty division headquarters. While ten command active units, two are so-called integrated divisions where active divisonal headquarters command National Guard enhanced brigades. Use these divisional headquarters to command Guard brigades from the divisions.

There is no excuse for having a unit crunch or calling up enhanced brigades again. The enhanced brigades aren't the entire Guard and we've had enough time to bring up select divisions to mobilization standards. If we haven't, heads should roll. These are our reserves, people, we should use them.

The Salvador Option

A month ago I wrote that it might be a good idea to ramp up a program of killing enemy leaders as we did in the Vietnam Phoenix program in order to counter the terror being visited on our side.

Then I read this article today:

The Pentagon is debating whether to set up elite hit-squads to target leaders of the Iraq insurgency in a new strategy based on tactics used against leftist guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago, Newsweek magazine reported on Saturday.

One proposal would send U.S. Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads of hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, Newsweek said, citing military insiders familiar with the discussions.

The squads may operate across the border in Syria, Newsweek said on its web site, but added it was unclear whether they would assassinate leaders or be involved in "snatch" operations.

The magazine said the plan is being called "the Salvador option" after strategy instigated during the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s.

I do believe we should care enough to kill the very best.

Delay is a Defeat

Is the loose talk lately about delaying the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 30 (via Real Clear Politics) a trial balloon for a real proposal? Could we really be this foolish?

When I read that calls for a delay are "growing" I begin to wonder. But the "growing" voices are Sunni clerics and the largest Sunni party. So the Sunnis want a delay because Sunnis are bombing up Iraq to delay the elections? How convenient.

And for all the concern for the Sunnis who so many are desperate to convince to go to the polls, what about the Kurds and Shias who patiently wait for a chance for democracy? Shouldn't we worry that delaying the elections to appease the killers and terrorists will inspire our friends to finally go postal on the Sunnis if the Shias and Kurds think that Sunnis are denying them their rightful place in Iraqi society and government? And if we grant those killing and terrorizing a privilege how can we turn down requests from friends for exceptions to the laws, as was noted in this press conference about election preparations? Is it really possible that we would reward terror? Good God, I hope not.

Look, the Sunnis and their foreign jihadi friends aren't fighting because they are concerned about butterfly ballots or some such techncial thing--they are fighting to prevent elections. If we delay the elections, the enemy will see this as a victory for them and they will be encouraged. And rather than buying time to tamp down the insurgency in the Sunni areas, we will give the Baathists ammunition to recruit and coerce support. We may have killed 20,000 enemy fighters over the last year but killing will never be enough unless we are willing to kill a couple hundred thousand Sunnis real fast to decimate their ranks. We must defeat them in their minds and take away their hope of victory. Delaying the election will do the opposite. No matter what happens in the next few weeks we have to press forward. If 60% of Iraqis vote, that will be quite good--about 59.9 percentage points better than the last election by Saddam. If the Sunnis sit this one out, so be it. They will have another chance in a year or so and a year to see what sitting out the process gives them.

No delays. No excuses. Absorb the enemy attacks and count the ballots. We simply aren't going to get a quiet Vermont vote no matter how many times we delay. Keep moving forward. Elections are what our enemies fear most.

Justice is Done

Back when the charge of drowning an Iraqi was made against a 4th ID soldier after Baghdad fell, I was openly skeptical given the description of horrible light discipline by the soldiers.

I noted some months ago when the soldier went on trial that I was probably wrong. Now (via Instapundit) comes the conviction. I was definitely wrong and our soldier committed a crime, although murder is not the conviction since nobody is sure the victim is even dead. But forcing the man into the water was a crime.

Our troops are amongst the best trained, disciplined soldiers in the world and in history. Crimes such as this are rare. I am glad we punish such a crime since it is both right and in our interest to punish a crime like this. Committing crimes like this just makes enemies. We expected this soldier to brave enemy fire to complete the mission and we also expect him to treat civilians with respect to complete his mission. He both committed a crime and failed to accomplish his mission, putting other soldiers at risk.

Hopefully our press won't treat this as a tip of the iceberg of abuse. It isn't. We punish our guilty.

