The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[jlechelt]

Kristol calling for reasoned debate is like President Clinton calling for faithfulness in marriage, or President Bush calling for honesty in war leadership. Bill Kristol should have been demanding - and offering - reasoned debate BEFORE the Iraq War began. Instead, he sounded the trumpets and challenged the integrity of anyone who questioned the wisdom of going into Iraq. Shame on him. Kilcullen's explanation of the current US effort in Iraq is fantastic. Why hasn't the President of the United States been so direct and honest with us?

[120mm]

I know it isn't popular to say so, but perhaps the President IS being as honest as he is capable of being. Perhaps it is more an issue of capability, not intent. If nothing else, this Presidency has been marked with an inability to communicate clearly, whether that be because Bush cannot speak well, or that there is no central theme to speak to, or that media filters are on "full".

For sure, the assertion that "Bush Lied" has reached "Big Lie" status for those among his opposition. I mean, it's been said so often, it must be true, right? On a related issue, the Presidency has been under continuous investigation since Reagan. Investigating the President has become a tactic, now. And, except for in former President Clinton's case, the investigations have turned up nothing of substance.

[Abu Buckwheat]

What happens in Iraq right now matters to our future survival. The AQs of the world don't see it like we do, for them history is already written and they won, all they have to do is wage the global jihad.

There is no arguing that an unstable and failed state of Iraq will give refuge to some future terrorists but we have to face some simple facts before we can stipulate your argument. I have been working there for four years, lost dozens of friends and eeked out a book on how and why they fight. The facts on the ground are this ... Al Qaeda in iraq and all of its associated foreign fighter personnel make up less than 2-5% of the insurgency. We have managed to incorrectly place the initials "AQI" next to everyone fighting us -particularly Iraqis fighting us. This is wrong and our group think-prone mindset is to belive our own political propaganda. In this instance this is what is blinding us to how AQI could be everywhere at all times and so effective day and night in Iraq. In fact, they aren't.

We are fighting 4 entirely different resistance organizations in Iraq ... three of them are Sunni. However everywhere I go I keep hearing the boots on the ground carrying out operations against AQI or AQI supporters ... I will say this once again. No one seems to fight the Iraqi resistance ... just AQI. All Iraqiscaptured are AQI. All supporters aare AQI. This is flat out wrong.

We are fighting an 98,000 man force made up mainly of former intelligence officers, police, soldiers, commandos and their children above the age of 16. The Former Regime Loyalists (FRLs) are the heart of the insurgency and their goals are entirely different from those of AQI. AQI is just a convient foil that allows the FRLs to operate with impunity while AQI gets almost all of our resources and missions. It is in the interest of the FRLs and the Iraqi religious extremists as well as the Mahdi militia to keep us bug hunting for the AQI SVBIED cells while the day to day grind of IEDs and Ambushes kills two to five of our men and women everyday ... these attacks come from the 98% of the insurgency we seem to take pleasure in ignoring.

I have worked the AQ mission since 1993 and a few other facts need to be said. AQI didn't exist until we set the ground and battlefield for them. OK, its done; a phenomenal screw-up of ungodly but biblical proportions. Now lets move on and unscrew it. AQI operates separately as a covert entity within Iraqi society simply to carry out SVBIED/SPBIED missions (and some armed attacks for training purposes). They are a one trick pony, however it is an effective trick. Yet they cannot even start to operate in Iraq without the people who brought them there a few weeks before the invasion ... the former regime forces -specifically, the Saddam Fedayeen. The FRLs and Neo-Baathists dominate AQ ops areas areas and supply many of the AQI operations with logistical support - from Damascus to the SVBIED crashing through the gate AQI has to kiss the ring of the FRLs. AQI may be just 1,300-1,500 men operating in a country of 25 million but we still keep referring to the insurgency as AQI driven, planned and operated. Its fundamentally wrong and has bitten us in the rear several times already.

