On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 16:36:44 GMT, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

True, but only in so far as the first stage of operations. The war
continues. The failure of the US forces (and British) to suppress the
insurgency and sectarian conflict, despite all the cultural and
operational factors outside their control, remains a failure. I think
it's explicable, and understandable, but still a failure to adapt to
changing operational conditions.

If you are only happy by ascribing "failure" to the military
operation, far be it from me to disabuse you of the notion. We aren't
dealing here with changing operational conditions.

I'm afraid we are. The major watershed was the change from
conventional resistance to the US invasion to an insurgency against
"occupation". Subsequent changes have included the evolution of a
multi-agency insurgency (al Queda, Sunni nationalists, then Shia
militias), and then the speculation about training/supporting the
local forces to take the lead.

This isn't fluidity
of a front or unforeseen maneuvering of enemy forces.

If the maneuvering of insurgent forces could be foreseen at a minute
tactical level, the US would be able to defeat them. Until the next
crop of recruits continued the conflict days, weeks or months later.

The enemy has an operational and tactical advantage attained by
abusing the status of civilians and hiding amongst them both to
protect their heroic skins from US military action and to
hypocritically garner support when that action causes civilian
casualties.

It isn't
resistance efforts by an occupied nation to an imperialist force

Who said it was? Don't make the mistake of assuming that I accept the
axiomatic assumptions of "imperialist intervention" which pass for
understanding of the issue in some quarters.

--it
is cultural, tribal and ethnic dissonance very similar to the Balkans.

There is also a real, albeit fundamentally distorted perception of
fighting foreign occupiers, however. That this is rampantly
overstated by Arab prejudice and indoctrinated anti-Americanism
doesn't alter the fact that many insurgents and their supporters
sincerely believe it.

Absent a unifying (and often oppressive) leader like Tito or even
Sadaam, the underlying animosity resurfaces and the national construct
fractures.

Tito was a lot cleverer about masking Serb supremacy with some
pretensions at multi-ethnic window dressing, though. Saddam's
Tikriti-Sunni ascendency was a lot less subtle.

If there is a failure involved, it is very similar to the failure of
Vietnam for American foreign policy. That is, it is the failure to
recognize the culture and the historic background of the regional
strife.

I'd agree with that. It's not as if there are American commentators,
analysts and even some politicians who understand and understood this,
which is where I think there is some grounds for legitimate criticism
of the neo-con ideological approach to the issue. Dissenting views on
tactics were available, and not just from clueless goons in the media,
or unthinking and reflexive anti-war narcissists.

It is a tendency to ascribe Eurocentric values to Asian or
Middle-eastern people. Fundamentalist Muslims may never accept the
concept of Hobbesian rule by "consent of the governed" just as
Southeast Asians may never subjugate family and relationship to the
land to the dictates of the majority as expressed through an arguably
corrupt government.

All true, nonetheless ideological allies (Vietnamese who genuinely
opposed communism/Iraqis who genuinely desire democracy) do exist
amongst the murkier sectarian, ethnic and class divisions. And the
issue isn't about the existance of these other competing loyalties,
but the extent of them and how to 'shape the battlefield' to minimise
the conflicts between 'tribalism' and 'progressive democracy'.

On the contrary, I'd say it's similar to several historical examples,
from the Philippines to numerous Latin American interventions, and
that's simply from within the context of US military history. The
supremacy of the US force's operational and technological capacity
doesn't mean that every situation can be resolved by the blind
application of that doctrinal conventional operational supremacy.

Without applying a shotgun historical approach to your "examples" let
me simply suggest that neither the Philippines nor any recallable
Latin American involvements had the overlay of: 1.) three divergent
religious sects;

Only two of which are fundamentally relevant, and which have numerous
fractures within the sects concerned. SCIRI, for example, are not
identical with Sadr's militia. The larger Sunni/Shia split parallels
the catholic/islamic split in the Philippines.

2.) an imposed national identity from British
colonial rule

Instead they got if from Spanish and American colonial rule. Sorry,
but I don't see this as a critical difference.

; 3.) thirty years of minority control under a
totalitarian, brutal dictatorship;

Yet the divisions in place now reflect the situation in the 1920's
Iraqi revolt, absent maybe the socialist pretensions of the rump
B'aathists. I'd certainly accept that thirty years of B'aathism and
Saddam made things much worse and with more potential for conflict.

4) a distinct separatist movement
seeking national identity in a third of the nation;

There have certainly been seperatists in the Philippines, most notably
the Moros.

5.) a dozen or
more competing warlords seeking ascendency to fill a perceived power
vacuum

This has been de rigeur everywhere historically, but particularly over
much of Asia in the post-colonial era.

and 6.) a recent history of application of weapons of mass
destruction against national enemies and their own people.

That's certainly unique to Iraq, but even then hasn't been of much
relevance to the situation now. The Kurds would still hate Saddam and
distrust Sunni rule without Hallabjah. The Iranians don't need the
victims of chemical attacks to produce casualties suffered by Iraqi
aggresson under Saddam by the same token.

I'd also be hard pressed to label the flexibility demonstrated by the
US military in approaches evolving from the collapse of the Soviet
Union into Desert Storm into Afghanistan into Iraqi Freedom into the
current referee for civil war and scapegoat role as "blind application
of that doctrinal conventional operational supremacy"--whatever that
means.

It means winning against a uniformed enemy without comprehending that
this does not conclude the conflict. The US has plenty of experience
in dealing with insurgencies, and plenty of innovative, thinking
leaders with excellent practical and educational experience. Some
(but not all) of the problems the US forces have faced in Iraq have
been due to the use of counter-productive and innappropriate tactics.
Most of these stem from the early stage of the insurgency, where some
commanders, and certainly the DoD, were reluctant to admit that they
were even facing such a beast, let alone embrace the concept of
modifying tactics and operational strategy to beat it.

Ah, but the wrong tool (the DoD) was used for the nation-building job.
An ideological aversion to the term "nation-building" doesn't excuse
the DoD and military for failing to engage with the neccessity for
doing just that in order to win the war. At least to start with.

It isn't a case of ideological aversion.

It certainly was under Rumsfeld and the "we don't do occupations"-era
Pentagon.

It is recognition of the fact
that the essential function of a military is to kill people and break
things--quicker and more efficiently than the opposition. Period.
"Everything else is rubbish"...B. M. vR

The problem with this is when this approach conflicts with winning the
war. Either you change approach or admit that inflexible operational
doctrine trumps the achievement of strategic aims. Building a
military machine that could destroy the NVA or VC in almost any battle
it chose did not win the Vietnam war.

Please do not resort to such blatant examples of responsible and
rational analysis in future. This is usenet; there are
commonly-accepted standards of random abuse and infantile posturing to
uphold.

Thanks...I needed that! ;-)

I note the lack of personal abuse in this followup. Have you no
shame?

Gavin Bailey

--
Now see message: "Boot sector corrupt. System halted. All data lost."
Spend thousands of dollar on top grade windows system. Result better
than expected. What your problem? - Bart Kwan En