Oh, my, what did I start now!?Am I supposed to say something on all this or it’s better to stay silent on my end!? I don’t want any hate mails…
Oh, my, what did I start now!?
Originally Posted by Sarajevo071
Oh, my, what did I start now!?No worries. It was a good segway into a question I wasn't quite sure of how to present. You just gave me the best introduction.
Disagree and agree
Marct, I understand your points and full heartedly agree that we have to address multiple audiences in the international community, but where I disagree to some extent is the priority of effort. The reason I think that the American audience is the most important at this point in time (and at this point in time only) is the strong opposition to the war in Iraq. If the American people tell us its over with, then it is over with, we pull out (it won't happen overnight, but quicker than what some might think). Furthermore the constant battling sends an important and dangerous message to the international audiences, and that is we're on our last legs in Iraq.
I think we have to win the American people's support for this war foremost, so we can stay engaged to win the long term IO fight with the international audiences. If we pull out, I don't "think" anyone else will step up to the plate. Furthermore, we'll be politically paralyzed for years and we won't get involved in conflicts that we should, ones that are actually in our national interest. We made Iraq a part of our national interests, and the Administration needs to admit to the American people they made serious mistakes (stop the nonsense, no one is buying it), and then from a position of credability inform the American why we have to stay in the fight. I think with the right leadership the national mood can be changed. Perhaps it is fantasy at this point, I'm a realist and accept that, but we need a vocal majority support to carry on the fight.
For those who think Al Qaeda wouldn't like us if we pulled 10 Muslim kids out of a burning school, you're right, but that isn't the point. The audience is not AQ and those who have a burning hate for us, the audience is the very large moderate Muslim base that isn't sure what is happening in Iraq, especially those who are sitting on the fence. Yes, they would like us more if we pulled their kids out of the fire.
Winning american hearts and minds
I am in pretty much agreement with Bill on the importance of getting support at home or we want get the chance to get it over there.
In that regard the latest Gallop Poll is not encouraging. Only 29 percent think the surge has improved the situation in Iraq. This is with many media reports that say things have improved. It is like the rest of the country has shut down on the subject.
There were a fare number who claimed that things were worse and they are definitely not persuadable. They are in the group who seriously want to lose so that we will be inhibited from using force in the future. There is a good size groups of "independents" who are still in the middle on the surge and that is were a good IO operation might do some good. The willfully ignorant on the left are probably not going to change their mind even with an enemy surrender agreement.
The polls still do not ask the key question, "Do you want to lose?" The answer to that question would give a better idea of how persuadable people are.
Hi Folks,
I certainly agree that it is crucial, and your points are well taken. What bothers me about the rhetoric currently being used is that it concentrates on "building support" for Iraq, without aiming at the ideology that dismisses any war venture (e.g. the radical left that is more at home blaming the West for all evil).
Let's face it, the rhetorical dominance of the points that the war should never have taken place are winning out over the plain fact that the origins of the war are irrelevant in the current operational reality. I'm probably going to start getting hate mail now but I'm one of those people who say that the war in Iraq never should have happened. Still and all, as far as I'm concerned, it did happen - that's a fact and a reality we live in and with, even though Canada isn't in that particular war.
Bill and Merv, I'm part of that crowd of ideological individualists that exists outside of the US, that generally supports the GWOT while, at the same time, not hesitating to question the validity (or motives) of any particular US Administration policy.
Bill, I really hate to say this (it goes against all of my Canadian nationalist instincts), but you are absolutely right. At the same time, I'd like to point out the role of "volunteers" in previous wars - the Spanish Civil War, the SS (okay, unpopular as all get out, but still a good example), and he mujahadeen. If we are in a truly international war, we need to take this seriously.
Agreed.
Merv, it takes a while for opinions to shift. I'm certainly not optimistic about a major opinion shift as long as the IO campaign is still cast as in partisan political terms.
Hmmmm. I would think that the key question is more, "What effects do you think a pullout would have?"
Marc
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
Fighting in support of policy objectives
One of the real issues of the war in the post nuclear world (and one made again recently by Doug MacGregor) is that the idea of fighting until total victory is defunct. The lack of achievable or morally acceptable total victory and the dynamics of global media, econonmics and morality demand that fighting and negotiation occur simultaneously with the aim of achieving the preferred political outcome through increments.
Now before everyone jumps all over me about 'you can't negotiate with AQ or terrorists because they are......' I agree - but remember it was us (Rummy esp) who declared all opponents of the occupation terrorists thus making it very hard to tell the difference between AQinI, the local Baath Officials, the local tribe or the local version of Don Corleone. It was us that forced them to the common tactical objective of killing our troops despite their divergent Strategic and operational objectives because we weren't capable of negotiation only intimidation and force. We weren't capable intially of knowing there was a difference. It was also us that told Iraq and Syria 'you bastards are next' making their only choice to be to bring us down by stealth -what choice did we leave them - if Iraq had been easy the neo-cons would be now neck deep in Iran.