Now about AQ terrorists - You may be right Rob, but in my experience (26 years of operations in the Middle East and Africa) the men who chooses the jihadist path comes from all cross sections of Moslem (and even American) life. However I have seen men one would never suspect of hurting a kitten become hard core fighters and believe me when they find in their hearts some facet of hope that makes them truely belive they are carrying out God's mission then they do it with courage, convition and steeliness we could all admire. Few of these men are crazy murderers or serial killers just as the Marines are not typified but the few mass murders we KNOW have been carried out by men in prison now. Jihadis and the nationalist resistance are just committed and motivated soldiers in their own way. We have many of the same type who, once bloodied, will fight and kill in a league of their own. We call them warriors, or Soldier of the Month ... they call them "Mujihad Brothers" "Princes of Battle," "Lions of Allah," or liken them to any number of Islamic and pre-Islamic heros (Antar, Sindbd, et al.). In Fallujah they were the hardest of the hard but they can be made, just as we make Marines, SF and others. Its a calling, they call it a "calling" and to lessen them into murderers is a cast that may work in Information Operations but not in assessing our enemy honestly. Thats our biggest problem... we make them into cartoon characters and they suprise the hell out of us by standing up and fighting us as men with a mission. The mischaraterization and the effectivness of their operations sows confusion in our assessments of who we are fighting ... we assume its a blip and do it again. Its been going on wrong for four years.

I agree we must stay until there is a functioning government with a security force capable of handling this mission that we can barely do but how long can we hold on when America is not committed to this war. The American people are speaking so we'd better come up with a Plan B, C, D-Z and pretty damn quick.

the Irhab will prosecute Hirabah against any of those Iraqis and foreigners who they can justify exterminating ... They will re-write the history of Mesopotamia through annihilation and erasure.

... and here is where I think you are mistaken. The goal of the Sunni Moslem community is simple ... get hope for their children. When the appropriate time and the right amount of money and resources comes into their community (from their own efforts or enterprise) comes they will obliterate the AQI because they will have served their purpose. There is no future for AQI in Western Iraq ... few to none are Iraqis and Bin Laden's Global Jihad has nothing to do with their present fight or their quest for 24 hour a day air conditioning ... its going to end up about what cut of the profits of future oil revenue gets routed to them and gives their children a future. Right now its 0% so they support AQI damaging/destablizing/deligitimizing the Shiite government and us as much as possible... they give them VBIEDs/PBIEDs, targets and logistical support ... they create the plan and path to hit us and we immediately comply and hunt just the Jihadis ... not the Sunni insurgents. This former government played the Iraqi people for decades and neither UBL or Zarqawi or anyone else can defeat them politically or militarily on their own home turf. They prepared for this resistance and they are using all the tools at their disposal. AQI is one of those tools.

I like to think we can buy the FRL insurgency with the right political and military concessions and maybe we can, but first we have to recalibrate who we are really fighting day to day and who is really causing the most casualties... here's a hint, it isn't AQI.

[Abu Buckwheat]

For sure, the assertion that "Bush Lied" has reached "Big Lie" status for those among his opposition. I mean, it's been said so often, it must be true, right? On a related issue, the Presidency has been under continuous investigation since Reagan. Investigating the President has become a tactic, now. And, except for in former President Clinton's case, the investigations have turned up nothing of substance.

Well lets check the books since WWII.

Truman (D) - No crimes to speak of.
Ike (R)- Same ... warned against the military industrial complex.
Kennedy (D)- Sex with Marilyn Monroe in White house.
Johnson (D) - Got us into Vietnam and quit when he went below 50% popularity.
Nixon (R)- Investigated by his own DOJ and found numerous acts of criminal conduct in office. Ordered burglaries, wiretapping and thefts. His own party turned on him and impeachment was a sure thing. Additionally he secretly (to the American public) and illegally bombed two other nations not at war with us ... this ultimately led to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge winning Cambodia and murdering a million people. Numerous members of his cabinet went to prison until pardoned by President Ford or until sentences were completed.

Carter (D)- Not the best president but did nothing illegal or improper. Later won Nobel Peace prize for bringing Israel and Egypt together.

