I have something to say. I, like Condi Rice, am a student of history. But unlike Condi, the history I study is not "grand." I graduated from the United States Military Academy
many, many years ago. When I was there, I was permitted to take a few electives and I choose mostly history electives--history electives that had something to do with war, warfare, military history, and the causes and military execution of conflict. If this subject happens to interest you, West Point is a great place to study,
Warfare has changed in the last 30 years. No longer can a "non-superpower" nation cozy up to the U.S. or USSR just to piss the other one off. But warfare today is not without precedent. Lessons can be learned and more importantly, mistakes can be studied--and if you are not stupid--not repeated.
Since graduating and then spending nine years in the Army as an Infantry Officer, I have continued my study, closely keeping up with all the armed conflict that has occurred in the world since. During the last 30 years, there has been a lot of conflict. But with the demise of the Soviet Union, the nature of that conflict has greatly changed. I can honestly say that the current round of "American Adventurism" will likely enter the history books as some of the most ill conceived, downright stupid operations ever conceived by a legitimate government. In future years, students at the Army War College will study today's operations to glean those important "what not to do" lessons.
A few months ago, I discovered DKos and found it to be refreshingly honest, often funny, and every now and then interestingly illuminating. I kept waiting for someone out there to say what I know to be true about our American Adventurism. Glimpses appeared every now and then that showed that someone was paying attention, but most stopped short of any comprehensive analysis of the military operation itself. I want to put forward just that comprehensive analysis of the situation we are now in and place it in context of recent--and even ancient history. To understand why the American effort in Iraq and Afghanistan (and their areas of the globe) is not only stupid but loaded with what engineers call "self-defeating criteria," it will take more than three paragraphs. It will take even more than one diary entry. In fact, it will take an awfully lot of writing.
If you, dear reader, manage to get all the way through this epistle and find it of value,
please say so in a comment to this diary. If no one comments after this first segment, I
won't write any more. But if you think that I have something of value to offer, please
encourage me to continue.
Before even starting, let me set some ground rules. First, I have no political agenda in
writing this diary with the exception of--perversely--a love of the American military. I
served in the U.S. Army long before Bill Clinton and "Don't ask, don't tell." I reluctantly
left the military after serving nine years active duty (with distinction) because I am gay
and I was getting ready to be promoted to a position that would require a Top Secret
clearance. I decided that it was better to leave voluntarily than get kicked out. But golly,
I enjoyed my duties in Korea, on the Czechoslovak boarder facing East Germany (today there is no East Germany, no Czechoslovakia, and no Warsaw Pact. I must have done a good job!!), my three years with the 82d Airborne, and all the places I got to visit--including the Middle East. The American soldier is a really cool person. He ought to be because he is just like you (assuming that you are an American reader) with your wants, needs, desires, and hopes. He doesn't deserve the crap he is getting by serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. When you read American atrocity stories, I want you to remember this. The American soldier is just like you. Does it frighten you to think that if you are in the same situational circumstances that he is in, you would likely act the same way he does? For everyone of you who screams, "Never! I would never do that," I offer you my prayer that you will never be in his situation. There are some extremely good nonfiction books written by French soldiers who served in Indochina during the 1095's you ought to check out if you are an "I would never do that!" sort of person.
So I don't have a political agenda. I am even going to eventually remind you that Bill
Clinton, long may he wave, made some of the same mistakes that George II has been making. Are you old enough to remember Bill Clinton promising us that American ground forces would be in the former Yugoslavia for "a maximum of one year!"?? The other thing you will not find in this missive is a lot of link references. Wikipedia would probably enter "citation needed" after every third word I write. I will make statements--all of which are true--that you may find either hard to believe or that brings up something you have never considered. I urge you to check my facts. America's big problem is that too many of us accept what we hear and read as truth without any question or without making the effort to check what is said or written for truth. I welcome any challenges. If I say something you cannot verify and it is important to you, comment to this diary and I will do my best to dig up my source material.
Finally, I truly hope that you enjoy this blog. Further, I hope that after reading it (if
in fact you have the patience and discipline to get all the way through it) you will find
yourself better able to evaluate current history.