It Doesn't Need to be Pretty

Strategypage talks about a Chinese officer's handbook that discusses shipping available for amphibous warfare. The bottom line:

The Handbook indicates that there is sufficient lift for 250 infantry and mechanized (tank and mechanized infantry) battalions. That’s about twenty divisions. There is additional shipping (mostly civilian) for moving support units. Note that the Handbook is not a piece of propaganda, but a practical manual describing how the Chinese would go about making war.

We in the West make a grave error when we only look at Chinese vessels equivalent to our advanced and specialized amphibious warfare ships. The Chinese do not have to operate the way we do. Indeed, few nations with Marines operate with the sophistication we do.

Chinese amphibious doctrine doesn't need to look pretty--it just needs to work. We need to accept that this type of ramshackle invasion will work if the Chinese are willing to absorb the casualties. Peking is willing to do that.

What are we doing to make China quite certain that we will not sit by while they invade a democratic friend? We and the Chinese need a sense of urgency here.

Partition North Korea

National Review Online notes an interesting proposal for solving the North Korea problem (sorry, the link to the specific post did not work):

CHINA INVADES NORTH KOREA? [John J. Miller]
I guarantee that the most provocative piece of opinion journalism to appear anywhere in America today will be "An Immodest Proposal," by Bruce Gilley, in the Wall Street Journal. (Available online only to subscribers.) He writes:

"Here is an immodest proposal that could reduce global tensions, bring justice to millions, and cement China's emergence as a great power: Beijing should invade North Korea on humanitarian grounds and establish a China-backed transitional regime there. The U.S. and its allies in Asia should provide diplomatic and logistical support to the operation, while the U.N. should provide its legal blessing."

I'm not sure whether this idea is absolutely crazy or brilliantly inspired; I am certain it's fascinating, and Gilley's op-ed is well worth reading in its entirety.

I go for crazy--do we really want China on South Korea's border and closer to Japan? And does anybody think there would really be a "transitional" regime there if China takes over? But it has a glimmer of sense in that China has to be a part of this since they will never accept a US-aligned Korea on their border.

So if a South Korea takeover is unacceptable to China and a Chinese takeover is unacceptable to us, does North Korea get to teeter on in its brutal rule and play with nukes? Heck no.

In the past I've speculated that we and the Chinese could split North Korea. I still think it could work. We could intervene when North Korea collapses (or push them over the edge by invading, I suppose. But I'd rather wait them out since most North Korean forces are in the south so we and the ROK would suffer the most) and establish a pro-South Korean 'Middle Korea' regime from the DMZ up to a line north of the rail link between Pyongyang and Wonson. US combat forces would not enter this area and South Korea would not deploy combat aircraft or surface-to-surface missiles in this area. Ground units would be limited as well, with relatively few tanks allowed. Perhaps Japanese military police and engineer units could contribute, although Korean sensitivities would probably preclude this. But it would be nice to get Japan involved.

China would establish a regime from their border south to the rump Middle Korea. Let's call it Hungnam Korea to avoid seeming like the successor regime to the Pillsbury Nuke Boy's nutjob state. China would likewise not deploy combat aircraft or surface-to-surface missiles with limits on tanks and army units in place.

If we must, to get the UN's blessing (this is one icky place I'd like their blessing and since we have it already from the first Korean War, we could probably get something here as a continuation), we could create a small fourth Korea--Chongjin Korea--in the northeast corner adjacent to Russia.

All involved would sincerely commit themselves to preparing their corner of Korea for eventual reunification although the hard work needed would lead everyone to recognize that their guidance would be needed for many decades to bring all the Koreas up to near-South Korean standards before doing so.

Immigration would be limited between regions although travel would be possible as between any countries. This would keep South Korea from being overrun with poor northern Koreans seeking to escape poverty. Northern Koreans in China could be nudged back south. And all could happily have buffer zones for a nice secure feeling.

And all, of course, could breathe easier with a nuclear North Korea disarmed and hopefully keeping nuclear proliferation in the region in check.

Some are pretty eager to divide Iraq when it is clearly against our interests. What would they think of a further partition of the Korean peninsula?