Reagan (R)- Sold US stocks of I-HAWK and I-TOW Missiles and spare parts to Iran (via Israel and the CIA). Since it was a secret sale the conspirators decided to secretly funnel the HUGE profits of those missile sales to a secret slush fund to arm the Nicaraguan Contras - all against the laws passed by Congress to NOT give them any US money (see it was Iranian and terrorist money so it was OK!). Oh yes, Iran was under a US arms ban and the weapons were direct bribes to Iran so they could tell their terrorist arm, Hezbollah in Lebanon, to free US hostages (that they ordered kidnapped) in direct exchange for specified numbers of I-HAWKs/I-TOWs. Numerous members went to prison for lying and obstruction of justice until pardoned by G.H.W. Bush. Several work in the present White House.

Clinton (D) - Dozens of investigations reveal he had oral sex and bad taste in bimbos but was not convicted of it. No one convicted or pardoned in his cabinet of anything despite dozens of investigations (look it up, its all true, except Henry Cisneros's misdemeanor count of obstruction about how much money he gave his girlfriend).

GW Bush (R) - He's getting off very light so far. Only two big investigations really underway - Firing of US Attorneys and Warrantless Wiretapping ... I can't tell you were others will begin or end but I personally believe there is allot of smoke and its not from Cigars and interns. I do know this ... even Bush admitted on TV he ordered wiretaps of US citizens without a warrant contrary to the fourth amendment of the Constitution. This is illegal. Incompetence pre-9/11? Incompetence in Iraq? Incompetence in Hurricane Katrina? Take a number ... its going to be a long summer and quite frankly I am of the belief they deserve some checks and balances. Let the chips fall where they may because my beloved Consitution is more important to me than a few politcal hacks.

[Mark O'Neill]

Well lets check the books since WWII.

Kennedy (D)- Sex with Marilyn Monroe in White house.
Johnson (D) - Got us into Vietnam and quit when he went below 50% popularity.
.

Sorry, who got you into Vietnam???

Hint: it is one of those two presidents , and not the one you nominated.

[SWJED]

Sorry, who got you into Vietnam???

Hint: it is one of those two presidents , and not the one you nominated.

One could argue Eisenhower...

The Eisenhower Center:

...The last 2 or 3 years of the Eisenhower Administration might be termed a third phase. The situation in South Vietnam appeared on the surface to be relatively quite but the situation was seething. North Vietnam decided to increase subversive activities in the south and violent incidents increased such as one in July 1959 in which 2 Americans were killed. One report in April 1960 called for at least three years of hard work and active fighting to curb Communist terrorism in South Vietnam. Meanwhile reports were indicating that the Diem regime was becoming increasingly out of touch with the people. So signs of trouble in South Vietnam were appearing. But it was in Laos where the Eisenhower Administration seemed to focus its attention as fears of a communist take over in that country increased. The Eisenhower Administration increased aid, consulted with its European Allies but also conducted paramilitary operations in an effort to stabilize the situation there. At the end of December 1960 as he prepared to turn over the Presidency to President-elect John F. Kennedy, President Eisenhower concluded a high level meeting on Laos by stating that “we must not allow Laos to fall to the Communists, even if it involves war in which the U.S. acts with allies or unilaterally. The Eisenhower Administration ended on January 20, 1961 with the crisis in Laos hanging ominously in the air.

According to one writer, while the actions of the Eisenhower Administration did not make the expansion of United States involvement under President Kennedy and the massive intervention under President Johnson inevitable, nevertheless, the years of the Eisenhower Administration certainly expanded the United States commitment to South Vietnam and laid the foundation for the subsequent decisions to intervene.

[Mark O'Neill]

One could argue Eisenhower...

The Eisenhower Center:

I would concede that as a fair point as far as shaping policy, but it was JFK who committed American troops.

[Abu Buckwheat]

Sorry, who got you into Vietnam???

Hint: it is one of those two presidents , and not the one you nominated.

I meant into Vietnam in a BIG way ... Ike started it with those Dien Bien Phu advisors right?

[SteveMetz]

Well lets check the books since WWII.

Clinton (D) - Dozens of investigations reveal he had oral sex and bad taste in bimbos but was not convicted of it. No one convicted or pardoned in his cabinet of anything despite dozens of investigations (look it up, its all true, except Henry Cisneros's misdemeanor count of obstruction about how much money he gave his girlfriend).

