JP Nordin: Gryoscope 12/6/04

Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 55, December 6, 2004

by John Nordin

Falluja, part 2: Tactical victories, strategic defeats

Last week we reminded ourselves about the long history of US military interaction with Falluja, focusing especially on the demonstration in April 2003 where, most likely due to a misunderstanding, US forces, in two incidents, killed 15 innocent demonstrators and considered the March 2004 murder and mutilation of four American security personnel -- an incident that remains as mysterious as it was inciting.

The next major confrontation that would bring Falluja to the attention of ordinary Americans was our aborted offensive in April 2004

April 2004: Aborted offensive

If Americans quickly forget history, it seems that is it sometimes policy to do so. In a war that would place a premium on understanding the locals, we act as if we really don't want to know

American units have come and gone so often in this hotbed of Sunni resistance that they have had little time to understand their surroundings. Falluja was initially occupied last year by the 82nd Airborne Division, which was soon replaced by the Third Armored Cavalry, which in turn was replaced by a brigade of the Army's Third Infantry Division. Last summer, the Third Infantry handed the town back to the Third Armored Cavalry, which was soon replaced by the 82nd Airborne Division. Last month, the marines replaced the 82nd Airborne.
(NYT, April 28, 2004, p. A10)

The same article suggested that the gung-ho Marines had little sympathy for the Army's more cautious approach to breaking things inside a city.

In April, after many provocations and violent attacks on US forces, the Marines started an offensive against the insurgent forces in the city.

Fierce fighting ... erupted in Falluja on Tuesday night, with an AC-130 gunship, tanks and machine guns blasting rebel positions in the district where American troops attacked a mosque on Monday and toppled the minaret. (John Burns, NYT, April 28, 2004, p. A10)

Living in an information wilderness we are forced to parse texts word by word. An AC-130 gunship is not a precision weapon, but a well-designed machine to drop a large amount of lead and explosives into a battle zone. As for the mosque, it is safe to assume that, in fact, our soldiers attacked forces hiding in a mosque, rather than the mosque itself. And, it is true, as I understand it, that under the laws of war, a religious site used by hostile forces looses it's protected status, but this is a distinction no one in Iraq will accept. Perhaps they should, but they won't. We blew up a mosque, that is the message they took. Look, it is true what Bin Lauden says, they will think, the US hates Islam. No soldier firing the bullets at the mosque hated Islam, but that is the effect.

In the attack, US forces may have killed 271 specific people (according to the Iraqi Health Ministry, reported in NYT, above), 450 killed and 1,000 wounded, according to Dr. Hayat, director of the town's main hospital (reported by the Irish Times, April 10, 2004, p1), or 600 people, a figure often circulated in stories. Even the Russians objected. Even if many of those dead, presumably, were shooting at Americans, the result was not one to encourage Iraqi in friendly feelings to the US.

The pictures of Fallujah's dead and injured, beamed into homes via satellite, have turned many undecided Iraqis against America's mission. Few now care to recall that they have satellite dishes only thanks to America. (The Economist, April 17, 2004)

This is another sentence worth parsing. It forgets that Iraq had a middle class, many years ago, and an infrastructure and may well have satellite dishes without assistance from us. But it also may reveal the common American assumption that a person's primary drive is economic rather than pride or group identity. We gave them satellite dishes and all we asked for in return was to bust down your door at midnight, to crash through your cities in huge convoys that nearly run over your kids and to blow up your homes, what ungrateful thugs you must be not to love us.

Of course, no American explicitly thinks the last sentence I just wrote, and no one intended to do all that. But again, how would an Iraqi experience our actions?

At night the Humvees drive blacked out, virtually bumper to bumper and at very high speeds. This means crossing several busy intersections, without lights, and without even slowing down. ... on the way out, the column has to backtrack six times after it gets lost amid the winding streets. (Financial Times, April 24, 2004, W2)

So we parked the ambulance in the side street and the four of us got out with the task of approaching the American soldiers, communicating with them and getting permission for the ambulance to continue to the hospital. ...

We prepared the loudspeaker, put our hands in the air and held our passports high. Before we ventured onto the main road we called out a message from the side street.

"Hello? American soldiers! We are a group of international aid workers. We are unarmed. We are asking permission to transport an ambulance full of medical supplies to the hospital. Can you hear us?"

The reply was just a chilling silence. ...

We walked slowly with our arms raised in the air. My eyes scanned the tops of the buildings for snipers. We didn't know where they were set up so we walked in the direction of the hospital.

We repeated the message over and over again on the loudspeaker, in the silence it would have been heard for hundreds of meters. It echoed eerily throughout the neighborhood.

I turned my head briefly and just in time. In the distance I saw two white flashes, then the loud bang of gunshots and the ugly realization that they were shooting into our backs.

(Donna Mulhearn, "Two more bullets". She reports she was later shot at again by American troops while trying to get an ambulance to a hospital. Second source. The BBC also reported on various attacks by US forces on hospitals and staff.)

UNNAMED BAGHDAD DOCTOR]: We buried many in the stadium football. It's full now. But the problem is, how are you burying, you cannot stand in the football stadium for a long time, because they will shoot on you. So, we use shovels just to make a hole -- a big hole, and we just put the people from one family one over the other, and cover them with sand or -- and just go out from there. (Transcript of interview on Democracy Now.)

There is an apt phrase to describe this situation: "tactical victories that are strategic defeats," and it perfectly describes our actions in Iraq.

Good counter-insurgency requires patience. By using heavy artillery, government troops often try to achieve tactical victories, but this is at the cost of strategic defeats ("Pyrrhic victories"). By merely "staying on" the insurgents are deemed "victorious". And dislodging the insurgents from their stronghold, with the consequential destruction of civilian life and property, would only be subsequently exploited by the insurgents to strengthen their numbers and widen their support base. Success in counter-insurgency lay in a well-integrated military and non-military campaign.. (Staffan Hansson .)

And this first invasion of Fulluja was not even a full tactical victory, as it was stopped halfway done and US forces retreated to the perimeter of the city. Several months later things didn't look that good.

The Americans say they could regain control of Falluja by military means, but likely at a cost of hundreds of Iraqi lives. They fear that significant bloodshed could spark the same sort of backlash as in April when reports of as many as 600 people being killed inside the city became a rallying cry around Iraq and the Middle East and seriously strained relations with the Iraqi government.

For now the Americans are effectively at an impasse... the Americans have limited themselves almost exclusively to airstrikes, which are having uncertain effects. (NYT, July 8, p. A10)

"Uncertain" is another word worth contemplating. The effect of an airstrike on the building underneath it is uncertain only within a certain range of semantic meanings. Is the rubble two feet high or three? Of that we will remain uncertain. Are the dead children or enemy warriors? That may also remain uncertain. But, and it is this perversity of human nature we simply refuse to get, even if our neighbors house is being used to shoot at foreigners, bombing it in the middle of the night from the air will not necessarily excite our admiration. If we bomb a house next to the one being used to shoot at foreigners, our reaction is unlikely to be "good show, better luck next time." The reaction to being bombed is seldom uncertain.

We think we would say, 'thank you America for cleaning out that viper's nest,' and maybe they should think that, but they won't.

Vietnam II: Special desert edition

"We could take the city," he said, "but we would have to kill everyone in it." (NYT, July 8, p. A10, quoting Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, director of national intelligence for the Iraq government, speaking about Falluja)

The original line, "In order to save the village it was necessary to destroy it," was attributed by Peter Arnett to an American general talking about action in Ben Tre during the Tet offensive, apparently. I haven't been able to find the primary source for it. Nor am I the original source for the "Special desert edition" tag, that was James Walcott. Iraq, however, has it's line. It has been finally said, in order to liberate the people we must attack the people, in order to save them from tyranny, they must do what we say.

Tactical victories, strategic defeats

Peter Arnett and other correspondents went to Ben Tre on February 7, two days after the town had been secured by the 9th Division in nearly four days of house-to-house combat. They saw hundreds of bloated bodies of civilians and VC floating in the Ben Tre.

Arnett met the U.S. Army and Air Force personnel who had had a harrowing experience in the MACV compound. He also saw how completely the town had been destroyed -- and the thousands of frightened South Vietnamese civilians who had lost their homes in the battle. Although the famous quote about Ben Tre has sometimes been attributed to an Army officer, it was actually Chet Brown of the Air Force who was later quoted by Arnett.

(Commander Wynn A. Goldsmith, U.S. Navy Reserve (an eyewitness to the battle))

Commander Goldsmith writes in honor of the US soldiers who fought at Ben Tre, and it might surprise you to know that I am happy, and consider it a duty, to stand with him in honoring them. The problem isn't with individual soldiers who do what they must, exhibit great physical courage and loyalty to their comrades.

The problem is at the political level, where we, again and again, think ourselves into tactical victories that are in fact strategic defeats.

Next week, Falluja part III: final victory?

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