Advisers Not New

When I saw the headline "US May Add Advisers to Aid Iraq's Military" and started reading this article, I thought, "What the heck? Aren't we doing this already?!"

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, is reviewing a proposal to add hundreds of American military advisers to work directly with Iraqi units, whose disappointing performance could jeopardize the long-term American exit strategy from Iraq, senior military officials said Monday.

Americans are training Iraqi police officers and national guard troops to replace them in securing the country, but the results over all have been troubling, with growing desertion rates in the most violent provinces, gaps in leadership, and poor battlefield performance, American military officers and troops say.

The advisers would bolster the Iraqi will to fight, help train officers who would lead the troops, curb desertion and provide Iraqi forces with the confidence that American units would back them up - in some cases fighting alongside them if needed, military and Pentagon officials said.

Adding advisers to increase the effectivess of allied units is standard practice I thought. Our guys provide advice, access to artillery and air power, and on-the-job training to correct problems. We aren't doing this?

But then I read further down:

Several hundred American troops are already embedded with Iraqi units, following a long tradition in American military actions. But the proposal would greatly expand this presence.

Ah, it remains our practice. But we will "greatly expand" the practice since it is clearly way too small. It seems another mistake has been unearthed. But the article than says that "several hundred" US troops will be added as advisers. I'll assume "several" means about 300 give our take 50. Wow. Our current efforts must be grossly insufficient if 350 more greatly expands the program. The article does note that 1st CAV does have 540 troops doing this in their Baghdad sector (a press conference notes they are attached to 7 Iraqi National Guard battalions). Also noted:

There are now 10-man adviser and support teams with each of 27 regular Iraqi Army and intervention force battalions (nine of which are still in training), their nine brigade headquarters (three still in training) and their three division headquarters, senior military officials in Iraq said.

In addition, adviser teams from Army Special Forces and other American units are with most of the Iraqi National Guard forces.

Expanding on those adviser teams, the proposal before General Casey would probably provide 10-man teams with 45 existing and 20 emerging national guard battalions.

The story also notes that in addition to 1st CAV, some Marine units do this (no surprise there either given the Marine Corps long experience in working with locals). The reporter did not know if other units did or did not do this.

So 540 1st CAV troopers; plus the Marines, which could add another 1,000 given that there are more Marines than Cavalry troopers; add 390 to the headquarters units noted; and assume that the other Army units do something similiar (the article does note that American advisers are stationed with Mosul police units) and we might be able to add another 1,000.

Granted, this quote seems to be something to hang the leap on:

General Ham, noting the earlier efforts by some units, said, "It's time to apply it on a larger scale."

But what does "larger scale" mean? There is a lot of uncertainty, but the correction of an implied mistake is too much of a leap to make given what we know. Maybe this news is of a great expansion. Or maybe it is an incremental increase.

Whatever the truth, the NYT tries to complain both ways:

Although diverting soldiers might be risky at a time when commanders say they need troops to press offensives against insurgents, the plan addresses a widely acknowledged need.

Perhaps I'm overly sensitive but it seem like the NYT wants to highlight an error and then hammer the solution, too.

I would like to know how long we've had advisers in Iraqi units. Even before the invasion I speculated that we could organize light infantry battalions with US forces as advisers to help with taking Baghdad should the Baathist try a last-ditch defense of the city (I did feel that a last stand was unlikely to happen, however). This might be a major mistake. It might not be. It might just be the normal adjustments of practice that come with experience. It might be nothing at all. This article doesn't tell me what this is.

In any case, putting advisers in Iraqi units is a very good idea. So good that I assumed we did it all along.

Axis of El Vil Rumblings

Axis of El Vil member Venezuela under the thug Chavez is taking additional steps to make sure it solidifies its membership as the number 2 in the Axis of El Vil. Castro better pay attention to the thumping steps he hears behind him. Via Instapundit this post:

The government of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez will expropriate its first farm, taking Venezuela straight down Zimbabwe road. The grab was announced this morning and will happen Saturday. The chavistas' first target is a British-owned cattle ranch. The move is a bold beginning for the chavista communists who will roll out both military and police forces for the seizure, beginning the first in a series.

