| Thursday,
December 1, 2005 More on Iraq: an
exchange.
This is an exchange of views that has been going on for several years. Let
me establish who the primary source is, but understand that sometimes there
will be views from others still in active service who do not care to be
identified in any way, so I may change some times and places and titles.
This will be rather long.
My principal correspondent who has given permission to be identified is:
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 8:46 AM
To: Jerry Pournelle
Subject: I'm Back
Sir:
I've returned from duty in Iraq. I'd like to be
reinstated to you mailing list. I'm sure my "subscription fee" has lapsed,
I'll take care of that directly. Visited your website today... I must say
that we disagree. The paradigm WILL change in the middle east (though we can
still lose there). Here are some links on articles done on my Marines while
we were in Iraq:
http://www.nola.com/marines/index.ssf?/breakingnews/varney_marines.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/columnists/ny-vppin203338988jun20,0,780802.column
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/columnists/ny-vppin013354581jul01,0,195562.column
Couv
David Couvillon
Lieutenant Colonel of Marines;
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq;
Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time;
Lover extrordinaire; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance;
Collector of Hot Sauce; Avoider of Yard Work
Check out my homepage at
http://www.geocities.com/captcouv/default.htm
who, you will see, certainly has primary
observations. We have been in correspondence for a long time, but for this
exchange let us begin about 2 years ago in November, 2003:
"Tell us more!"
You got questions? I got answers.
Here's something that needs to be
emphasized. The leaders and media of the western world continually
refer to 'mujahadeen' (holy warriors) and 'jihad' (holy war) in their
references to Islamic terrorists. By the teachings of the Prophet
Mohammed (Allah bless he and his progeny) and Islamic law, the
terrorists should properly be called 'mufsidoon' (evildoers) who engage
in al-Hiraba (unholy war against society - that which destroys, rather
than supports, betterment of humanity). These words make considerable
difference when speaking to and of Muslims. The connotations of all are
extremely important. Can you imagine trying to recruit a young Muslim
for a suicide murder mission if he is going to be participating in al-Hiraba
and thus condemned to 'jahanam' (hell)?
I routinely espoused the concepts
of 'musfidoon' and 'hiraba' to the people and leaders in my province in
Iraq - they began to use the words! This even spilled into some of the
rhetoric of people from other provinces! In an August speech, President
Bush used the term 'evildoers.' We must continue to use the proper
words of Islam to describe the despicable acts committed by those who
pervert the teachings of the Prophet (Allah bless he and his progeny).
Couv
Continue with a letter from me to him:
I see Newt
Gingrich is saying that we ought to give the local Iraqis more authority.
Considering that we have arrested without charges most of the Sunni leaders
elected to their city council, and hold them without informing them of the
charges against them, or who has accused them (the local Chief of Police is
a holdover from Saddam installed by the US forces; wonder of wonders; could
one of the Baathists have denounced people they used to jail without charges
and torture? Aw, never!) -- considering that we treat the Iraqis like
subjects, and jail anyone who tries to govern, perhaps Newt is on to
something there.
I'm appalled! Seems that you're making
observations based upon one 8 minute segment from 60 Minutes! On the local
police chief, the arrested councilman, etc - I KNOW there is more to the
story than presented. Could the quoted expatriate have his own agenda? My
experience tells me, yes.
"...jail anyone who tries to govern."
Who has the authority to set up local governments? Do we allow the
Baathists to re-establish? Part of government (one that we want to
establish, anyway) is a system of justice and inclusion. All the people
should have a voice. Already, clerics, Islamic Parties, and others have
tried to establish shadow governments for their own purposes. These have no
legitimacy by any democratic means.
Hail Caesar.
I'll have
another essay on Iraq shortly but my prescription continues to stand:
1. Local
governments with real authority and a share of any oil revenue, and some
financing.
Agreed
2. National
authority including allocation of oil revenues reserved for the US
occupation force (else the locals will fight over the revenue).
