The lessons of war?

[noviapriani]

It's about an American general, billed as a "Colin Powell type" lolol, who is trapped in Afghanistan with a few SF men who were serving as his escort and he and they have to fight their way out. Very relevant to our own day. Very well written. Very much enjoyed.

Which brings me to the theme of this thread. I tend to agree that boots on the ground are stupid. We need to listen to Clausewitz. "War is an extension of politics by other means.".

Well, we're not really engaged in politics in these countries, as they all hate us, there's no real give and take between the US and our ME enemies. We don't really have a strategic goal, other than protecting our access to oil.

So, it is idiotic for us be involved in their internecine squabbles--if they want to kill each other rather than rebuilding their nation, that's fine by me. I regret the Smirking Chimp's dragging us to war there to make himself feel like a man (apparently, even that wasn't enough since he had to pad his flight suit...something tells that he needs a pair of tweezers to pee).

Here is the disappointing part.Suggest that thought be given to the trends and methods.  But of course that does require thought.  With just the slightest war buzz the Americans people sign up yet once again. wtf?

While I take exception with the accuracy of a few points in your OP, I do agree with the importance of analyzing what we have done and what we are doing.  If we ignore the partisan cabbage heads who support/oppose Bush/Obama no matter what, I think it would be fair to say most are uneasy about what we are doing, in no small part because most of us aren't really sure what we are doing.  As you have rightly noted in other threads, Obama is not seeking authorization and besides not being legal, it means the national debate was not had and it was not had early on despite the fact our government (the WH and Congressional committees) knew this was a building threat...we are there already and if this action really is necessary, we are late to the game. 

[Lethn]

After seeing governments in action, how they make decisions and the actual ways they make war, I have become convinced they are paranoid delusional people that are endlessly chasing after a hidden and invisible enemy that they can mysteriously never find despite having infra-red/Thermal Imaging cameras and satellite technology at their disposal, in their pursuit of this imaginary enemy they create countless more and decide it is the fault of the people who attack them not they themselves that are the problem.

I truly believe that the people in power need to be put in mental hospitals, not given codes to nuclear weaponry, it's definitely been down to luck we haven't all been killed yet, as for what we should do about extremists, I have nothing against self-defence. If somebody is trying to kill you fight back, the problem is that the people in charge want to take away that so that no one has any means to stop it and the problem with that logic is they can't be everywhere at once and get to pick and choose who lives and who dies in such a situation.

[noviapriani]

Lessons learned: We were safer under bush because he really did have al qaida on the run and without money to finance their terrorism. That leaving Iraq created a void that terrorist filled just like bush warned and the military predicted. And that IED's in the ME are preferable to IED's in America. BTW if you take the subways in NYC, they're the planned target for terrorist IED's.

I always appreciate your sense of humor, like the post above.

 "Safer under Bush". Wowee Skipper. Um, just to remind you it was Bush ignoring warnings that bought us 9/11 the greatest act of terrorism in our history. And it has been under Obama that zero acts of terrorism have happened on our soil. And safer under bush got hundreds of thousand of Iraqi's killed, millions displaced and nearly 5,000 of our young men and women dead.

Personally, I didn't spent much time or effort considering why we went to Afghanistan (seemed like a no brainer after we were attacked), but I did spent a ton of both considering why we went to Iraq (my support was largely conditioned on the fact it did not appear to me that there was a better solution at the time to what was a legitimate threat).   I did support both wars and still believe both were justified in the sense we had sound reasons.   But I no longer believe either were prudent, in part because of regional and global realities and in part because of US war policy realities (which includes political infighting, public sentiment, and economic realities). In short, I really did believe we would execute them differently per the lessons of Viet Nam...but we did not.   We have also spent a shit ton on homeland security which to me looks a lot like citizens losing civil rights while our borders are leaking like a sieve which includes those from ME hotspots, AS homegrown terrorists are traveling freely from here to Syria and back.  

