O Israel

I got an e-mail on the mess in Lebanon from ole Yuval, the self-styled "Truth Provider." It included the following paragraph:

Please support the IDF. Allow it to complete the task. Only full victory will do. For the sake of us all and our future generations, do not allow peacenicks and uppeasers [sic] to put obstacles on our road to full victory.

As if "full victory" were achieveable by force of arms. This war, like every one that has prededed it since 1967 will end in exactly the same way: by making absolutely no difference. Except of course to all the people killed or maimed in the process.

I am so frustrated by this whole situation I am simply beside myself. The situation between the Arabs and Israel is the greatest threat to American security in the world today. Yet, despite the lessons of nearly 40 years, no one seems to be able to see that bombs and bullets change nothing for the better. Where is our Nelson Mandela?

ARRRGH!

Billy Bob's Bulletins

As anyone who reads this can tell, I have pretty much quit doing this series of posts. It was started in response to Billy Bob's observation in an e-mail that news about Iraq was hard to come by in Iraq. So, I thought posting links that he could read (and if the spirit moved him comment on) more or less anonymously might serve a useful function. However, the longer I did this, the more uncomfortable I became. The news from all over the Middle East is just so consistently awful that I began to wonder if making it more accessible to someone fighting there was really the right thing to do.

However, the Washington Post today published the first two of what I gather will be a series of articles adapted from a new book by its lead reporter on military affairs, Thomas E. Ricks. The articles and the book (entitled "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq") are pretty critical of American strategy and of the tactics that flowed from that strategy. As such, my initial reaction was that this was still another example of the kind of stuff I shouldn't burden Billy Bob with. But two things led me to go ahead. First, the intro to the series comes with links to a whole series of articles Ricks has written over the last 4 years on the debates within the military and between the military and the Administration that reads like a history of the Iraq war. It is just fascinating to see how close we came to getting it right. Second, the criticisms are not just carping. Nor are they just the ruminations of some jounalist. The criticisms come from within the military establishment itself and they contain some insights that seem to me to be still worth learning. As such, I thought Billy Bob might find some of these insights useful in terms of his own mission.

Hope I am not wrong on all of this.

Anyway, here is a link to Ricks' prior articles and here are links to the two new articles that appeared today:

In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam (an overall critique of the strategy), and

'It Looked Weird and Felt Wrong' (a more particularized critique of the 4th Infantry Division's implementation of that strategy).

Two quotes from the first of the new articles stick with me:

"When you're facing a counterinsurgency war, if you get the strategy right, . . . eventually you'll get the tactics right [as well]," said retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a veteran of Special Forces in the Vietnam War. "If you get the strategy wrong . . ., you can refine the tactics forever, but you still lose the war."

As civil affairs officers found to their dismay, Army leaders tended to see the Iraqi people as the playing field on which a contest was played against insurgents. In [fact], the people are the prize.

The Tribal Way Of War

In a post earlier today, I bemoaned, not for the first time, both the bankrptcy of our, the Israelis', indeed the West's, current "grand strategy" for winning its struggle with militant Islam and my own (indeed anyone's) inability to articulate an alternative. Not ten minutes after posting that, I came across a WSJ review of a book by Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew entitled "Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias." I obviously haven't read the book (yet), but if the review is accurate, this book may articulate, if not an actual alternative, then at least a persepctive that may be helpful in trying to formulate one.

The review starts with a much more cogent statement of the problem than I have yet been able to muster:

While the U.S. spends billions of dollars on sophisticated defense systems, the dime-a-dozen kidnapper and suicide bomber have emerged as the most strategic weapons of war. While we tie ourselves in legal knots over war's acceptable parameters, international law has increasingly less bearing on those whom we fight. And while our commanders declare "force protection" as their highest priority, enemy commanders declare the need for more martyrs. It seems that the more advanced we become, the more at a disadvantage we are in the 21st-century battlefield.

The reviewer might well have added that, "the more we punish them, the stronger they become."

According to the review, Shultz and Dew make the case that the reason for these apparent paradoxes is that we and our adversaries have very different understandings of the purposes of war and the rules that apply to it. They argue that, if we are to prevail in these conflicts, we need, as Sun Tzu's advised 2,500 years ago, to "Know your enemy" and tailor our strategy appropriately:

Forget Karl von Clausewitz's dictum that war is a last resort and circumscribed by the methodical actions and requirements of a state and its army. Forget Hugo Grotius's notion that war should be circumscribed by a law of nations. As the authors remind us, paraphrasing the anthropologist Harry Turney-High: "Tribal and clan chieftains did not employ war as a cold-blooded and calculated policy instrument. . . . Rather, it was fought for a host of social-psychological purposes and desires, which included . . . honor, glory, revenge, vengeance, and vendetta." With such motives, torture and beheadings become part of the normal ritual of war."

The point of the book, I gather, is that is that, for our current adversaires, what is seen as an appropriate causus belli as well as the rules that govern war once initiated are products of tribal culture and history and bear little relation to what has evolved into the "western way of war." For instance:

The Somali way of war--so startling to U.S. Army Rangers in Mogadishu in 1993--emerged from Somalia's late-19th-century Dervish movement, on which the country's top warlord, Mohammed Farah Aidid, based his strategy. What the West viewed as fanaticism was merely the Somali proclivity for judging a man's character by his religious conviction and his physical ability to fight without limits. In the Somali worldview, our aversion to killing women and children was a weakness that could be exploited by using noncombatants as human shields.

"Cleary," the book admonishes, "the task of anticipating the enemy's tactics requires thinking that goes beyond Western moral categories."

I can't tell if the book actually proposes anything more concrete than the admonition to "know your enemy." However, even if not, that admonition coupled with some insight into particlur enemies, may be a starting point.

I have ordered the book.

"You'd Do The Same Thing. Probably Even Worse"

There has been a lot of criticism of Israel for what is characterized as its disproportionate responses to the cross-border incursions and kidnappings perpetrated by Hamas and then by Hezbollah. If you are interested, much of this criticism is catalogued in an article posted yesterday on the Zionist Organization Of America website, which, of course, considers such criticism to be evidence of the perfidy of Israel's so-called "friends."

Every one of these statements also blamed Hezbollah for starting things, condemned Iran and Syria for supporting Hezbollah and confirmed Israel's right to defend itself from such attacks. Even some of Israel's traditional enemies joined in criticizing Hezbollah as well as Israel.

Yet the opinion pieces from Israel's American supporters chose to largely ignore these facts and to portray the criticism as an attack on Israel's right to respond at all: Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, Wall Street Journal, Max Boot, James Taranto, Charles Krauthammer(again), etc.

But the disproportionality is so overwhelming that even the Israeli PR machine cannot keep it out of the news sections: Dozens more die as air strikes continue, Dazed Refugees Flood Beirut, Beirut: City Of Ruins, Large-Scale Evacuations From Lebanon Begin etc. Yes, Israelis are suffering and dying too, but some statistics reported in today's NY Times brings the relative suffering into perspective:

The asymmetry in the reported death tolls is marked and growing: some 230 Lebanese dead, most of them civilians, to 25 Israeli dead, 13 of them civilians. In Gaza, one Israel soldier has died from his own army's fire, and 103 Palestinians have been killed, 70 percent of them militants.

In addition, Israel has disabled the Lebanon's only commercial airport, blockaded its ports, and destroyed fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and innumerable homes and businesses in both Lebanon and Gaza. It has even bombed a Lebanese Army base -- the same army it insists should be disarming Hezbollah. Nothing even remotely similar to this is occurring in Israel.

With the disproportionality so blatant and undeniable, Israeli apologists have taken a new tack: they are defending it, arguing that other countries would do the same thing, probably even worse. As reported in the same NY Times article today:

Referring to complaints that Israel was using disproportionate force, Dan Gillerman, Israel's United Nations ambassador, said at a rally of supporters in New York this week, "You're damn right we are. If your cities were shelled the way ours were," he said, addressing critics, "you would use much more force than we are or we ever will."

In a USA Today op-ed piece, Newt Gingrich makes this argument as well:

Imagine that this morning 50 missiles were launched from Cuba and exploded in Miami. In addition to buildings and homes being destroyed, scores of Americans were being killed. Now imagine our allies responded by saying publicly that we must not be too aggressive in protecting our citizens and that America must use the utmost restraint.

Our history shows us that we, as Americans, would reject such bad advice. After all, we have never reacted to a direct attack on our soil with any restraint. Every time America has been attacked by an enemy, we set about defeating it and ending the threat.

There is considerable truth to this. One need not go back to World War II for an example; one need only consider our response to the 9/11 attacks. Far from showing restraint, we invaded and occupied two entire countries, bringing to each civilian casualties and destruction of property far in excees of what we ourselves suffered -- and far in excess of what the Israelis are inflicting on either Lebanon or Gaza.

But the analogy contains its own rebuttal: as we ourselves have proved, such disproportionality just . . . does . . . not . . . work in these types of struggles. Yes, it did work in WW II, the "lessons" of which continue to cloud our thinking about today's world. But with regard to the Muslim world, I know of no instance where the application of "overwhelming force" has produced anything other than more, and more barbaric, violence. To the contrary, the Russian experience in Afghanistan and Chechnya, our own experience in Afghanistan and Iraq and -- most of all -- Israel's experience in its 40 year struggle with the Palestinians, demonstrate, I think conclusively, that in these kinds of struggles overwhelming force is not just doomed to failure, it is like trying to douse a fire with gasoline.

The human suffering that Israel is inflciting on the Lebanese is offensive, but what makes it offensive has less to do with issues of proportionality than it does with the fact that it is gratuitous. We can accept disproportionate violence and casulaties and the suffering and deaths of innocents if (and so long as) we believe that something worthwhile will result in the end. We Americans still have some hope that our own acts of disproportional violence in Iraq and Afghanistan may yet prove to have been "worth it;" at least, we did not know in that our actions would only make matters worse. That cannot be said for the Israelis. After 40 years of fighting, nothing in their experience provides them with even the smallest inkling of belief that the suffering they are imposing on others will dampen the ardor or blunt the effectiveness of their enemies. As such, the violence is not really a calculated step taken reluctantly in the hope of a better future. It is simply an act of rage born of frustration.

So what is the alternative? I don't know. That's the problem. No one seems to know, so we and the Israelis and the Russians and everyone else caught up in the struggles with the Muslim world keep doing the same things over, and over and over again. With the same sorry results. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know this: We have to, we must, find some better way of dealing with these types of adversaries. "Overwhelming force" is not the answer.

Bush Vetoes Embryonic Stem-Cell Bill

The cartoon captures the pathetic irony.

The Op-Ed piece in yesterday's USA Today captures the overwhelming stupidity.

There's not much else to say, is there?

Tuning Out

Every month about this time, the NY Times e-mails me (and its other online subscribers) a list of the 10 most e-mailed articles for the last 30 days or so. This list always intrigues me, less becuase of an interest in the articles themselves (although I do occasionslly find something intriguing that I missed) than becuase of what the list seems to say about the interests of the (amittedly unrepresentative) on-line readership of the New York Times.

This month's list was peculiarly suggestive. There was not one article on Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the Palestinians, Somalia, Iran or Korea. Nor were there any articles on spying, or immigration, or detainees, or military tribunals, or flag burning or "defense of marrriage" amendments, or any of the other subjects that so consume those in Washington and the blogosphere. There was also not one editorial or op-ed piece. The readers, in short, found almost nothing in the entire news or editorial sections of the NY Times to be worth sharing with others.
The four most popular articles were, in order:

1.What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage,

2.At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust,

3.Star Jones Reynolds's Departure From 'The View', and

4.Rogue Giants at Sea (a story about freak ocean waves).

Of the other six "most popular" articles, two were about Ken Lay's death, one about the man who blew up his multi-million dollar NY townhouse rather than give it to his estranged wife, one about Google, and one about the bizarre end to the World Cup. Of the ten, the only one that might begin to qualify as "news" (at least as I define it) was this, coming in at number 7: Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit .

What do I make of this? Probably too much. But it does seem to suggest that people -- even the types that read the NY Times -- have simply tuned out. The purient and perverse (Ken Lay, the NY town house, Star Jones Reynolds, and the Zidane head-butt incident) will catch their interest, as will forces of nature (rogue waves and Google), the counter-intuitve (female dominance in college) and the simply bizarre (Shamu on marriage). But the only "news" readers see fit to share with others is the rare bit of good news (whoops! the deficit is coming down a bit). The rest is so unrelentingly bad that, even if it is read, forwarding it to people who may have had the good fortune to avoid it would be bad manners or worse: "Hey Joe. Just in case you didn't hear, there were 120 peoplke killed in Iraq yesterday. Have a nice day."

I find myself doing the same thing. I look at the headlines and flinch. I feel like it is "important," but I have to make myself read even a couple paragraphs. Mostly, I skip anything beyond the headline and go off ot look, usually fruitlessly, for something upbeat or new or surprising to actually read.

In part, at least, this is what lies behind my month-long hiatus in posting here. In particular, my enthusisam for "Billy Bob's Bulletins" had been considerably dampened. In posting the headlines about Iraq, or other events that might impact Billy Bob, I feel like a one-man morale buster. It is probably hard enough for someone in Billy Bob's position to stay positive without having someone like me making it even easier to see how f@%*ed up everything is right now.

There is lots going on, but it is all so damn depressing that the thought of "sharing" it with others makes my skin crawl.

A Little More Humor From Booty Girl

Courtesy, again, of booty girl:

Supporting The Troops: Is It Possible To Do Too Much?

During my "hiatus" I had set aside a few things things that I thought might eventually be worthy of comment. Most of those seem a bit dated by now, overcome by further developments. But one exception is an op-ed piece by Max Boot of the LA Times entitled Our Enemies Aren't Drinking Lattes.