I Must Start With Iraq!!
The most important point to start with for any discussion of Iraq is simply this: The
people who live in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East are not like you and me! They
have a different culture and set of beliefs and that culture and belief set is not going to
change anytime soon.
The second most important point from which to start the discussion can be expressed as a question: What idiot told you that Iraq was a nation??
When the Prophet Mohammed died, the followers of Islam split into two parts. The main body decided that one of the members of Mohammed's tribe/extended family group was to become the Islamic leader. These people became the Sunnis. A smaller part of the Islamic community decided that leadership passed to one of Mohammed's close relatives and that leadership would remain with the Prophet's family. These followers became the Shi'ites. While this is certainly a simplification of about a hundred years worth of wrangling and battles, it holds the gist of the situation. Further, you have to remember that all of this took place about 1200 years ago. Regardless of the fact that it happened 1200 years ago, the Sunnis still regard the Shi'ites as infidels and the Shi'ites still regard the Sunnis as bloodthirsty oppressors.
The first Islamic followers were Arabic. Arabic is an ethnicity. Arabs are organized into
tribes. A single, individual Arab simply cannot survive in the harsh climate of the middle
east. Tribes are often heavy with members of one family but the leader of the tribe is most often "the biggest and the badest" without regard to parentage. When Mohammed died, the Sunnis followed the biggest and baddest. The Shi'ites opted for the family member. Even this religious division started primarily over tribal politics. Interestingly, while this was the situation in the middle east 1200 years ago, it is still the situation in the middle east today with only minor exceptions. If you visit Iraq, visit the countryside first. Tribes still run the show. Each community is a loose grouping of families that have been grouped together for centuries. If you visit a big city like Bagdad, you will find Sunni
neighborhoods where relationships have existed for centuries and which do not allow the
infidel Shi'ite household to live. Likewise, you will find Shi'ite neighborhoods with no
Sunni residents.
This last week I had to laugh at the tragedy of the "evil Sunnis" from rooftops gunning
down the worshipful "Shi'ite pilgrams" making their pilgrimage to the Shi'ite mosque to
quietly worship. At least, that is the way the American press reported the story. Give me a break!! First of all, Sunni and Shi'ite neighborhoods are very well defined and
everyone knows where Sunni turf begins and Shi'ite turf ends. These "Shi'ite Pilgrims" were making a deliberate incursion onto Sunni turf and knew that they would draw a response. Proof, you ask? If they were peaceful pilgrims, where did the return gunfire come from? The young Sunni Bravos were on their rooftops boasting to each other that they were "protecting their neighborhood and families from the infidel Shi'ites." The Shi'ite pilgrims were making the same tribal border incursion that they have been making for the last 1200 years.
From the time of Mohammed until the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, this whole huge area of the middle east has been essentially ruled by tribes. After WWI, the Brits and to a lesser extent, the French, divided up the area into colonies/protectorates/spheres of influence. The French got Lebanon and the Brits took
everything else. A british general (I forget his name--he wasn't very bright), divided up
the old Ottoman regions of Mosul, Bagdad, and Basra that covered practically all of the
current middle east into the countries we know today as Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, etc. The
general took the easy route. He divided up the area mainly based on geographical and
topological features instead of the heritage, ethnicity, and religion of the inhabitants.
That is why Iraq is (about) 45% Sunni, 40% Shi'ite, and 15% "other" with the Kurds (who are Moslem but not Arabic) making up the majority of "other." In most all of the Brit delineated countries, the British forces installed some type of "King," usually Hashamites, a clan of the Quraish tribe that claimed desent from Mohammed's great grandfather. After the death of Mohammed and a couple hundred years of fighting, the Hashamites became solidly Sunni. The Quraish Tribe is a big--and wealthy tribe that is very interested in British pounds and American dollars. It was in the British best interest to see these Sunni rulers on the thrones of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Transjordan. There wasn't a chance in hell of getting a Hashamite on the throne in Iran because Iran is a Persian, not Arab nation and almost uniformly Shi'ite.