And this twit has fans in America. Wear a uniform, be a tinpot dictator, and hate America, and that isn't tough to achieve here.

National Resistance

Back in the summer, I wrote that I thought the Islamists were spoiling the plans of the Baathists to rally all Iraqis around the theme of resisting the foreign (American) invaders by killing so many Iraqis. They may not have had much of a choice since American units are such hard targets and did a good amount of killing when attacked--even rear echelon troops. But by failing to attack Americans, the Islamists alienated Iraqis. And by allying with the Islamists, the Baathists destroyed their chance of leading a national revolt against American forces.

With elections on the way, it may soon become clear that Iraqis want their own government. Once an Iraqi government is forming, the bulk of the Sunnis may be drawn finally into a national struggle against a foreign invader. As Major General Chiarelli (1st CAV) stated:

Also important, why is the insurgent resisting? He is resisting the will of the Iraqi people because he has a private agenda and he is terrified of what the Iraqi people will have to say at the polls. He is resisting a safer, economically sound and free Iraq to protect his self-interest. He is wicked and he has malicious partners within the country and from foreign lands that do not care about the Iraqi people. Consider that Osama bin Laden, not an Iraqi, has laid the terrorist -- labeled the terrorist Zarqawi -- not an Iraqi -- an emir or prince of Iraq. None of these people care about the people of Iraq. That is their only unifying theme.

As sovereignty passes more and more to the Iraqis in concrete terms, it will be easier for the non-Baathist Sunnis to join other Iraqis to kill and expel the foreign invaders--the Islamists--and subdue the Baathists who aid the foreign invaders.

The Baathists screwed up big allying with the Islamists (as I noted in "Center of Gravity" in June 2004). They thought they could use the Islamists to spark a national revolt against American forces but instead the Islamists are giving all Iraqis a foreign enemy to rally against.

This will be our enemy's critical error in this war. Rumsfeld should be grateful he isn't their defense chief.

And Saddam better hope he never has to face his supporters for his role in this error. Apparently, the strategy to import the jihadis that are rallying Iraqis to our side were imported starting a decade ago. All he did was up the body count before we and our Iraqi friends win. When is Saddam going to be executed anyway? I mean after a trial, of course.

Liquid Body Armor

From Strategypage:

As U.S. Army troops eagerly look for new gadgets with possible use on the battlefield, military labs are actually developing some stuff that appears to work. Especially if batteries are not required. One of the better ideas is STF (shear thickening fluid). Unofficially it’s called liquid body armor. When applied to Kevlar cloth, it prevents a knife or ice-pick from penetrating. STF does this by reacting to a sharp pressure, and stiffening. One of the vulnerabilities of Kevlar has always been knives and similar sharp objects, especially when dealing with lots of hostile civilians. STF won’t be ready for troop use for another two years.

Wow.

Thank You, I Hate You

I wrote that we help the victims of the tsunami because it is the right thing to do and not to score points with the Moslem world. I also wrote that if our long history of aiding Moslems hasn't given us positive ratings, this latest aid would not either.

Well what do you know, despite the hopes of Secretary Powell, some who are getting our help suspect our motives:

It's true we need help from the U.S. right now, but many Muslims feel the need to ask: `Is there any political interest here, or is it really just humanitarian help?'" said Moeslim Abdurrahman, a moderate Muslim leader in Jakarta.

You know, if President Bush had held a press conference within 24 hours to express sorrow and announce a massive aid package, conspiracy nuts here and abroad would have claimed the president had to have had advance notice--possibly because one of our nuclear submarines caused the earthquake--to react that fast and with that much certainty as to the magnitude of the tragedy.

Helping is still the right thing to do.

Willing Accomplices

A couple weeks ago I posted about how the Europeans want the Iranians to play along with the fiction that the EU is successfully negotiating with the Iranians about preventing the mullahs from getting nuclear weapons. the Europeans get upset when we point out that they may be on a fool's errand:

Is it any wonder that some people in the West actually believe that America is a greater threat to peace? We say we will defend ourselves. Which is scary to those who want to take the month of August off from work and not think about the barbarians in the woods. But let those barbarians say some soothing words and the soft Westerners heave a sigh of relief and head off to holiday. And when we point out that the soft words are not matched by soft actions, we are at fault for spoiling the holiday. We are at fault because without our reality check they could have enjoyed their holiday in peace--blissfuly unaware of the danger that closed in on them while they slumbered. The Europeans blame us because the Iranians would be glad to say whatever soothing words the Europeans want to hear to extend their holiday of ignorance just a little longer. That is pretty sophisticated, eh?