[noviapriani]

My reluctance to embrace Obama's plan is not because of "blind partisan hatred".  My reluctance is because (a) I'd like to not continue to repeat past mistakes and (b) I really have no firm idea what we are actually doing or why we are doing it, and worse I don't have confidence that Obama does either.  His own cabinet appears conflicted and in disarray and so does the collective messaging and the means.   And the harsh reality is Obama is not trustworthy even to his own promises.  He has said A LOT of things to get elected, and he is doing A LOT of things which are the exact opposite...and by that I mean just like Bush and often to a greater degree.  Congress, both parties, is politically in a position to be damned if they do and damned if they don't in terms of keeping their own jobs, so this whole situation just seems absent of grown ups. 


You asked the question "what if we just said no"...the implication being doing nothing, correct?   Does that mean literally nothing (military, intelligence, weapons, $$$, diplomacy) or do you mean just no air strikes?   And what would you suggest we do if/when we are attacked from a nation state or those working from base of operations in a nation state?  Or one our allies?   


Here are two pieces I read this morning, and I'd love to hear what some of you think of these opinions.  The first is Krauthammer:

Our real Syria strategy — containment-plus
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-our-real-syria-strategy--containment-plus/2014/09/25/dd8828b2-44e9-11e4-9a15-137aa0153527_story.html

[noviapriani]

Here is the other...I have no idea who this person is.  I found the link in the comment section to Krauthammer's piece.  You can skip past his opening comments (the first 5 or so paragraphs) as it pertains to this discussion...it is his analysis on the past and present I am submitting for consideration:


http://amishmashpaddywhack.blogspot.com/2013/09/deja-vu-in-syria.html?m=1



In closing, I am currently favoring what no one is really discussing...and that is a formal three state solution for Iraq as well as butting out from deposing Assad.  I think there is a role for our military might,  I do not think it would be to our long term geo political strategic advantage to completely remove ourselves from the area, but but we need to  foster a more advantageous political solution or the military strikes will be indefinite (see both links above). AND I think we need to work faster and harder for real oil independence and to protect the homeland for real. 

[noviapriani]

One more comment......And then there is this which doesn't just give lie to "won the red line fight" but also discusses the elephant in the room which is Iran, who is also busy moving forward on nukes, thankful we removed the sanctions that were actually having an impact: 


Assad Reported to Have Used Chemical Weapons Again
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/why-does-iranian-axis-get-pass_806123.html

[sana8410]

One more comment......And then there is this which doesn't just give lie to "won the red line fight" but also discusses the elephant in the room which is Iran, who is also busy moving forward on nukes, thankful we removed the sanctions that were actually having an impact: 


Assad Reported to Have Used Chemical Weapons Again
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/why-does-iranian-axis-get-pass_806123.html

You and I are largely in agreement on this issue except for the conclusion.

I mentioned Thomas Friedman, who is I think something of a regional expert on this. Here is his article:

 

LONDON — An existential struggle is taking place in the Arab world today. But is it ours or is it theirs? Before we step up military action in Iraq and Syria, that’s the question that needs answering.

What concerns me most about President Obama’s decision to re-engage in Iraq is that it feels as if it’s being done in response to some deliberately exaggerated fears — fear engendered by YouTube videos of the beheadings of two U.S. journalists — and fear that ISIS, a.k.a., the Islamic State, is coming to a mall near you. How did we start getting so afraid again so fast? Didn’t we build a Department of Homeland Security?

I am not dismissing ISIS. Obama is right that ISIS needs to be degraded and destroyed. But when you act out of fear, you don’t think strategically and you glide over essential questions, like why is it that Shiite Iran, which helped trigger this whole Sunni rebellion in Iraq, is scoffing at even coordinating with us, and Turkey and some Arab states are setting limits on their involvement?

When I read that, I think that Nader Mousavizadeh, who co-leads the global consulting firm Macro Advisory Partners, is correct when he says: “When it comes to intervening in the Arab world’s existential struggle, we have to stop and ask ourselves why we have such a challenge getting them to help us save them.”

