Is Iraq like “Groundhog Day” or “whack a mole”?

On of the great questions about the Iraq War concerns finding the right metaphor.  Is it the movie “Groundhog Day”, in which Bill Murray repeats the same day endlessly — until he achieves enlightenment?  Or is it the Long Game, round after round of whack-a-mole?  Compare and contrast these news stories, highlighted today by Juan Cole at Informed Comment.   Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city.  Which story is dated January and which May?  How do they differ?  Post your verdict in the comments.

I.  “Iraq moves troops and tanks to Mosul“, Reuters — Excerpt:

Iraqi troop reinforcements will arrive in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday while tanks and helicopters are being sent for a big operation against al Qaeda militants, security officials said.  Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced on Friday that Iraqi security forces were preparing for a final offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq to push the Sunni Islamist militants out of their last major urban stronghold.

Your COIN at work

 I love reading about our awesome new COIN tactics.  Sophisticated info ops, winning hearts and minds of the locals – so unlike our Vietnam era tactics of

1. intensive use of air power, 
2. sweeps (search and destroy or clear), and
3. training popular front militia.

So we turn to this week’s news stories to see COIN done right.

I.  “Residents says Iraqi soldiers warn them to leave Sadr City“, AP  (8 May 2008) — “Residents say Iraqi soldiers warning them to leave homes in Sadr City for security reasons. … go to Sadr City to go to nearby soccer stadiums {for how long?, in what conditions?}.”

II.  “resource tradeoffs and the war on ideas“, March Lynch posted at Abu Aardvark (9 May 2008) — “the US government is cutting loose one of its best analysts of al-Qaeda’s use of the internet in order to save money which doesn’t even amount to a rounding error in the Pentagons budget.”

The articles and excerpts 

I was wrong about SecDef Gates - here is a more accurate view of him

I apologize to those of you who read yesterday’s post about Secretary of Defense Gates.  I read his recent speeches with my mind closed.  Fortunately Tom Engelhardt sees what the rest of us overlook.  Consider Gates’ 4 April speech at West Point.

Last year I read Partners in Command, a book by Mark Perry. It is an account of the unique relationship between Eisenhower and General George Marshall … one of the things I found compelling is how they were both influenced by another senior Army officer who is not nearly as well-known and in fact, as a reader of history, I had never heard of.

His name is Fox Conner, a tutor and mentor to both Eisenhower and Marshall. … From Conner, Marshall and Eisenhower learned much about leadership and the conduct of war. Conner had three principles of war for a democracy that he imparted to Eisenhower and Marshall. They were:

• Never fight unless you have to;
• Never fight alone;
• And never fight for long.

All things being equal, these principles are pretty straightforward and strategically sound. We’ve heard variants of them in the decades since, perhaps most recently in the Powell doctrine.

But of course, all things are not equal, particularly when you think about the range and complexity of the threats facing America today, from the wars we are in to the conflicts we are most likely to fight. So tonight I’d like to discuss with you how you should think about applying Fox Conner’s three axioms to the security challenges of the 21st century, the challenges where you will be on the front lines.

Gates then explains that we will no longer follow these principles — and will do the opposite.  This is the build-up to the heart of the speech (bold emphasis added):

A militant America, ready for war with Iran

Who Stopped the Talks?“, posted at Abu Muqawama (6 May 2008) — Opening:

Dr. iRack took note of some big news today: the Iranians have decided to halt talks with the United States over the security situation in Iraq until American forces stop their assault on Sadr City.  According to the New York Times:…

Typically terse and excellent analysis from Abu Muqawama, about an important subject, and well worth reading.  This news brings to mind — again – America’s objectives in the Middle East.  Bush and his officials appear to believe that we can talk or bully Iran into allowing us to reshape Iraq into a giant forward operating base.  Like so many others, I wonder how strongly we would resist Iran’s efforts to do the same with Mexico or Canada.  Making the almost impossible a key foreign policy objective guarantees interesting times for America.

