Pretty much the same with Iraq. You want to lump “terrorists” with “jihadis” with “insurgents” when these terms are not interchangeable, both linguistically and realistically. There is, for sure, an element in Iraq that could be described as “jihadiyya Salafiyya” - the jihadi Salafists who utilize terrorism and are linked, operationally and ideologically, to the broader al Qa’ida movement. However - and these numbers come from the US military, as reported by the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index - this element makes up probably no more than one in twenty of those actively fighting in Iraq. The rest are composed of Sunni and, a bigger problem, Shi’ite militias.

“Insurgency” isn’t terrorism, though insurgents can use terrorism. Insurgency is, more or less, the challenging of the state’s monopoly of power by a non-state actor. By eliminating the central Iraqi state and failing to supply an adequate replacement - we’ve never had enough troops to provide adequate security - the US created the conditions for insurgency to occur. This has nothing to do with Iraq, or jihadism, or terrorism per se - rather, this is a fundamental reality of the human condition. If war is cheap or easy, someone will pursue it as policy. Social scientists David Laitin and James Fearon, for example, found a significant correlation between the conditions which favor an insurgency - such as mountainous terrain - and the outbreak of insurgency. In every society on earth there exist some elements which, if given the opportunity, will resort to violence to achieve their aims. This happened in Iraq - no strong central authority, inadequate policing in most of the country, lots of weapons lying around, lots of unemployed soldiers, and so forth. The result is not the “unleashing of ancient enmities” or anything even remotely like this - what happened in Iraq would happen anywhere else, given those same starting conditions. See John Mueller’s “The Banality of Ethnic War” for more on this - basically, “ethnic war” is an illusion, and in every case, what you have isn’t something like “Sunnis and Shi’ites killing each other,” but rather “small bands of armed men exploiting a security vacuum to engage in violence in the name of some broader group.”

So will a surge fix this? Probably not.

According to some, there will NEVER be enough troops, EVER, even if we were to have 25 million there (one for every Iraqi). To place things in perspective:

In 2005, Detroit (population around 1 million [I’m rounding off]) had 359 murders, or 1 per every 2785 citizens. Detroit’s police force is around 3400, or 1 per every 294 citizens.

In contrast, Iraq had 16565 fatalities in 2006 (first year for full data), or 1 per every 1509 citizens. If you count “security” as the number of troops in Iraq, there’s about 1 for every 192 citizens. So, security in Iraq—a war zone, with foreign fighters and jihadis and all kinds of “non-state actors”—is only about twice as bad as Detroit. I’d say that’s pretty good, considering the circumstances of the two areas.

All those thinking that Iraq should be Switzerland five years after deposing a tyrant that held ethnic and religious strife in check for 35 years are pretty unrealistic. It’ll be a long hard slog, but eventually it will be worth it. It’s too bad that more Americans (and global citizens) can’t see the value in providing a stable democracy in the most turbulent area of the world. It’s possible, but we need to give the Iraqis a chance to come to terms with their history.

I think that’s about right - that there will never be enough troops, ever. Assuming magic and unicorns and dragons aren’t real, and we’re talking about realistic numbers - not 25 million, but rather some realistically feasible number, such as several hundred thousand troops - there might have been a small window, early in the war, to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Having failed to do so - and there was never a very good chance of doing so - the consequences are civil war.

And how do you deal with this situation? Studies by James Fearon indicate that most civil wars don’t end until you have a decisive military victory by one party. So which party will we back? Will we back the Sunnis who run death squads and murder Shi’ites? Or will we back Shi’ites who run death squads and murder Sunnis? What’s the point, either way?

Setting aside the utterly rediculous notion of trying to compare the fatality rate of one urban area in another country with the entire state of Iraq, the situation is pretty awful. It’s awful because - again, relying on Fearon and Laitin - it only takes a small number, sometimes as few as 500 to 2000, of insurgents to maintain a long-running and highly destructive civil war. Most civil wars since 1945 last a decade or longer. Increased ethno-sectarian concentration - Sunnis and Shi’a self-segregating as a result of violence - increases the longevity of civil conflict. The situation in Iraq won’t get better any time soon - surge or not - because the dynamics of power in a global security context are changing. Weak state + easy availability of highly destructive weapons + enough poverty to make insurgency an attractive option to some young men = long, bloody civil war with US soldiers in between.

“ethnic and religious strife [held] in check for 35 years”

Again, it helps to know something about a country before you try to act like an expert on it. What strife? Suunis quietly hating Shi’a, Shi’a quietly hating Sunnis, waiting for a chance to strike? Sorry, no. Fearon and Laitin found no correlation between ethnic diversity, the existence of grievances, and the outbreak of civil war. Let me put it this way: if you did to the US what you did to Iraq - remove government, police, civil service, public services, handed out highly destructive weaponry to a large number of people, and fired the army, you’d have the same situation. It has nothing to do with ethnic or religious strife, and everything to do with the dynamics of human society. In any society, there exists some small number of people who, given the chance, will use violence to pursue their aims. In Iraq, they were given their chance. “Sunnis” aren’t fighting “Shi’ites” in the sense that all of one group are fighting all of another. Rather, a small number of people (and often, different and competing factions on each side) are committing violence against other groups in the name of so

I said al-Sadr acn’t leave baghdad without incurring what I believe will be (to him) unacceptable political risks and diminshments in authority. To an extent that is true of the movement as well– as you well note yourself, running from Baghdad means that the movement will need to establish one or more bases in the surrounding area, which if nothing else will take time and effort.

My other comments remain the same– there is very little harm in publishing this information because any insurgency incapable of detecting that there are twice as many troops in Baghdad is not an insurgency that would survive in the first place.

See Yugoslavia. As far as “the utterly rediculous notion of trying to compare the fatality rate of one urban area in another country with the entire state of Iraq”, why is that “utterly ridiculous”? You’re complaining about a “security situation” and a “civil war”, which is by your own comments, more a result of the US having “remove[d] government, police, civil service, public services, handed out highly destructive weaponry to a large number of people, and fired the army”—i.e., creating conditions where violence can flourish—why isn’t Detroit better, when such conditions do NOT exist there? Why isn’t Detroit the paradise that so many think Iraq was before the U.S. invasion?

Or is it rather the case that Iraq was NEVER at peace, just (like the former Yugoslavia) a boiling pot of sectarian strife just waiting to boil over when the cover is lifted? Is it because there will ALWAYS be criminals, willing to do violence? And isn’t then the answer to allow the police (American troops) to engage the criminals with the necessary force to subdue them? What will happen if we leave, as so many want us to do? Will the conditions for violence magically disappear? What’s the point of your post, anyway? What do you want the U.S. to do?

You didn’t answer your question — why not, indeed? By all means, know your enemy, but also know how to recognize an enemy even when he comes in variant strains. For some, complexity becomes a mere excuse for paralysis, defeatism, and defeat itself — for such people, “probably” nothing will fix the problem. For the rest of us, however, there is a time when nuance should give way to Alexander’s solution to the Gordian Knot.

It’s absurd because, when using statistics, you must compare the same thing with the same thing, or else your numbers are meaningless. What we’re really talking about here are rates of death by assault. For the US, it’s something like six per 100,000. For Iraq, it’s almost 28 per 100,000 - significantly more dangerous. Some cities, such as Detroit, have averages that are higher than the national average - but the fact that there exist areas that are more dangerous within the United States does not invalidate a national average of six per 100,000. So, you have demonstrated that some areas of the US are more dangerous than others, and yet no area in the US is more dangerous than Iraq as a country. So?

And, again, when you’re going to talk about a country, it helps to know something about that country. In the case of Yugoslavia, “support for militant nationalism…was not all that deep even at the time of its maximum notice and effect in the early 1990s.” This is from Mueller’s “The Banality of Ethnic War,” a text version of which can be found at: http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/ambrosio/old/ndsu/pols499/banality.html - I recommend giving it a read, especially its footnotes, because you’ll find that - surprise! - violence was not committed by sectarian communities, but in large part by small groups of fighters committing violence in the name of larger groups which played no role in the violence.

What will happen if we leave? The violence will continue, likely for upwards of a decade, until one side wins a decisive victory over the other - that’s usually what happens with civil wars, according to the numbers crunched by Fearon and Laitin (”Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War,” American Political Science Review, 2002). What happens if we stay? Basically the same thing, only with more Americans dead. We’re not going to accomplish anything there. We like to pretend that Iraq is something like the US, only with some bad guys fighting the government. This isn’t the case - it’s more like the government dissolved, and everybody with a last name starting with the letters A-M started fighting everbody with a last name starting with the letters N-Z. What is the point in supporting Maliki if Maliki represents a coalition government of Sadr and SCIRI?

Which is rediculous. Alexander cut threads, and you’re talking about dropping bombs. You want to say “I propose or support Policy X,” but if you want to propose the optimal policy, it helps to know something about the country in question. In the case of Egypt, Hizb and Herekat are very different from jihadiyya Salafiyya - in the case of the former, they’re a conservative alternative to dictatorship who have accepted elections, constitutionalism, and the framework of the nation-state, while the latter want to murder anyone who stands in their way of achieving a Qutbist vision of a Khalifate. In the case of Iraq, lumping jihadist terrorists together with sectarian insurgents isn’t just foolish, but it’s counterproductive when trying to formulate policy. In the case of the former, pursue counterterrorism. In the case of the latter, however, you have to accept the realities of civil war. Saying “a surge will make insurgents/terrorists flee the capital” is foolish; why would Sadr, leader of a militia which has engaged in fighting with the US, flee the capital when US troops are ostensibly there to protect the Maliki government, of which Sadr’s group is a part? Do you see the importance of understanding such distinctions?

Let’s imagine a scenario - let’s imagine that, in 2008, Democrats take control of the White House and hold Congress. Let’s imagine that, in response, an extreme right-wing Christian group, numbering only 2000 but well-armed, expanded their existing terrorist campaign against abortion clinics and gay groups to a wider campaign to overthrow the US government. Though small in number, the group proves difficult to eliminate and maintains a highly destructive campaign in the name of conservative ideals. Should the US government, in response, begin a campaign against all conservatives, rounding up registered Republicans because they share a tangential relationship with the small terrorist group? Does that make sense? Does it make sense, then, for the US and its allies to name among its enemies Muslims who have nothing to do with terrorism, including Islamist groups with the potential to play an important role in our favor?

And who would those be, exactly? Who have we “named” other than radical Islamists

Others might put it differently: The “insurgency” has never been very destructive. A few snipers, a few IEDs and some explosions is all they can muster. The result has been low casualties for the Coalition forces. The insurgency has been an irritant – nothing more.

And yes, the terrorists ARE replaced quickly. Iraq has turned out to be a terrorist magnet – they come in droves to be sent to Paradise. How endearing of them. The more the merrier I say. Come terrorists – come to Iraq to be slaughtered.

And isn’t the enemy ALWAYS “partly composed of people who are ostensibly our allies”? In ANY war?
 

Hizb, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, have nothing to do with radical Islamism. Likewise, if you’re going to deal with jihadi Salafism, it helps to understand that, for example, while Wahhabiyya and jihadi Salafism have often been equated by people who don’t know what they’re talking about, jihadi Salafiyya seeks to overthrow Muslim states while Wahhabiyya is, except for Central Asia where it is largely a quietist movement, a status quo movement allied to ruling elites, as in Saudi Arabia.

In the case of Iraq, the insurgent groups, unlike the jihadist terrorists, have little to do with radical Islamism, and are more interested in mundane things like power vis a vis existing state structures.

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of the insurgency, and the rest who live in a chaotic, barely functioning state.

“the terrorists ARE replaced quickly”

Again, equating terrorists in Iraq with insurgents in Iraq. The latter are largely foreing - and their replacements could be eliminated if anyone were ever able to secure Iraq’s borders. Insurgents, however, draw their replacements exclusively from the Iraqi people. Imagine, for a moment, that what I’m telling you is correct - that the two groups are largely distinct. Where does this leave us? Basically, it leaves the US backing one set of militias against another set of militias, the only difference between the two being confessional. How does democracy come from supporting one Iranian-backed death squad over another Saudi-backed death squad?

For somebody that makes a great and frenetic show about naming some varieties of islamist, anon is actually pretty ignorant about Americans. The issue, of course, has nothing to do with picking among death squads, but rather with shutting down the actors on any side who, wittingly or unwittingly, are doing the terrorists’ work for them (and saying the insurgents aren’t terrorists even while they use terrorism is priceless). Their idea is simple: create and sustain enough sectarian strife to a) inflict a demoralizing defeat on the Great Satan, and b) produce another failed state that can be used as an incubator for more mass murderers. Whether a “surge” can prevent that or not is an open question, but it’s long past time we got over worrying about whether this is going to upset that faction or that annoy this sect. If you think the story of the Gordian Knot was about cutting threads, you really have a lot to learn.

Our troops, especially the embeds, have had three years’ experience in analyzing the different parties in play in Iraq. We’ve learned a lot about relationships, alliances, logistical paths, lines of communication… and especially critical points of interest, external to Iraq, in Iran and Syria.

Mooq is going to stop a bullet. Or a JDAM. As are a large number of other, lesser known darlings of the western media. It’s already a pretty tough gig to be a jihadi minuteman - much harder than we ever hear about from our “journalists”. It’s going to be a lot tougher for the next few months.

The surge won’t bring victory in the Long War. But it may just ensure the continuing existence of a nominally democratic Iraq beyond the next couple of years.

Not all muslims are terrorists. But the terrorists/insurgents/resistance fighters/minutemen who are killing ours all seem to end up being muslim. So their club ring or secret handshake doesn’t seem to me to be that important.

We’ll be a lot closer to victory when we make it unmistakably clear to all parties that lining up against us means death and utter defeat.

We’ll suck up an unknowable number of friendly casualties before we get to that point.

But we’ll get there. The outcome is not in doubt. Just the price and the path from here to there.

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of the insurgency, and the rest who live in a chaotic, barely functioning state.

Let me elaborate: The insurgency has been merely an irritant to the Coalition. Here’s something I’ll “tell” the Iraqis:

Iraqi citizens, work very hard in the future NOT to allow another Saddam to lead you – try very hard since your existence may depend on stupid, doomed despots NOT leading you. As a postscript I would tell them to denounce religious fanaticism in all its forms and to please, please CEASE killing each other.

Again, equating terrorists in Iraq with insurgents in Iraq. The latter are largely foreing - and their replacements could be eliminated if anyone were ever able to secure Iraq’s borders. Insurgents, however, draw their replacements exclusively from the Iraqi people. Imagine, for a moment, that what I’m telling you is correct - that the two groups are largely distinct. Where does this leave us? Basically, it leaves the US backing one set of militias against another set of militias, the only difference between the two being confessional. How does democracy come from supporting one Iranian-backed death squad over another Saudi-backed death squad?

Not really. The terrorists have never been able to kill anyone able to fight back, poor dears. One almost feels sorry for them. Innocent civilians are their meat. It’s the same for the insurgents, except there you have several quasi-religious political factions killing each other. But admittedly - they ARE two “distinct” Iraqi groups, along with other Iraqi groups, that are killing Iraqis and dying from each others death squads – all of which doesn’t matter at all to my point. Let them kill each other all they want. I would not waste a single Coalition life trying to stop them from offing each other. I would not “back” either one. I would simply stand aside while they have at it. If the Iraqis are tired of the violence – well then, LET THEM CEASE BEING VIOLENT. That’s ALL they have to do and the deaths are ended. Religious fanaticism and violent politics are a bitter harvest. Let them reap it amongst each other.
 

To an extent that is true of the movement as well– as you well note yourself, running from Baghdad means that the movement will need to establish one or more bases in the surrounding area, which if nothing else will take time and effort.

As Marcus described, it puts the insurgency back at square one. This doesn’t mean ultimate victory for the US, Neo, as I believe you understand. It just means the balance of power shifts. A couple of defeats there, some victories here, all that matters is who is left standing at the end. Them or us. It almost doesn’t matter that you lost 99% of your previous battles in a war, because that history matters little if you achieve a victory that leads to the surrender of the enemy the day after.

The question of flexibility, you brought up at the end Neo, is of course very important. And the one thing that JAG and Army lawyers have done in this war, for whatever reasons, has been to become folks who are afraid of the media and “war crime accussations” to the extent of limiting the American military’s rules for engaging the enemy. There are soldiers in Iraq that say they can’t shoot someone laying an IED because “he isn’t a hostile with a gun” so to speak. This was to some extent, actually present BEFORE 2001, but the whole Abu Ghraib thing really told the lawyers to go ape shat.

While flexibility is done on the small unit level, Neo, the top brass commanders can definitely stiffen the joints so they don’t flex. The body might be willing, but if the mind isn’t, then it isn’t.

Petraeus and folks wrote us an anti-insurgency Manual, Neo and companions. I suggest folks read it, or at least read the portions which they don’t get so to speak. You can download the pdf. And yes, the terrorists probably downloaded it in spades, just like we downloaded “Management of Savagery” in pdf format. It’s all about being smarter and quicker than the enemy. It don’t matter if they got this “knowledge” thing, if they are dead and choking on it.

Get it here.

Link at bottom

I haven’t finished reading it of course. It is not 5 poems stacked together after all. But it is easy to understand, if you have some background knowledge of things. Which I thi

In this case, we have folks who both attack and then run away. Hit and run. Age old techniques, from an age old mentality. Border and clan warfare, it developed from. Where folks were so stupid that they were fighting for insults to their honor that they don’t remember the origin of.

The agents can hide, Neo. They always could hide, and they always did run after attacking you. But the point is, people who run away from you do so with a reason, and that reason usually isn’t because they like you or think they are doing you a favor. Usually it is because they cannot match your power. We have to find a way to keep the terrorists reacting to us. Because if you just sit around waiting to be attacked, the momentum of the offense will be gone, and then you’ll be stalled like the German forces in the Bulge.

Move through the assault people, don’t just stand there. Bush’s strategy is good, but he has to get rid of the people who will make his strategy into a “let’s attack for 5 seconds, and then stand around while getting shelled to talk about developments”.

You’ve seen Omaha beach, Neo. You know that for an attack on a fortified position to succede, you must carry Through The Attack. You can’t just sit around waiting for this politican or whatever to get their pants up.

You’ll take casualties, but they will be far less than if you just stood right in the middle of the beach while taking fire from machine guns and artillery.

The Marines specialize in this sort of shock assault philosophy. They are in fact the premier assault troops of our age, trained and molded into a weapon by which no fortification or defense may hold against them. Not islands, not jungles, not swamps, and not mountains. That is why the esprit de corps of the Marines are so high. You need a unit that will take more than 90% casualties in a fixed position to become ineffective. You need a unit that can take more than 50% casualties while taking the objective successfully.

These conventional war techniques can be applied to guerrila insurgencies, as we have seen before. You just got to find them, and then launch assaults against them. It is not like we don’t know who they are. So it takes people to cut the orders, because certainly folks will follow them.

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You should be fighting alongside these guys that Michael Moore calls, “The New Minutemen.” Why aren’t you in Iraq?

Please. With my blessings.

Thanking you in advance for your consideration to your readers.

Coming from a guy so scared he tries to be a wanna be spy on the internet, that is something else indeed.

These people actually read my blog on a rather regular basis. I think it is their daily jack off requirement or something to that effect.

Remember back in 2002, when Bush gave Saddam 6 to 12+ months to come up with counter-strategies? Because strategies operate over a long time, the counter-strategies also operate over a long time, and take time to formulate once the enemy’s strategy is known.

It is a psychological function really. All surprises on the part of the enemy is a good idea. Surprises don’t last long, but that doesn’t mean giving the enemy time to plot and plan is not going to give them time to give us a surprise.

That is why it is important to keep the pressure on the attack. You just can’t goof off at a party now and again in war, and have victory parades.

Because it is important to adapt faster than the enemy, you should not give the enemy time to adapt to you. If they are good enough to adapt to you quickly, then fine that is simply an ability that we will decrease over time. But you shouldn’t give the enemy time, which is very precious. Ask me for anything but time.

While it doesn’t matter that a strategy surprises the enemy or not, It Does Matter if you give the enemy time enough to counter your strategy. These things take time to move, heavy weapons takes time to move. If you just sit around and talk with Congressmen about these “things”, then eventually you will be surprised, and you will lose the initiative.

Except that doesn’t flow from the logic of your post: “the jihadis are dispersing to areas other than Baghdad.”

Ok, the jihadis are dispersing to areas other than Baghdad. So? What about the much larger entities involved in fighting in Iraq, including militia groups which compose a significant portion of the Iraqi government? Are SCIRI forces also fleeing Baghdad? Probably not, since SCIRI, Sadr’s forces, and other Shi’ite militias form the bulk of Iraq’s new army. As I said, it’s easier to pretend that there is one Bad Guy in Iraq, composed of turban wearing, scimitar wielding Musselmen out to get the Good Guys, but in reality, the situation in Iraq is complex and nuanced. If you’re trying to understand the situation, it doesn’t help to pretend like all we have to do is kill some terrorists and then everything will be fine when Iraqi society will be dominated, for a long time, by fighting between various groups, none particularly “good,” as each attempts to consolidate power in the wake of Saddam’s overthrow.

Link

I shot back at Sally as well, that argument is there, you may get it if you don’t prefer to argue with Sally yourself.

I’m so tired of people who keep on telling us what’s WRONG…why don’t you be part of the solution and not part of the problem? And the solution is NOT to abandon Iraq to its sectarian/religious/civil violence…it’s to see the mission through to establishing a viable democracy that can be an example to the region.

If you claim that that’s not possible, then you’re just as much a “racist” (not the term I’d choose, by the way) as those who say the “ragheads” can’t ever understand democracy.

We’re still in Bosnia years after the conflict ended there; why isn’t anyone b***ching about Clinton’s “mistakes”? We’re still in Korea 50 years after the end of that war? Why? We’re still in Europe 60 years after WWII. Why?

And if your answers to those questions are “because it’s in the U.S.’ interests to be there” then you’ll get why we’re still in Iraq.

For example:

“So, I guess, either the US strikes Iran, or leaves the place and lets Saudi Arabia and Iran go against each other, hoping that both lose.”

Ah, yes - it would make lots of sense, wouldn’t it, for two of the biggest oil producers in the world to wage war against each other with Iraq and Kuwait, two of the other largest oil producers in the world between them, with the Strait of Hormuz almost certain to be shut down in the event of hostilities. In other words, you’d lose probably at least a quarter of the world’s oil production for the duration of the war, with the end result likely being either complete destruction of oil producing capacity in these countries, or at the worst Iranian control over a majority of the world’s oil reserves. Genius!

“If the Iraqis are tired of the violence – well then, LET THEM CEASE BEING VIOLENT.”

In most cases of intrastate war - Iraq being no exception - the vast majority of people do not engage in violence. The easy availability of highly destructive weaponry - from small arms to explosives to anti-aircraft missiles - means that smaller and smaller groups of people can use more and more violence. All it takes is a very small number of Iraqis to maintain an insurgency - as few as 500 to 2000 - that will kills hundreds of thousands and last a decade. All calls for the Iraqis to “stop being violent” are predicated on the fantasy of some Hobbesian “War of All Against All,” when in reality, most Iraqis are just trying to live their lives as best they can in the face of violence and chaos. Anti-abortion terrorists have killed hundreds of Americans over the last decade, yet we would never hear calls for “Americans to stop killing Americans,” but rather invocations to stop the few people actually committing violence.

“Their idea is simple: create and sustain enough sectarian strife to a) inflict a demoralizing defeat on the Great Satan, and b) produce another failed state that can be used as an incubator for more mass murderers.”

Oh, you know this? You talked to them, perhaps, and asked them? Who is this “them” you’re talking about? Are you talking only about the small number of terrorists in Iraq who ascribe to jihadiyya Salafiyya,” in which case you’d be roughly correct, or are you talking about all parties engaged in fighting in Iraq against US forces? Would that include Sadr’s forces, who have engaged in fighting against US troops? The same Sadr who runs one of the two main parties in the governing parliamentary coalition in Iraq? Are you asserting that the government of Iraq wants to overthrow the government of Iraq and create a failed state to incubate mass murderers? See what happens when you gloss over differences this basic?

neoneoconned, how do you measure the impact of an effective critique in this community?

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“The more the merrier I say. Come terrorists – come to Iraq to be slaughtered.”

Ah, because it makes lots of sense to try to attract terrorists to Iraq for an extended, violent counter-terrorism campaign while simultaneously trying to turn Iraq into a flourishing parliamentary democracy? What genius thought this one up? Excuse me, Iraq, would you mind if we used your country as a battleground to fight our enemies who will destroy your infrastructure, assassinate your leaders, and bomb your cities while we fight them using air strikes against crowded urban environments? What’s that? You think that will get in your way of transforming a society beaten down by decades of totalitarian rule into a prosperous democracy overnight? Oh, pshaw.

“saying the insurgents aren’t terrorists even while they use terrorism is priceless”

It would be, if I had actually said that. It’s important to distinguish between “terrorists who ascribe to Qutb’s vision for the Muslim world and are largely foreign-born” and “Iraqis fighting in the name of larger sectarian groups for a share or control of power in the nascent Iraqi government.” Responses to the two groups should be, you know, tailored accordingly. To think otherwise is sort of like invading Normandy and declaring that the Maquis and the Nazis, since they’re both carrying guns and shooting, are obviously part of a singular Enemy who must be destroyed.

“we here between the neo-conservative and the classical liberal persuasion understand this clearly.”

This is great - assuming that every Islamist is also a terrorist is almost (almost) as stupid as assuming that every Muslim is also a terrorist. When the vast majority of Islamists are not committing violence and most are, in fact, opposed to the jihadiyya Salafiyya (most Salafists don’t even like the jihadis), it makes little sense to treat them as if they were on the same side. If you took five seconds to learn about the part of the world upon which you are expounding, you might see this. It would almost be like saying “all conservatives are fascists, because fascists are conservatives and fascists espouse ideas that are ideologically, tangentially associated with conservative ideas.”

“Because if you just sit around waiting to be attacked, the momentum of the offense will be gone, and then you’ll be stalled like the German forces in the Bulge.”

The Germans stopped before reaching their goal largely because they ran out of gas, and because they were stopped by Allied forces who shot at them a lot. The Germans didn’t stop because they felt like sitting around waiting to be attacked, they stopped because they didn’t have a choice - their trucks and tanks no go vroom vroom with no gas, Ymarsakar.

Oy. That’s all I have time for right now.

Do you understand the fundamental difference between saying “Iraqis cannot have a democracy because of some element of their nature” versus “there is no reason to believe that US forces, no matter how dedicated, will be able to help create a stable, prosperous democracy in Iraq given the present political, economic, and military situation there”? One is, yes, racist. The latter, however, draws on research done by social scientists who have found that foreign intervention in civil wars usually prolongs them, rather then ending them. If you cannot understand that fundamental difference, I’m not sure what point there is in talking any more.

I knew it was you Spank, because only you would take the bait about the Germans.

The Germans stopping was bad, analogous to stopping an attack against terrorists in mid stride. Obviously if the Germans had the gas, they would have wanted to go on, because stopping in the middle of an attack on an enemy zone, is very bad.

I’ll try to make up more traps for you Spank.

You are, how does one say? Pathetic. What an odd little creature you are…

Shorter Ymarsakar: People who disagree with me are total fags! LOL!!1!

I suspect Anon’s complex solution involves calling Dr. Frankenstein to bring back to life the body of Saddam and then put him back in power.

But let’s look at what he’s saying, over and over and over again:
1) that there are different factions involved in the Iraq situation with different motives, objectives, and methods;
2) that only small numbers are responsible for the violence; and
3) that the US should give up and get out, since it’s only worsening the situation.

Now, #1 is no doubt true, as it’s true in all such situations, but:
a) it doesn’t mean that their motives, methods, or objectives don’t or can’t converge for all practical purposes of the US, and
b) it doesn’t mean that a simpler policy of opposing the violent, regardless of motive, isn’t to be preferred to a complicated, “nuanced” attempt to play one group off against another.
#2 is true only in the limited sense that those directly involved in violence at any one time are no doubt relatively small. But it’s false in the larger sense that helps explain why Iraq remains a problem — the sense that significant numbers of both major factions continue to provide active or passive support to the killers in their midst. And, of course, it simply overlooks the other facet of the problem, the extent to which the “insurgency” is fueled by outside support.
And #3, which is the real point of all his frantic quibbling and scribbling, is not simply a recipe for American humiliation — that’s all the simple America-haters can see, of course, and what’s got them foaming with excitement — it’s a recipe for an international disaster that will dwarf anything we’re currently seeing in the region, as islamist terrorism gains a new base and a new wind. Anon says, oh don’t worry about it, the Iraqi’s will be too busy fighting each other for 10 years, I think was his estimate. Of course he has no way of knowing this, and a statement like that should lead one to realize that he doesn’t know much of what he pretends to. What he may know, though, is just enough to know how to appeal to the frightened and the distracted, with the old lure of yet another cut-and-run.

So you admit that you’re relying on a “sense”? Do you admit that you really don’t know too much about Iraq or what’s happening there, instead relying on general “feelings” you might have gleened from “the news”? This is a major problem, and I don’t mean to come across as nasty about this - I think most people rely on a small set of data and then extrapolate general “senses” from this small set. In reality, in almost every case of intrastate war, popular support is not an important factor for the survival of an insurgent group. Rather than popular support, an insurgent group needs only enough knowledge about a population in order to identify and “punish” members of that group who help the insurgents’ adversaries.

“as islamist terrorism gains a new base and a new wind.”

How exactly would Islamist terrorism gain a new base if we were to leave Iraq? This is, again, a case of equating jihadi terrorists with the Iraqi insurgency - another case of imagine that “the bad guy” in Iraq is the same “bad guy” who attacked the US on 9/11 or the same “bad guy” who did this thing or that thing. Sorry, but that’s wildly inaccurate. It’s totally true that there are terrorists in Iraq who share ideology with the broader al Qa’ida movement and who have had some - limited - operational ties with bin Laden and al Zawahiri. But these terrorists form a very small percentage of those fighting in Iraq, and there’s very little reason to believe that they would ever be able to take over the entire state of Iraq, or even some small portion of it. Don’t you think that, if they tried to actually consolidate control over a given territory, we’d simply bomb them? Or, if it ever came to that, that the other elements in Iraq which oppose the jihadi terrorists’ agenda - including the Sunni insurgents and the Shi’a miltias - would do the job for us? It seems that, in your mind, they’re all pretty much the same, and they’re all “terrorists” in the sense of “terrorists attacked us on 9/11″ or “‘terrorists’ is a generic term for bad men,” when in reality I think you’re talking about two or more very different things.

“a simpler policy of opposing the violent, regardless of motive”

This would of course, involve “opposing” (ie, “shooting at”) elements of the elected Iraqi government, such as death squads operated out of the Ministry of the Interior. Which is better - to arbitrarily pick one side of a brutal civil war to support, or to start shooting at everyone? Is “better” even relevant? Nope.

You will not succeed in teaching them anything, either.

Far better to work with your local Democratic 2008 committee than piss your time away here.

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Go back and try my comment again — if you can’t do better than that then you really need some remedial help in reading comprehension. I realize, for example, that, like many sophomores, you’ve read a paper, in this case by a couple of “social scientists” on “intrastate war”, and now you feel you’re an authority. Instead, you’re simply an uncritical parrot of any dubious thesis that flatters your fragile preconceptions. Otherwise, you would have asked yourself how it’s possible for any state to exist in the face of an “insurgent group”. And the same sort of ignorant faith infects your simple-minded view of the position islamist terrorists in an Iraq that the US has abandoned — the ensuing chaos would breed them like flies, as well as arm and support them. Which, of course, again, many on the left not only understand all too well, but are hoping for.

Actually, what I’m trying to do is create an informed understanding of the world by drawing on actual research done by actual scholars using actual data, rather than having “feelings” or vague “senses” of what’s happening. And no, I’m not drawing on a single paper - I could give you a reading list, if you’d like. I just think Fearon & Laitin’s piece on civil war is the best place to start, as is Mueller’s piece on ethnic conflic