RALPH PETERS @ New York Post Online Edition voices some opinions on Iraq. I won’t say much myself today, but will later this week. But I will answer this — “What went wrong?” We haven’t declared war upon a real enemy yet, that’s what was wrong then and still is now. Instead, we keep propping up Islamic countries with the vain hope of turning them “democratic” and trying far too hard to make them like us — us, the “unbelievers”. Good luck with that idiotic strategy.
WE sent the world’s best military. We spent an enormous amount of money. We “stayed the course.” And now it’s an open question as to whether we’ll lose to savages or pull off a messy compromise success. What went wrong?
The strategic errors of the administration, the pernicious effect of the media and factional hatred within Iraq all played their part. Corruption and al Qaeda’s remorseless bloodlust made everything worse. Poor leadership plagued Iraqis and Americans alike.
But the subject presidents, pundits and professors all avoid is what it would take to win militarily. Because the answer’s ugly. We prefer to sidestep reality in favor of comfy fantasies that negotiations will persuade blood-drunk murderers to all just get along.
With the last-ditch troop surge in Baghdad, we’re half-heartedly trying an approach we should have applied with everything we had in 2003. We no longer have the numbers to do it right - and our leaders, in and out of uniform, may not have the resolve to behave with the ruthlessness required to turn things around.
Even with the surge, our numbers in Baghdad will be “bare bones.” We’ve finally moved our forces down to the neighborhoods, instead of obsessing about “force protection” and bunkering ourselves inside hermetic bases that severed us from Iraq’s reality. We finally recognized the need for “precinct stations.”
But what we still don’t - and won’t - have is a constant presence in the streets.
As one patrol returns, another should be heading out, with a third roaming the zone to cover the overlap. And that’s the absolute minimum for a one-square-kilometer area.
The problem in this kind of conflict is that the initiative inherently lies with the terrorists and insurgents. We’re looking for a limited number of targets: our enemies themselves. Their targets can be anything - a clinic, a school, a marketplace, a roadblock, a gas station or even a mosque. Anything they hit counts as a win.
And guess what? If we change the enemy, we change the way the war is fought. We change it to a war that can end in our lifetimes instead of slowly destroying us with “1000 cuts”. When we confront the truth, we become stronger and our enemies diminished. Care to take a guess at where I’m going with this?
Our best shot is to keep them on the run, to keep them off balance. But crippling their freedom of action requires that our troops seem to be everywhere at unexpected times. That takes raw numbers.
If, on the other hand, you let the terrorists and insurgents set the tempo, you lose both the support of the population and the war.
Executing such a policy also demands far better intelligence than we’ve produced in the past - our tactical intelligence has improved notably under the stress of war, but we still have a long way to go.
Above all, we have to maintain a strength of will equal to that of our opponents. War demands consistency, and we’re the most fickle great power in history. We must focus on defeating our enemies, brushing aside all other considerations.
At present, we let those other considerations rule our behavior: We overreact to media sensationalism (which our enemies exploit brilliantly); we torment ourselves over the least mistakes our troops make; we delude ourselves that mass murderers have rights; we take prisoners knowing they’ll be freed to kill more Americans - and the politicians and Green Zone generals alike pretend that “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”
That’s the biggest lie ever told by a human being who wasn’t a member of Congress.
Winning is everything. Fighting ruthlessly may not please the safe-at-home moralists, but it’s losing that’s immoral.
Too true.
Consider just one of the many issues about which we’re insistently naive and hypocritical: torture.
Earlier this month, our Army released the results of an internally initiated survey of soldiers and Marines in Iraq. The results showed that almost half of our troops would condone torture in a specific instance if it saved their buddies’ lives.
The media were, of course, appalled. I was shocked, too - surprised that so few of our troops would condone any action that kept their comrades alive.
Torturing prisoners should never be our policy, both because it’s immoral and because it’s usually ineffective. But it’s madness to declare that there can never be exceptions.
Forget the argument about the “ticking bomb” and the terrorist who might have information that could save numerous lives. Let’s make it personal.
Whether you’re left, right or in between, ask yourself this yes-or-no question: If torturing a known terrorist would save the life of the person you love most in the world, would you approve it?
If your answer is “no,” you’re not a moral paragon. You’re an abomination. And please make your position clear to your husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter. Just tell ‘em, “Sorry, honey, but I’d rather see you dead than mistreat a terrorist. It’s a moral issue with me.”
There are countless other ways in which we elevate the little immoralities required in war above the supreme immorality of losing. Leftists loved My Lai - they just adored it - but they were never called to account for the communist atrocities after Saigon fell. Pol Pot’s butchery was never laid at the feet of the self-righteous bastards who shrieked, “Give peace a chance.”