If you could talk Pew Research to send their pollsters into danger, it would be
interesting to ask the residents of Iraq, "Do you consider yourself an Iraqi?" Once you got
outside of Bagdad, chances are you would find some interesting statistics. Once again, a
resident of the contrived country of Iraq is loyal first to his or her family, second to his
or her tribe, and third to his or her religious group. I doubt that loyalty to country will
make even the top ten. Certainly loyalty to Iraq's military would not make the top ten.
Do you remember that I mentioned that Arabs are rarely alone? That is neither good nor
bad. It is just a fact. One result of this fact is that someone of Arab decent, after he
leaves school, rarely reads. If he or she has a television, the only programs watched with
any regularity are soap operas (both men and women) and football. Why is this important? The average Joe Mohammed doesn't keep up with current events from his newspapers. (Have you ever considered the fact that newspapers report recently occurring events? The same is true of CNN and Fox News. You and I read DKos to find out what is happening now. If DKos contributors wrote only about historical occurrences, it would hardly be as popular.) Joe Mohammed keeps up with (not necessarily current) events by gathering in groups and verbally passing around news. Now here is the interesting point!! When Joe Mohammed is sitting in his neighborhood coffee house or hanging out on a corner with his buddies, the events that he is hearing and relating to have as much of an emotional impact on him regardless of whether that event took place last night in a geographically close neighborhood or if the event took place 300 years ago in a different country (because it wasn't in a different country 300 years ago). Further, if the topic of discussion did take place 300 years ago, the teller of the story can name names, give decendants, and praise the protagonists and excoriate the evil-doers. If you tell an American that on this spot in 1779 the British butchered x-number of American freedom fighters, most Americans don't start planning to bomb Windsor Palace. The same cannot be said of an Iraqi. The 300 year old event is just as fresh and every bit as good a reason as yesterday's massacre for an invasion/incursion into the enemy neighborhood a half mile down the road.
Let's do a little Q&A at this point.
Q: If the American (and coalition) forces were to immediately leave Iraq (cut and
run), would widespread violence break out?
A: Yes. Absolutely.
Q: Who would be fighting whom?
A: The Sunnis would be fighting the Shi'ites, and the Sunnis and Shi'ites would be
fighting the Kurds and any other minority around.
Q: If the American forces stay in Iraq for the next 20 years at a cost of a trillion
dollars every four or five years and manage to completely pacify the country and then pull out, will violence break out?
A: Yes. Definitely.
Q: Who would be fighting whom?
A: The Sunnis would be fighting the Shi'ites, and the Sunnis and Shi'ites would be
fighting the Kurds and any other minority around. You must remember that this violence has been going on for 1200 years! Iraq is not a nation. It is a geographical area on a map that was drawn by a bored British general.
Q: Is there no solution to the violence?
A: Sure! I can think of 2 solutions. And the easiest one of the two solutions is
this!! Get yourself a good solid military strongman. Arm him and finance him and help him build a large organization of completely loyal thugs (loyalty built with hard currency,
family privileges, and a secret police to keep watch over him) made into a strong military
along with powerful secret police network. Tell everyone who lives within the makeshift
boundary of your cobbled together country that if they get out of line, you will kill him,
his wife, his children, his parents, his aunts and uncles, his cousins and nephews and
neices. Remember that family ties are strong--first priority--in the middle east. Then, and
most importantly, make sure that the strongman does kills a bunch of people just to prove to even the doubtful that he means what he says. It would be nice for the strongman to renounce a religious basis for his government--include both Sunnis and Shi'ites--and include the greedy and ambitious of both religions. No Kurds, though. They aren't Arabs. You can call you government a Pan-Arabic government just like Nasser did in Egypt and press for economic development, universal education, and universal healthcare to help the citizenry get over living in a dictatorship. The citizens will be so happy that dozens are not being killed everyday and that their kids are safe that they will willingly abide by the rules. You might even form a political party based on Pan-Arabism and secular government and since there is already another widespread political party in the region expousing those principles, just call it the Ba'ath Party like it is called in Syria and Lebanon. And while you are at it, you might as well call the strongman Saddam Hussein. Now remember, the Ba'ath Party is pan-arab, secular, progressive, and socialist. On occupation of Bagdad, one of the first acts of the U.S. military occupation was to ban the Ba'ath Party out of existence. As far as I know, that was the only significant secular political force in Iraq.