Also fascinating on this and similar sites are the frequent recommendations in the comments section to unleash the dogs of war — usually without objection from others.  Without mention of costs (money or blood), odds of success, risks, or potential adverse consequences.  Not that different from the sabre-rattling of the Bush Administration.

Mocking the “culture clash” reporting about the Iraq War

Spencer Ackerman makes a valid observation.

Is this really such a culture clash?

“Blackwater shooting highlights a U.S., Iraq culture clash“, LA Times (4 may 2008) — Excerpt:

U.S. officials painstakingly examine evidence and laws while attempting to satisfy victims’ claims through cash compensation.

But traditional Arab society values honor and decorum above all. If a man kills or badly injures someone in an accident, both families convene a tribal summit. The perpetrator admits responsibility, commiserates with the victim, pays medical expenses and other compensation, all over glasses of tea in a tribal tent.

“Our system is so different from theirs,” said David Mack, a former U.S. diplomat who has served in American embassies in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. “An honor settlement has to be both financial and it has to have the right symbolism. We would never accept their way of doing things, and they don’t accept ours.”

If an unaccountable band of politically-connected soldiers-of-fortune shot my mother as she was trying to flee from a traffic circle, and the State Department offered me $5,000 in order to make the incident go away, I would not only be angry, I would be exploring my options for revenge. You don’t have to be an Iraqi to understand this.

In ”Culture Clash” Matthew Yglesias goes one more step with this analysis. – Excerpt:

Successful info ops, but who are the targets?

 This looks like good news:

U.S., Allies See Progress in Selling Al-Qaeda As an Enemy to the Muslim World“, Walter Pincus, Washington Post  (28 April 2008) — Excerpt:

“More and more Muslim and Arab populations — [including] clerics and scholars — are questioning the value of al-Qaeda’s program,” Juan Carlos Zarate, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, said Wednesday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Or, it might be bad news:

“Using Info Operations to Defeat AQ“, Marc Lynch, posted at Abu Aardvark (29 April 2008) — Excerpt:

Thanks to Matt Armstrong for tipping me off to the online proceedings of the 2008 Unrestricted Warfare Symposiumat Johns Hopkins, which includes an interesting set of briefing slides by Col. Karen Lloyd of J3, Joint IO Warfare Center.   The interesting part of her presentation was what appears, from the slides, to be some frank discussion of what the US is currently doing in the information operations arena against al-Qaeda, including from Slide 6 …

… Now, compare this to an April 23 speech at the Washington Institute by deputy national security advisor for combatting terrorism Juan Zarate called “Winning the War on Terror,” which offered four examples of the “growing rejection of the al-Qaida program and message”:
 
These examples offered by a senior American official to an American audience in support of the claim that “al-Qaeda is losing” (persuasive enough to merit a story in the Washington Post) mirror, nearly point for point, the examples presented by Col. Lloyd of successful US information operations aimed at defeating al-Qaeda.

Only our amnesia makes reading the newspapers bearable

Tom Englehardt’s TomDispatch always goes to the top of my reading pile.  Tom publishes long, complex articles which compare to the average blog post like the Lincoln-Douglas debates to our Presidential pretend-jousts.  Today he pens another classic:   ”Petraeus, Falling Upwards — The Petraeus Story“.  Excerpt:

You simply can’t pile up enough adjectives when it comes to the general, who, at a relatively young age, was already a runner-up for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2007. His record is stellar. His tactical sense extraordinary. His strategic ability, when it comes to mounting a campaign, beyond compare.

I’m speaking, of course, of General David Petraeus, the President’s surge commander in Iraq and, as of last week, the newly nominated head of U.S. Central Command (Centcom) for all of the Middle East and beyond… And the campaign I have in mind has been his years’ long wooing and winning of the American media, in the process of which he sold himself as a true American hero, a Caesar of celebrity.

… This, after all, is the man who, in the summer of 2004, as a mere three-star general being sent back to Baghdad to train the Iraqi army, made Newsweek’s cover under the caption, “Can This Man Save Iraq?” (The article’s subtitle — with the “yes” practically etched into it — read: “Mission Impossible? David Petraeus Is Tasked with Rebuilding Iraq’s Security Forces. An Up-close Look at the Only Real Exit Plan the United States Has — the Man Himself”).