You did kind of omit that little item of being the second president to be impeached

[Steve Blair]

Eisenhower was also very heavy into Laos, and he got Kennedy fixated on Southeast Asia in general. It could also be argued that JFK's relationship with Diem accelerated the process.

[Abu Buckwheat]

You did kind of omit that little item of being the second president to be impeached

That wasn't the point of the comment. That impeachment was clearly political since it was so ridiculous ... however the present issues are SERIOUS breaches of the Constitution and we are well into Nixon country ...

Back to the topic at hand with Rob Thorton's excellent and heartfelt cry to watch out for AQ. We have a chance to salvage Iraq and destroy AQI as well as AQ Corporate but the administration has been so inept, so political, so incompetent that we are well on the way to becoming UBLs puppet. We have to finish Iraq... we all know that but Lugar, Hagel, Warner and the Democrats are right ... America is 70% against the war and 45% for immediate pull-out. Are we not a Democracy? We have a will of the people to contend with and the insurgents, all of them quickly learned where the center of gravity for America lies. A truely strong President who had been honest from the beginning and who did not use the war principally as a political tool to bash his political enemies and who could ask for and get the sacrifice necessary from the people through constant open scrutiny of the policy and who had a plan. This isn't Rhodesia where the enemy is part of our nation (or the UK for that matter) we are a far enemy and this will be a far war over time but we have to hit the reset button, I am afraid.

[Merv Benson]

Does anyone seriously argue that President Lincoln needed warrants before allowing taps into Confederate telegraph communications?

There are several cases on the books that hold that the President has the inherent right to intercept enemy communications. The suggestion that the President should have to jump through hoops and miss al Qaeda contacts with its agents in the US is absurd. The whole FISA system is of questionable constitutionality and it clearly does not apply in a time of war.

It is also ridiculous to suggest that there is something improper about firing people who serve at the pleasure of the President. While some are huffing and puffing about the issue they cannot point to anything illegal or unethical about firing people. I think the case can be made that several other people should have been fired.

[VinceC]

Does anyone seriously argue that President Lincoln needed warrants before allowing taps into Confederate telegraph communications?

However, Lincoln tapped telegraph lines 115 years before the passage of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the Executive Branch to notify the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to seek a warrant within 72 hours after initiating electronic surveillance.

Telegraph lines in the Confederate States of America were in a discrete, specific geographic jurisdiction that had declared itself to be outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

Lincoln acted during a constitutionally declared war.

Telegraph lines were not private, individual communication. They were commercial and/or government information carriers. Only in rare and unique circumstances were private homes wired with a personal telegraph key. Messages were relayed by telegraph operators, via specialized offices, so there was a different level of privacy involved. So the constitutional issues of search and seizure were different.

[Rob Thornton]

Up North in Mosul a reasonable ammount of the real bad guys we (really 1/2/2 IA) caught were linked to AQ somehow. Some were linked for the name, some were linked for the money. Some were foreign (in some cases visibly so). Some came right out and said it, others were linked tenuously through propaganda, or cell phone links. It was damn confusing sorting that stuff out as proving someting like that - even when a guy says its so is not always easy.

Part of the confusion was based on how AIF constructs their groups - up North (2006/2007) it was more like organized crime in terms of how the money flowed - with sheiks often involved as pseudo crime boss like figures. Groups often allied themselves or employed criminals for hits, emplacements, couriers, graft or information collection. It was a business - and there was not much of the threat of shia'aism up there (but there was an ethnic difference posed between Sunni Kurd and Sunni Arab).

However, we do tend to put an AQ face on lots of things - probably because AQIZ is hard to distinguish from other Sunni groups - they often seem intermingled in lineage.

I think CF, ISF and Iraqi tribes have done a great job over the last 2-3 years curtailing AQ. The IA in Mosul remember 11/11/04 very well. Guys from 1-24 and the ISF will tell you point blank the numbers of foreign fighters that were there in Nov 2004.