And Strategypage doesn't make me feel any better with this:

The European Union is offering economic bribes if the Iranians will convincingly pretend that they have stopped developing nuclear weapons.

Wow. In an ordinary run-of-the-mill weenie foreign policy, the Europeans would have simply convinced incredulous Iranian mullahs that all would be well with their nuclear ambitions if the mullahs just said the right words so Europe could look away comforted in their sophistication.

But no, in their sophisticated ultra-weenie foreign policy, the Europeans have succeeded in letting the Iranians know that the EU is so desperate to hear those comforting words that the mullahs can extract concessions from Europe as the price to lull the Europeans into their long holiday slumber once again.

Is that amazing or what? The Europeans are actually bribing the Iranians to lie to them! Because without such bribes, the Iranians are likely to revert to form, claim nukes as their right, and proclaim loudly that they'll use those nukes just as soon as they get them! Can't have that now, can we? It would ruin a perfectly good peace conference.

Besides, if anything goes wrong those crude, selfish Americans with their revolting notions of power can save them all again, right?

Ah, the incredible lightness of being the EU.

Why I Have Contempt for "Peace Activists"

From Powerline blog, this FrontPage Magazine (pause to turn off Hardball which I will never ever watch again) article on the blindness of the peace-loving class when it comes to Iraq.

I'll not comment and just let it stand on its own.

Ok, one comment: Peace activists repulse me. Even when they have bathed recently.

Friendly Fire

The authors of this piece comparing combat in Iraq in 2004 with combat in Vietnam in 1966 intended to honor our soldiers for successfully fighting in a tough environment.

First of all, whatever their motives I find it ridiculous that they should compare two battles for Fallujah with one battle for Hue (which was in 1968 in any case and not their year of comparison) in which they only considered Marine casualties and not Army or ARVN casualties. Comparing two to a half will make the two look worse any time.

Second, just reading about 1966 sees references to Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regiments and divisions in battle even as we added 200,000 troops to South Vietnam in that year, requiring much effort just to build bases and logistics lines to supply them. One excerpt:

By May 1966 an ominous build-up of enemy forces, among them NVA regiments that had infiltrated south, was detected in Phuoc Long and Binh Long Provinces in northern III Corps. U.S. commanders viewed the build-up as a portent of the enemy's spring offensive, plans for which included an attack on the district town of Loc Ninh and on a nearby Special Forces camp. The 1st Division responded, sending a brigade to secure Route 13. But the threat to Loc Ninh heightened in early June, when regiments of the 9th Viet Cong Division took up positions around the town.

Regiments and divisions. Not squads and platoons at best as we face in Iraq.

And third, and most importantly, did the authors really think they could make a Vietnam comparison in this day and age and not have it taken as an attack on the war in Iraq? Are they that cut off from political reality?

Casualties and combat in Iraq are light compared to Vietnam. Saying this is no disrespect to the soldiers and Marines in Iraq who are quite probably the best ground units we have ever fielded. And for everyone in a firefight, that fight is all the war they could ever want regardless of whether that firefight is part of a 10,000-man battle drawn out for weeks. You can manipulate statistics all you want, but we fought a much larger, much better armed, and better trained and motivated enemy in Vietnam. And they had sanctuaries where they could retreat with entire divisions and had superpower backing.

The authors had good motives, it seems. Yet the authors clearly dropped a round on friendly forces. It wasn't intentional but it did harm nonetheless. Keep away from the Vietnam comparisons, guys. At least to the general public. Our troops fought a noble cause in Vietnam and I believe they did not die in vain. But the press will never interpret any comparison with Vietnam in a positive light.