Q: Are you advocating--or heaven help us, praising the government of Saddam?
A: No. Remember that I said there were two possible solutions from recent history.
However, the second solution you will have to wait until my next diary entry (if there is a
next diary entry) to read. However, I do want to make a crucial point. The internal
non-conflict (I started to say peace, but non-conflict is a much more accurate word) that
Iraq "enjoyed" during the reign of Saddam was an abberation, not the norm. The Sunnis and Shi'ites didn't fight each other while Saddam and his thugs were in charge because they knew for certain that they and their families would be severely punished if they did. The "sectarian violence" we now read about on a daily basis is the norm, not an exception. This is the way the Arabs have acted for the last 1200 years and is the way they will continue to act in the future unless (here's a hint of solution #2) as the old song says, "You've got to keep 'em separated!" You also have to remember that Saddam impressed a very large percentage of "military age" youth into has army to fight the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran War and the Invasion of Kuwait and following Desert Storm/Gulf War.
Q: What does this all mean for the American soldier in Iraq?
A: First, unless we train our soldiers to be "thugs" and squash violent behavior with
much more violence (like killing kids, raping, and mutilating people), they will be standing around amid IEDs, car bombs, snipers, and routine violence. Keep in mind, however, that the IEDs, snipers, and car bombs are directed at Sunni Mosques, the Shi'ite pilgrams, and other indeginious people--by in large. But our people will continue to get killed. As soon as one side has a setback, that side will do something to aggravate the occupying force to entice a reaction and try to regain the initiative. Mao wrote this prescription for revolutionary warfare back in the 1930-1950 timeframe to meet the challenge of the Japanese occupation of China and continued existence of Nationalist China. Second, the effect of a tour of duty in Iraq will continue to wound and maim our soldiers both spiritually and psychologically. There is no place they can go where they can let their guard down. As a nation, we still suffer from PTSD of Viet Nam Vets. I am afraid that if we don't get our soldiers out of Iraq and Afganistan, the scars of Viet Nam will be almost minor compared to the gaping wound of Iraq.
Q: Why didn't George I finish Saddam off during the first Gulf War when he had the
chance?
A: George I was much brighter than George II. Back after the startling successes of
the Desert Storm ground operation, George I had a decision to make. He had not expected the success of the ground operation. Are you old enough to remember? At that particular point in time, Saddam's Iraqi Army was the 3d largest army in the world behind the U.S. Military and the People's Republic of China!! Further, Saddam's army had experience. After all, they had fought the Iranian army from 1980-1988 in the Iran-Iraq War where it is estimated over a million soldiers lost their lives. In making his decision, George I considered the following. First, the UN mandate called for repelling Iraq from Kuwait and not occupying Iraq. If he occupied Bagdad, he would loose Arab coalition support. Second, George I had enough sense to listen to Colin Powell, something that George II didn't especially like to do. Powell told him that the American military, while the best equipped and best staffed in the work and verifiably the best at modern blitzkrieg, have always made--and would always make terrible occupation forces and that Iraq would be much harder to occupy than homogenous post-WWII Japan or Germany. If we tried to occupy Iraq, the body count would be high, the cost would be horrendous, and the operation would not have an "end point." And finally, George I had good intelligence advice. While he might not like Saddam, he was even more worried about the Shi'ite Revolutionary Junta in Iran. He knew that the Sunnis and Shi'ites had been going at it for 1200 years but he also knew that the Medes (Mesopotamia, read Iraq) and the Persians (read Iran) had been going at it for 4000 years. The recent Iran-Iraq War had ended in a stalemate and there was this perverse sort of balance of power between Iran and Iraq. With Iran, its military and oil wealth lined up against Iraq, Saddam wouldn't get too far out of line or Iran would attack. But with Saddam still in firm control in Iraq along with what was left of his Army, Iran had to stay in check, also. If Saddam was eliminated and Iraq no longer a threat to Iran, Iran would like flex its muscles and do something stupid like try and enrich uranium and build an atomic bomb. That could mean a disastrous foreign policy dilemma. With Iraq done and gone as a significant power, the "perverse" balance of power in that area was dead.