It gets better, and is worth reading in full.  The over the top gushing about General Petraeus mocks the journalism profession’s ideals – especially in light of increasing evidence of the mainstream media’s cooperation with our government’s information operations against the American people.  (some links appear below).  Note:  this post discusses the media, not the General.

Some interesting reading for your weekend

Contents

I.  Articles by and about Ann Marlowe, the Human Terrain System, and the Afghanistan War have been added to the ”Antrhopologists Go to War” reference page.

II.  “Costly Lesson on How Not to Build a Navy Ship“, New York Times (25 April 2008) –  An amazing new chapter in the story of the Navy’s death Spiral.  

III.  “Iraqi forces see victory in Basra“, Inside Iraq Blog at The Times (25 April 2008) — More evidence that the war bloggers were right, the area experts wrong about the fighting in Basra.

IV.  “Drug Battle Leaves 15 Slain in Tijuana“, Reuters (26 April 2008) — Mexico internal security situation continues to deteriorate, another “Decline of the State” in progress.  More on this tomorrow.

V.  Update:  “Why this crisis is still far from finished“, Mohamed El-Erian, Financial Times (24 April 2008) — The financial fore-shocks have passed, but major shock — the recession — lies ahead.

VI.  Update: “The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke“, Chalmers Johnson, Le Monde diplomatique (26 April 2008) — “60 years of enormous military spending is taking a dramatic toll on the rest of the economy.”

Here are this week’s news stories you might have missed…

I.  Articles by and about Ann Marlowe, the Human Terrain System, and the Afghanistan War

Roads in Afghanistan, a new weapon to win 4GW’s?

A new article by Dr. David Kilcullen: “Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency“, posted at the Small Wars Council (24 April 2008) — “Road-Building in Afghanistan, Part 1 of a Series on Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency”

Over the past eight years Kilcullen has laid a profound theoretical foundation for COIN on which he has written many articles rich with operational insights and recommendations. Here is a full archive of his work: The Essential 4GW reading list: David Kilcullen.

One fascinating aspect of Kilcullen’s work is the relative absence of critical review. Such attention is usually an indicator of significance, and his work is powerful in both an intellectual and operational sense. Why so little analytical attention? Even Newton and Einstein had their critics.

I posted this question (and a link to my archive of Kilcullen’s work) in the comments at both the Small Wars Journal and at Zenpundit. The SWJ Editor(s) deleted both (too disturbing to the troops, perhaps). At the Zenpundit there were two replies. First, from the Zenpundit himself:

Who was right about Basra — experts or war bloggers?

Here is the first follow-up to the my series of posts about the fighting in Basra, a test of credibility — matching the reporting from Iraq by some war bloggers against the analysis of area experts at home.  There are two sets of mainstream media articles displayed below. 

1. Articles by two major publications that in effect say the war bloggers were correct.  These deserve close attention.
2. Current news about important developments since the fighting.

It is too soon to draw conclusions, but not too soon to start keeping score.

The first group — major media adopting the victory narrative?

Mosul is just like Chicago!

The Instapundit keeps America informed about events in Iraq:

“CHICAGO SOUNDS LIKE MOSUL:” That’s an email from . . . Michael Yon, who knows his Mosul. Here’s the story on last weekend’s violence {in Chicago}.

Still, they’re different: One has crooked officials, violent gangs with their hooks into government and law enforcement, and a culture of corruption that has resisted the central government’s effects to clean it up, and the other is a city in Iraq.

To test this astounding theory, please review a few news stories from Mosul.  I randomly selected from Juan Cole’s Informed Comment (links go to the actual news report).  This is not a complete record, as I gave up after a half hour.

The Internet can make us smarter — or dumber.  The result of the tool depends on the user.  If we seek only evidence that confirms our opinions, we will be stupid — no matter what 21st century technology we use.  At the end of this post are links to other articles in this series about the two different views of Iraq that Americans see in their news media.

FYI:  Michael Yon has a new book out:  Moment of Truth in Iraq.