Hypnopower

The French government calls us a 'hyperpower' with the same loathing evident in the Chinese term 'hemegomist.' The French quite amazingly think we are a bigger threat to them. The French have been a thorn in our side and although some would like to punish the French for their actions or just for the fun of it, John Miller argues that punishing France pays too much attention to them:

Thinking otherwise only buys into the Gaullist claim that France should occupy a place of reverence in the community of nations. But why should its views matter any more than, say, Italy, whose population and economy are nearly the same size? The United States may choose to work with France on a few areas of mutual diplomatic interest - Haiti and perhaps Iran - but in general, the marginal amounts of aid and peacekeeping help Paris can offer hardly merit concessions on our part. And if France threatens to undermine American interests with its Security Council veto, we should call its bluff, pointing out that such behavior merely weakens the institution that is the prime source of France's undeserved prestige. (Despite all the bluster, France has not used its veto power unilaterally since 1976.)

Moreover, making an example of the French is precisely the wrong approach because it elevates France in the eyes of the world's anti-Americans, who will always be with us. The one thing France and the neo-Gaullists can't possibly abide is being ignored. Perhaps that's punishment enough.

Hogwash. If we ignore the French they'll go on thinking they are a great power. The French have built up the illusion of power. They have nukes they'd never use lest Paris get smashed up; they have a nuclear aircraft carrier that looks nice tied up in port; they have a pretend empire that lets them color in the map the right colors but otherwise is a drain; and they have a Security Council veto. All this impresses the French very much if not anyone else. Really, without the Foreign Legion, France would have the power projection ability of Belgium. The French are self-hypnotized with the illusion of power and we don't affect that at all. Who exactly is looking toward France to organize an anti-American bloc? Serious anti-Americans look to China for that. So putting the French in their place does not give the French added weight as an anti-American bastion.

Ignoring the French is not the best path to take with France because it ignores a basic foreign policy rule: reward friends and punish enemies. The example of France getting away with screwing us over time and again encourages countries not to cooperate with us. Even if it wouldn't be a pleasure to strike back, this should get us moving to punish France.

Are the French our enemies? Well, no. Not yet. But they aren't our friend, either. We can cooperate with the French in narrow areas where our interests coincide without getting all misty eyed about our long friendship.

If we ignore the French, they'll just up the ante to get our attention. Punish France. If they decide to aid us, then we can end punishment. If they keep aiding us and so look at least nominally sincere, then we can start rewarding them.

Look, I don't mean to tar the entire French nation with a broad brush. And I'd love to have the French as real friends and allies. I'm sure we have friends there, too. But our friends don't control the government and aren't thick in the press to say the least. For those French in charge over there I have nothing but contempt.

Break their trance. Punish France.

We Can Count on the Press

After highlighting the problems in Iraq as evidence the elections must be postponed to some indefinite point in the future, the Washington Post notes that Iraqis are enthusiastic about voting. As the Captain's Quarters notes (via Instapundit):

The mainstream media intends on selling the Iraqis short, just as they did the Afghanis prior to their election. We heard nothing but how the clannish Afghanis would never embrace democracy, how the warlords would use violence to prevent the election, and how the Taliban remnants would overwhelm the voting centers with terrorist attacks everywhere except Kabul. It all turned out to be nothing but defeatist nonsense. Apparently, it looks like the same is true in Iraq.

I'm sure that the press will note that things went well if we pull off the election in a reasonable fashion. They did report on the tremendous success of the Afghan elections, right? No? Oh. Well surely the fact that Australians returned a pro-war-on-terror government to office was trumpeted in the press after they built up the vote as a referendum on the war? Again, no? Hmm.

Sometimes I forget that our reporters like to consider themselves reporters who happen to be Americans and not Americans who happen to be reporters. The latter would be so unprofessional after all.

China Pushes Amphibious Options

Strategypage is on a roll with interesting posts. This one is on China:

China is converting older frigates and destroyers to APDs (fast transports). At the rate the conversions are going, China will soon have at least eight APDs. The first to be converted are the Jianghu class frigates, which were built in the 1970s and are now being retired. To create an APD, most weapons are removed from these frigates, with the now empty spaces modified to transport cargo or troops. The 1,800 ton Jianghu’s have a top speed of about 46 kilometers an hour. This enables APDs to move quickly, especially during darkness, to reach their destination. Shorter travel time makes the APDs less vulnerable to attack (and easier to defend, especially if you have to keep fighters overhead.) Taiwan is 300 kilometers from the Chinese coast. Each APD could carry several hundred troops, or a few hundred tons of cargo.

