PART 1
The United States, with its military as presently configured, has very little chance of defeating the insurgents in Iraq or in the wider war against terrorism. We are so unprepared that we don’t even call it what it is. Under the principle that to know the enemy is the first step to defeating him, calling it a war against terrorism, while perhaps an effective propaganda stroke, is innacurrate and misleading. Terrorism is not a group or a nation. It is a tactic used by an enemy with a specific strategy for fighting an apparently superior force. In this case the tactics of terrorism are used by Muslim extremists who hate America, Israel and Western Civilization. These extremists come from a number of Arab countries, in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, still many from Afghanistan. Although they are the active extreme they have the tacit support of much of the rest of the Arab populations with moderate muslims so weak that they constitute little likelihood of change.
While Libya seems to have been intimidated into cooperation, Iran stands alone as an Arab enemy. No oher Arab government is as openly anti-american but most of them tolerate a corrosive anti-American and-anti-Semitic culture that all but makes them undeclared enemies. For the purpose of this discussion I will call it the war against Muslim Extremism.
Why do I say that our military as presently consituted cannot defeat the Muslim extremists? The tactics of terrorism are hit, run and scatter. Unlike a regular military organization they don't control territory - at least in the early stages of guerilla conflict. They never collect themselves into a group which can be located and attacked. The entire history of the American military is one of locating an objective, a concentration of the enemy and bringing massive firepower down upon that objective. During the American revolutionary war George Washington located a large contingent of Hessian soldiers in Trenton, crossed the Delaware River and in a daring surprise attack demolished them. In the original Gulf war Saddam's divisions were surrounded by American troops and were nearly annihilated except the the intervention of George H.W. Bush. Early in the second Iraq war, we knew where the enemy was - although they immediately started to dissapear - and in every engagement were able to overpower them. So it was in WWI, WWII and Korea. In Korea, we won every battle in which we controlled the context, in which we understood the size and composition of the enemy. When the Chinese came in it was the Americans who were overwhelmed at first, but even so through standard military doctrine of identifying and attacking objectives we fought to a draw and in the and the ceasefire boundaries were those of the beginning of the war, the 38th parallel.
But in Vietnam we didn't know where the enemy was. In many cases we didn't know who the enemy was. Our soldiers like to say they won every actual battle that took place, but most of the American casualties were the result of hit and run tactics, ambushes, mortar attacks and bombings in which the enemy did its damage and dissappeared before we could respond. It was our failure to conquer these tactics in which we were the objective and the enemy the attacker that lost the war. No matter how many ground troops we put in, no matter how much we bombed the North, we could not stop them from attacking.
We have a similar situation in Iraq. After the original victories over the regular Iraqui military came an insurgency made up of disparate elements, Saddam cronies, an ambitious Shiite cleric and his militia, foreign fighters infiltrating across unguarded borders. Until recently we have not known how many with various estimates in the thousands. Recently I have seen reports of 12000 to 14000 with perhaps another 20000 less active supports and facilitators. They are heavily armed and apparently well funded which signals widespread putside coordination. We know where there are some concentrations of the enemy. We have won only one of the battles, in Samarra. Whatever the political reasons, we have not attacked the other strongholds in force sufficient to eliminate them. If we throw political caution to the wind we could defeat the insurgents in these several cities such as Fallujah. But the insurgency as a whole would go on.
One of the dynamics of terrorist or guerilla tactics is that the insurgents have different short term goals than the occupying force. The occupiers have an interest in total traquility and even an occasional attack means that the territory is not pacified. The insurgents have as their long term goal the overthrow of the occupiers, but in the short term they profit from creating chaos. When they succeed in launching an attack, even if all participants die, they have won the day, as long as they have the ability to launch another attack in short order. For it is the chaos of constant attacks which they believe weakens their enemy's political and military will to fight and in the end withdraw. That is what happened in Vietnam and it is what is happening in Iraq.
There are terrorists attacks occuring all over the country. They are killing our soldiers and they are killing other Iraquis in police stations, recruiting offices and in he streets. We are not stopping them. To be blunt, the United States military has know idea how to fight a well equipped and funded enemy that hits, runs and scatters.
Coming soon PART 2 – How to win.
Does this mean that we are lost in the face of this Muslim Extremist enemy which uses the tactics if terrorism? I don't think so. We have to adapt.