So before we get in any deeper, let’s ask some radical questions, starting with: What if we did nothing? George Friedman (no relation), the chairman of Stratfor, raised this idea in his recent essay on Stratfor.com, “The Virtue of Subtlety.” He notes that the ISIS uprising was the inevitable Sunni backlash to being brutally stripped of power and resources by the pro-Iranian Shiite governments and militias in Baghdad and Syria. But then he asks:

Is ISIS “really a problem for the United States? The American interest is not stability but the existence of a dynamic balance of power in which all players are effectively paralyzed so that no one who would threaten the United States emerges. ... But the principle of balance of power does not mean that balance must be maintained directly. Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia have far more at stake in this than the United States. So long as they believe that the United States will attempt to control the situation, it is perfectly rational for them to back off and watch, or act in the margins, or even hinder the Americans. The United States must turn this from a balance of power between Syria and Iraq to a balance of power among this trio of regional powers. They have far more at stake and, absent the United States, they have no choice but to involve themselves. They cannot stand by and watch a chaos that could spread to them.”

[sana8410]

Therefore, he concludes, the best U.S. strategy rests in us “doing as little as possible and forcing regional powers into the fray, then in maintaining the balance of power in this coalition.” I am not sure, but it’s worth debating.

Here’s another question: What’s this war really about?
“This is a war over the soul of Islam — that is what differentiates this moment from all others,” argues Ahmad Khalidi, a Palestinian scholar associated with St. Antony’s College, Oxford. Here is why: For decades, Saudi Arabia has been the top funder of the mosques and schools throughout the Muslim world that promote the most puritanical version of Islam, known as Salafism, which is hostile to modernity, women and religious pluralism, or even Islamic pluralism.

 Allegedly our government always implements the best possible solutions and smart strategies but for some strange reason those measures never...

    Saudi financing for these groups is a byproduct of the ruling bargain there between the al-Saud family and its Salafist religious establishment, known as the Wahhabis. The al-Sauds get to rule and live how they like behind walls, and the Wahhabis get to propagate Salafist Islam both inside Saudi Arabia and across the Muslim world, using Saudi oil wealth. Saudi Arabia is, in effect, helping to fund both the war against ISIS and the Islamist ideology that creates ISIS members (some 1,000 Saudis are believed to be fighting with jihadist groups in Syria), through Salafist mosques in Europe, Pakistan, Central Asia and the Arab world.

This game has reached its limit. First, because ISIS presents a challenge to Saudi Arabia. ISIS says it is the “caliphate,” the center of Islam. Saudi Arabia believes it is the center. And, second, ISIS is threatening Muslims everywhere. Khalidi told me of a Muslim woman friend in London who says she’s afraid to go out with her head scarf on for fear that people will believe she is with ISIS — just for dressing as a Muslim. Saudi Arabia cannot continue fighting ISIS and feeding the ideology that nurtures ISIS. It will hurt more and more Muslims.

We, too, have to stop tolerating this. For years, the U.S. has “played the role of the central bank of Middle East stability,” noted Mousavizadeh. “Just as the European Central Bank funding delays the day that France has to go through structural reforms, America’s security umbrella,” always there no matter what the Saudis do, “has delayed the day that Saudi Arabia has to face up to its internal contradictions,” and reform its toxic ruling bargain. The future of Islam and our success against ISIS depend onit. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/opinion/thomas-friedman-isis-and-the-arab-world.html?_r=0

 

 

My position on this mirrors his almost exactly.

[NapoleonBonaparte]

I think the quote from Fallout 3 is very relevant.  "War. War never changes".

The winning side reaps all the benefit of a war. I hardly call that never changes.

[noviapriani]

The conclusion:


In other words, Obama seems to believe, correctly, that Shiite extremism is every bit as dangerous as Sunni extremism—except that the latter is embodied and employed by non-state or sub-state outfits, like ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda. That’s what concerns Obama--not extremism per se, but the extremism of regional actors that is not susceptible to the traditional instruments of statecraft. Regardless of how badly Iran acts, on Obama’s view, it is a nation-state, and therefore a rational actor with interests that can be engaged, deterred, contained, or if necessary, bombed. Organizations like ISIS, as Obama said in his UNGA speech, can only be met with force.