As long as people only measure amphibious capabilities by using the US Marines as the standard, China will look incapable of mounting an invasion of Taiwan. 

But if you accept that a baling wire and duct tape invasion [old link updated] that results in high casualties as the price of winning is something Peking would accept, China's capabilities don't look insufficient at all.

APDs are just another sign. And you don't need to strip a ship to carry troops. Other obsolete warships could carry minimal ammo and crew and still carry a company or so of troops. 

Amphibious assault will be a summer Olympics event in 2008.

Options for Iran Crisis

Strategypage sets forth our options for handling Iran's pending nuclear threat:

The options are negotiate, launch aerial attacks to take out the nuclear program, or to enact regime change through one means or another.

Then the chances of each are outlined.

Negotiations are out since we want to negotiate and end to their nuclear weapons programs and the Iranians are pretty hot on getting nukes. What's to negotiate? In addition, the Israelis are unlikely to just sit by while negotations buy Iran time to build nukes. They'll accept buying time with a strike since Iran already hates them. Nukes next week are better than nukes tomorrow from their perspective. I've noted before that this factor alone--even if negotiations might succeed--pushes us toward a more active approach.

Aerial attacks might or might not work and just as important, since the mullah's regime will still exist, their response is not knowable.

Invading is out since we are tied down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Korea with our ground forces. We could invade but then we'd have to mobilize all the Army National Guard and everyone would be in for the duration or until new units are created.

Regime change by covert operations might work but encouraging peaceful resistance as in Poland with Solidarity took 8 years to work. We don't have that time unless we assume the mullahs are hell bent on getting nukes fast in order to sit on them indefinitely.

What I'm hoping is that we have been cultivating contacts in the regular Iranian military and dissidents in order to support an Iranian revolution against the mullahs. With even the Pasdaran not fully reliable, the mullahs might not have very much to defend the regime against organized and trained forces attacking them. The US could help with special forces-air power assets. With the public in Iran overwhelmingly against the mullahs, a local effort to overthrow the regime with minor US help hopefully won't inspire nationalistic support for the regime. This alone could change the regime with a speed that does us some good.

And if the new Iran still wants nukes? Well that isn't the best option but they would at least not be a psycho regime with nukes. I actually trust France not to nuke us. Really. At best, the Iranians might after a time decide the cost of nuclear programs is too high to continue. Or they might accept international safeguards that will actually keep nuclear energy programs from being used for weapons. Any of these tracks is better than nutball mullahs with nukes.

We put Iran on the Axis of Evil for a reason and I don't think it is unreasonable to assume we are acting on that. Of the other two states, we invaded Iraq and we are squeezing North Korea which increasingly looks like it is on the verge of collapse. Is Iran uniquely being left alone? I don't think so. Are we willing to let Iran go nuclear? I don't think so.

I expect something to happen in Iran soon.

Victory in Iraq

I hope that this year will see victory in Iraq. After hoping that the deaths of Saddam's sons and the capture of Saddam would dishearten the Baathist insurgents, I'm wary of asserting that January elections will do the job. I was cautious enough at the transition to Iraqi sovereignty not to predict victory although I noted that victory could come suddenly with little warning.

Strategypage has an excellent overview of the future:

Captured Baath Party documents, and interrogations, reveal a strategy that really believes in the eventual return of the Baath Party to power. Meanwhile, al Qaeda has made itself very unpopular, especially in Sunni Arab areas, because most of the terrorist attack victims were Iraqis. Kurds and Shia Arabs would prefer a more aggressive, and bloody, approach to Baath and al Qaeda resistance. That may happen in 2005, as Iraqi security forces become competent enough to deal with the experienced (these are Saddam's old enforcers) Baath Party fighters. At that point, Iraqis will take care of their own problems. But in the meantime, American troops, while not taking most of the casualties, have to inflict the bulk of the damage on Baath Party and al Qaeda forces.