Agreed
3. Pay the
former Iraqi army (purged of known Baathist enthusiasts) but dock their pay
in any district in which there is an attack on US forces.
Former army personnel (excluding Saddams
'security forces', ie secret police) are currently being paid salaries
without being required to muster. If you don't arm them and give them
police authority, how can you hold them responsible for attacks on US
forces? Oh, they should turn in the culprits to the US Forces? Well,
you've already made the case about Baathists denouncing those they've used
to torture... The amount of people NOW bearing false witness in that
country is enough to drive you nuts - not to mention the number of people
giving you bogus information on WMD, location of Saddam, terrorists, etc in
hopes of monetary reward. The intelligence services are now stretched to
the limit in sorting the 'wheat from the chaff'.
4. Get courts
working so final determination of who owns what can be made, signed, sealed,
and delivered. An Act of Settlement that restores rule of law; in this case
law is more important than "justice". The Act can provide for compensation
for those who can show the Settlement was unfair but the compensation comes
from national revenue, not from those who benefited by the settlement. It is
important the RULE OF LAW be established and quickly at all local levels.
This needs to be done immediately.
Unfortunately, the CPA is shunting this off to the new Iraqi Government (the
current ruling council seems to be stalling this until an elected government
is in place).
David Couvillon
Lieutenant Colonel of Marines;
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq;
Correspondence
continues:
Subject:
RE: Iraq
They
certainly did jail everyone who tried to govern for weeks there. They called
them warlords
I
know that I arrested a number of people or deposed them from
self-established positions. These people were thugs and criminals. Some
had tribal ties, some not. Some were Baathists reasserting their power.
None were popularly elected and all were exclusive in rule and ruthless in
power. Never used the term 'warlord' in Iraq and never heard it used by
ORHA/CPA or military leaders.
Who
has the authority to set up local governments? I know who has the power.
I,
and the
Iraqis,
assume that the CPA has the authority to set up local governments. Why is
this? Amb Bremer decreed in June that there would be NO elections until a
national government is established. Of course, I set up local councils
(appointed) and provided as much leeway as possible, but they didn't have
the power to establish laws. They did make recommendations and
provide oversight on government services. This authority came from force
of arms initially. Now it comes from control of funds.
[Emphasis in
original]
And
we saw on camera the general in charge of the prison lie through her teeth.
First it takes only 72 hours to process a prisoner, then they have the right
to visitors. We don't have anyone like you describe.
LOL.
They were talking to a General! You want to know how much she is filtered
from real information by her staff? I'd wager she was just ill-informed.
You must certainly realize that the Army is as big a bureaucracy as anything
conceived. Don't get me wrong - that doesn't excuse her not knowing, nor
the lapse in stated policy (intentional or unintentional).
Only
they did and he had been there for a month. I don't need more than an 8
minute segment to see what is happening
What's
happening is incompetence. I know I had several Iraqis released that the
jailers didn't even know they had! One of the problems is a western
inability to recognize the difference in naming conventions and arabic/english
spellings of names. Even non-Iraqi (middle-eastern) interpreters had
problems with this.
Couv
To which I can only remind us all of Napoleon Bonaparte: "Never ascribe
to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence," and
Clausewitz: "In war, everything is very simple, but the simplest things are
very difficult."
* * *
All of the above is by way of a reminder; it was all published here some
time ago. We pass now to the present. Couv sent this to his mailing list on
November 29, 2005:
WOW! And Ralph Peters has not been a fan of the war in
Iraq...
New York Post Online Edition
*HOW TO LOSE A WAR * By RALPH PETERS QUIT. It's
that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none
as reliable as just giving up.
Increasingly, quitting looks like the new
American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can't win the game
if you walk off the field at half-time. That's precisely what the Democratic
Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we've made
remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw
the game just to embarrass the Bush administration.