An unsecure and unstable Iraq is bad no matter which non-state actor (AQ & AQ like) we're talking about or even an Iraq influenced heavily by Iran. I certainly believe in the areas I was in that the people who I built relationships with crossed some bridges they can't come back across. I lost allot of Iraqi soldier buddies to assasination as they came and went on leave. One friend, the BN S-4 had his father killed, then a brother, and recently I got word that he'd been assassinated as well. This IA unit had pissed off allot of people in order to do the right thing - like rolling some IED cells and not releasing known bad guys at the request of politically powerful sheiks, or other regional VIPs. At a time when some of the ISF CDRs were foot dragging or colluding with AIF, these guys were pretty much in line with CF efforts - and straight kicking ass -since I was there I know. Consider the interpreters, and many others who assist us. The people who now give tips, the people who dare to keep their businesses open on days where AIF has told them to close up shop. Consider all those folks. If we bail - those folks and their families will pay the price.

I've lost my fair share of American buddies as well, it always surprises me for some reason - I guess I figured it would not happen to them.

[jlechelt]

For sure, the assertion that "Bush Lied" has reached "Big Lie" status for those among his opposition. I mean, it's been said so often, it must be true, right? On a related issue, the Presidency has been under continuous investigation since Reagan. Investigating the President has become a tactic, now. And, except for in former President Clinton's case, the investigations have turned up nothing of substance.

Answers to the question of whether or not President Bush has lied can rest solely on the words of President Bush:
1) When asked before the 2006 elections whether or not he planned to keep Rumsfeld, he said he did. A day after the election, Rumsfeld was fired. (The right move, BTW).
2) Just before the 2006 election, when asked if the US was winning the war in Iraq, the President said, "Absolutely we're winning." Shorlty after the election, he said, "We're not winning. We're not losing."
Out of those two different positions on two different issues, we can all make arguments for which presidential answer is the right one, but they are clearly contradictory answers. Maybe you can even justify the lack of honesty. But justifying a lie does not make it less of a lie. I don't mean to harp that these examples mean that dishonesty is the crux of who President Bush is. Heck, every president has lied at some point. I only want to address the silliness of claiming that people believe Bush has lied because many people have claimed that he has lied. Rather, we can claim that President Bush has lied because he has lied.

Investigations into Iran-Contra found a LOT of subsantive stuff. Helping terrorists get weapons is a heck of a lot worse than messing around with interns.
Bottom line: to say that only President Clinton's investigations turned up substantive wrong-doing points to a speaker's partisanship and not to any understanding of history. Wrong-doing is not a Republican or Democratic problem, it is a political problem. William Jefferson and the Dukester help us understand the bipartisan reality of problematic politicians.

[120mm]

Answers to the question of whether or not President Bush has lied can rest solely on the words of President Bush:
1) When asked before the 2006 elections whether or not he planned to keep Rumsfeld, he said he did. A day after the election, Rumsfeld was fired. (The right move, BTW).
2) Just before the 2006 election, when asked if the US was winning the war in Iraq, the President said, "Absolutely we're winning." Shorlty after the election, he said, "We're not winning. We're not losing."
Out of those two different positions on two different issues, we can all make arguments for which presidential answer is the right one, but they are clearly contradictory answers. Maybe you can even justify the lack of honesty. But justifying a lie does not make it less of a lie. I don't mean to harp that these examples mean that dishonesty is the crux of who President Bush is. Heck, every president has lied at some point. I only want to address the silliness of claiming that people believe Bush has lied because many people have claimed that he has lied. Rather, we can claim that President Bush has lied because he has lied.

You are pole-vaulting over mouse turds, here. This is a fact of political life, and all politicians are guilty of it. Each and every one.

Investigations into Iran-Contra found a LOT of subsantive stuff. Helping terrorists get weapons is a heck of a lot worse than messing around with interns.
What if the American people WANT an underhanded bastard who will go to bat for other Americans, despite idiotic and naive limitations on the Executive Branch imposed by politically incompetent idiots?
Bottom line: to say that only President Clinton's investigations turned up substantive wrong-doing points to a speaker's partisanship and not to any understanding of history. Wrong-doing is not a Republican or Democratic problem, it is a political problem. William Jefferson and the Dukester help us understand the bipartisan reality of problematic politicians.

Not really. Bill Clinton Lied Under Oath, which is a crime. A demonstrably criminal act. Something that umpteen politically-motivated investigations into this current White House has STILL failed to produce.

