Jeff Jarvis over on Buzzmachine picks up a thread from a Spanish blog about liberation theology and the Vatican’s stance on the Iraq campaign. Seamus Murphy SJ argues that liberation theology would be in favor of the Iraq campaign. Food for thought.
Archive for category The War on Terror
Basra Uprising
Mar 26
It appears that Iraqi troops in Basra are fighting with civilians in the town. The British have already used their artillery to take out Iraqi mortars used against civilians, and are talking about heading into the city to help. Good I say, and the sooner the better. I understand they don’t want to rush pell mell into the city, but want to take the time needed to gather intelligence and plan the mission. In 1991 we stood by when this happened; we shouldn’t make that same mistake again.
Campaign Status
Mar 25
The biggest question is: are we winning? In my opinion, our offensive has been nothing short of amazing. A look at a map showing the ground covered so far compared to Kuwait, which was the operational theater in Desert Storm reveals how much bolder and how much faster this advance has been. So far, only 3 reinforced divisions (3rd Infantry, 1st Marine, 1st Armored (UK) ) plus unknown number of special forces have been committed to the attack. The 101st is apparently zooming along getting into position but not in the fight, the 82nd is mostly in Kuwait but transfering to the north to open a new front, and the 4th Infantry is back in the states waiting for its equipment to make it to Kuwait — originally it was to open a northern front via turkey. And in, what, five days those forces have driven through Iraq to the gates of Baghdad, and only today have they been slowed down by a sandstorm.
Have the Iraqi’s not been surrenduring? This is hard to tell, but the number in our custody (3,000 is what I last heard) is misleading. We don’t want POWs. Kuwait won’t admit them, so we’d be stuck handling them. So as our forces move north, not only have they bypassed enemy units not occupying strategic locations, they’ve also left Iraqi soldiers waving white flags along side the road. We’d rather they deserted, which they have apparently been doing in large numbers. Not that many Iraqi units have fought, and seemingly most of those have been either Republican Guard units or irregulars. By and large, most of the regular Iraqi army has decided to sit this one out. So what we have has been a few engagements in the south, and the start of the attack on the Republican Guard units around Baghdad.
Hasn’t all the news been discouraging? Actually, I think it’s been very encouraging. Our forces have gone farther faster than any other army ever has, and casualties have been light — on both sides. There have been no terrorist attacks in the US (yet). There have been no WMD attacks against forces in theater (yet). The Arab street has demonstrated, but not “risen”. The Iraqi forces have been very passive – no significant counterattacks, and the “ambush” on the supply convoy was a blocking force – they weren’t out hunting along the supply route. We’ve lost more aircraft to accidents and malfunctions than enemy fire, and it looks to me that that Apache helicopter was not shot down: there wasn’t a scratch on it — the Iraqi camerman certainly would have highlighted any battle damage to show how they shot it down — and all its weapons were unexpended. And even now its not clear that Saddam is alive and well; Centcom is apparently claiming that he was seriously wounded in the bunker attack, and his taped performances haven’t done much to contradict.
Are the Iraqi’s friendly or unfriendly? No doubt there is a mixture of both. But there are already reports that people in Basra are rebelling and the British 1st division is going to their aid. The real question is will the people cooperate, and so far the jury is still out.
Aren’t Generals warning about heavy casualties and risky battle plans? Yes, the plan has risks, but battle is risky. History shows that safe plans usually kill far more people and achieve far less in the long run than audacious ones. Yes, many generals wanted more troops. But that means more demands on supply; a more inviting target as they massed in Kuwait; and an irresistable urge to fight more battle, which would result in more dead. Yes, the coalition supply line is exposed, but so far the Iraqi’s haven’t made move to cut it off. And perhaps we’re hoping that Iraqi units expose themselves to do just that. Units in the open are far more easily attacked than those hunkered down in civilian areas. The point of the plan seems to be to get to Baghdad as quickly as possible and fight the decisive battle of the war there.
Scuds, Anyone?
Mar 25
Has Iraq fired scuds? Have coalition troops found scuds? The problem is that at the lower echelons (and perhaps the higher ones, too), scud refers to any ballistic missile. Scuds are banned but Frogs, another ballistic missile, aren’t. And at the start of the war, there were reports that Iraq was shooting anti-ship missiles into Kuwait. I’m just going to wait for the report at the end of the war to figure this one out.
Clausewitz On War
Mar 24
The events of the weekend are a clear demonstration of Clausewitz’s concept of friction: helicopters crash due to mechanical failure, a British Tornado is shot down by mistake, a supply convoy makes wrong turn is cut to pieces and American soldiers captured by Iraqi forces in place.
“A general in time of war is constantly bombarded by reports both true and false; by errors arising from fear or negligence or hastiness; by disobedience born of right or wrong interpretations, of ill will, of a proper or mistaken sense of duty, of laziness, or of exhaustion; and by accidents that nobody could have foreseen. In short, he is exposed to countless impressions, most of them disturbing, few of them encouraging.”
What was the proper response in Clausewitz’s view?
“Perseverance in the chosen course is the essential counter-weight, provided that no compelling reasons intervene to the contrary. Moreover, there is hardly a worthwhile enterprise in war whose execution does not call for infinite effort, trouble, and privation; and as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective. It is steadfastness that will earn the admiration of the world and of posterity.”
Keep the pressure on; the enemy suffers from friction too.
With modern media, it’s not just the general who suffers from countelss disturbing, discouraging impressions. We at home will suffer even more, as we have neither the experience or as reliable source of information as our generals. We don’t see the whole picture, nor do we even know what our battle plans are.