Thankfully Gen Petraeus and his blue eyed boys have finaly begun to fight and negotiate in an attempt to identify, split and isolate the groups so that the real problems can be destroyed and the real stakeholders can be bought into the fold. This is the only way to stregthen and grow your local support base while draining away the support for the real enemy it is also the only way to get accurate targeting information, and it looks like it may be working.
Unfortunatley it is probably to late - our strategic base at home is collapsing and through the ham fisted approaches of 2003-2006 we have now made some irreconcilable enemies out of people intially predisposed to us. These guys will now simply wait us out until the politics caves us in. We are also now going to have to make much more significant concessions to some groups than we would have had to in 2004/5 because we are in a much weaker postion. Such is missed opportunity.
While I hate sporting analogies the real problem has been the American style of operational theory - we run plays and when they fail expect it to be 2nd and 10 or 3rd and ten, when in this business failure always makes it 2nd and 20 or third and 40 and as everyone knows only fools don't punt on 4th and fifty - but we are going to run it out of the end zone with the 1st round draft pick as QB but with the same offensive line which is getting pretty tired.
You fight and negotiate - negotiate and fight doing so with the outcome firmly in mind or you will end up taking what you can or end up with fields of salt.
I think the best tool for counteracting the left-leaning biased individuals who "oppose all war" is to wage "war" without all the fanfare and trumpets blowing. Then, you take advantage of the incredibly huge American apathy toward anything outside of their house.
Our latest actions in Somalia are a good example of how it "should be done".
Who cares if the hippie freaks beat a drum outside the White House. Frankly, the American public despises them, and at best, doesn't care.
That may be the longest football analogy on SWJ ever.
Related Discussion
I just posted this On the How to Win in Iraq and How to Lose thread. It relates to what we are discussing here.
What happened was this: while the French military had been concentrating on fighting the insurgency in the streets and mountains in Algeria, an intellectual and cultural insurgency at home, led by the French left and the media, had been scoring its own succession of victories.
In its haste to defeat the FLN, the French army had left a crucial hostage to political fortune. Military commanders had authorized army interrogators to use certain forms of torture to extract information from suspected terrorist detainees. This is not the place to debate the merits or demerits of torture in counterinsurgency operations--for the record, Galula himself considered it counterproductive. Nor was French opinion particularly sensitive to brutality per se; the FLN's own use of torture and outright butchery--Arab loyalists routinely had their tongues and testicles cut off and their eyes gouged out--had aroused little or no outrage. But, as with the incidents at Abu Ghraib 50 years later, news of the army practice gave domestic opponents of the war a weapon with which to discredit the entire enterprise.
Led by Jean-Paul Sartre, a campaign of denunciation got under way in which French forces were accused of being the equivalent of Nazis--an especially freighted charge coming only a decade and a half after World War II and the German occupation of France. Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's companion, went so far as to say that the sight of a French army uniform had "the same effect on me that swastikas once did." Although many of the antiwar agitators were communists or leftist fellow travelers, their petitions and demonstrations included enough authentic heroes of the Resistance and eminent liberals like Francois Mauriac to bestow upon the movement a credible public image. The constant message it conveyed was that the true authors of violence in Algeria were not the FLN at all but the French, and that only when the latter departed would Algerians be able to sort out their destiny for themselves.
The French military and political leadership was completely blindsided by the attack. No amount of justification of the selective use of torture, not even the cancellation of the original authorization, could halt the criticism or stem the loss of public support for the war. Even as the FLN took to setting off bombs in France itself, leftist Catholic priests continued to raise funds for it, while those like Albert Camus who harbored doubts about the wisdom of handing victory to the terrorists were derided and silenced. The consensus that had informed French politics as late as 1956--namely, that abandoning Algeria was "unthinkable and unmentionable"--fell apart.
Divisions over Algeria doomed France's Fourth Republic. For its successor, the price of political survival was handing over Algeria to a totalitarian band that had lost the war on the battlefield but managed to win a stunning victory in France itself. The result was the massive flight of Algerian whites and, at home, a bloodbath as FLN terrorists put to death tens of thousands of Muslim Algerians who had been loyal to the French regime. Soldiers who had fought alongside the French were forced to swallow their medals before they were shot.
Consequences of defeat
Marc said:
The problem with this is that those who wish our defeat believe that they can benefit politically and prevent the use of force in the future, so the more horrible the consequences, the more it plays into their political agenda. They are never going to take responsibility for the consequences, but will instead blame it on those who wanted to defeat the enemy to begin with.Hmmmm. I would think that the key question is more, "What effects do you think a pullout would have?"
Then you have the delusional who believe that forcing a retreat will end the war. The reality is that it will only give the enemy a better base of operation for prosecuting the war as well as more resources, not the mention the boost to his IO campaign.
I think that leaves you with about 30 percent who want win and think we are making progress and another 20 percent who are undecided about the war or the consequences of losing. You can still get to 51 percent who do not want to lose, but I am not sure how many of them can articulate the consequences of failure.
