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Labels: Foreign Affairs: Iraq War

1. "The enemy in WWIV is Islam – historical, traditional and Sharia-faithful Islam."

   This is an oversimplistic view of the war. Mainly because not all Islam is the enemy, nor is all the enemy Islam. I'd like to see the mental manuevering used to lump those from Russia and China who collaborated with Saddam, letting him know we were coming (hide the weapons), as Islamic. And Saddam, a Sunni Muslim himself, was more interested in ruling by his own edicts than under Sharia law…same with our good buddy in Syria. The UN as well, guided by an insane hatred of the US and Israel, unwittingly helps the Islamic enemy. While they may have Islamic members, the body as a whole is not Islamic, nor is it governed by Sharia. Furthermore we have Muslim allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention reformers world wide, who we cannot afford to alienate just because they are Muslim.

   Nor is Dan Philips assement correct. Disengagement from the world solves nothing. Immigration control is not the answer. Simply pointing out that the world is not a safe place and never will be is foolish and only opens ourself up to attack.
   The talking point that war only creates more enemies has no basis in reality. Our enemies want us dead, and refusing to kill them first just gives them a better chance to sucker punch us…hard.

   Victory in this war will be hard, and time consuming. It will take not only military might, but a reformation from within of Islam, and the severing of ties between terrorist groups and their backers. It may take 3 decades…it may take a cetury. But the evidence is clear, soon our enemies will have nuclear weapons, and they will have states such as France at their disposal. If we don't deal with them now, definitively, we will lose this war. And the stakes are pretty high.

   Comment by WolvenBear | February 14, 2007

2. Dan:

   Your logic for "disengagement" would work if that were a "cause". If you don't take Shari'a seriously, you will be groping in the dark.

   Col. Snodgrass does not suggest an "endless war". Asymmetrical limited wars a la Vietnam and Iraq are endless until the lesser motivated quits the battle. Invariably that is the "democracy" trying to fight the limited war.

   Your doctrine is fatal because you ignore the stated hatred of the West by Islam dating back 1200 years+ and the threat the Islamic world now poses given WMD.

   Conclusory or wishful thinking about disengagement and "peaceful trade" as ways forward are fine as wish lists but they deny reality.

   Further, your suggestion that offensive war against a political ideology declaring its goal our destruction and the Muslims who support it (fully capable of bringing us to our knees if we sit back and act only defensively) as unrealistic or ineffective is the utterance of words without content. History suggests otherwise. Europe did a decent job beating back the Muslims in the 17th century. Your statement that such a war would be inhumane is literally meaningless unless you take the position that war simply is inhumane.

   So, in the end of the day, Dan, you will either need to make the case that "disengagement" will satisfy the tenets of Sharia to its faithful and demonstrate the WMD in the hands of these mullahs is not really a threat to our national existence or propose something more than a wish list.

   As to Wolvenbear's comments, the Colonel most assuredly didn't suggest that the only enemy is Sharia faithful Muslims. Further, to identify the enemy as Sharia faithful Islam and its adherents (even though that will most assuredly include passive friendly types who don't really take their Sharia seriously) is no different in any war when we declare war against an entire nation. The rest of what WB suggests is inconsequential.

   As to both, immigration control is certainly important but when you have a dedicated enemy withdrawal and friendly overtures will not appease his appetite. I might suggest you read http://www.saneworks.us/Immigration-Proposal-article-379-35.htm.

   Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 15, 2007

3. Dan:

   You write: "They way to deal with the threat of Islam is through control of immigration and military and political disentanglement from the Middle East. Our Middle Eastern foreign policy should be one of self-interested neutrality. Peaceful trade should be encouraged (not through direct subsidy, of course)."

   But this is not argument; it is wishful thinking. If you take Shari’a seriously and 1200+ years of history, your suggestion is silly. Disengagement is a strategy if you assume Islam will back down and be satisfied with one third of the world. But that would mean that it has either reformed Mohammed's teachings and Allahs instructions or it is convinced America and the West is invincible. There is certainly no evidence of either and with WMD and a Jihadist approach to victory, your suggestion becomes a huge national gamble.

   With disengagement and Buchananesque appeasement, what prevents a delivery of WMD to our shores from behind the walls of disengagement? We have dealt with this issue in response to the Separationist doctrine propounded by Lawrence Auster here: http://www.saneworks.us/Immigration-Proposal-article-379-35.htm (see the narrative introduction to the actual immigration proposal).

