Once you're knee deep in a pond of quicksand, can you extricate yourself from it without making things worse? Is this the situation confronting the U.S. as the war in Iraq is getting worse by the day? It is true that outright withdrawal of troops on moral and ethical grounds is an inadequate approach to address the mess that has already been made; Somalia - as Glucksmann notes - serves as a frightening example. The question is whether an administration that so enthusiastically propelled its country into war is approaching it prudently and effectively. Can insurgent resistance ever be quelled? Or does U.S. foreign policy around the world feed - for a lack of a better term - a vicious cycle? How does the tension with Iran or the problematic relationship with the Israel-Palestine situation make these problems even more pressing? The short answer to these questions is that these things do not help the situation in Iraq, but are not the central factors behind difficulties the U.S. military face in the region - which for the most part it has created for itself through miscalculations and a lack of foresight in strategy and planning.
True, it would be naive to believe that the U.S. government is utterly unaware of what is happening on the ground in Iraq. It would be too simplistic to say that if U.S. troops withdrew the Iraqi people would be restored to a romantic state of peaceful bliss. Honestly, Andre Glucksmann is absolutely correct that a rash withdrawal would leave Iraq open to civil strife and brutality. But, why has the presence of U.S. military been relatively ineffectual in curbing insurgent violence? Why has the U.S. troops engaged in the slaughter of Iraqi civilians as well - with at least one known incident at Haditha? Gluckmann did an inadequate job in philosophically differentiating between Saddam Hussein's tyranny and the potentially indiscriminate brutality of American "liberators". One was a decades-long regime of terror, or so the story goes. The other is supposedly a temporary price for gains to be made down the road.
Is the incident at Haditha an expression of metaphysical angst, of frustration about the escalating quagmire created by persistent insurgent resistance? Or does the insanity of Haditha reveal the repressed penchant for death and destruction, ingrained in soldiers who are conditioned for brutality - to fight against a homogenized enemy? When the line between insurgent and civilian is blurred, as is often the case in guerrilla war, do innocents appear to simply as enemies or potential enemies? Certainly, the question is not purely philosophical - indiscriminate killing is in essence an irrational act, but the philosophical question casts some light upon the rudderless war effort.
Do you stay or do you go? The dilemma is difficult to think through. Too bad those in the Bush administration have not given it much thought or have considered the paradoxes inherent in such a decision. Or if they have given it much thought, it has not shown in their actions in Iraq, as the American effort has held steadfast to winning a propaganda war at home - the highly publicized capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2004 and the recent "elimination" of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on June 7, 2006 - rather than winning the war on the ground. The most disconcerting aspect of the war is the failure of U.S. strategy and tactics employed in waging the war - first, a lack of understanding about street fighting, recon and intelligence gathering, and guerrilla tactics necessary to weed out the roots of insurgent resistance - ironically the same shortcomings that doomed them in Vietnam, and second, the abysmal failure of the campaign for the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis, due largely to the paternalistic assumption that "democracy" and "freedom" means anything for the Iraqi people without some context to their everyday lives and culture. To put it bluntly, they have done a terrible job in selling the idea of a better future.
This first failure of strategy, ironically enough, is because the U.S. effort has overemphasized the ideological and semiotic developments within the insurgence, such as whether these insurgent groups are related to global terror organizations and the preoccupation with the particular acts of terror such as kidnappings, videos of beheadings, and such. The location of Zarqawi was an exception to this, because it revealed a degree of logistical sophistication and espionage. But, of course, a bold symbolic gesture was chosen over a more patient, prudent, and substantive strategy. Rather than capturing Zarqawi and his associates - possibly obtaining leads about the locales of "rival" insurgent groups and invaluable information about the insurgent resistance, the U.S. military resorted to a bold display of revanche by blowing him up and parading pictures of his corpse proudly, like an eight year old showing his playground chums a dead bird he found. What was accomplished through Zarqawi's death, apart from a brief revisit of the feeling of apparent accomplishment and achievement that occurred on that joyous "Mission Accomplished" fighter carrier and the infamous-famous "We got him!" press conference two years ago? If you are at war to reinforce self-esteem, you're in war for the wrong damn reasons.
In war, as Sun-Tzu put it elegantly, you must come to understand the adversary and the conditions of combat as well as you know yourself. The masterful general, as he puts it, is the one who wins the battle before it even takes place. Rather than going into Iraq with any nuanced long-term strategy - contingency plan upon contingency plan, the U.S. military went in to "shock and awe", raise the Mission Accomplished banner for the hometown "folks", and bumbled their way through the rest, resulting in many American soldiers being sent home in body bags and an even larger number of Iraqi civilians perishing.
So once you're there, you can't give in and say "the pinko-commie fuckwad protestors weakened our resolve and compromised our effort" or some other stilted attempt at deflecting blame. If the war is a necessity, as they contend, at least don't fuck it up with constant attempts at justifying being there in the first place. The point is to pacify the insurgency, not to bolster their resolve by creating martyrs. The purpose is to create conditions favourable to victory and stability, not to seek revenge for grudges. The way to victory - take that term with a grain of salt - is one of stealth, patience, and prudence. Arrogance, foolish impudence, and allowing revenge to motivate action leads invariably to defeat. The U.S. venture into Iraq has seemingly followed along the path of the latter rather than the former.
True, it would be naive to believe that the U.S. government is utterly unaware of what is happening on the ground in Iraq. It would be too simplistic to say that if U.S. troops withdrew the Iraqi people would be restored to a romantic state of peaceful bliss. Honestly, Andre Glucksmann is absolutely correct that a rash withdrawal would leave Iraq open to civil strife and brutality. But, why has the presence of U.S. military been relatively ineffectual in curbing insurgent violence? Why has the U.S. troops engaged in the slaughter of Iraqi civilians as well - with at least one known incident at Haditha? Gluckmann did an inadequate job in philosophically differentiating between Saddam Hussein's tyranny and the potentially indiscriminate brutality of American "liberators". One was a decades-long regime of terror, or so the story goes. The other is supposedly a temporary price for gains to be made down the road.
Is the incident at Haditha an expression of metaphysical angst, of frustration about the escalating quagmire created by persistent insurgent resistance? Or does the insanity of Haditha reveal the repressed penchant for death and destruction, ingrained in soldiers who are conditioned for brutality - to fight against a homogenized enemy? When the line between insurgent and civilian is blurred, as is often the case in guerrilla war, do innocents appear to simply as enemies or potential enemies? Certainly, the question is not purely philosophical - indiscriminate killing is in essence an irrational act, but the philosophical question casts some light upon the rudderless war effort.
Do you stay or do you go? The dilemma is difficult to think through. Too bad those in the Bush administration have not given it much thought or have considered the paradoxes inherent in such a decision. Or if they have given it much thought, it has not shown in their actions in Iraq, as the American effort has held steadfast to winning a propaganda war at home - the highly publicized capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2004 and the recent "elimination" of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on June 7, 2006 - rather than winning the war on the ground. The most disconcerting aspect of the war is the failure of U.S. strategy and tactics employed in waging the war - first, a lack of understanding about street fighting, recon and intelligence gathering, and guerrilla tactics necessary to weed out the roots of insurgent resistance - ironically the same shortcomings that doomed them in Vietnam, and second, the abysmal failure of the campaign for the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis, due largely to the paternalistic assumption that "democracy" and "freedom" means anything for the Iraqi people without some context to their everyday lives and culture. To put it bluntly, they have done a terrible job in selling the idea of a better future.
This first failure of strategy, ironically enough, is because the U.S. effort has overemphasized the ideological and semiotic developments within the insurgence, such as whether these insurgent groups are related to global terror organizations and the preoccupation with the particular acts of terror such as kidnappings, videos of beheadings, and such. The location of Zarqawi was an exception to this, because it revealed a degree of logistical sophistication and espionage. But, of course, a bold symbolic gesture was chosen over a more patient, prudent, and substantive strategy. Rather than capturing Zarqawi and his associates - possibly obtaining leads about the locales of "rival" insurgent groups and invaluable information about the insurgent resistance, the U.S. military resorted to a bold display of revanche by blowing him up and parading pictures of his corpse proudly, like an eight year old showing his playground chums a dead bird he found. What was accomplished through Zarqawi's death, apart from a brief revisit of the feeling of apparent accomplishment and achievement that occurred on that joyous "Mission Accomplished" fighter carrier and the infamous-famous "We got him!" press conference two years ago? If you are at war to reinforce self-esteem, you're in war for the wrong damn reasons.
In war, as Sun-Tzu put it elegantly, you must come to understand the adversary and the conditions of combat as well as you know yourself. The masterful general, as he puts it, is the one who wins the battle before it even takes place. Rather than going into Iraq with any nuanced long-term strategy - contingency plan upon contingency plan, the U.S. military went in to "shock and awe", raise the Mission Accomplished banner for the hometown "folks", and bumbled their way through the rest, resulting in many American soldiers being sent home in body bags and an even larger number of Iraqi civilians perishing.
So once you're there, you can't give in and say "the pinko-commie fuckwad protestors weakened our resolve and compromised our effort" or some other stilted attempt at deflecting blame. If the war is a necessity, as they contend, at least don't fuck it up with constant attempts at justifying being there in the first place. The point is to pacify the insurgency, not to bolster their resolve by creating martyrs. The purpose is to create conditions favourable to victory and stability, not to seek revenge for grudges. The way to victory - take that term with a grain of salt - is one of stealth, patience, and prudence. Arrogance, foolish impudence, and allowing revenge to motivate action leads invariably to defeat. The U.S. venture into Iraq has seemingly followed along the path of the latter rather than the former.