And in the Iraqi case, it may well be worse because the Iraqi leaders (and people) may well have an even more distored view of the battle. One could dismiss Iraqi claims of victories as propaganda, but they may accurately reflect the view from the top because fearful subordinates provide a rosy picture to higher ups to save their skin in the short term. Consequently, orders will be out of synch with reality and rather than coordinated action, a series of disorganized responses more easily dealt with will occur.
Friends In The News
Mar 24
I talked with a high school buddy about putting in a patio in my back yard Saturday night. Somehow, our talk turned to the war. In his youth, he was pretty liberal. On the phone, he was pretty conservative. I mentioned a planned peace protest outside the JDAM plant the next day. He wanted to go to a pro-war rally. I said I didn’t know of any. So in today’s paper, imagine my surprise when he’s interviewed at a pro-war rally:
Among those who took part in the rally downtown were Dan and Besty O’Halloran of Rock Hill and their two small children. They had planned to take a family hike but came upon the rally downtown and decided to take part.
Dan O’Halloran, 43, said he wanted his children to see their parents “doing the right thing.”
“I just felt very disgusted with seeing all the anti-Bush and anti-American demonstrations,” he said. “The war is hard enough to explain (to children). That there are people who have such deep feelings against their country is even harder to explain.”
The strategy behind this war is much different than our strategy in Desert Storm. In some ways, Desert Storm is analogous to the German offensive of 1914: Long prepared, carefully timed and orchestrated it was a sweeping right hook designed to cutoff opposing forces from their home base. This time, our strategy is much different, although I’m going to surprisingly use the same war for my analogy; this time the tactics of the German Stormtroopers of 1918 are writ large as our strategy. The Stormtroopers liked to attack at night with short but fierce artillery preparation, made maximum use of infiltration, bypassed enemy strongpoints and tried to move as quickly as possible into the enemies rear to decisively defeat and destroy his command and control.
The German blitzkreig of WWII was result the adoption of technology to provide greater mobility and firepower to these same tactics in order to break out from static defenses and force the enemy to retreat or be destroyed. In place of a WWI three trench system, Iraq is one huge defense in depth. Our strategy here seems to be to bypass strongpoints in the Iraqi south so that the decisive battle is fought in the Iraqi rear (around Bagdad) with the goal of destroying the Iraqi regime’s hold over the country. Once that is accomplished, the rest of the country can be dealt with piecemeal. Capture what you have to, leave the rest to follow on forces.
American planners could have opted for a slow grinding offensive with its main thrust north between the Tigris and Euphrates, with extensive aerial preparation, clearly delineated lines, and maximum use of firepower. But that would have meant that not only would most of the Iraqi army have been engaged, a great deal of the populated part of Iraq would have been devastated in the fighting, and a long war. While the plan adopted has its risks, it also has its rewards.
War Roundup
Mar 21
The guy on the tape is Saddam, according to the CIA.
The Agonist is blogging up a storm on the war.
The Washington Post has all their embedded journalist stories in one spot.
Based on reactions around the blogosphere, Shock and Awe is living up to its name. Let’s hope it has the desired effect on the Iraqi military.
Will there be a response from Saddam to today’s events? I hope not.
Sun Tzu, Anyone?
Mar 20
It seems that all the news dispatches talk about are the Marines in Kuwait. The Marines are firing arty into Iraq. The Marines are taking incoming scuds. The Marines are entering Iraq. What about the mechanized and armored units over there? How about the 101 Airmobile? I have the feeling that while the Marines are knocking on the front door, everybody else is going around to the back door. Or in terms of Sun Tzu, the Marines are the ordinary force, and everybody else is the extraordinary force.
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, the Navy maintains a site full of info on their systems: Navy Fact File.
The Airforce calls their info Fact Sheets.
Really, those are the best sources of info; the independents grab their info from those sources plus paste and cut from DOD and contractor press releases.
Well Begun Is Half Done
Mar 20
The campaign against Saddam started with a direct attack on him. A broadcast of somebody claiming to be Saddam (who knows, maybe he even was Saddam, although he looked more like his half-brother) got on Iraqi TV to reassure his people that he had survived. Time will tell.
I hope the campaign is over quickly – the sooner it is over, the fewer casualties all around (Iraqi soldiers and civilians, American soldiers and possibly civilians). My daughter mentioned I didn’t look happy this morning. While I fully support the campaign, I’m not happy about war. Oh, I’ll be elated when it’s over, and happy for all of us, but not now.
The news media is in overdrive. I happened to hit a couple of big media web sites, and headed to their descriptions of weapons. Given all the time leading up to the war, you’d think they’d do a better job. CNN’s descriptions were extremely brief. CBS had a great picture but unidentified picture of SLAM ER and no description; while their descriptions were lengthy they seemed to be cut and paste jobs of numerous press releases giving rise to problems of verb tense and out of date information. ABC did a better job and even managed to describe SLAM ER.
The guys on Fox’s morning show assured us that the people operating that camera providing a view of Baghdad were perfectly safe – I think he has more faith in the precision of our armament than even our armed forces do.
There are lots of rumors swirling around; my favorite was yesterday’s claim that Tariq Azziz had either been killed or defected. It soon went the way of the report on 911 that a bomb had blown up at the State Department. That’s what I love about the media – always insisting they are accurate and don’t put anything on until it’s verified, yet unable to ever separate the wheat from the chaff on a breaking story, and rarely bothering to correct their old mistakes more than once. If you make the mistake of not watching/listening, the only way to tell what was accurate and what wasn’t is that they eventually stop repeating the inaccurate. Unfortunately, there is a lag while you try to figure out if the information is no longer operable, or they just haven’t gotten around to repeating it yet.
