Bill

Let me begin with the obvious preliminaries: as a veteran of the Vietnam War myself, I know what it means to be in the military during an unpopular war, and so never let it be said that I don't support the troops. I most certainly do. They are stuck executing a ludicrous course of action, and they will do the best that they can, and I do support them. My own brother-in-law is in a Marine reconnissance unit someplace in Iraq, so again, I really do support the troops.

=====

With that said, the situation in Iraq is evolving in a direction that rings strong alarm bells for me, as a veteran of the Vietnam War.

You have all probably heard the old saw about always fighting the last war instead of the current war. Well, Bush is now fighting his last war (the battle in Afghanistan), and those tactics won't work in Iraq. Instead, Iraq is looking one heck of a lot more like the situation in Vietnam, where the US forces could not tell friend from foe, most of the time.

One moment, the US troops are having a casual conversation with somebody that they believe to be a civilian. That person is actually a member of one of the irregular fighting units that are apparently scattered all over Iraq. What that apparent civilian is actually doing is spying for a future attack, which could be as close as minutes away. This is part and parcel of what we were facing in Vietnam: an apparent civilian one moment could show up in black pajamas with a weapon a few moments later.

This wasn't a big secret in Vietnam. Where I was stationed, the rule was that we all had to be back to our duty stations by 5:00 PM because the war would begin promptly at 6:00 PM. During the day, we would go drinking in the town, and everybody knew which bars were open to Americans, which to the ARVN forces, and which to the Viet Kong. You didn't dare walk into the wrong bar, because the "civilians" in there would just as soon kill you on the spot. (There were a few ugly incidents in my unit, the worst of which involved a hand grenade lobbed into the back of a taxi as my comrades were escaping.)

The American strategy depends upon the majority of the civilian population being pro-American enough to accept our armed forces and whatever government we prefer to install. That might have been true in Afghanistan (because, by and large, the bulk of the local warlords were going to pledge their allegience to whichever side had the strongest army). But it certainly does not appear to be true in Iraq.

The analogy for what the US forces seem to be encountering inside of Iraq appears to be a lot closer to what the Israelis have been battling for over 50 years with the Palestinians. The Saddam Fedayeen serve as the equivalent to the Hammas terrorist organization, and it appears that there has been at least one suicide bomber already employed by this group. These are the "black pajama" squads (listen for reports of "black clad" troops in the news reports). These people are the worst sort of fanatics, and it appears that they will never accept a defeat. That means that, much like the situation Israel faces with the Palestinians, the only way to defeat these people is to kill or capture every last one of them. Even if the US successfully captures one or more Iraqi cities, those cities will never be "secure" in any real sense so long as any of the Saddam Fedayeen remain at large.

It also appears that Saddam's model for victory against Bush is the Vietnam War itself. The US forces complain that the Iraqis are not fighting according to the "rules of war." Well, I will remind the US force commanders that this nation was founded by fighters who refused to fight according to the "rules of war." When the British massed in rows in clearings, firing only when signaled, the US forces hid behind trees and picked them off with uncoordinated musket fire. In 1775 at the battle of Concord, that was against the "rules of war" of that day. When you are fighting for the independence of your country, "rules of war" tend to go out the window. The US has little moral high ground to stand upon, given its own history.

So, Saddam has trained his forces to engage the US forces using trickery and deception rather than merely relying upon mutual exchanges of brute force. Well, if I were in Saddam's shoes, and I wanted some sort of a plan to defeat Bush, that's exactly what I would do, and it looks to me like his generals have carefully studied the strategies of the Viet Kong in Vietnam and they have trained their troops to act in just that way: wearing civilian clothes and acting like civilians when it is advantageous to do so, and picking up weapons (and optionally donning the "black pajamas") when it is advantageous to do that, too.

The Israeli army is much tougher about fighting this sort of a war than the Americans are prepared to be. We send good kids over there to battle, and we don't train them in the sort of brutality that is necessary to suppress violence in a recalcitrant population. We don't train our troops to be brutal to civilains at all. This is the Achilles Heel of the American forces, and it appears that Saddam is exploiting that advantage to the maximum amount possible.

==========

The last straw for me was when I read Robert Novak's article on Rumsfeld's refusal to let the military give its professional opinion. This, again, harkens back to the Vietnam war and the time I spent working in the Pentagon. Military decisions at that time were subject to political control from the White House itself. These days, it appears to be Rumsfeld who is "liar in chief" to the President and to the American people.

If an Army general, who is experienced with the occupation of countries, states that it will take "several hundred thousand" occupying forces, then I'd do as the Army Secretary did and defer to the man's opinion. But that goes against Rumsfeld's official political party line, that the occupation will not take very many troops and will be over quickly. Everything playing itself out on the battlefield today appears to be at odds with the assumptions that underlie Rumsfeld's position. If the Iraqi people react as the Palestinian people have done (and I have no reason to believe that they will not do so), several hundred thousand US forces will still be there propping up our puppet Iraqi government several years from now, with no end in sight.

We need to face these facts: the Iraqi people have NEVER known any government that at all resembled a real democracy. They lack the cultural and educational background to make a democracy work. It will take decades of education and training to create an army, civil service, and government that can and will operate in accordance with the principles of western democracies. Since, with the sole exceptions of Israel and Turkey, there isn't a single other middle eastern country that runs as a western-style democracy, this should not be at all surprising.

Most middle eastern countries are ruled by monarchies, even if they are technically "constitutional monarchies," they are still not really "democratic" in the western sense. For instance, women can't vote in most Persian Gulf countries. One good thing that Saddam did is that he insisted on female literacy, but if the religious fundamentalists gain control, it will be back to the traditional ways of female illiteracy and no rights.

If the US holds a fair election, it is a virtual certainty that the Islamic fundamentalists will win, because they have the only organized body politic outside of Saddam's supporters (and Bush has vowed that Saddam's Ba-ath Party will not participate in the future governance of Iraq). The Iraqi educated democrats are just a small minority of the population, and by and large, they escaped Iraq a long time ago (many are residing here in the United States, and also in Western Europe). Those who have "stuck it out" through the past wars and the sanctions regimes, which have gone on for the past two decades or so, are by-and-large either Saddam loyalists or Islamic fundamentalists. Bush will refuse to empower the former, and the latter will be his new "worst enemy."

==========

As I assess things right now, there isn't a good "exit strategy" for the United States. As long as Saddam has recognizable bases and military units left, the USA can degrade or destroy them. But when those targets run out, there is only the impossible battle of trying to hold the Iraqi cities, which are by-and-large populated by a volitile mix of "innocent civilians" (I'm just waiting for the reports of the first time US troops blow away some woman and her kids when they are looking for a "terrorist" in somebody's home), the "terrorist" elements (the Saddam Fedayeen and whatever other similar groups are embedded within the Iraqi people), the religious fundamentalists who desire an Islamic state, and the few educated democrats, most of whom aren't actually inside of Iraq at the present point in time (it being very dangerous for them to be inside of Iraq so long as Saddam is in power).

Basically, the US forces should NOT invade any of the Iraqi cities. When we run out of military bases to take control of, we should then sue for peace on our own terms. We would be better off just demilitarizing Iraq and leaving the Iraqi people to sort out their own government. If that means that Saddam survives, yet again, I believe that is preferable to having the US forces take on the task of pacifying the unpacifiable Iraqi cities.

== Bill

Amen-Moses

I hate to be a pedant, well I don't actually but wtf, but it has nothing to do with Saddam, we Brits trained them that way back in WWI to fight the Turks, we also trained the Palestinians back then too (really they were all part of the same homogeneous groups then).

Worked damn well then as well and I bet the people of Iraq know their history better than we do!

Amen-Moses

HaysooChreesto!

I think that since we've only been in this conflict for 6 days now, that it's a little early to be making Vietnam comparisons.
After re-reading some WWII history last night I was reminded that German soldiers also dressed as civilians, allied soldiers, and also did the pretending to surrender thing. This also happened in Korea and Vietnam. It's nothing new.

Also, when you refer to the war as being unpopular, that's not the case right now in the US. Polls show support for the war to be at close to 70% right now. That can change on a dime, but at this time, the war in Iraq is pretty popular among US citizens. And for a soldiers morale that'll do just fine. I don't think any soldier serving right now gives a damn about what the French or Iranians or anyone else for that matter are thinking.

I don't think we'll ever witness the pathetic spectacle of antiwar activists spitting on soldiers returning home again.

Bill

The popularity of the war exists primarily because the public has been spoon-fed propaganda by the Bush administration and has (so far) bought it in its entirety. I watched an interview with the brother of one of the POWs and he indicated that he thought the war was justified because of the attack on the USA (clearly referring to the 9/11 attack). There aren't any concrete links between Al Queda and Saddam. Bush just lied to the American people, and so far, he has gotten away with it. Also, I'm beginning to wonder just where all of those NBC materials are that Bush claims Saddam has. US forces captured an alleged chemical facility that the inspectors didn't know anything about, but it was reported to have already been cleaned out. Does that mean that Iraq wasn't lying about destroying all of its chemcial weapons? Finally, CNN polled the American people and they believed that US casualties (killed and wounded) would amount to 100-300 total for the war. Well, we are already over the low end of that range, and we aren't even entering any of the big cities yet. Its in urban warfare that the body count really starts to mount because you can't just stand off and level a city with bombs. That kills an unacceptable number of "innocent" civilians. CNN estimated that there will be 17,000 killed or wounded if the casualty rate is equivalent to pre-1990 US wars, which I believe is a better estimate than Bush and his crew are giving to the American people.

The bottom line here is that the war is popular only because of the Bush and Rumsfeldt lies and propaganda. Sooner or later, the people will figure out that they've been lied to, and when that happens, the popularity will evaporate.

== Bill

Mageth

I think Bill has brought up good points to think about. I was around during the Vietnam War and, while I didn't participate (thank the IPU) my brother was over there on the front lines for two rough years while I was a teenager.

That said, I support our troops, and find no fault in them. I still remember the pain that the protestors caused me and my family while my brother was on the front line. For that reason, I choose not to participate in the open anti-war demonstrations. But I don't support the war.

The Vietnam War was quite popular at its outset, but as the war dragged on, casualties (civilian and military) mounted, and the madness of the war was shown by the media, popularity plummeted.

I think there may be parallels to be made between this war and Vietnam, but I don't, of course, think they are exactly comparable.

I think that the next two to five days are critical, and will either prove Bill wrong or a prophet. What worries me is that, as the fight moves to Baghdad, we may well be fighting thousands of troops potentially mixed in with millions of civilians (the Iraqis don't appear willing to evacuate the city). Many of those civilians may choose, or be forced to, fight alongside the troops.If the Iraqis don't up and capitulate (which they don't seem ready to do), we may be faced with the dilemma of causing potentially massive civilian casualties to eradicate the Iraqi troops, and thus reduce our casualties, or to be more careful and selective in our attack, increasing our casualties (the Iraqis don't appear adverse to any tactics, and thus are unlikely to be faced with such a moral/strategic dilemma). Either choice will reduce American enthusiasm for the war.

In any case, I think, as the fight moves to Baghdad, there is a real potential for one or more days to result in dozens if not hundreds of American casualties. Any such day will almost certainly cause a plummet in the approval rating.

And a few such days, with our troops surrounding Baghdad in a potential, bloody "stalemate", may indeed result in calls for a "cease-fire" solution.

I agree that the Al Queda link to Saddam appears to be a fabrication. In addition, if independently-verifiable evidence of WMD are not found, and in significant quantities, the Bush admin will wind up with more egg on its face.

In summary, things have to go pretty much "just right" for America to come out looking good in this. Wars seldom work out that way.

Jimmy Higgins

Well that was well written, but according to Fox News, this thing will be over yesterday.

The one thing that I think you left out Bill is the fact that 40 to 45% of the US will believe anything that Fox reports! And now with rumblings including Russia, this conflict is starting to look more like the beginnings of WWI, then Vietnam. Fox is becoming a grave danger to the US.

Bill

Oh, I will certainly grant you that we certainly aren't doing (as the US did in the 1950s after the French defeat in Vietnam) exactly what was done in Vietnam. That war began with a long, slow build-up until the Tonkin Gulf resolution in 1964, which escalated into a larger, but still slow (taking years) further build-up to (eventually) getting a 500,000 man theater army was in place by the time I got there in 1968. CNN interviewed General Clark and he said that the US needed more troops in Iraq than what we had (apparently referring at least to the three Army divisions that were stranded in the Mediteranian Sea while Turkey dithered about letting us use their land for bases), but we still got 300,000 troops in place fairly rapidly.

But what I was really referring to is that it is increasingly clear, even at this early stage, that the Iraqi population isn't welcoming us with open arms as a liberating army, the way that the Italians greeted the Americans as Patton marched through Sicily, for instance. I doubt that the reaction of the average Iraqi would be so very different than the reaction of the average Arab in other countries: lots of protests against the US-led war, and virtually no shows of support in the Arab world. Even Saudi Arabia is calling for a cease fire. The only real support we have in the Arab world are Kuwait and Qatar, both of whom have axes to grind against Saddam.

Bush sold this war to the American people as a war of liberation for Iraq. We were going in to liberate the Iraqi people. Did Bush ask any of them if they really wanted to be liberated? I don't think so. Its a pure propaganda play. The soldiers who are surrendering are the hungry ones that Saddam didn't give a damn about. Yes, some civilians appear to hate Saddam and welcome the Americans. But a far larger group appears to be part of the "irregulars" who are fighting us, and the bulk of the civilians appear to hate the Americans even more than any ill will they might have for Saddam.

I sincerely doubt that the majority of the Iraqi people would willingly subjugate themselves to the American military, even if it meant losing their current leadership. If the shoe were on the other foot, as much as I hate Bush, I would not welcome an invading army from any other country to depose him.

== Bill

Bill

Yeah, Bush and Rumsfeldt don't need a minister of propaganda so long as Fox News is still on the air......

Good observation, Jimmy!

== Bill

Zar

Not that I approve of this, but only a comitted militarist and conqueror would put this on the top of their list of concerns re: the Vietnam War. The U.S. government itself was, and has continued to be, as guilty as a few of these nuts at giving poor treatment to veterans. Stop focusing on what a few idiots do and look to what is done on a mass scale by the government once in a while.

enemigo

This is something that has been bothering me too.. A Knight-Ridder poll from January got these results on the following question:

Q.19 As far as you know, how many of the September 11th terrorist hijackers were Iraqi citizens...

Most of them 21%
Some of them 23%
Just one 6%
none 17%
don't know 33%

About half of Americans think that Saddam was involved with September 11th as well... The Bush administration has never explicitly said that, but everytime I've heard Saddam or Iraq mentioned by Bush, Rumsfeld, etc... they have mentioned September 11th or al Qaeda in the practically the same breath.


richard