Leaders need to make this video the norm...
Great discussion. Not sure having a General in charge of IO would be the ultimate difference maker. Osama and/or Zawahiri aren't in charge of Al Qaeda's IO campaign. They certainly provide guidance every now and then and add to it, but ultimately it's a bottom-up process. We can learn a lot from the way our enemies approach IO. Just think about what the Iranians have done with the British sailors. Release the female sailor, show them all eating, clean, happy. While most in the U.K. and U.S. are pissed about this incident, the Iranians hit a jackpot with the Muslim world (and probably many other audiences as well) by how they've handled the British sailors.
Have posted comments below elsewhere and would appreciate any feedback. Here goes...
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e6b_1175160756
Please view link above (not a fan of the title, but the video itself is great).
It's all too common for us in uniform, myself included, to get frustrated with the mass media for rarely showing anything but the negative and/or kinetic side of the Iraq war (i.e., firefights, IED attacks, burning cars, etc.). Unfortunately, we normally don't help ourselves in this regard. If you click on the Iraq icon at liveleak.com, 99% of the videos are either ones posted by someone that wears a US military uniform showing a fight of some kind or by the insurgents and/or terrorists doing the same.
The link above shows the exact opposite: pictures of Marines, Sailors and Soldiers doing their best to bring hope for a better life to the Iraqi people. If the media's not going to tell our side--or the positive side--of the war then we had better do so if we don't want the will of the American people to collapse on us, especially now that we're seeing many positive developments throughout the country (for example, see "Good News in Al Anbar?" in the April Marine Corps Gazette).
During my time in Iraq, I would have never thought of videotaping events such as: my Marines helping to re-build a school, medical clinic, vet clinic; playing soccer with kids and adults; riding around on donkeys and bicycles; being invited to eat with tribal leaders as well as many average families; MEDCAPs; DENTCAPs; etc. Yet, this is exactly what I should have done (it would have been great if I had the ability to hide Iraqis' faces on request though). I remember writing home about all the good in Iraq and my family having a hard time believing me because of what they read and saw on the "news". Even during the high-intensity fighting in Najaf, my platoon still had friendly interactions with thousands of Iraqis. Knowing that most of us are visual learners, I should have known better. At the very least I should have thought to videotape these interactions and send them home. I failed to understand my role then as a "strategic" lieutenant.
All this said, in former CIA Director, William Colby's book Lost Victory, he frequently mentions his frustration with the media for not writing about the success of the pacification efforts in Vietnam. In one part he talks about how pleasantly surprised he was when a reporter, after touring the Delta region with him in 1969, wrote a story titled "They Just Might Make It" about how the South Vietnamese had taken significant strides since Tet in eliminating the Communist insurgency. In the next paragraph, Colby expresses his frustration with another reporter, who instead of writing a similar story after a tour with Colby, said there wasn't anything dramatic (i.e., rocket or mortar attacks) to write about. Colby responded to this by asking why not write a story about all the families in the village that a year earlier had no home, were separated from loved ones, starving, unemployed, and under constant insurgent threat. The reporter acknowledged the point but still didn't write a "positive" story about it because of lack of “dramatics.”
Here's what I don't understand though: in the 21st Century IO War, the media and the insurgents and the terrorists have a critical vulnerability that we can easily exploit. This vulnerability is that, unlike in Vietnam in 1969, almost every platoon in Iraq has access to the internet, a digital camera and a video camera. Imagine what would happen if instead of or in addition to Marines/Soldiers posting stories about IED attacks and firefights, liveleak.com, youtube.com and similar websites were flooded with postings of the hundreds of "positive" interactions that American squads/platoons have with the Iraqi people on a daily basis.
It's time for us to embrace the Information Age and to get into the fight for the will of the American people and that of the rest of the world.
Leaders need to make this happen.
There is a networking thread which discusses this subject to some degree. It may be RTK's or 120mm's, but my brain is fried right now.Here's what I don't understand though: in the 21st Century IO War, the media and the insurgents and the terrorists have a critical vulnerability that we can easily exploit. This vulnerability is that, unlike in Vietnam in 1969, almost every platoon in Iraq has access to the internet, a digital camera and a video camera. Imagine what would happen if instead of or in addition to Marines/Soldiers posting stories about IED attacks and firefights, liveleak.com, youtube.com and similar websites were flooded with postings of the hundreds of "positive" interactions that American squads/platoons have with the Iraqi people on a daily basis.
231 Years and Counting.....
Oh, my, what did I start now!?
I would imagine when the Pilgrims landed word quickly spread that they were there to take slaves, burn crops and roast babies for lunch. I look at the plethora of responses, input, ideas, thoughts, strategies, hunches, professional and amateur assessment on this thread and all I really see is something that is somehow proactively unified, that did not disintegrate despite a strong continuum of dichotomous input - kind of like a rolling ball with alot of strings sort of sticking out that just keeps moving on despite the obstacles in its path.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks