U.S. FORCES LAUNCH NEW OFFENSIVE AGAINST BOTH SHIA AND SUNNI INSURGENCIES

After writing (see my post just below) about Nathaniel Fick's article in today's Washington Post in which Fick posits four principles to "win" in both Afghanistan and Iraq, I see this article in today's BBC.com on the U.S. military launching a new offensive against both Sunni and Shia insurgencies.

Writes the BBC:

"Operation Phantom Strike was being staged throughout Iraq, specifically targeting al-Qaeda-linked militants and also Iranian-backed groups, it said . . .

"It consists of simultaneous operations throughout Iraq focused on pursuing remaining AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) terrorists and Iranian-supported extremists elements," it said.

"Lt Gen Ray Odierno, the US second-in-command in Iraq, said that his aim was "to continue to pressure AQI and other extremist elements throughout Iraq"."

So The U.S. Army hires Fick to lecture about counter-insurgency, but then disregards all of his principles to launch a new offensive with guns and bombs and war planes against insurgent groups in Iraq. This is too surreal. Who is in charge over there? How does this fit in with Fick's four principles? It would seem that these last-ditch military actions are politically motivated by Bush to try to obtain the faintest signs of "progress," although definitely not progress if you accept Fick's main principles.

Well, at least, Odierno doesn't exactly conflate Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) with Shiite militias, although he seems to be verging on it. It has been done before by Bush and his gang including chief military spokesman General Bergner (former White House aide to Bush) when they try to say that Iran is providing deadly shaped penetrating charges to AQI and other Sunni insurgent groups, as if Shiite Iran would supply arms to rival Sunnis who have been known to kill Shia Iraqis just because they were not Sunni.

Juan Cole has some insightful comments on the whole George Bush spin towards AQI in his post today in Informed Comment.

"Sunni Arab guerrillas deployed an explosively formed projectile (a kind of roadside bomb) against 4 soldiers who had come in a humvee to investigate the sniping death of a fifth soldier. All four were killed. Unfortunately the LA Times calls the guerrillas "al-Qaeda-allied." This terminology is from the Bush administration lexicon. I very much doubt that the LA Times knows whether the group that set the bomb is allied with al-Qaeda or not. Indeed, for all we know, this cell belonged to the Baath Party.

"Note too that the Sunni Arab neighborhoods have the explosively formed projectiles, just as do the Shiite neighborhoods. Iran is not giving them to Sunnis, and certainly not to 'al-Qaeda-allied' Sunnis. Ipso facto, Iran cannot be the only source of EFPs, and it is not established except by allegation and innuendo that they are a source at all. (If the Sunni Arab guerrillas can make EFPs, so could Iraqi Shiites).

"It is always surprising what you can conclusively deduce just from reading the newspapers without the spin that the administration and the Pentagon manages to implant in the stories."

COUNTERINSURGENCY IN THE EYES OF FORMER MARINE CAPTAIN

The most important article in today's The Washington Post is not the story on Karl Rove's resignation but the opinion piece by former Marine captain Nathaniel Fick. Fick wrote the best seller, "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer."

Fick writes on the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare where winning is accomplished not by killing or bombing but by assisting the local population in returning to normalcy.

Writes Fick:

"The objective in fighting insurgents isn't to kill every enemy fighter -- you simply can't -- but to persuade the population to abandon the insurgents' cause. The laws of these campaigns seem topsy-turvy by conventional military standards: Money is more decisive than bullets; protecting our own forces undermines the U.S. mission; heavy firepower is counterproductive; and winning battles guarantees nothing."

Fick was in Kabul recently as a consultant to the U.S. Army in providing workshops on the goals of counterinsurgency to American, Afghan and NATO officers as well as Afghan policemen. Fick serves up four basic tenets of "winning" in Afghanistan or in Iraq:

"The first tenet is that the best weapons don't shoot. Counterinsurgents must excel at finding creative, nonmilitary solutions to military problems."

Second, "The more you protect your forces, the less safe you may be. To be effective, troops, diplomats and civilian aid workers need to get out among the people. But nearly every American I saw in Kabul was hidden behind high walls or racing through the streets in armored convoys."

Third, "[t]he third paradox . . . is that the more force you use, the less effective you may be. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are notoriously difficult to tally, but 300-500 noncombatants have probably been killed already this year, mostly in U.S. and coalition air strikes. Killing civilians, even in error, is not only a serious moral transgression but also a lethal strategic misstep. Wayward U.S. strikes have seriously undermined the very legitimacy of the Karzai government and made all too many Afghans resent coalition forces. If Afghans lose patience with the coalition presence, those forces will be run out of the country, in the footsteps of the British and the Soviets before them."

And lastly, "[t]he academy's final lesson is that tactical success in a vacuum guarantees nothing. Just as it did in Vietnam, the U.S. military could win every battle and still lose the war. That's largely because our primary enemies in Afghanistan still have a sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan . . . Chasing terrorists and the Taliban around Afghanistan leads to little lasting progress as long as they can slip across the border to rest and regroup. . . . The Durand Line, which separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, is a mapmaker's fantasy. Without political reform, economic development and military operations on both sides of the border, we can do little more than put a finger in the dike that's keeping radicalism and instability in Pakistan from spilling back into Afghanistan."

These are words of wisdom from someone who fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq. How come Bush has not heard these words? He still counts "progress" as so many insurgents killed. He still equates insurgency with terrorism instead of understanding the fear and rage of local populations when they are bombed or shot at.