As much as I like Abu Buckwheat, he disregards the fact that since the 2000 election, the opposition has made the "smoke" he refers to. Continuously and in large amounts. And sometimes, smoke is just smoke. I bet anyone here can be made to look guilty of something, if they were accused of enough.

I find it odd that you insinuate partisanship in this post, especially since your previous post was so filled with venomous innuendo. So, in your eyes, does calling venomous innuendo what it is constitute partisanship?

Perhaps you should take a breath, read a little more, and not make assumptions as per the political motivations of a poster. There is a lamentable tendency, imo, to demonify Bush, when his failures and he's had some doozies can ALSO be attributed to incompetence, lack of communication, propaganda by political enemies, and even (gasp) the fact that he had very little time to set up his presidency because of the 2000 election fiasco.

Of course, there is also a lamentable tendency for those of the military and political persuasion to use Bush's unpopularity to excuse their own incompetence and/or malfeasance. Or to make their chops, a la Shinseki.

[Abu Buckwheat]

Part of the confusion was based on how AIF constructs their groups - up North (2006/2007) it was more like organized crime in terms of how the money flowed - with sheiks often involved as pseudo crime boss like figures. Groups often allied themselves or employed criminals for hits, emplacements, couriers, graft or information collection. It was a business - and there was not much of the threat of shia'aism up there (but there was an ethnic difference posed between Sunni Kurd and Sunni Arab).

Like organized crime ... thats brilliant. I have to tell you the north is REALLY a tough nut area because some much interaction between the varying orgs. Good call! Now all we need is a RICO act that carries a Hellfire!

[120mm]

Lincoln acted during a constitutionally declared war.

It seems to me, that the Supremes have already decided that this is, in fact, a constitutionally declared war. I lack the Google-fu to find a good link to this, however.

[SWJED]

3 July BBC - Iraq: Debate on the Baghdad Surge by Paul Reynolds.

A debate is raging in Washington about whether the so-called surge of US forces in Iraq is likely to work.

Tension is growing between the political pressure to get results and the military imperative to give the plan time.

The critics include not only Democrats but Republican Senator Richard Lugar, who said in a speech on 25 June that the prospects that the surge strategy would succeed in the way envisaged by President Bush were "very limited"...

On the other side are proponents like commentator Frederick W Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, one of those who first proposed the plan.

He has written in the Weekly Standard magazine that Operation Phantom Thunder, as the operational phase of the surge is known, "is so far proceeding very well"...

Informing the debate is a key article in the Small Wars Journal, a discussion forum founded by former members of the US Marine Corps.

On the site's weblog, the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser in Iraq, David Kilcullen, an Australian expert, has written about how the plan is supposed to work. He withholds judgment on whether it is succeeding or will do so. On that, he simply observes: "Time will tell."

He points out that major operations in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces started only on 15 June. "This is the end of the beginning: we are now starting to put things onto a viable long-term footing," he said...

[jlechelt]

Not really. Bill Clinton Lied Under Oath, which is a crime. A demonstrably criminal act. Something that umpteen politically-motivated investigations into this current White House has STILL failed to produce.

Clinton did lie under oath. The fact that he lied about a personal affair is undeniable. Though I hate to have to make this kind of choice, but I would take Clinton's misdeeds regarding his personal life over the deadly misdeeds of this administration. Ultimately, I long for an administration where we don't have to deal with either. Besides, I think a closer look at the Bush Administration would find a number of criminal issues (Libby first and foremost, Claude Allen, DOJ, etc.). And make no mistake, an investigation into a sitting administration is inherently politically motivated. Whether it is done against a Democrat or Republican.

I find it odd that you insinuate partisanship in this post, especially since your previous post was so filled with venomous innuendo. So, in your eyes, does calling venomous innuendo what it is constitute partisanship?

I insinuate partisanship in your post because your post is laced with partisanship. Venomous innuendo is venomous innuendo.

Perhaps you should take a breath, read a little more, and not make assumptions as per the political motivations of a poster.

Take a breath? Why would I be out of breath from typing? And because I don't agree with you, that means I don't read? Really? Your quiver is so empty you must make that claim?