(x-posted at dKos)
Susan Hu replied to a comment I made and suggested that I write a diary. So here it goes. I believe that we are losing if not already lost Iraq because we are fighting a resistance movement. Please do not call this an insurgency, it’s not, that is Pentagon spin. Resistance and Insurgency are apples and oranges, just like minutes and memos.
More below
An insurgency begins as an action against an established government while a resistance is what is left of a defeated force fighting an occupying belligerent power and the subsequent installed government (think Vichy France). This is what we in the Army Special Forces community calls UW, or Unconventional Warfare.
A resistance movement is made up of several elements. First you have the the umbrella organization of the Shadow Government, aka government in exile that may exist covertly and/or overtly and operate covertly and/or overtly.
Second you have a guerrilla force that acts as the paramilitary arm of the shadow government.
Third, you have the Underground, which is mainly in urban areas that carries out duties such as passive resistance (demonstrations, sit-ins, etc) and active resistance (the factory worker who puts the wrong size ball bearings in the tank on the production line as a means of sabotage).
Fourth, and most importantly, you have the Auxilliary. These are your sympathizers in the populace who provide logistics, food, water, shelter, communications and other means of active/passive support to the other elements.
Now, Iraq. We have a full blown resistance here that our government is trying to spin as an insurgency. Why? Because a resistance is far more serious and very rarely winable. Iraq’s shadow government is operating out of most likely Syria. Former Baathist with LOTS of money. This is the only reason Syria is in our sites, because Iran & NK are far higher on the hit lists but Syria is becoming a pain in the ass. Next you have the guerrillas. I’m not talking the terrorist jihadists (terrorist are a whole different animal all together) but the resistance fighters THEY ARE NOT INSURGENTS! I can’t stress that enough. They’re adapting to our tactics like all good guerrillas will, witness the use of shape charges lately.
Then, what I consider the most important, you have the Auxilliary. These are the civilians we are pissing off. These are the people that we have to win over, the target of “hearts & minds”. Because without them, we’ve lost. What we are doing is exactly what most conventional military commanders have done throughout history: we putting our boots on their necks, so to speak. Most people would probably not support the resistance (as we saw in the beginning) if we weren’t taking their relatives away in the middle of the night and degrading them. Of course they are going resist!
Now the reason I say we lost is because (some one fact check me on this) I believe I saw a recent poll of 90% want us out – that means our newly installed (Vichy) government wants us to stay to protect them. I consider that 90% (or whatever it turns out to be) the auxilliary. If that high of a percentage is an auxilliary member of one of the various factions, WE LOST THE WAR. It only remains to be seen on how many dead service members come back before our population realizes that fact.
Solution? I don’t have one, but I have an idea. PULL OUT! How? Well, my idea is this. Make the CIA work for their money. Contact the shadow government and say “hey, let’s stop this mess and bloodshed. We will pull out and leave the country for you to work out amongst yourselves. However, we will entice you with reconstruction and humanitarian aid if you do so peacefully. If you are worried, as well as the other factions, of sectarian strife or not a voice in the government, then we will send UN blue helmets in to help keep the peace that we obviously can’t. Let’s come to the table because we know that you really don’t want anymore of your sons and daughters killed, neither do we.”
I am sure that people with much more foreign policy expertise may take that idea for a solution apart. Please feel free to do so as I submit it as a starting point for a discourse and maybe through dialectical thinking we can come to a real solution.
Thanks for reading.