Q: Didn't George I know that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction?
A: Weeelll, it depends on what you mean by WMD. He knew Saddam didn't have nuclear weapons. Saddam had tried that earlier and Israel took care of that idea. If you mean chemical weapons, specifically artillery and short range missle delivered nerve and mustard gas, of course George I knew that Saddam already had WMDs. After all, the U.S. Department of Commerce has signed off on the export delivery orders for the chemical precursors used to make those WMDs and sold them to Iraq beginning in 1982. It was all arranged by Ronald Reagan's Special Envoy to Iraq in 1982 by the name of Donald Rumsfeld. The WMDs were effectively used against the Kurds by Saddam's forces. Best estimates are that the weapons caused about 300,000 Kurdish deaths. We will never know for sure. Of course, they were sold to Saddam for use against the Iranians. The Iranians scared us to death. Do you remember the American Embassy in Tehran debacle? Ronald Reagan did not like Khomeini. Those artillery rounds are still causing problems. Chemical artillery shells don't store well. Those that are still around are in the process of rusting through and slowly leaking out mustard gas and sarin nerve gas. They are not a threat to us, however. Even the Al-Quida kids aren't stupid enough to mess around with them. Our American NBC units are slowly and very, very
carefully trying to clean them up and dispose of them.
Q: Why didn't Saddam like the Kurds? Why don't the Iraqis like the Kurds? Aren't Kurds followers of the Islamic faith?
A: Yes, the Kurds are Muslim--but they are not of Arab decent. Here is the Kurdish
problem in a nutshell. The Kurds--and there are a lot of them out there--occupy the
highlands in northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, and northwestern Syria. There are also a few in northern Iran. Most of the Kurds live in a contiguous area. If you take a map and pencil and draw a line around the area that is defined by that geographical boundary within which the population is at least 75% Kurdish, you will have a large area that just happens to take in a bit more than half of Iraq's oil reserves, about a quarter of Iran's, and some of the best land in Turkey .If the Kurds became Kurdistan today, they would be rich. Kurds speak Kurdish and have an 8,000-year-old culture and history. Why the Brit general didn't give them a homeland after WWI, I don't know. But I know for sure why Saddam wanted them dead. Every time Iraq gets a bit in a bind, the Kurdish Homeland "Freedom Fighters" pop up and start making trouble. Check out the Kurd uprising during the Iran-Iraq War and Saddam's response to it. But don't check it out with a full stomach. Do they deserve a homeland? Well, most everyone who has considered this problem thinks so except General Sir Percy Cox (that's the bastard's name!! Maybe my senility isn't as bad as I thought!), the Brit General that drew the country boundaries in 1922.
Q: One last question. Are you against democracy and a democratic government in Iraq?
A: Nope. I love Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, also. The last time I checked, there
were about 22 members of the Arab league. Of those 22 members, I think maybe 9 are
hereditary kingdoms. Another 8 or 9 are military/revolutionary/theocratic republics, and the remaining 3 or 4 are "something else." What form of government does Somolia have? The closest to a democracy would have to be Lebanon. However, remember that in Lebanon the President must be a Maronite Catholic, the Prime Minister must be a Sunni, and the Speaker of Parliament must be a Shi'ite. Further, all members of Parliament must be of a certain background, something like 64 Christian and 64 Muslim with the Muslim contingent being 27 Sunni, 27 Shi'ite, 8 Druze, and 2 Alawi. The last time they had a census in Lebanon was back in the 1930's. No one in their right mind suggests having another census to update the population statistics and changed the Parliament requirements. The fighting would never stop! Is this democracy in action? If there is not currently an Arab league democracy, why should we expect the Iraqis to want to be democratic. What the Iraqi wants is to be left alone in his community with his family close and his friends to talk to. For those of you who are my age or older, do you remember Nikita Khruchev coming to the UN in New York, taking off his shoe to bang on the table and shouting, "We will bury you"? Khrushev honestly believed that Communism was inevitable, that the workers of the world would unite and throw off the yoke of capitalist bondage. He was stating the future as he saw it. Today, George II may soon take off his shoe and beat it on a table shouting, "You will be democratic or you will be dead!" It is my opinion that violent, revolutionary democracy in the place of what we used to call "the right of self-determination" will eventually go the same was as violent,
revolutionary communism. If you step back a ways and look at both philosophies, they almost look the same.