Update: 

Was this a joke?  Probably.  But it fits in the narrative of increasing security in Iraq, which has been overstated often in recent months.  A quick Google search suggests that this comparison was taken seriously by many (examples here and here), which should be no surprise given the intense propaganda campaign during the past year for the “victory narrative.”  Violence in much of Iraq continues at horrific levels, and much of the commentary about Iraq does not well reflect this.  In my opinion, violence at this level — continuing for so many years, with no end in sight — is not a fit subject for humor.  Tears, yes.  Jokes, no.

News stories about violence in Mosul

“Round-up of Daily Violence in Iraq, Thursday 17 January 2008“, McClatchy

Two views of Fallujah - which tells us more about the future?

One consistent oddity of the Iraq War is that we read two streams of reports about it, so different that they might be of different wars.  Here are two such.  One from a mainstream media source.  One from Michael Totten, one of the best-known war-bloggers.  Both are balanced, Totten’s especially so, but they give us alternative perspectives.  Which tells us about the future of Iraq and our war?

“Hope for Iraq’s Meanest City“, Michael J. Totten (13 April 2008), also published in City Journal – Except:

The insurgency arose in Fallujah before spreading to the rest of the country. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that the insurgents—now on the run elsewhere in Iraq—were first beaten here in the City of Mosques.

… When American soldiers and Marines abandoned Fallujahin the early days of the war, it wasn’t ready to stand on its own. They are more certain now that their work is nearly finished. Almost all the Army soldiers have left, and only two jobs remain for the Marines: repairing the city; and preparing the local authorities to stand on their own. Most of the effort goes into training the Iraqi police.

… Fallujah’s worst days are likely behind it. “The al-Qaida leadership outside dumped huge amounts of money and people and arms into Anbar Province,” says Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman, who oversees an area just north of Ramadi. “They poured everything they had into this place. The battle against Americans in Anbar became their most important fight in the world. And they lost.”

“Five Years On, Fallujah in Tatters“, Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service, 14 April 2008 — Except:

Fallujah remains a crippled city more than two years after the November 2004 U.S.-led assault.  Unemployment, and lack of medical care and safe drinking water in the city 60 km west of Baghdad remain a continuous problem. Freedom of movement is still curtailed.

 Totten paints a picture of life in Fallujah.

The media discover info ops, with outrage!

The media have discovered that our military has mastered the key 4GW skill of running information operations.  Thoroughly researched and well-written, the following is probably one of the most important news stories of the year.   I strongly recommend reading it.

“Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand“, New York Times, 20 April 2008 — “A Pentagon Campaign:  Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks. “

This should not be news.  In November 2007 I described good news:  our military had learned how to run successful information operations.  Unfortunately, they were running them against us.  Mine was not the first such article. 

One of the best to date examined the propaganda of the pre-war and early war phases.  Boehlert’s account of Bush’s Imperial press conference on 6 March 2003 is worth the price of his book, recounting the moment in which “please stand for the President of the United States” in effect gave way to to “bow before the President of the United States.”

“Lapdogs“, Eric Boehlert, Salon (4 May 2006) — “Cowardly and clueless, the U.S. media abandoned its post as Bush led the country into a disastrous war. A look inside one of the great journalistic collapses of our time. This is an excerpt from former Salon senior writer Eric Boehlert’s new book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.”

Many do not see any problem with this, like this post at Winds of Change.  Almost nobody discusses the real problem with government propaganda:  it undermines people’s trust of and identification with the State.  That is bad even for tyrannies like the USSR; it is a potentially terminal problem for a republic. 

Whatever the short-term benefits of info ops — in this case, building public support for a long war — it undermines the foundation of our political regime.  That should be an unacceptable price in the Decline of the State era, in which strengthening people’s relationship with the government must be a paramount strategic goal.

Update:  A comment about this story by W. Patrick Lang (Colonel, US Army, retired), posted at Sic Semper Tyrannis (19 April 2008):

I was invited to one briefing at the Pentagon. At the meeting, many of those mentioned in this article were present. The purpose of the meeting was to give Rumsfeld the chance to explain the Abu Ghraib mess. I asked some awkward questions and was not invited again.

Update:  A comment by Matt Armstrong at MountainRunner (23 April 2008) that concurs with my conclusion (mentioned above).  The full post is worth reading!  Excerpt:

In the end, I don’t see this as an issue of legality, but one of credibility and trust. The Rumsfeldian Defense Department clearly failed to understand the importance of these two elements in Information Age conflict and counterinsurgency, which has been ably documented elsewhere.

( click for more about how our military has mastered this key 21st century military skill)

We are withdrawing from Afghanistan, too (eventually)

As our Long War continues with no end in sight, it is easy to lose perspective on the course of the war.  This brief survey illustrates one aspect of the Afghanistan Campaign.  Like Iraq, it began with fantastic success — then has slowly deteriorated as our 4GW foes evolve and their “home court” advantage works against us.  Note the links at the end to more information about the Afghanistan War.

The following results from a quick search of the Stratfor database.   My thanks to Stratfor, provider of a premier private geopoltical reporting and archive service.  They make this kind of research fast and easy.
 
Afghanistan: War ‘Over,’ But Combat To Continue (May 5, 2003)

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced May 1 that “major combat activity” in Afghanistan has ended. However, the events of recent months have shown that conflict — though no longer on the scale of Operation Anaconda — is far from past. If Rumsfeld’s announcement is followed by a draw-down in combat forces and support, the United States will be left more vulnerable to attacks by Islamist militants and warlords.

 NATO Troop Strength In Afghanistan  (February 4, 2004)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) seeks to more than double its presence in Afghanistan, the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily reported on Feb. 4.  According to the German daily, NATO will consider plans to raise the number of troops from the current 6,000 to 14,000. … another detachment of 12,000 U.S.-led forces, separate from the NATO-led peacekeepers, is engaged in tracking down Taliban militants and their jihadist allies in southern and eastern Afghanistan. There are plans to put these troops under NATO control and to construct an Afghan headquarters for Eurocorps, a five-nation military alliance.

Another volley in the battle of the anthropologists

A volley of shots in the battle of the antropologists:

1. “A Gun in One Hand, A Pen in the Other“, Newsweek (12 April 2008) — “The Army is spending millions to hire ‘experts’ to analyze Iraqi society. If only they could find some.”
2. Dr. Montgomery McFate replies in “HTS and Newsweek”, posted at the Small Wars Journal (17 April 2008).  Abu Muqawama calls this a ”smackdown”; Kings of War says she “swatted down” Newseek.

{Note the update at the end of this post}  Dr. McFate has some substantial and legitimate objections to Newsweek’s article, but imo her major objections are lost amidst the trivial ones, giving an overall impression of “ankle-biting.”  One example:

(#6) Social scientists earn “$300,000″ a year - Overstated. This is true only if hazard pay, overtime, and danger pay are included. The base salary is a low six figures.

This is weak. This is not a significant correction.  Also, people earning six figures seldom get overtime pay. This would have been more serious if phrased as ”their salary is low six figures, but of course they get extra pay for as appropriate for dangers and hazards.”

For a full account of this battle about the role of social scientists in war, see Anthropologists go to war AND Revolt of the Anthropologists, with links to the major articles on both sides.

Update:  I owe Newsweek an apology

I re-read both articles.  Of Dr. McFate’s 13 “factual errors”, I count…

• three corrections of biographical details (#3 - 5, which I presume are correct),
• six corrections on trivial points (e.g., Newsweek said “special forces” instead of “special ops”) — nbrs 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13;
• two points which seems disputable (#1, as the HTS has been described in various ways by officials in participants; #12 which depends on period one considers);
• two corrections in which Dr. McFate misunderstands what Newsweek said — nbrs. 2 and 6.

The misunderstandings seem willful for a person of Dr. McFate’s education.  In #2, Newsweek was clearly referring to the social scientists on the team.  #6 is discussed above.  

Please share your comments by posting below (brief and relevant, please) or email me at fabmaximus at hotmail dot com (note the spam-protected spelling).