How long will this last? Not much longer. Areas of Baath Party control continue to shrink. Baath Party control was allowed to expand in 2004 as the government attempted negotiations with Sunni Arab leadership. This didn't work, as the Sunni Arab leaders were terrified by Baath and al Qaeda terror. The battle of Fallujah, and offensive operations throughout Baath strongholds in central Iraq, sharply reduced the extent of "safe areas" for terrorists. The government has not given up on negotiations with Sunni Arab leaders, but has ordered a military offensive in the meantime. The Iraqis are determined to hold elections at the end of January, 2005, with, or without, Sunni Arab participation. The attitude seems to be, if the Sunni Arabs would rather fight, or cower in their homes, than vote, then so be it. Sunni Arabs have tyrannized Iraq for too long, and most Iraqis are ready for a change.

Right now, the Baathists believe they will win. Four centuries of Sunni dominance have bred into them the assumption that they will run Iraq, it seems. [JH correctly notes that the Baathists have not been around for 4 centuries. I meant to write that Sunnis have dominated Iraq for that long. Since the Baath are largely Sunni, I sometimes write as if they are the same even though I know they aren't. I added "Sunni" prior to "dominance" above to correct the sentence.]

The Baathists have an advantage in training and ruthlessness over our side. While we have the training advantage with American troops, our troops lack the ability to really read the locals. The free Iraqis can do that but don't have the training and experience of the Baathist thugs we fight. As long as we are in charge, panties on heads notwithstanding, our side will just not be as ruthless as the Baathists. But once Iraqis gain experience to take on the burden of the fight, they will also bring a matching ruthlessness to the fight. At some point between the first and second battles for Fallujah, the Iraqi government decided that negotiations alone were not going to bring the Sunnis to their senses. Now offensive action is the order of the day. If the Sunnis want to talk as our forces hunt them down, that will be fine but don't expect a let up to talk. I just hope our press is as easy going on our side's ruthlessness as they are on Baathist ruthlessness. At that point we can ease off on our operations as the free Iraqis fight the enemy. We'll still need to remain as a reserve force and to deter foreign invasion while the Iraqi military is focused inward.

Strategypage expresses more confidence than I have that the Baathists will not be able to resist much longer, but it is nice to read anyway. I think we will win but the when is too obscure for me to hazard a guess.

But at some point in the Iraq insurgency, somebody will break first and lose. This battle is now one of persistence and not shock and awe. So when people talk about imposing a sense of "sacrifice" on the American people during the war, I have to wonder just what the heck they are thinking. The object is to make the enemy feel more pain and lose heart, not increase ours! This War on Terror will last a long time and imposing additional sacrifices on our people will tend to wear us out and not inspire a sense of solidarity. Let's call our casualties, the monthly cost of war, the higher prices of gasoline, the inability to fund other priorities, the increased cost of providing security on our businesses, and the general unease that prevents us from confidently planning for a peaceful future as the sacrifices of this war. Isn't that enough?

You'd almost think that some of those calling for added sacrifice just want us to grow tired and quit defending ourselves. Kind of like the calls for a military draft that isn't necessary aren't really about fighting more effectively but about inspiring war protests. Or the calls to delay the Iraq elections when our enemy has made it clear by its choice of targets that they don't want the elections to go forward. Surely those here arguing to delay don't want to reward the enemy and get the Shia majority upset with us, too. Shoot, a delay will just give some the excuse that the elections aren't legitimate because they violate the interim law. Surely nobody here wants these things to happen. Being motivated by a desire to see us lose just isn't possible, is it?

Get the Iraqis in the fight. Hold the Iraq elections on time. And prepare for a long war beyond Iraq that does not wear us out before we win. Victory is the desired goal--not some New Age mushy shared sacrifice rot.

Brace Yourself

You might think that the twisted views of Michael Moore were discredited and dispatched after November 2004.

Well guess again. She's back.

If we were truly in a police state, she would have been disappeared. Instead, her constituents were free to send her to Congress.

Happy New Year. It won't be any easier, eh?