Forget about the consequences. Disregard the
immediate encouragement to the terrorists and insurgents to keep killing
every American soldier they can. Ignore what would happen in Iraq - and the
region - if we bail out. And don't mention how a U.S. surrender would turn
al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in
the third round.
Forget about our dead soldiers, whose sacrifice
is nothing but a political club for Democrats to wave in front of the media.
After all, one way to create the kind of disaffection in the ranks that the
Dems' leaders yearn to see is to tell our troops on the battlefield that
they're risking their lives for nothing, we're throwing the game.
Forget that our combat veterans are
re-enlisting at remarkable rates - /knowing/ they'll have to leave their
families and go back to war again. Ignore the progress on the ground, the
squeezing of the insurgency's last strongholds into the badlands on the
Syrian border. Blow off the successive Iraqi elections and the astonishing
cooperation we've seen between age-old enemies as they struggle to form a
decent government.
Just set a time-table for our troops to come
home and show the world that America is an unreliable ally with no stomach
for a fight, no matter the stakes involved. Tell the world that deserting
the South Vietnamese and fleeing from Somalia /weren't/ anomalies - that's
what Americans do.
While we're at it, let's just print up
recruiting posters for the terrorists, informing the youth of the Middle
East that Americans are cowards who can be attacked with impunity.
Whatever you do, /don't/ talk about any
possible consequences. Focus on the moment - and the next round of U.S.
elections. Just make political points. After all, those dead American
soldiers and Marines don't matter - they didn't go to Ivy League schools.
(Besides, most would've voted Republican had they lived.)
America's security? Hah! As long as the
upcoming elections show Democratic gains, let the terrorist threat explode.
So what if hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners might die in a
regional war? So what if violent fundamentalism gets a shot of steroids? So
what if we make Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the most successful Arab of the past
500 years?
For God's sake, don't talk about democracy in
the Middle East. After all, democracy wasn't much fun for the Dems in 2000
or 2004. Why support it overseas, when it's been so disappointing at home?
Human rights? Oh, dear. Human rights are for
rich white people who live in Malibu. Unless you can use the issue to whack
Republicans. Otherwise, brown, black or yellow people can die by the
millions. Dean, Reid & Pelosi, LLC, won't say, "Boo!"
You've got to understand, my fellow citizens:
None of this matters. And /you/ don't matter, either. All that matters is
scoring political points. Let the world burn. Let the massacres run on. Let
the terrorists acquire WMD. Just give the Bush administration a big black
eye and we'll call that a win. <snip>
/Ralph Peters is/ a /retired Army officer./
To sign up for Daily Newsletter Alerts, please
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I replied to his mailing list and to selected others in
the region:
I have never been a fan of involvement in the
Middle East, and I don't think we ought to be there. But of course this
piece is right. We are there, constitutionally, and against my advice. The
commander in chief with consent of the Congress thought different.
Republic or empire, once that kind of decision is made there is no
discussion: we have to leave with a victory or face the consequences of
defeat. We haven't been defeated.
I do wonder why we need so many troops to protect 80% of the population from
at most 10% who support insurgency.
And received answers, which are reconstructed from responses
by serving officers who do not care to be named, some not on Couv's original
mailing list. I have edited this to insure anonymity, and I have thoroughly
scrubbed the original files so you will have to take my word for it that
they once existed.
Simple sir. If the "10%" you allude to would just wear
uniforms and fight like conventional soldiers, it'd be easy. There's nothing
simple here. We have attacks on infrastructure daily - electrical, power,
water; it's impossible to guard every mile of pipeline or cable. It's
impossible to protect every school, marketplace or town hall. We do a lot,
we're stretched extremely thin. There are complaints from everyone here
(State, UN, etc.) that we don't provide them enough security. They do get
blown up once in a while so I sympathize with them. It takes about 25% of
the force to guard the other 75% - these folks have to have a base to return
to, someone's got to protect the chow hall, barracks, etc. 25% isn't a very
high ratio either.
And this:
There's no 'victory' here -- One thing the President
did get right was the "mission accomplished" bit -- the conventional army of
Iraq was easy to defeat. No problem. The problem was there never was a plan
to hold/rebuild/democratize Iraq. Bush and his minions got sold a bill of
goods from a group of pseudo-intellectual fantasizing Iraqi ex-pats. Nobody
in the military with any experience believed that crap, wishful thinking of
Bush's part because it meant a quick, clean war and hasty retreat. Iraq was
a mess under the Ottomans, the Brits created it out of three distinctly
different regions that had never, ever been joined administratively,
militarily or in any other fashion. It's been held together by sword and
gunpoint since 1919. The "victory" here is we turn over ground combat
operations to the "Iraqi Government" when duly elected in 15 days
(government will seat in the Spring) and get the heck out - and offer the
same security assistance we offer to other countries of interest, like
Yemen, Ethiopia, etc. That's victory in this context.
There were other letters, but these are representative. We are winning,
despite the lack of planning at the beginning. If there is an underlying
theme of pride in the military and contempt for the incompetence of the
planners, that is understandable, and in my judgment more than justified.
I replied in part:
All of which was known before we got conned into
the war, or should have been known. The "analysts" at DOD did less research
on this $300 billion operation before we began it than I typically do before
I buy a new car. Chalabi the Thief sold them his bill of goods but they
didn't have to buy it. I told a lot of them so at the time, but they don't
listen to old Reagan men.
My point really is that the Shiites have the numbers to be able to slaughter
the Sunni, and probably will as soon as we cease to hold them back, after
which the other Sunni in the region will thirst for their blood. Of course
with Arabs you can never be sure who will win once the genocide starts. But
I expect to see a blood bath when we leave. They have scores to settle,
scores of more than beer as Kipling would say. And y'all would know better
than me, but I have never noted much rational decision making in the
Shiites. Some in the Sunni. But when the Shiites begin slaughtering the
Sunni, what will happen in the region? It's a very old fight. Makes the
Thirty Years War look pretty good, no?
Then there's Iran to get into the act.
The US has to show some sort of victory and get the hell out of there. My
own view was that we shouldn't have gone in; having done so we ought to have
had a plan for keeping order once we got there; having got in there with no
plan, we should have announced military victory, handed the keys to Chalabi
or anyone else nuts enough to accept them, and got the hell out while we
were all covered with glory.
Once the Jacobins got to define "victory" as establishing liberal democracy
in Iraq -- as you said and as I have often said, not a nation, not even an
administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire, merely a place thrown together by
the Brits to give the Hashemites some place to roost after depriving them of
their historic role as Protectors of Mecca -- once "victory" was defined as
leaving liberal democracy in the Middle East we had a real problem.
I don't know if you can do it. I hope you can, but I have my doubts. As
Moishe Dyan said, "It helps if you're fighting Arabs", but if you are trying
to start a stable liberal democracy it doesn't help if you're trying to do
it with Arabs. The Kurds aren't going to play nice anyway. The Assyrians
think they have always had a raw deal. The poor bastards surviving in the
South after the US betrayal in the First Gulf War want some payback. I have
probably left out half a dozen disaffected groups. But when the Baathist
army disbanded they took their weapons home, so the militias can spring up
out of the ground whenever there's a reason.
My daughter said when we first went in that if we decentralized it enough,
the locals knew who the good guys were, and you might be able to restore
property stolen by the Saddam regime and bring about some kind of local
order, based on local courts -- but not if the prize for winning an
election was the oil money. That's the real problem. There's so damned much
money at stake, and in politics when there is enough money at stake the
worst get on top. The higher the stakes the more desperate the criminals, so
the honest ones get poisoned or backstabbed or shot by those who have no
such scruples.
My daughter was charged by State with trying to restore the University over
there. She put in a year at it. They couldn't do it, of course, the money
ran out, and no one could protect her in the local community; her Iraqi
colleagues asked her to leave lest they be killed when she got blown up.
But she couldn't do the job huddled behind the barriers, and no one could
protect her if she just stayed with local friends and families or in hotels.
And her local friends got scared: they might be killed for harboring her.
When things get so bad that a female professor trying to restore the local
university is in danger, you know it's not a liberal democracy.
I don't envy you your job. God bless the lot of you.
Couv also replied to my question about needing so many troops to protect
60% from 10%:
Because, generally, we nor they are accepting of ANY
casualties from security breakdown. Besides, the ratio of support troops to
actual fighters/protectors is above 50-1.
Couv
Want to elaborate on that?
One thing I disagree with my friends about is the the
fragmentation of the Iraq. I was, and still am, amazed at he identity of
Iraq worn my the average Iraqi. They identify with the country of Iraq and
consider themselves Iraqis (among all the other affiliations - tribes,
religion, clan, etc). In fact, I found most to be PROUD of Iraq and their
history of the region. More than once I heard about the great Iraqi -
Nebuchadnezzar! Remember the near revolution we almost started when we tried
to change the Iraqi flag in 2003? The average Iraqi wouldn't stand for it.
I'm sure I've told you this before - a key point we
continue to miss or take advantage of is the historical animosity between
Persian and Arab. The Iraqis (Arabs and Kurds) detest the Persians. Though
the Iraqi Arabs and Kurds have their own animosities, they also realize that
their cooperation against the Persians is in their own individual survival.
A common enemy makes great friends. Furthermore, the other Arabs in the
region (Saudi, Kuwati, Jordanian, Egyptian - even the Syrians and non-arab
Turks) have a vested interest in maintaining the entity of a cohesive Iraq
to counter Iranian hegemony.
Couv
I do point out that $300 billion is a lot of money,
and it all comes from the American middle class. They need to be told what
they are getting for that money.
I make no secret of saying that for $300 billion I
could have built technological means for making us pretty nearly independent
of foreign oil. Is there any damn reason except for oil that we ought to be
interested in the Middle East?
A good navy and border guards seem to me more
relevant in stopping them from getting to us. What have I got wrong?
Jerry
You mean other than the traditional East vs
West/Muslim vs Christian civilizations struggle? The islamo-terrorist waging
of this conflict is a direct extension of that.
> > A good navy and border guards seem to me more relevant in
stopping them
> from getting to us. What have I got wrong?
Sure. For the time being. What happens 100 (submit
your own future) years from now when Europe has fallen to the Jihad and they
now threaten us across the pond?
Besides, under the current form of warfare we remain
vulnerable to attack (but not conquest) regardless of the strength of our
navy and border efforts (that doesn't mean we should IGNORE these issues).
However, I agree with you on the investment in
alternate energy sources.
Couv
Cultural weapons of mass destruction.
Radios, iPods, rock music, blue jeans. The Islamic
base is fading fast. Sure, it turns into slackers, but if they are not HERE
and thus not OUR slackers, they are no threat to US.
Build nuclear power plants (100 at 100 megawatts
each = approximately $100 billion)
Build solar satellites for export of power to
friends.
Invest in fuel cell technology to make
transportation electric rather than oil based. Inefficient sure but not in
terms of $300 billion costs of conquest.
Tell the Arabs to drink their oil, and keep them
out of the US. Let them reconquista Spain and France. By the time they
succeed the Cultural Weapons of Mass Destruction will have made slackers of
their children.
===
Have you any objection to my publishing this
exchange? I'll clean it up; I have no desire to make you look bad.
Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:54
Me look bad? YOU look bad! LMAO!
No problem.
> Cultural weapons of mass destruction.
> > Radios, iPods, rock music, blue jeans. The Islamic base is fading fast.
