Headless Body in Topless War

[LiviaOlivia]

Headless Body in Topless War
Posted by James Wolcott
11-18-04
http://www.jameswolcott.com/


"... who fights against the weak--and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed--and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force however rich, however powerful, however advanced, and however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat; if U.S. troops in Iraq have not yet started fragging their officers, the suicide rate among them is already exceptionally high. That is why the present adventure will almost certainly end as the previous one did. Namely, with the last U.S. troops fleeing the country while hanging on to their helicopters' skids."

So prophecizes Martin van Creveld. Who he? as Harold Ross would ask. He is a professor to history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and author of The Transformation of War, an indispensable book to understand why retribalized warfare (from militias, ideological insurgencies, drug lords) threatens to overthrow the top-heavy hegemony of nation-state military power. It is a key text in what has come to be known as 4th Generation warfare. Before the reader gets to American soldiers grasping for helicopter skids, van Creveld explores the military education of legendary Israeli general Moshe Dayan, who in his younger days went to Vietnam as a war correspondent. What Dayan saw, what he learned, is a lesson the American military under Rumsfeld seems to have forgotten as it wages counterinsurgency in Iraq.

William Lind, an expert in 4th Generation warfare and no lefty, reaches the same bleak conclusion regarding the Vietnam-Iraq parallels. Since Saddam's fall, we've been stomping around Iraq like Godzilla. Lind: "The result is likely to be more flattened cities like Falluja, more victories on the moral level for our opponents, and in the end, ignominious withdrawal and defeat."

So thick is the euphoria and triumphalism post November 2nd that I wonder if most of our media, never mind the bovine American public, have any inkling of how ghastily Iraq is going down the drain, and taking the American military with it. We've been so bombarded with "Failure is not an option" that few are willing to assert, as van Creveld and Lind do, that failure may not be an option but it damn well may be the outcome, and quicker than anyone contemplates.

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[LiviaOlivia]

6. Your statement is BS! Not only to say nonsensical.

Prove your Murdoch claim!

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[LiviaOlivia]

9. Whatever?!!?

You can't even put into words your position. You are inarticulate.

The title is not the point, Dude. The text is always the object of beauty when it comes to the great Wolcott.

I don't think this is the board for you.

[DenverDem]

4. How so?

The murdochian line is the faux news' regurgitation of pentagon propaganda talking points.

This is the cold, hard truth that it will take joe stupidass sixpack another six to twelve months to grasp. By then the blood bath of amerikkan and Iraqi casualties will be freaking horrific and the rest of the world will be massing at our borders to wipe our stupid, self absorbed asses out.

Yep, by then it will be TOO LATE.

[LiviaOlivia]

2. "the bovine American public"

You gotta love this man's gift of words. Yes, yes. All the rest is very serious and true.

[chookie]

8. Agreed

The sad truth is that the nature of modern warfare is quagmire. Draw an ambitious, arrogant superpower with a "secret" agenda into a quagmire, and you have modern warfare -- the Mother of All Turkeyshoots and the Mother of All Pointless Slaughter.

Therefore, **smart** superpowers (apparently there has never been one) must choose their wars very carefully.

Let's see -- we could be buying oil from these people, but we thought we could neutralize the enemies of Israel and STEAL their oil AND hasten the return of Jesus Christ all at once!

This is not a partisan statement -- nor is it "treacherous" -- it is realistic:Bin Laden is smarter than Bush. Bin Laden understands history better than Bush -- empires have been imploding under "terrorist" attacks for millennia. Bin Laden plays chess, whereas Idiot Bush is playing high stakes poker with an empty hand. Bin Laden, despite the righteous fury he brought upon himself for attacking NYC and DC, will, in the messy progress of this stupid war in Iraq, and who knows where else, gain more sympathizers, as this begins to look very convincingly like a genocide against Muslims, whereas His Chimperial Highness loses more hearts and minds every day by shoving killing on a MASSIVE scale down our collective hroats. Over the long haul -- and BOTH sides want this to be a large-scale, long-term war -- it is discouraging.

Here in the US we have history working against us -- the people in power now are those who have been itching for a new world war for decades. They also are passionate that there are "No More Viet Nams!!" -- but what they MEAN is that we will kill for the sake of killing, to save "face", never withdraw, fight FOREVER, to the last drop dead -- the Kilkenny Cats Doctrine. We can't let them terrierists think we're yellow (although we have the largest and best equipped and best trained army ever) -- but obvious they are comfortable that our enemies know we are stupid (because we send our armies to fight stupid unwinnable wars)..... The also lesson they learned is -- Johnson and Nixon were FAR too tolerant of opposition to the war -- therefore His Chimperial Highness will ignore it. It was lefties and hippies and guys like John Kerry who LOST Viet Nam -- not the fact that we should have NEVER been there in the first place and had civilian idiots rather than real soldiers plan the fighting. No more tolerance of dissent, not from hippies, not from the CIA, not from the Senate, and CERTAINLY not from the press.

[rodeodance]

10. agreed--we still tthink of them as bouned 'nation-states'

Lots has been written about this way of reasoning and its disasterous effects on our military, and our country!!