This White House is eager not to make the mistakes it believes the previous administration did, for instance, by disbanding the Iraqi army. This is why administration officials frequently speak of preserving Syrian “state institutions”—meaning of course not institutions tasked to collect garbage or keep on the lights, but security services, interior ministries, militaries. As Obama told Remnick, he wants to “work with functioning states to prevent extremists from emerging there.”

The problem is that Obama seems not to have wrestled with the question—what happens when extremists control state institutions? After all, most of the suffering humanity has endured throughout history has been inflicted not by non-state actors, but by states, like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and China in the last century alone. What if Obama’s campaign against the non-state murders in ISIS is empowering a graver threat from the murderers who run a state in Tehran?




What a freaking mess.  

[cryptasm]

Bush had what warnings of 9/11?  The FBI could not trace those that were  listed by the CIA.  So those that occurred in Bostow on 9/11 were not during the time this adminstration?  Shallow thoughts are obvious.  You do manage to keep the lies aout Araq. You do sound like one under the Sharia law.

Yep, Dubya had plenty of warnings about a potential 911 attack by OBL.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91651

"U.S. intelligence officials warned President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American planes".

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0

"On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal".

[escrow.dude]

Lessons learned: We were safer under bush because he really did have al qaida on the run and without money to finance their terrorism. That leaving Iraq created a void that terrorist filled just like bush warned and the military predicted. And that IED's in the ME are preferable to IED's in America. BTW if you take the subways in NYC, they're the planned target for terrorist IED's.

I always appreciate your sense of humor, like the post above.

 "Safer under Bush". Wowee Skipper. Um, just to remind you it was Bush ignoring warnings that bought us 9/11 the greatest act of terrorism in our history. And it has been under Obama that zero acts of terrorism have happened on our soil. And safer under bush got hundreds of thousand of Iraqi's killed, millions displaced and nearly 5,000 of our young men and women dead.

What happened in Boston last year at the Boston marathon? An act of terrorism (bombing)

What happened just a few days ago to a women in OK? She was beheaded by a terrorist.

9/11 was very well planned and did catch the US by surprise however as a result we reformed our intelligence tactics to prevent further attacks

[umair127]

Bush had what warnings of 9/11?  The FBI could not trace those that were  listed by the CIA.  So those that occurred in Bostow on 9/11 were not during the time this adminstration?  Shallow thoughts are obvious.  You do manage to keep the lies aout Araq. You do sound like one under the Sharia law.

Yep, Dubya had plenty of warnings about a potential 911 attack by OBL.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91651

"U.S. intelligence officials warned President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American planes".

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0

"On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal".

In short, the concept of muslims killing muslims, while we set back munching fritos and licking our chops, was quickly falling to one victory after another by ISIS and having the entire country of Iraq becoming one fanatical Islamic State. Now, instead of "whack-a-mole", we have an entire country of Islamic fanatics absolutely devoted to setting the entire ME ablaze...not to mention their hard-on for the good ole USA.

I get the idea here that the powers that be in Washington have decided that waiting until the ME is a blazing inferno probably isn't the best way to go and most likely doesn't really address our own national security interests in that region of the world. And whether we like it or not, sitting idly by, crossing our fingers and hoping for the best...doesn't exactly feed the bulldog here.

[umair127]

Also that nagging problem of getting all that oil we depend upon to market, especially when there's that little matter of a Muslim holy war raging on all fronts. Of course, if one really believes that ISIS is going to stop with Iraq and call it a day, good luck with that.

This is a shitty deal. If we withdraw as spectators, ISIS will almost certainly topple Iraq and maybe Syria as well. Then, it's on to Saudi Arabia...if you believe ISIS. I wonder what such a scenario would do to the price of oil and the effect it would have on the economies of the world.

I've got a bad feeling the shit is just beginning to hit the fan.

