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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! April 8, 2006 Chaos TheoryBy GreyhawkI hold Jonathan Finer's reporting from Iraq in high regard, but this story: Shiite Muslim militias pose the greatest threat to security in many parts of Iraq, having killed more people in recent months than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, and will likely present the most daunting and critical challenge for Iraq's new government, U.S. military and diplomatic officials say....might be an example of bad timing, in light of this one from the NY Times:
Of course, exactly whodunnit will be a matter of speculation, accusations, and counter accusations, and those who want any sort of reasonable coverage of events (or at least in-text acknowledgement of factual and speculative elements in a story) will find the Times is not a generally reliable source. I have no idea whether this one contains such failures - and that's exactly the problem. Periodic media "coverage flux" occurs from Iraq - "we are the targets of an insurgency" becomes "we are caught in a civil war", "the Sunni insurgency is the problem" becomes "the Shiite militias are the problem" (oddly enough in the wake of an attack on a Shiite shrine). Ultimately the media will arrive at a unified theory - and stick with it until they can no longer hammer every development into it's shape. I propose "chaos" as that theory - everything fits that one. More: More: More:
There's a 'race to the finish' ongoing in Iraq, between coalition forces who want to hand security to fully trained and capable Iraqi forces under a stable elected government and an "insurgency" that desires all out war. (If their goal was US withdrawal they'd find it mutually acceptable and easily achieved - let's not pretend that's their desire.) With universal human frailties working in favor of the enemy*, the coalition (to include it's Iraqi component - the largest member) is in many ways an underdog in that particular struggle. The odd thing is an all out war could be won by the "infidels" (who thus far have successfully avoided it) in short order, even if it engulfed a broader region. In addition to unleashing airpower not seen since the last century this would involve finally deploying the half million shooters (or more) that so many have claimed would have prevented any problems in the first place. (That treasured bit of speculative hindsight is true, by the way, if one assumes the enemy would have responded in exactly the same manner to those hypothetical conditions that they did to the reality. Chaos theory says that wouldn't be the case.) But in the background, signs of hope:
That cause is the aforementioned broader war, the long established al Qaeda jihad. Chaos, of course, is exactly the goal of that jihad. A more refined "unified theory" for all the above stories requires acknowledgment that the forces of jihad have a considerable degree of both savagery and savvy - both claims can be defended. Each event described above must be acknowledged as a attempt at focused acts by a small group designed to maximize coverage and elicit a response in kind (savage) from the opposition. From IED attacks on Marine patrols to demolition of sacred shrines, the enemy achieves much with small numbers, and expects to successfully portray themselves as victims of that response. (And when no such response occurs, they claim it did anyway.) A media that fears accusations of bias above any other charge (and relies heavily on 'sources' from within that enemy camp) invariably lives up to those expectations. This breeds more 'success'; at a minimum, supporters of the coalition find their enthusiasm diminished, while others are converted to the terrorist cause. And the cycle continues... If all this causes you great despair, you are probably a human being. And Orwell knew your grandparents: The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory.
Note: * "With universal human frailties working in favor of the enemy..." "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy his own heart?"
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago One can acknowledge this without surrendering to that evil. Posted by Greyhawk / April 8, 2006 10:43 AM | Permalink 10 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
You wrote:
"There's a race to the finish ongoing in Iraq, between coalition forces who want to hand security to fully trained and capable Iraqi forces under a stable elected government and an "insurgency" that desires all out war"
I don't believe the aim is all out war with two sides pitted against each other. This is a bar room brawl in Iraq. The sheriff and his deputies have not been able to stop it yet. Need better methods. Reducing this to an "us vs them" fight is the wrong thinking and will lead to the wrong results. There are multiple groups seeking ascendancy. We need a multi-level strategy.
Dale
There are indeed other factors and factions that complicate the already chaotic, but I'm referring to Iraq in the context of the larger war, the "outer onion", if you will.
Why did an Iraqi soldier kill a Marine? Was he an al Qaeda plant on a mission to sow distrust? Did the Marine look at a Mohammed cartoon? Did a simple language barrier result in murder? Had Marines killed the man's brother in 2003? Regardless of motive, the results will favor al Qaeda, as that "sow distrust" bit is an inevitable result.
A few other layers of complexity:
- Throughout al Anbar, individuals seize opportunity to achieve power in their own city or village.
- Sadr, with or without nudging from Iran, seeks a more prominent profile on the national scene.
- Kidnappers take hostages with the desire to make a buck
- Neighbors kill neighbors to settle long-held grudges
All of which can be used by al Qaeda to further their goal of all out war. We want Iraq to solve the problems described above, and countless others like them (If you prefer, we know we can't solve them).
That is the essential "us vs them" aspect of that part of the struggle, and the race I described. "Multi-level strategy" is indeed a required response - I'm addressing one level.
Admittedly in the context of this post I didn't even offer a strategy for that level - what's yours? (This is in fact, the sort of discussion I hoped to engender.)
Odd that the one group who most wants to avoid the larger war is the one who would indeed win it in short order. America probably won't accept a "long war" with civilian casualties in the manner it did the cold war. The enemy assumption is that this will mean an American defeat. That's a miscalculation, at some point the option for swift victory could be exercised.
But believing the US is currently "overextended" (by extension defeated) militarily is a faulty asssumption shared by two groups who wish it to be true - al Qaeda and the US domestic political opposition, who coincidentally view each other in the same light: "The enemy of my enemy".
The media isn't in the al Qaeda camp, but they are squarely in the domestic opposition. It's becoming increasingly hard to note any distinction.
Ignoring for a moment the "we can't win" crowd described by Orwell, I can see the debate moving to one between the "long war" proponents (I think that was poor descriptive choice by the Pentagon, but what else is new?) and those who support Anne Coulter's first reaction; "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Those on the homefront who sneer at our efforts to give democracy a chance in the ME probably don't realize we do so as an alternative to Coulter's advice. That's the basis for my support of our current efforts. As for the Coulter approach, we're not there yet, but it ain't off the table either. Between cartoons, arrests of Christians in Afghanistan, and developments in Iraq it seems every time I read a newspaper I shift a little more.
In fact, we should get the hell out of there and let them beat on each other till they decide to call a halt to killing their own. We have now two sub religions killing each other for the Main religion (Muslim), and Iran standing by waiting to be the winner in the eventual (not democratic) theocratic state. There is but one question and our govt simpoy refuses to answre this:
Are we or are we not building permanent bases in Iraq?
I've just read Nagl's book "Learning to eat soup with a knife." I think I finally understand why we lost in Vietnam when the British won in Malaya. I also think this explains why we have had so much trouble the first year and a half in Iraq. Nagl is there now in his second tour.
Greyhawk:
Re: The Shinseki claim that 500,000 U.S. troops in Iraq would've prevented problems in the first place. You said, "Chaos theory says that wouldn't be the case."
We don't need to rely on theory to argue that more troops in Iraq would not have prevented all the problems. We just need to look at the last time a great western power fought a protracted Muslim insurgency--the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962).
The French had 500,000 troops in Algeria, which at that time had a population of 9 million. If you scale the troop-to-citizen ratio up to match Iraq's population, that would mean we'd need 1.5 million troops in Iraq. We currently have 138,000.
The French lost 18,000 troops killed over an eight-year period, or 2250 a year. Again, if you scale it up to Iraq ratios, it would be 6750 a year. We're losing about 700 a year, and that figure is falling.
Between 350,000 and 1.5 million Algerians were killed. To scale those figures up to Iraq, multiply them by three. So far in Iraq, about 32,000 have died, including terrorists.
The French used a policy of collective punishment in Algeria: If a village harbored insurgents, it was bombed from the air or hit with artillery strikes. The French also tortured suspects to death, rounded people up by the thousands and shot them without trial, and put about 2 million in concentration camps. And they still lost the war.
With less than 10% of the troops (proportionally) that France had in Algeria, and with a policy not of conquest but of partnership, look what we've accomplished. More importantly, look at the slaughter we've avoided.
More troops in Iraq = many more dead Americans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War_of_Independence
The "more troops" canard is also shown wrong in Vietnam. A real issue is credit -- the US wants to "win", but only the Iraqis can really win. When Human Rights/ pro-democracy Iraqi forces form a gov't in Iraq, one that is making progress against the anti-democratic Iraqis & foreigners, then Iraq wins, and US gets the assist. That should have always been the goal.
More troops means more targets; more accidents (look how many died under Clinton); and less training, so likely more Abu Ghraib abuses.
The media views Bush as the enemy, giving only a quarter of the truth--the bad of Bush. The good of Bush (like 17 quarters of economic growth!) is ignored almost as much as possible. The bad of Saddam is almost ignored; the bad of the terrorists is actually blamed on Bush; yet the "good" of Saddam (quickly getting power functioning after Desert Storm, for example) is fairly well covered.
An article on the past and future of warfare, with predictions on Iraq in particular.
I still believe this is a bar room brawl. The instigators are foreign to tie us up in Iraq. The 'sides' include the the three Iraqi regional power seats,the mullahs (and their militias), the in-process government, and the coalition. Our task is to figure out who we want to win regionally, co-opt them, and then begin to control territory. We must halt freedom of movement. Cordon and contain the population. Use the mullahs to our advantage, trade federal political power for regional power to the mullahs. City by city and block by block we must demonstrate that we can bring safety to what we control.
We must expand our control until all the populous areas of the country are physically safe. Rebels/insurgents must be driven to the fringe creating a guerrilla war from remote areas instead of an insurgency/sectarian conflict originating from within.
The Green Zone must expand until it embraces all of Baghdad.
And, yes, I know that this denial of movement will be seen as anti-freedom. We must defer freedom of movement until and only until there is physical safety.