Iraq and Somalia

The United States is showing the world that it knows how to win and how to loose the War on Terror with its campaigns in Somalia and Iraq.
The US is succeeding in Somalia – destroying an Islamic republic that harbors terrorists and eliminating a major Al Qaeda base – by utilizing proxies Somali warlords and the Ethiopian army. The only American involvement there has been air strikes launched by US planes and helicopters based elsewhere. The US has been able to eliminate Al Qaeda in Somalia by having our allies flush its members out to where our planes can hit them.
The US is failing in Iraq because it is trying to do all the fighting in that country itself. In Somalia most of the fighting is being done by local forces with our backing, and we are winning. In Iraq our military is doing virtually all of the fighting and we are loosing there’s obviously a lesson here.
The lesson is that warfare has changed, we have gone from a world where wars were waged by armies deployed by governments to a world where war is waged by entities others than states and nations. What is called Fourth Generation or Open Ended warfare, a world where any small group with a few dollars and some imagination can wage war.
Our massive military which was designed to wage war on other nations is useless and close to helpless in this modern age. Our forces can easily defeat and occupy other nations but it can’t control or police them. We can overthrow Saddam and destroy his army but we can’t control the situation in Baghdad.
With the present campaign in Somalia, the US military seems to have learned its lesson. No effort is being made to invade Somalia instead we are simply trying to destroy our enemies there and letting the locals do the fire.
Unfortunately this lesson isn’t being applied in Iraq, President Bush and his generals are sending another 25,000 soldiers there to “stabilize the situation.” Nobody in their right mind believes this will stabilize the situation except the retired generals who get paraded before the TV cameras as military experts. These geniuses point to mathematical formulas based upon wars waged a half century ago that claim a certain level of troops is necessary to win a guerrilla war.
The real reason for this move and the Iraq War seems to an attempt by the Pentagon to justify its massive military establishment and huge armed forces. Recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia indicate that large military forces may not be needed in modern war. The presence of a huge American Army in Iraq has actually been counterproductive.
A massive restructuring of the military combined with large scale troop reductions would be a logical move given these developments. Unfortunately, the officers in the Pentagon don’t want to see their bureaucratic empires cut back so they plan massive campaigns to demonstrate their effectiveness.
Yet, the massive military machine has proven virtually useless in Iraq and in Afghanistan where local fighters won the battle before we arrived. The generals keep deploying their military and its firepower and end up embarrassing themselves in the process.
Like the French and British generals who ordered cavalry charges and massed infantry attacks against machine guns in World War One, our present military commanders can’t grasp how warfare has changed. They still order infantry sweeps, tank attacks and helicopter assaults in Iraq even though such tactics have little effect. Fortunately, the political unpopularity of the Iraq debacle has prevented the Pentagon from repeating it in Somalia. Unfortunately, the generals would rather go down fighting for their piece of the budget rather than apply the effective tactics and strategy from Somalia in Iraq.

Bureaucracy Our Real Enemy

If want to see why the US military is being humilated in Iraq, go over to Tech Central Station and take a look at Richard Weitz's latest article.: "Back to Africa." Weitz thinks that the successful US airstrikes against Al Qaeda and its allies in Somalia necessitate the formation of a dedicated African Command at the Pentagon and an increased US military presence in Africa. Weitz is wrong the US is succeeding in Somalia because its strategy in that nation is not hampered by an Africa command or interference from the Pentagon. Our military is succeeding in Somalia because it is limiting its mission to the eminently sensible goal of liquadating Al Qaeda while leaving the policing of Somalia to our allies in that nation. Our forces are free to hunt down and wipe out the real bad guys in Somalia because the politicians and bureuacrats aren't there to get in their way. If we follow Mr. Weitz's advice and establish a US Africa Command we'll see our victories on that continent evaporate and our forces bogged down in useless colonial wars there. This would occur because the purpose of the US Africa Command would not be to fight and win a war but to increase its budget and build a bureaucratic empire. The Africa Command would plan missions to maximize the resources it could deploy and its own budget. Instead of wiping out Al Qaeda strongholds, the Africa Command would be planning for major operations in Darfur, Nigeria and elsewhere that would involve thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles. The bureaucrats would be able to increase their money and contractors would make a lot of money, but neither US national security or the lives of average Africans would be improved. If the situation in Iraq is anything to go by the actions of the US Africa Command would make things worse for average civilians on the ground not better. The Africa Command would also be at the mercy of politicians who'd deploy it's troops in ways designed to win votes. Conservative Christians would probably deploy troops to protect missionaries and African Christians from imaginary Islamic threats while African American politicans would demand US forces defend whatever socialist kook is the present darling of the political left. Hopefully, common sense will prevail in Washington and the generals and politicans won't listen to the bureaucratic empire builders who now have their eyes on Africa.

Darfur: Crusade of Hypocrisy

The American Left loves a crusade, provided the crusade doesn’t involve any real risks, and the latest fashionable crusade is Darfur – a region of the Sudan where Islamic thugs backed by that African nation’s government are terrorizing and allegedly committing genocide against poor Christian farmers.
Leftists led by George Clooney are demanding that the US government “do something about the tragedy in Darfur,” but they don’t say what the US government should do. I imagine Clooney’s answer would be the deployment of US military forces to Darfar under the banner of the UN, in other words peacekeeping note that hasn’t worked in other parts of the world ask the people of Rwanda. UN Peacekeeping rules would probably prevent US forces from doing anything but stand around and watch while Moslem thugs kept up the reign of terror. Or perhaps we could resort to sanctions which have worked well against Fidel Castro and worked great against Saddam.
The latest recruit to the great Darfur crusade is Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who wants the use of US air power on behalf of Darfur’s people. Since the thugs in Darfur are low tech tribesmen who ride camels and use rifles I don’t see how air power could help. Our planes could use Sudan’s air force for target practice and we could bomb the Sudanese capitol in Khartoum but beyond making America into a high tech bully I don’t see what that could prove. The killing would probably still go on in Darfur and get worse even though our tax dollars would be wasted.
Yes, we could deploy US military forces to Darfur at great cost and probably have to bully the Sudanese government and its neighbors into allowing that. Our military could stay for a few months or weeks until the American people got sick of the debacle then pull out and go home. The Sudanese thugs would come back and start the slaughter again as happened in Somalia – remember that crusade? Maybe we should take up a collection to buy George Clooney and John Edwards DVDs of “Blackhawk Down” and the 1966 movie “Khartoum” to remind them what we’re getting into.
The Darfur Crusade is made more hypocritical by the fact that the leading champions of Darfur are opposed to the American adventure in Iraq. Clooney and company oppose unsuccessful American efforts to protect Iraqis from Islamic terrorism but demand American action to protect Sudanese from Islamic terror. They also demand an American withdrawal from Iraq, something that could very well lead to genocide in that country. From a moral standpoint, there is no way one can demand action in Darfur while opposing action in Iraq.
Nor is Darfur the only place where genocide is occurring in our world, what about North Korea where hundreds of thousands of people are starving to death in Kim Jong Il’s gulag why not shut it down? The destruction of Kim’s sorry Communist Army would be an easy exercise for our modern military and North Korea could be turned over to democratic South Korea for administration. How about it George, what about North Korean peasants aren’t they worth your time? Notice we don’t hear Mr. Clooney talking about the poor children of North Korea, are the African children of Darfur more important than the Asian children of North Korea?
Perhaps the worst part of the Darfur Hypocrisy is the fact that we could easily and cheaply help the people of Darfur defend themselves. We could arm the Darfur Christians with surplus US weapons and hire a few mercenaries to train them. This is a very viable option, Christianity Today reports that Darfur rebels inflicted defeats upon Sudanese forces last year. Given a little training and some weapons say Stinger missiles to shoot down the Sudanese choppers, Darfur could defend itself easily, that strategy worked in Bosnia in the 1990s where the civil war ended when American agents armed and trained Moslem forces who defeated the Serbs. We could send the CIA into train and arm the Darfur rebels, but oops Mr. Clooney doesn’t believe in the CIA so we can’t do that.
Of course, we don’t even need to call upon the CIA’s services or the American taxpayer’s help, Mr. Clooney could use part of the huge fortune he has accumulated making movies to buy weapons for the Darfur rebels. He could even hire a private mercenary outfit like Black Water to train and organize the Darfur Christians into a proper fighting force to drive out the Islamic thugs. How about it George? Put your money where your mouth is sell that pleasure palace in Northern Italy and use the proceeds of the sale - or your cut of the gross from “Oceans’ 13”- to pay for weapons and training for Darfur’s freedom fighters? Ask your Hollywood friends to do the same, organize a benefit concert to buy guns for Darfur? Why do I have feeling we’ll get nothing but silence from Mr. Clooney and his publicists on these proposals which could really help the people of Darfur.
The Darfur Crusade is nothing but hot air, it won’t save a single Christian from Islamic thugs but it will make a lot of the armchair generals on the left feel good.