[lit-ideas] Re: The Strident Voice of Defeat ['a military solution']
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 15:02:12 -0800
Please provide evidence for the assertion that "the military says this
war can't be won militarily."
It would be useful if what's meant by 'the military,' either by the
person you're replying to or by you yourself were made clear. However...
December 20, 2006
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ; General Opposes Adding to U.S. Forces in Iraq,
Emphasizing International Solutions for Region
By THOM SHANKER
As the new secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, takes stock of the
war in Iraq this week, he will find Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior
commander in the Middle East, resistant to increasing the American
fighting force there.
General Abizaid, who is completing the final months of a highly
decorated military career, acknowledges that additional American
forces, favored by some of President Bush's top advisers, might
provide a short-term boost in security. But he argues that foreign
troops are a toxin bound to be rejected by Iraqis, and that expanding
the number of American troops merely puts off the day when Iraqis are
forced to take responsibility for their own security.
While American forces may be repositioned within Iraq to meet growing
security challenges, especially in Baghdad, the answer is not solely
military, and even the leading role in combat cannot long rest on
American forces, General Abizaid says.
"The Baghdad security situation requires more Iraqi troops," he said
in a recent interview as he traveled around Iraq, meeting with
American commanders.
His assessment, which includes plans to increase the number of
American trainers embedded with Iraqi units, is supported by Gen.
George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, as well as
by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who must provide the forces and have
resisted an increase without first clearly defining the goals it would
try to achieve on the ground.
But the generals are facing a different assessment from a growing
number of civilian officials in the Bush administration, who see a
sharp increase in troop strength as an effective means to stabilize
Baghdad and as a dramatic initiative for the president to announce in
January.
General Abizaid argues for a broader approach to Iraq than that of
looking solely to putting out the fires in Baghdad.
"You have to internationalize the problem," General Abizaid said. "You
have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically. You just can't
apply a microscope on a particular problem in downtown Baghdad and a
particular problem in downtown Kabul and say that somehow or another,
if you throw enough military forces at it, that you are going to solve
the broader issues in the region of extremism."
His views are out of sync with those of some officials in Washington.
General Abizaid has been pounded by senators of both parties for what
they said was status quo advice on force levels in Iraq, and for
sharing responsibility over a strategy that the Iraq Study Group said
was failing. At the same time, he rankled many of his civilian bosses
by not sticking to administration talking points for the war, offering
accurate, if blunt, public assessments of the Iraq mission since
taking charge of Central Command in July 2003.
General Abizaid was the first to label Iraq a guerrilla war, even when
the White House and Pentagon dismissed the description. And he was the
first four-star general to warn that the rise of sectarian violence in
Iraq, after the mosque bombing in Samarra in February, had replaced
terrorism and Sunni insurgents as the greatest security challenges
there, telling Congress that Iraq risked sliding toward civil war.
But in a bitter exchange last month during testimony before the Senate
Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona,
told the general, "I'm of course disappointed that basically you're
advocating the status quo here today, which I think the American
people in the last election said is not an acceptable condition."
General Abizaid's reluctance to endorse a spike in American forces is
not born of philosophical differences over questions like whether the
United States can rely on fewer troops in combat zones abroad because
of advanced technology. General Abizaid, who is of Lebanese descent,
served a tour with United Nations forces in Lebanon, attended the
University of Jordan and earned a master's degree in Middle Eastern
studies from Harvard.
He emphasizes that the threat to American national security interests
ranges far beyond any one country in his area of responsibility.
"When you take a look at the reach of the extremism as exemplified by
Al Qaeda, it's not just in Afghanistan, it's not just in Iraq -- it's
in Pakistan, it's in Saudi Arabia, it's in Great Britain, it's in
Spain," he said. "It attacked the United States. It is organized in
the virtual world in a way that is very unique, very modern, very
dangerous."
Ask for a solution to Sunni insurgents in Anbar Province, and he talks
about their supporters in Syria and implications should Saudi Arabia
overtly take sides against the Shiites of Iraq.
On the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, General Abizaid says the only
course includes understanding tribal loyalties in Pakistan. Turn the
conversation to Middle Eastern terrorists, and he describes the
military's efforts to preclude their establishing havens in ungoverned
corners of Africa.
General Abizaid is credited with coining the phrase, "the long war,"
to describe the challenge of combating terrorism, especially radical
Islamic terrorism. He still uses, but no longer favors, the label,
according to his aides, because too many people focused only on "war"
and a military solution.
He says the United States government is inadequately organized for the
new type of threat, and that success in the counterterrorism mission,
in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond, requires all of the government to go
to war, and not just the military.
"I think our structures for 21st-century security challenges need to
adapt to this type of an enemy," he said. "The 21st century really
requires that we figure out how to get economic, diplomatic, political
and military elements of power synchronized and coordinated against
specific problems wherever they exist."
[end of quoted material]
I realize that one general does not 'the military' make, but as there
is no group in the military analogous to a legislative body,
especially after the former Secretary of Defense made the Joint Chiefs
of Staff irrelevant, this might at least suggest to you that within
the military this view has been held. It is also held by the new
Secretary of Defense, who is on record (along with the Commander in
Chief) as saying that a purely military 'solution' to this war will be
impossible. You could look it up.
By the way--Tom Shanker was writing in the NY Times, which gives you a
face-saving way of dismissing it.
Robert Paul
reed.edu
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