Article

2007-01-17 Iraq

Insurgencies Rarely Win And Iraq Wont Be Any Different (Maybe)

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Posted by Steve White 2007-01-17 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Common sense - good to see it still exists.

But even in the unlikely event of a US bug-out or some such, I don't think the "insurgency" will have won much. The insurgents are Sunni, and they're destined for misery or oblivion regardless. As some have long noted, Iraqi security forces without US supervision will likely be fairly brutal towards the Sunnis.

Nice that he added the bit about mismanagement of US public opinion. Maybe some Rantburgers can help me here - I keep oscillating between lowered respect for the US public (wimps, narcissists, ignoramuses, self-involved twits who don't know the world they live in) and, of course, white-hot fury towards the WH and others for simply abandoning the electorate to the dysfunctional media. Perhaps both reaction are correct, in which case things are dark indeed .....

Posted by Verlaine 2007-01-17 00:28|| 2007-01-17 00:28|| Front Page Top

#2 A decisive insurgent victory is rather unlikely. Iraq is most likely to become even more chaotic and then partitioned by its neighbors.
Guerrillas and insurgents had little or nothing to do with the fall of South Viet Nam in 1975. By 1973 the war in South Viet Nam had been won, in the sense that US forces were no longer needed on the ground, the gov't there was stable under a rule of law. Hanoi was continuously being supplied by the USSR and would re-invade as soon as supplies and training were adequate. Supporting the South cost the USA much less than supplying the North cost the USSR. Did US combat air support (when necessary) cause it more casualties than intensive training? By 1975 the civil war was long gone, the US's obligation was simply to protect an ally from an out and out invasion. The continued existence of this ally would be "victory." The key to Hanoi's 1975 victory was the refusal of the US Congress to provide sufficent aid to South Viet Nam when the resupplied/restored NVA army pushed its conventional Soviet-style forces into the south in a very conventional, Soviet-style armored attack, not involving anything like the Viet Cong. This "defeat" was more the abandonment of an ally than a defeat.
The Viet Nam insurgency did win in the sense that it eroded the US will to persist. The Soviet effort to support world-wide insurgencies and keep roughly even with the US military failed when they went broke.
Is there still a US will to persist now? Is the prospective "surge" likely to result in "victory"?

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-17 00:33|| 2007-01-17 00:33|| Front Page Top

#3 Remember, the greatest battle of the WOT is fought inside the US Congress-NPE.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-01-17 02:39|| 2007-01-17 02:39|| Front Page Top

#4 WRONG WRONG WRONG about the Boere (not "Boers" - that's what the English called them so they could pronounce it "Boors" to denigrate them.) First and foremost, the Boere were the legitimate government of the day, NOT the insurgents (see some basic history on the Transvaal (Boer) Republic and the (Boer) Republic of the Orange Free state.

Second - their first war was fought (and won) against an INVASION led by an adventurer by the name of Starr Jameson (see more basic history on The Jameson Raid.)

Third - They were then invaded by a vastly superior force, the super power of the day, Great Britain. This time they lost, but only after a prolonged struggle and after the British resorted to a number of war crimes (see basic history on The Second Boer War and Concentration Camps run by the British in South Africa)

I could provide you with links, but your ignorance on this issue prompts me to suggest that you do penance by doing some Googleing.

Posted by John">John 2007-01-17 02:41|| www.jobwarden.com]">[www.jobwarden.com] 2007-01-17 02:41|| Front Page Top

#5 "Is there still a US will to persist now?"

My guess: NO. It looks to me like the Democratic Party, their paid propagandists in the MSM, and their indoctrination cadres in academia have largely succeeded in their quest to stamp out all public support for the war, and "We've lost in Iraq" seems to have become the almost universal received wisdom-- not just on the Left, but lately on the Right as well, and among the general public.

Not "We need to change our strategy and/or tactics because we're not getting the results we want", or "There are some severe problems with how we're going about this", or "This isn't getting the job done quickly enough", or even "It looks like this 'Arab/Islamic Democracy' thing isn't going to do the trick in combatting Islamic aggression." No, it's just "We've lost in Iraq."

The drumbeat of negativism from the MSM and the Democrats has been relentless and deliberate-- and it has worked: at this point, I think very few Americans have even the vaguest idea what we are up to or why, and even fewer have any confidence it will work.

And it hasn't helped matters that the Administration has been almost complete passive against the propaganda onslaught, apparently in the naive belief that all they have to do is conduct the war, and that public support for the endeavor will take care of itself.

"Is the prospective "surge" likely to result in "victory"?"

Does it matter, even a little? I don't think so, not as long as our media are allowed to continue spinning every victory as a resounding defeat. We may indeed win Baghdad, but we're clearly losing America.

Posted by Dave D.">Dave D. 2007-01-17 07:51|| 2007-01-17 07:51|| Front Page Top

#6 Verlaine-I tend towards anger at the WH for not engaging in an all-out PR war in addition to the hot war. And I mean internationally in addition to domestically. So much of the WOT is a war of perceptions and I don't think we are fighting that front hard enough.