> Sure, it turns into slackers, but if they are not HERE and thus not OUR
> slackers, they are no threat to US.
BINGO! This is the key. I've said before we should
have given every Iraqi a 5" B&W TV after the fall of Baghdad, then
broadcast
TV shows and edutainment/propaganda to the whole country from AWACS
routinely circling the country. Captive audience thirsting for ANY knowledge
of the world outside Iraq - we blew it.
> > Build nuclear power plants (100 at 100 megawatts each = approximately
$100 > billion)
I don't disagree. Unfortunately there is a sizable
(and powerful) segment of society that is unwilling to live with this
thought. Additionally, they're more than nervous about what to do with spent
fuel.
> > Build solar satellites for export of power to friends.
Gotta love capitalism!
> > Invest in fuel cell technology to make transportation electric rather
than
> oil based. Inefficient sure but not in terms of $300 billion costs of
> conquest.
Doesn't matter what type of fuel - as long as it's
portable, storable and adapable to conversion of current engines.
> > Tell the arabs to drink their oil, and keep them out of the US. Let
them
> reconquista Spain and France. By the time they succeed the Cultural
Weapons
> of Mass Destruction will have made slackers of their children.
Might not be a bad strategy... Unfortunately we'll
have to keep the Spanish and French out of our country as well
And there it stands. As you will have noted, it is not easy arguing with
a Marine colonel. General Graham used to tell me stories about his Marine
colonel assistants when he was head of DIA. But you can learn a lot from
them.
The key to success in Jacobin terms in Iraq is Iraqi nationalism. Whether
it exists among the Kurds, who are ethnically similar to Persians (Kurds are
not Arabs, nor even Semites, nor are they ethnically related to the Turks;
the Kurdish language is Aryan in derivation, as is Persian (Iran == Aryanna).
I have no real data on Kurdish nationalism.
We are committed, and we will stay in Iraq; when it is done I hope we are
safer than we were when we went in. It may even be that having us there
united the Iraqis, as the British presence in the Americas united the 13
colonies into a nation; recall the flag of the chopped up rattlesnake and
the motto "Unite or die!"? We did, and that flag became:
And that, at least, is a lesson Afghanistan and Iraq have taught our
enemies.
(With an addendum below.)
=========
HELP: I need a new mail management program. OUTLOOK
has been improved to the point of being useless.
See
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011894211033.aspx
I found this out when Bob Thompson tried to send me a program file; he
attached the file, but on arrival there was no attachment and no way I can
retrieve the attachment. Outlook knows better. I have this message that
Outlook blocked the attachment. There is no sign of a way to turn that
"feature" off even temporarily.
To hell with them. I will now seriously look into Tony Bove's book on
becoming Microsoft Free, keeping Microsoft for games.
Oh, probably not; but I resent the hell out of this Big Brother attitude,
and if anyone knows the email address of
William Kennedy General Manager Outlook Product Development
--- he of course does not give it in his snide little "Here's
why you are too stupid to have control of your own computer, so just be
nice" essay --- I would appreciate it if you would send him a copy of
this.
I am also collecting suggestions of mail programs for adults that allow
you to override their security settings. If Outlook wanted to warn me that
this was a potentially dangerous file, and I should think twice about
downloading it, that's one thing; but simply, sometime in one of the recent
revisions, to deny me access to things I want -- and still leave me
vulnerable to macros in files it WILL allow -- is unconscionably stupid.
Microsoft used to make tools for general users with features for adults.
They have now decided that their products are not for adults, only for those
unable to decide things for themselves. Big Brother will take care of you
only of course Big Brother CAN'T take care of you.
I'll have Bob rename the file to .foo and send it, or we'll find another
way to transfer it; but this general attitude of Outlook is worse than
annoying, and I will now be looking for alternatives to Big Brother.
Suggestions welcomed. Of course one suggestion will be "Use the Mac" but
that will sort of defeat the purpose of the program I asked Bob for...
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