[PeanutCoins]

I support Obama on his strategy & his actions. As hard as it is to trust ME NATIONS, we must have their participation & Cooperation.  Obama has done well with getting this done.
It's so refreshing not to have a bonehead cowboy in the WH!

[Bit-Gods]

War that never ends

The lessons of war in the Middle East seem all too far outside the grasp of American policymakers, pundits and elected officials.

From Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars most Americans now regret, there were potential truths to be discovered, lesson to be appreciated.

First, “boots on the ground,” in a geography where they enemy stands within the general population while hiding in plain sight, poses insolvable problems and dangers. This resulted in IED’s planted nightly and discovered daily by US forces, all too often a discovery by explosion. It also resulted in the “friendly fire” of those trained to serve in the local military turning on their American counterparts to kill from within.

Ultimately, in Iraq the successful policy was developed under General Petraeus, who fueled the Surge by hiring the militias who were fighting the US, many of whom were displaced veterans the US had disposed from their careers upon arriving in Iraq.

When US forces left, unable to secure immunity from Iraqi prosecutions by a security agreement, the payments ended, and the Iraqi army collapsed. Prime Minister Maliki caused that disintegration by replacing trained leaders with his loyalists and by alienating Sunni’s in the country with his actions to discriminate in all possible fashions.

Ultimately Iraq fell back into disarray, its present state. And today ISIS, created within Iraq initially as a local branch of al Qaeda by the US occupation, rose to represent the rejected Sunni’s in Iraq and the region.

And now the US re-engages to stem the flow of Muslim radicalism by organizing a coalition of partners to fight against ISIS. Already critics of the new policy argue that only boots on the ground will bring success.

But the facts are boots on the ground never worked in Iraq for many reasons.

For most of the stay of the American military Iraqi citizens disliked the American presence. Literally millions of Iraqi citizens were displaced, thousands killed in the war. The economy was destroyed, corruption was rampant, and the secular state constructed under Saddam Hussein was divided into religious camps, Sunni vs. Shiite.

The US left because Iraqi’s did not want us there.

The second lesson that could have been learned in Iraq is that Muslim religious division has existed for hundreds of years, and in its violent, primitive form of hatred, it shows no sign of abating. And nothing the US can or will do, boots or no boots, will change that hatred and create peaceful resolution.

Finally, the lesson Americans never seems to learn is that in the ginning up to war our leaders and our media do whatever it takes to excite Americans for war.

George Bush used the potential mushroom cloud; Barack Obama, the fear that ISIS will come to America and kill us here. Therefore, they must be destroyed forever.

But destroying ISIS will not destroy terrorism in the least, for like a Wack a Mole carnival game, wherever we crush terrorists they simply re-appear in other forms.

When we decimated al Qaeda’s leadership and killed Bin Laden, the terrorist threat hardly ended, it just re-shaped. If we destroy ISIS terrorism will again re-shape.

And terrorists will always target the US, always.

The only solution is from those within the Middle East, those nations affected directly by the brutality of radical Muslimism, to fight their own fight to preserve and protect their people and nations.

As Thomas Friedman recently wrote, what if the US just said NO?

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

[dblink]

I think the quote from Fallout 3 is very relevant.  "War. War never changes".

Most of the Wars badly affect only the innocent civilians, they live in poor conditions before the war and eventually bear the worst conditions after the war too. During the Thirty Years' War in Europe, the population of the Holy Roman Empire was reduced by 15 to 40 percent. Civilians in war zones may also be subject to war atrocities such as genocide.

[Miracal]

I think the quote from Fallout 3 is very relevant.  "War. War never changes".

Most of the Wars badly affect only the innocent civilians, they live in poor conditions before the war and eventually bear the worst conditions after the war too. During the Thirty Years' War in Europe, the population of the Holy Roman Empire was reduced by 15 to 40 percent. Civilians in war zones may also be subject to war atrocities such as genocide.

Armed conflicts have always resulted in more damage to innocent casualties, it always will. The sad truth is war can never be stopped. It can only be compromised and delayed but it cannot be avoided. Wars will always end bad. And if history has taught us anything, it is that war is a motherfucker.