And no one on the left will discuss what might happen if we fail in Iraq. The truth is that they don’t care.
We face merciless, implacable enemies who joyously slaughter the innocent with the zeal of religious fanaticism. Yet we want to make sure we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
We’ve tried many things in Iraq. They’ve all failed. It’s a shame we never really tried to fight.
Ralph Peters’ most recent book is “Never Quit The Fight.”
Did you notice anything? Ralph didn’t mention Islam once in this editorial. He doesn’t get it all either. But at least he understands the methods necessary.
Now, if we can start to apply the boot to the necks of the Islamists worldwide, we can truly fight this war to win. More on my take on all this later this week…
We really are our own worst enemy. Doubts, misgivings, silly self imposed rules, unclear goals. No wonder these crazies think they have victory in the bag.
Here is my reaction to it:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=344_1177939388
Somthing tells me that the UK & USA military are not employing these tactics — and politicians & pundits scratch their heads and wonder what is going wrong:
From todays World Net Daily web site:
“Taliban training Yanks, Brits for suicide missions
‘We will destroy their cities as they have destroyed our
Posted: May 14, 2007
9:18 p.m. Eastern
The Taliban leader who was killed during an American helicopter attack in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province was training both Americans and Brits to carry out suicide terrorist attacks on their homelands, according to a report from ABC.
The network said it had obtained a television interview with Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah that was taped just 36 hours before his death on Saturday.
Excerpts were being aired on “World News with Charles Gibson.”
“We will be executing attacks in Britain and the U.S. to demonstrate our sincerity,” he said on the tape made by an Afghan interviewer, “to destroy their cities as they have destroyed ours,” Dadullah said.
He didn’t specify how many were under training, or give other details.
“This is our religious and moral duty to train suicide bombers against the nuclear power of the infidels, and they will be used when they are needed, whether they are one, 10 or 20.”
A senior U.S. official told ABCNEWS.com that the intelligence reports recently had confirmed Dadullah’s statement that U.S. citizens were being trained in Taliban and al-Qaida camps.
“The number is small, not large, but even once is dangerous,” the official said.
WND already has reported on several situations, including one of a Houston man allegedly being trained in Somalia for a global jihad against America.
It was just a day and a half after the taping that U.S. forces executed a helicopter assault on the hiding place concealing Dadullah, and his bullet-riddled body was put on display by Afghan officials to confirm he was dead.
Military officials had been tracking Dadullah from Pakistan into Afghanistan, they reported.
“His ego probably got the better of him,” aid ABC News counterterrorism consultant Alexis Debat. “The U.S. and Pakistan have done an excellent job of intercepting the couriers moving taped messages from al-Qaida and Taliban leaders. This is why we have not seen Osama bin laden in some time.”
Dadullah has been described as a senior lieutenant of Taliban chief Mullah Omar. His full name was Dadullah Akhund, and he was known as “Dadullah the cripple” because he lost a leg while fighting the Soviet army nearly 30 years back.
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force issued a statement blaming him for the deaths of “many Afghans through many means,” including suicide bombers.
WND reported just a few days earlier on a drill to review what would happen in America should a nuclear bomb explode.
The most recent test by the U.S. Joint Forces Command speculated on the explosion of a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb in Virginia.
Later this year, team members also plan to work with city officials in Portland, Ore., and the Oregon National Guard in an exercise designed to prevent, prepare for and respond to large-scale terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction.
One nuclear terror expert said recently the chances of a detonation in the U.S. in the next decade are 50 percent.
And Vice President Dick Cheney said the threat of nuclear terrorism is very real.
“The fact is that the threat to the United States now of a 9/11 occurring with a group of terrorists armed not with airline tickets and box cutters, but with a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our own cities is the greatest threat we face,” he said. “It’s a very real threat. It’s something that we have to worry about and defeat every single day.”
A study, meanwhile, has concluded the U.S. was woefully under-prepared to respond, particularly if the event took place in a major population center.”
Do you think the UK would also be under-prepared???
“Our best shot is to keep them on the run, to keep them off balance. But crippling their freedom of action requires that our troops seem to be everywhere at unexpected times. That takes raw numbers.”
Sounds like we missed it on this point with the Rumsfeld Doctrine.
“Whether you’re left, right or in between, ask yourself this yes-or-no question: If torturing a known terrorist would save the life of the person you love most in the world, would you approve it?
If your answer is “no,” you’re not a moral paragon. You’re an abomination. And please make your pos