Returning from Iraq and elsewhere, Boot was surprised, impressed and a bit disturbed by the creature comforts available to our soldiers:

In the past few months, I have traveled across U.S. Central Command's area of operations — a vast domain stretching from the deserts of Arabia to the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Everywhere, I have found massive bases fortified with endless rows of concrete barriers and stocked with every convenience known to 21st century Americans.

Some front-line units continue to operate out of spartan outposts where a hot meal is a luxury and flush toilets unknown. But growing numbers of troops live on giant installations complete with Wal-Mart-style post exchanges, movie theaters, swimming pools, gyms, fast-food eateries (Subway, Burger King, Cinnabon) and vast chow halls offering fresh-baked pies and multiple flavors of ice cream. Troops increasingly live in dorm-style quarters (called "chews," for "containerized housing units") complete with TVs, mini-refrigerators, air conditioning/heating units and other luxuries unimaginable to previous generations of GIs.

Boot is obviously torn by this, as am I. After all, what sort of venal, unpatriotic, scrooge could possibly object to providing our men and women in harm's way with anything that that might mitigate even somewhat the hardship, dangers and loneliness they are enduring on our behalf?

But there are costs involved in supporting our troops in this way (and to this extent) that are enough to give anyone pause.

The first of these is the threat isolation and relative privilege poses to the mission itself. "Successful counterinsurgency operations require troops to go out among the people, gathering intelligence and building goodwill. But few Iraqis are allowed on these bases, and few Americans are allowed out — and then only in forbidding armored convoys." The fact that our troops can and do spend most of their time in bases that provide security and creature comforts unimaginable to most Iraqis seems at least as likely to build resentment and jealously as it does gratitude among those we are trying to help. It also serves to reinforce the essential "alieness" of Americans. We say we are "in it with them," but in fact we are not. To the extent this envy and alieness hampers our ability to fight the insurgency, it at least extends the time over which our commitment must be maintained and may well doom that effort entirely.

But the even more compelling problem is that people are dying -- literally -- in the effort to ensure that Joe and Jane GI have lattes and Hagen Daz in Iraq. Boot cites some stunning statistics:

According to Centcom, there are 20,000 combat service support troops in its area of operations and another 80,000 contracted civilians. . . . U.S. troops in those countries consume 882,000 liters of water and 2.4 million gallons of fuel every day, plus tons of other supplies that have to be transported across dangerous war zones. Centcom has more than 3,000 trucks delivering supplies and another 2,400 moving fuel — each one a target that has to be protected.

. As Boot enthused about the latte he had just finished, a Marine captain brought him back to earth with this question: "I wonder how many men had to die to get those coffee beans to Baqubah?" And I wonder how much comfort it provides to the parents/spouses/children of soldiers killed to know that their sons/daughters/husbands/wives/fathers/mothers died in the effort to get cherry pie filling to the troops at the front.

Boot ends with an interesting observation:

How to explain this seemingly counterproductive behavior? My theory is that any organization prefers to focus on what it does well. In the case of the Pentagon, that's logistics. Our ability to move supplies is unparalleled in military history. Fighting guerrillas, on the other hand, has never been a mission that has found much favor with the armed forces.

A Pox On All Your Houses

As if the news from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia (to say nothing of Iran and Korea) weren't bad enough, now the Israelis and Palestinians are back at it. It's the Hatflieds and McCoys played out on an international scale.

What are the Israelis thinking? I sometimes think that way down deep they want -- maybe even need -- this constant conflict. Someone kidnaps one of their soldiers, they invade, bomb power plants and homes, terrorize the resident population and (surprise, surprise) what do they get in return? Another group kidnaps two more soldiers. So what do they do? Invade that country bombing away as if that would accomplish something.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. You'd think that, after 60 years, they would have figured out that massive retaliation just makes things worse. But it is like they are afraid to try anything else.

If the only thing at risk in all of this were Israslis and Palestinians, I'd say "Go for it you idiots. Kill each other to your hearts' content." But that is not all that is at stake. How can we continue to support a regime that kills 20 for every casualty they suffer? What sort of hypnotic hold does Israel have over us that leads us to keep defending them despite the obvious-to-anyone fact that their actions and reactions pare a threat to our own security?

I just don't get it. Why do we care about them?

The Hiatus

It's been nearly a month since I posted anything. For part of that time I was on vacation sans internet access, but I must confess as well to a bit of ennui. No one except Left Coast Rob seemed even to notice, so it didn't seem all that important. And besides, the news is so unrelentingly depressing that it's hard even to think about it much, let alone write about it.

But, Billy Bob seems now to have access again, so I transferred the last four days of Billy Bob's Bulletins I did (June 12 to 16) back here from the alternative site I had set up and decided to get my sorry ass back in gear again.

Just to work slowly back into it, here are some cartoons I have seen over the past few days that made me smile:













Also, I think the cover of this week's Economist is a hoot: