Something John Abizaid said recently was interesting.
The coalition and the Iraqi government will not tolerate temporary alliances of convenience. Once you align yourself with the insurgents, you've crossed the line and you go on the list. And the only way off the list is to be killed or captured. linkIt is interesting for several reasons. First, its false on its face. The Sadr Affair was resolved with the principle Sadr staff and its men under arms neither killed nor captured. Second, if true its failed on its face. The number of daily incident reports (homicides, attempted homicides, assaults against persons, assaults against property) that conclude with "suspects killed or captured" is a small fraction of the total, and the diference between incidents opened and incidents closed with "suspects killed or captured" is diverging, not converging. Third, if true and successful, it is ... extravagantly wasteful.
From men who take paid work (rare in Iraq) to plant IEDs to groups of men who are "weekend warriors" or participate in municipal or politicial militias for occasional operations, there are a lot of "opfors" who, under some conditions, would not self-articulate as "forces" nor initiate "ops". If John Abizid isn't managing those conditions then he isn't doing the job his seniors, every officer who's ever sat on a promotion board that John Abizid's paperwork crossed, entrusted him to do, if he got the central chair at a waging war desk. There are murders, torturers and xenophobes -- psychopaths -- running around with weapons in both the coalition, and anti-coaltion forces. Abizid has put every "temporarily aligned with" person on the dead-or-alive list, which means he's also put every Army nurse, every graves registration clerk, every cook on the same list. If Abu Musab al-Zarqawi dropped the beheadings and all the rest of the medieval drama, and just adopted the rules of engagement of John Abizid, only the style of execution would change.
What do you call conducting operations to kill or capture persons or groups who have in the past conducted military operations, and who may again in the future, but who pose no threat in the present situation. The daily sitrep for "foo" is "non-threat" and the day's tasking is "kill or capture foo".
Pursuit of the enemy down to the last man standing, no matter where they are situated, no matter how hopeless or ineffective they may be. Westmorland didn't do that in Nam. Neither did MacArthur or Ridgway in Korea. Neither did Ike or Monty in Europe. It is as if the mode of operations has shifted from war to dirty war, or Milton Chivington has returned from the grave, ready to kill nits, because they become lice.
Posted by EBW at November 19, 2004 10:58 AM | TrackBack