So in ending this diary, I want to leave you with the following thoughts.
1. The person who lives in Iraq is not like you and me. But he does care very deeply
about his family, his friends and his tribe. He wants to live in peace but he knows that if
he is a Sunni, he will eventually be harassed and maybe even killed by a Shi'ite. He can
give you a list of family members and close friends who are now dead because they were
killed by the infidel Shi'ites. He wants more than anything else to be left in peace. At
least when Saddam was in charge, the Shi'ites stayed in their neighborhoods, his kids got to go to school, and there was electricity, clean water, and no daily gunfire. If he is a
Shi'ite, he knows that the majority Sunnis will oppress him, bomb his mosques, and kill him and his family with uniformed death squads that make Papa Doc look like the Easter Bunny. At least when Saddam was in charge, the Sunnis stayed in their neighborhood and left the Shi'ites alone. His kids got to go to school, there was electricity, health centers, and clean water. With no one in charge, the boundaries between neighborhoods have fallen apart. Everyday, Sunnis invade. He must retailiate.
2. Remember, regardless of religion, his priority is family, community, tribe, and
then religion. Country and military is not on the list. If a bunch of young Bravos want to
"get something on," the best way is for themto prepare is to enlist in the Iraqi military.
You will be issued a neat American-made M16A1 rifle, trained to use it, given a neat Iraqi military uniform, and then the first time you and your buddies go out on patrol, all you have to do is desert with your uniform, weapon, and basic load of ammo. Next day, if you are Sunni, you can show up in your Iraqi uniform and fire up a Shi'ite neighborhood! Run out of ammo, just lay an ambush for an American patrol, kill them, and take their ammo. And, of course, vice versa. If you have the guts and time, check out the Iraqi Defense Force desertion rate. And while you are at it, see if you can find out what percentage of those deserters go AWOL with their weapons and uniforms!
3. Iraq is not and never was a nation. "Nation building" presumes that you have some
point from which to start. You can actually blame the British for this with their stupidity
after WWI. The only redeeming factor was that they were solely concerned with cheap oil and for a while, at least, it worked. The point is that Iraq will never be a nation. There are only three choices: first, continue as we are doing now at a cost of a trillion dollars
every four or five years and many thousands of lives every year; second, "selectively" cut
and run (this is the timetable thing) and let the Iraqi residents work it out for themselves
(and this will still be very costly); or finally, just accept the truth, get the hell out
right now and let the chips fall where they may. Option three will result in a lasting
peace more quickly than the other two options but will be horribly bloody. If we just get
the hell out, are we asking for another 9/11? Not a chance. They will all be too busy
fighting each other they won't have the time to plan a trip to the bathroom, much less New York City.
Next diary entry: Do you realize that we have successfully executed a situation like Iraq
and pretty damn close brought it to a successful close? In my next diary entry, I am going
to talk about "the former Yugoslavia" and how--after the politician got out and let the
people work out their own solution (including killing and dislocating millions of people)
this makeshift country became (I think) 12 little countries (depending on how you count, it might be 15 if you add "autonomous regions") which at this particular point in time are not shooting at each other. Yugoslavia can be considered "practice." Why? First, in the whole damn place there really isn't anything worth having. There isn't any oil and it is generally mountainous and crappy land. And finally, while Iraq just has Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds, Alwais, Druze, and a few others, Yugoslavia literally had twice as many religio/ethnic groups who have hated and fought each other for a thousand years. Have a nice day!!