7.4.6 - Home

Photo - Joao Silva for The New York Times

I write this on Tuesday, July 4th 2006.
Happy "we are throwing out the old corrupt, irrelevant government and starting a new one" Day. One can only hope that we Americans today, can be as bold and intelligent as some of our forefathers were.

Today in Iraq, General George Casey said in an "Independence Day" speech to the troops that there were similarities between the colonists' struggle in 1776 and Iraq's struggles this year.

``It took the commitment of our Founding Fathers and the Continental Army to secure America's position in the free world, much as the Iraqi leaders and Iraqi Army are working to secure a free Iraq," Casey said. ``It also took five years of hard fighting to do it. There is no doubt in my mind that you, the current generation of Americans, have the courage and perseverance to lead our nation to victory in its most complex struggle yet, the war on terror," Casey went on. ``I am confident that we and our Iraqi colleagues will be successful in bringing security and stability here to Iraq."

Huh? Yeah, except back then, WE were the insurgents and the English were the invading, occupying army. Get it?

As I see it, when things don’t add up in Iraq, (like everything and everywhere else these days) I figure it is safe to assume that politics are involved.

Even as the insurgency worsens every day, Gen. Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, astonishingly claims that security in Iraq has improved and that substantial U.S. troop withdrawals are possible by as early as September. (Casey's plan presented to Bush last week entailed bringing home about 7,000 US troops by September and another 20,000 or more by the end of 2007.)

So what's the story here? Ya think it just MIGHT be the congressional elections in 2006? This, by my standards, is unconscionable.

Although Bush administration officials have implied that demands by Democrats for a U.S. troop withdrawal timetable are “unpatriotic” and “aid the enemy,” when their own electoral politics is involved, the administration is all too willing to predict troop reductions during a specified time period. They certainly understand how the Democrats are making significant political gains from the growing unpopularity here at home of the continued occupation of Iraq. By showing some incremental and token progress toward getting out of the quagmire, the administration hopes to contain the damage Democrats could do from now until November. With popular support for the Iraqi occupation in the United States fading, the administration is running out of time.

Back to Gen. Casey for a second: the reason that U.S. forces have not been able to defeat the insurgent rebels is the continuing and astounding ignorance of counterinsurgency warfare tactics by the U.S. Army—an organization that, even after the debacle in Vietnam, has concentrated on fighting conventional wars against smaller nation/states. This ignorance was on display when Gen. Casey opined a few months back, “insurgencies need progress to survive, and this insurgency is not progressing.”

In fact, as George Washington, the North Vietnamese, and the anti-Soviet Mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan demonstrated, insurgents need only to keep an army in the field and “not lose” until the big power gets exhausted and goes home.

And given all the talk about withdrawal from both the Bush administration and Democrats, if the insurgents watch any kind of international news, they know that they are winning. By hinting at withdrawing troops, the administration is also trying to buy more time with the American public in order to negotiate with the Iraqi rebels. The insurgents are better off without the U.S. military in Iraq, however, so they have no incentive to throw down their arms and join the political process.

The Bush administration needs to give up on the fantasy of a permanent military presence—even if reduced—in Iraq and completely and rapidly withdraw its forces from that country. Actually, Republican electoral fortunes will be better off in the short-term AND long-term if the administration realizes that this war cannot be won—either by U.S. forces or the Iraqi security services—and cuts its losses.

George Washington warned us in his farewell address:

“ ...avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.”

Happy "we’re throwing out the old corrupt, irrelevant government and starting a new one" Day everyone.

-Tom