Posted by Spot">Spot 2007-01-17 08:35|| 2007-01-17 08:35|| Front Page Top

#7 The MSM has a standard script that they use every time it looks like the administration is going to form an organization to explain the news about the war to the people:

1. Express outrage that a "propaganda" agency is being created.

2. Make dark comparisons to the Nazis.

3. Coordinate attacks with allies in Congress.

4. Bang on the story until the administration gives up in frustration.

The MSM understands what they are doing--they are making sure they have a monopoly on shaping the story. The administration either doesn't understand this or lacks the will to thumb their nose at the MSM and do it anyway. The best thing Dubya can do now is form such an organization in the waning days of his admin when nobody is paying attention and have it there for his successor.

Posted by Jonathan">Jonathan 2007-01-17 10:55|| 2007-01-17 10:55|| Front Page Top

#8 Also, the algeria insurgency was NOT a victory; in fact, when this former french department (IE part of the country, not a colony) was given independence, the insurgency was crushed military, its leaders were snuffed or in jail (the keys to the power had to be given to the "outside fln"), its weapon supply was cut off (with a serie of judicious boat sinkings and targeted killings of various european arms dealers), and, more importantly, the "psychological war" had been WON by the french counter-insurgency specialists, who basically wrote the textbook about that type of operations. I don't have the figures in mind, because it is rotten by porn, but the number of muslim algerians enlisted in the defense apparatus (local militias, armed forces,...) was VASTLY superior to the number of those who had joined the fln... if only because they were driven to France by the sheer abomination of the fln's truly terrorist strategy, which involved slaughtering WHOLE hamlets by throat-slitting or beheading, torture, rapes, kidnappings,... in a scale very reminiscent of the 90's civil war.

JFM will explain it better, but you can't fudge with the facts; the algeria war was NOT a french defeat, it was a major political blunder made by de gaulle, who basically gave away this country created ex-nihilo by french colonization to the national-islamists of the day.

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-01-17 13:08|| 2007-01-17 13:08|| Front Page Top

#9 I wrongly put my answer in the comments about Al Quaida fleeing Bagdad due to American surge.

But basically the French , but DE Gaulle wanted to get rid of Algeria. In his opinion Algeria costed more than it brought. In addition he had only disdain for the French of Algeria: except for the minority of descndants of Alsatians (who had fled Alsace in 1871), most Europenas from Algeria were untermenschen to him (descendants of Spaniards or Italians). To him they were French enough for him for dying at Cassino (my grand uncle got a bullet in the lung) or for saving Strasbourg during the Bulge but once the job was done they could go to hell.

About the Algerians who fought the FLN alongside the French Army at the Independence, despite the turn-coating when it became evident that France would cut and run, they outnumered the FLM in such proportion that they had to be disarmed by the French. Then they were left to mmet horrendous deaths at the hands of the FLN. Some French officers risked their carreers to bring their men to France. However these were parked in camps in such conditions I can only think that De Gaulle wanted them to die (not French enough despite fighting for France, less French than collabos). A real example: a woman who wa s going to give birth is brought to a hospital, but the same day she and the baby were brought back to the concentration camp. Her lodgement was mere tent. Temperature was minus 20C. I ignore if the baby survived. May De Gaulle roast in hell.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-01-17 17:23|| 2007-01-17 17:23|| Front Page Top

#10 The MSM understands what they are doing--they are making sure they have a monopoly on shaping the story.

Then they will have to be eliminated, sooner or later. I am not opposed to some old fashioned vigilante type action targeted at the Media.

Posted by Chuck Darwin 2007-01-17 19:03|| 2007-01-17 19:03|| Front Page Top

#11 "Is there still a US will to persist now?"

Of course there is. Look at Afghanistan.

The problem is it looks like we're loosing in Iraq. Americans don't like to back a loser. And that's the problem the donks will face in '08. They can't afford to be seen as cut and run cowards or they'll get a repeat of 68 and 72. And Hillary knows it.

By '08 it may be difficult for the MSM to continue to make the case that we have lost because of the results of Bush's stubbornness in continuing the war regardless of public and legislative opinion. Even if it's not, the winner will be the one who comes closer to defining a strategy for victory in the Long War, not the candidate who cuts and runs from Iraq.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-01-17 19:25|| 2007-01-17 19:25|| Front Page Top

#12 Sooo.... If America pulls out the Shia will slaughter the Sunni. So what? I know, I know, we can't allow that blah blah blah. Is an Iraq/Saudi war a big problem for us?

Posted by Mike N. 2007-01-17 21:38|| 2007-01-17 21:38|| Front Page Top

#13 Actually, we as a country would make a mint from selling spares to the Saudis : doubt that the Saudis could keep much of the high-tech stuff going more than a week without us though. The pilots in Saudi Air Force think they are too special to be dirtied with manual labor, they don't even do standard plane walk-arounds, per regulation in most Western air forces.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-01-17 22:02|| 2007-01-17 22:02|| Front Page Top

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