   Further, Col. Snodgrass has not advocated "endless" war; precisely the opposite. Limited War theory is what leads to "endless" war at least until the less motivated quits the battle (i.e., Vietnam and soon to be Iraq).

   Finally, aside from the fact that you state the Colonel's proposals are unrealistic and would be ineffective (history and the science of war making suggests you are wrong), you state that such a war strategy would be inhumane. What in the world does that mean? War is inhumane? If war to protect a nation’s existence is inhumane because it leads to many deaths, then every war ever fought was inhumane and that includes the Revolutionary War.

   As to WB's remarks following yours, his are rather inconsequential. The Colonel never said the only enemy of the US is the Sharia faithful. One would have thought that the Colonel would not have to dumb down the presentation to that level. Also, no serious student of the political ideology and history of Sharia based Islam would deny its cause to rule the world. Ask the Christian Europeans who fought them ruthlessly to push them out of Europe. That there are less faithful among the 1.3+ billion Muslims is obvious. But it was just as obvious when we declared war against fascist Germany and Japan that there were millions of relatively passive and innocent Nazis and Bushidos. If we try fighting a war against only BAD actors as opposed to nations/peoples who threaten our national existence, we will be precisely in the mess we have in Iraq.

   All the best,

   David Yerushalmi

   Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 15, 2007

4. I apologize for the double entry; I thought the first was lost so I re-drafted it. Looks like they both went through.

   DY

   Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 15, 2007

5. Dan:

   You seem to have sidestepped a bit here. First, no one is advocating war to "be on the safe side". On Islam and its threat, you are wrong to conclude the threat is criminal and only marginal or theoretical. Specifically, Islam is a law-based political ideology with religious theology providing its ontological footing. That is not disputable. To suggest that we were not attacked by the Afghanistan’s ruling clique the Taliban, as much as by al Qaeda, is to promote form over substance.

   Parenthetically, It is the same argument being made now about evidence the al Quds guard of Iran, the most elite of their special guards, might be supplying war theory, monies, materiel and personnel to the “insurgents” in Iraq but we have no “proof” they are doing so on orders of the top mullahs or their president. The answer to that of course is so what? Either they are being ordered to do it or they have effectively become an Iranian governing military entity all their own.

   Nations cannot begin to defend themselves if that kind of forensic jurisprudence is applied to foreign affairs. The reason is obvious. If you err because you demanded demonstrable proof, you could be effectively condemning millions of your own citizens to death in an attack that could have been avoided. If I had to choose between erring on the side of my own being murdered or a war that might have been avoided upon hindsight, I’ll choose the latter. You have said quite rightly the world is a dangerous place. It is radically so given the ease with which WMD can be acquired and delivered to its target. It is the role of my government to shift as much of that danger and RISK of danger to our enemies as is possible.

   That Saddam was an enemy is clear. The questions before the war was did he in fact have WMD and would that WMD be a threat to the US in his hands or in the hands of terrorists with whom he might do business? Given the intel consensus and given his contempt for the US and his quite irrational behavior, the choice to take out his regime was in my view quite rational and reasonable. The effort to “build a democracy” in the midst of a war was absurd and we are paying the price for that now. But had we established instead a friendly military regime, destroyed all remnants of “insurgency” with utter abandon, we would now be in the position to either establish one governing polity or possibly, three (Kurdish, Sunni, Shia). If we chose the latter, the important regime and the difficult one would be an absolutely secular Shia based regime with no ties to Iran. But, the message we would leave behind as we exited is: “build a Sharia based regime in the Shia province of Iraq and we will be back with a vengeance.”

   To return to the international threat of Islam. Islamic law, irrespective of the five historical, traditional and authoritative schools of jurisprudence (4 of Sunni fiqh and 1 of Shia) from which it is derived, collectively which speak for over 98% of devout or even traditionally minded but not particularly observant Muslims, holds that the goal of Islam and a Muslim is a one world Islamic state. That is not disputable.

   Now, you might be suggesting that most Arab-Muslim leaders and regimes do not observe this mandate expressly or obviously; that only "criminal" or "radical" elements have taken a leading role in pursuing these goals. The problem with this "analysis" is that it belies the plain facts. We have already witnessed entire states being ruled by Sharia based regimes. Further, the Pew polls I have cited in my essays on the subject here at IC and at the SANE Works for US web journal demonstrate that more than half of the Muslim world, in the Middle- and Near-East and in Europe,desire to implement Shari'a as the guiding political-legal force in their respective countries AND are willing to use force to rid their countries of non-Sharia influences.

   Further, the autocracies currently hanging on by their teeth and often use Sharia at some level to pacify and satiate a vast majority of their citizens who wish to live that way have very little to hope for if the US "disengages". Do you think Musharraf, the Saudi family, Mubarrak, Harmid Karzai, King Hussein of Jordan, Lebanan’s “democracy”, or any number of other "moderate" oligarchs would survive left to battle the fundamentalists which are clearly a majority? Even in Ataturk's “secular” Turkey, the secular military has overthrown or threatened to overthrow more than one "democratic" result that brought Islam and Sharia back into public life. The irony is that when Turkey sought EU admission, the Europeans demanded more democratic "reform and transparency" which allowed the Islamic factions to gain enormous political power. No one denies Turkey has been positioned for a major shift from secular to Islamic.

   All of this goes to say that when you combine a murderous hegemonic political ideology with real political power and either actual wmd or potential wmd, you have a nuclear time bomb just waiting to pick its moment.

   Now, how we engage and dismantle Sharia based regimes is a matter for the strategists but turning your back on all of this and calling it disengagement and waiting for the other side to strike the First blow, in an age of WMD, is in my humble view irresponsible if not criminally so. The one single function everyone accepts government has is to protect the borders and its citizens from external attack. To look out at the horizon and see no real and impending threats is to apply your own set of "paleoconservative" blinders.

   The whole problem, and I have said this before, with much of the back and forth at IC is the notion that ideology drives the application of Reason and analysis. Why must every comment of yours relate to some ideological rubric? You have had difficulty placing me in a pre-conscribed rubric because in most matters relating to national existence and peoplehood you sense quite rightly a symmetry if not identity of understandings. But because I am not willing to ignore what to me (and to others who have seriously studied the history and current status of Islam and the Muslim world) is a real and immediate threat to our national existence, I reject a pre-packaged response of isolationism to the threat. I am not suggesting you fall into the isolationist camp, but when a man tells me that conservatives are prudent and put the well-being of their nation above ideology and theoretical concepts and then looks upon the Islamic world and proposes we turn our back on this threat by disengaging and removing ourselves from the Middle and Near East, I judge that man as lacking in conservative ways at least in this regard. I know that goes against the “paleo-conservative” grain, but that is quite the point, yes?

   This should never mean a nation rushing into war. But to ignore the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran or a Pakistani al-Qaeda regime because one is wedded to "disengagement" and isolationist like dogmas would be as irresponsible as a rush to war. Buchanan and others have literally made the argument that nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranian mullahs would not necessarily be a threat to the US. In my view, this is sheer folly and evidence of ideology driving defense of national existence.

   All the best,

   David Yerushalmi

   Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 16, 2007

6. Given the author’s background, his opinions should carry considerable weight, but his logic struck me as disjointed and the historical examples cited didn’t support the points he made. His formula for war is actually contradicted by what he calls WW3 or the Cold War. The two sides, America and the Soviet Union had both capability and motivation, so what great battles were fought, what were our casualties, who were the defeated generals, etc.? The missing part of the author’s formula is military superiority – we never tangled with the Russians because both sides, being evenly matched militarily, feared horrendous casualties or a costly military stalemate would be the only result. When we perceive ourselves as militarily superior, we eagerly go to war with weaker nations. Remove our perception of military superiority and the war stops (or never starts). The question the author should be asking is whether we merely perceive ourselves as superior militarily or whether, for this type of warfare, we actually are superior.

   A review of history following WWII doesn’t support the author’s often repeated formula in other ways. I had neighbors who built atom bomb shelters when I was a child because the Communist Menace was a very real threat within the public psyche and more than sufficient “motivation” for war as this author defines it. The Islamic “beast” rhetoric has yet to reach the emotional level of the communist “beast” rhetoric; the words were different in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, but the melody is the same. Defining an amorphous enemy like “Islam” follows the same foreign policy, military propaganda talking points used in an earlier era against the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba and Eastern Europe, when we lumped them together collectively and referred to them as “Communists”.

   His point #3 example of the war in Iraq being a campaign in a larger war similar to the invasion of North Africa in 1942 is particularly ironic, and possibly a Freudian slip. Operation Torch or the invasion of Algeria and Morocco was politically, not militarily, motivated: Eerily similar in some respects to the political motives of Bush’s Iraq war and the current troop “surge”. In 1942, Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Democrats were facing serious political problems; the war against the Nazis was going nowhere fast and the American public was beginning to realize that despite Roosevelt’s strong political support of war with Germany, the United States was totally unprepared for actual combat and losing badly.

   1942 was an off-year election and America had suffered a string of military defeats leading up to election day. The Nazi’s had unleashed their U-boat fleet and were wreaking havoc on American shipping. Bathers in the surf off Virginia Beach and Miami directly observed merchant ships sunk by German torpedoes. Oil tankers were a favorite target of the U-boats and their frequent destruction forced severe gas rationing (3 gallons a week) on the densely populated east coast cities. Roosevelt was desperate to show some progress, any progress, against Germany, particularly since the public was confused over why we were placing so much emphasis on Germany, when it was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor.

   Army-Air Corps Chief of Staff George Marshall and Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King were both opposed to the invasion of North Africa since it supported a completely unrealistic military strategy, but Roosevelt and Churchill demanded the campaign go forward to shore up their slumping political base at home. Roosevelt wanted the invasion in mid-October just before the election, but lack of shipping delayed it until a week after the November elections. Resources needed to support the Guadalcanal battle in the Pacific were diverted to North Africa and American servicemen in the Solomon’s died by the numbers to support the Democrats in their re-election efforts. Nevertheless, the Democrats took a thumping in the 1942 elections, losing 35 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate, a defeat strangely similar to the 2006 elections for the Republicans.

   The author’s reference to reliance on air power in WWII also strains his argument’s credibility (within his military analysis section). The use of air power to win wars had long been a cherished dream of the military. Both the British and Americans were convinced that air power alone could win WWII without the need for infantry or what we call “boots on the ground”. America’s Norden bombsight impressed visiting dignitaries in 1942 by placing bombs within a small circle from 20,000 feet up and supposedly justified claims of “precision” bombing. But air combat reality won out over theory and the allies were eventually forced to resort to area bombing, dispersing tons of bombs over cities in the hopes legitimate military targets might be destroyed.

   The British air general Harris defended area bombing calling it “morale bombing” or the “dehousing” campaign. The idea being that civilian workers were killed or driven from the cities and could no longer support war production efforts in the factories. Younger Air-Corps officers referred to area bombing as the “baby killing plan”, at least when no senior officers were in earshot.

   Despite our technological advances since WWII, we can still recall the comedy of Saddam Hussein driving around Baghdad while we tried to nail him with a “smart bomb”. And, like Hitler, wasn’t Hussein reported assassinated more than once, a victim of our superior targeting technology? The effectiveness of air power for counter insurgency operations within urban areas is doubtful, unless we return to a “dehousing campaign”.

   Drawing upon historical lessons as a basis for current actions is often a mistake, conditions change and plans should reflect the reality of today, not yesteryear. Without detailed military and political intelligence data, it’s impossible to evaluate this author’s arguments. And, although the author’s tactical knowledge may be theoretically sound, his strategic goals are vague and without merit.

   Comment by Pat Skurka | February 17, 2007

7. its very simple, we will continue to face islamic threats and acts of terrorism until our grandchildren are adults and beyond until one thing happens. Until little osama, or saddam or abdullah sitting in his own self made squalor fears upsetting the U.S. more than he does attacking it.

   Until our so called leaders learn to condemn that barbaric cult known simply as islam much like we all condemn nazism, then we will continue to suffer war with them.

   Until that thought process is seared in our little brains we are doomed to play war for years to come.

   Comment by Dean | February 17, 2007

8. Pat Skurka's comments require and deserve response at least in their pertinent aspects.

   One, the Colonel wrote an essay entitled "A Reader's Digest". That should suggest to the careful reader that a fuller analysis will require the reader's application of the main points stressed in the essay to a broader understanding.

   Let's take P. Skurka's first criticism. The Cold War as WWIII. The War Making formula, which again is Clausewitz made simple, is War = Motivation + Capability. Given that premise, a fair analytical extrapolation should have allowed the reader to understand how that fits the Cold War quite well. Given the doctrine of MAD, neither side was motivated to fight a direct war one against the other. Instead, a series of surrogate battle theatres developed in addition to the broader war of words, economic and diplomatic battles, and arms escalation. Indeed, the war was lost by the Soviets when they lost the ability (i.e., capability) to continue this war within the context in which it was being fought — economically and in the face of a new arms escalation (i.e., SDI). Ultimately, this led to a leadership (i.e., Gorbachev) which had lost the motivation to continue the fight.

   What this illustrates is that the War against Shari'a faithful regimes need not be "boots on the ground" in every or even most instances. War tactics are determined by war aims and strategy. In the war against Islam, the war aim is to (1) prevent the enemy from establishing command and control centers (capability); and (2) respond so overwhelmingly (i.e., destructively) and consistently to the threat of such Islamic regimes that in time a new leadership base will produce its own set of Gorbachevs, for in the Islamic world there is not one locus of power.

   As to the effectiveness of air power, again one must return to the war aims. In WWII, the fascist enemies were contained to certain discrete nation-states. The goal was to retake Europe for the EUROPEANS who were quite Western and favorably disposed to the Allied Powers, to rebuild it, and to create an environment that would resist the regional conflicts which had plagued the continent in the past. That required boots on the ground.

   In the war against Islam, we face an enemy that is embedded within a population of 1.3+ billion "Muslims" situated mostly in the Middle- and Near-East but not exclusively, many of which (but certainly a minority) would like to abandon forever Shari'a. Moreover, most of the countries in which the Jihadists and the potential Jihadists live are not today controlled by Jihadist or Shari'a based regimes. Our war aim is not to "retake" dar al-Islam. Our goal is to prevent the faithful among the 1.3+ billion from establishing the capability to mount any real challenge to the US. Terrorism as a tactic will never disappear. A single suicide bomber is impossible to prevent 100% of the time no matter how good one's intel is or how tight one’s border control might be. But the ability to carry off a 9-11 type attack or even a larger one with wmd requires logistics that only command and control permits. "Command and control" requires a kind of sovereignty over a territory large enough to allow training, weapons stockpiling, worldwide communications and international financial transactions. No matter how cute it is to talk about a virtual wireless world and a global village, anyone who runs a networked business knows that even with all of the fancy gadgetry including satellite communication and wireless computing, if there is no core C+C center coordinating everything, the network becomes a nightmare quickly. We have seen this as al Qaeda was dislodged from the Taliban's protective cover. Even today, while Osama and his senior cohorts have received asylum in the mountainous regions of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border, he does not have the requisite peace and quite to run a networked organization.

   When you combine an iron clad immigration policy as suggested at SANE and referenced earlier in this comment thread together with a military "outreach" program as outlined by Colonel Snodgrass, you will have the basis for a war strategy which will in the first instance destroy the capability to wage an effective war by the Jihadists and which will in time provide the motivation to quit the war.

   But one thing is absolutely certain. Sitting back at home and JUST building a wall around it will do nothing to the capability or the motivation of our enemies.

   All the best,

   David Yerushalmi

   Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 17, 2007

9. Dan: you have said it is justified for a nation to go to war when invaded. Beyond that, you seem morally and ideologically opposed to war. I am not certain what your position is. Since the notion of the war against Islam is what separates us most acutely, I'd like to get a sense of when you find it justified to go to war. In other words, I am trying to determine for the sake of this discussion whether we simply disagree about the threat Islam poses to America's national existence or is there a deeper disagreement about the use of force to protect our national interests.

   Rather than speak about this is merely theoretical terms, I thought I might ask you to explain your position on America's wars fought to date. They are essentially:

   [1] The Revolutionary War
   [2] The American-Indian Wars
   [3] The War of 1812
   [4] Mexican War
   [5] Civil War
   [6] Spanish-American War
   [7] Philippine-American War
   [8] WWI
   [9] WWII
   [10] Korean War
   [11] Vietnam War
   [12] Desert Storm
   [13] Enduring Freedom
   The Iraqi War we know you oppose. And you have stated why: Because we were not invaded and we had no real national interest at stake. But again, this might simply be that you and I read the "tea leaves" differently or that your threshold is so fundamentally different that this amounts to a categorical distinction. The latter is most likely given what you have written but I don't wish to jump to any conclusions.

   All the best,
   David Yerushalmi

   Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 18, 2007

10. Arguably, we should have a good idea when you articulate the boundaries of acceptable or "just" war conditions, how you might have responded to the myriad of "Lesser Wars" where the US used military intervention as a tool of foreign policy:

    [a] Quasi War (Adams)
    [b] Barbary Wars (Jefferson & Madison)
    [c] Korean Expedition (Grant)
    [d] Boxer Rebellion (McKinley)
    [e] Mexican Revolution (Wilson)
    [f] Occupation of Haiti and the Banana Wars (Wilson)
    [g] Northern Russian Expedition (Wilson)
    [h] Lebanon Crisis (Eisenhower)
    [i] Bay of Pigs (Kennedy)
    [j] El Savador Civil War (Carter)
    [k] Iran Hostage Crisis (Carter)
    [l] Invasion of Grenada (Reagan)
    [m] Bombing of Libya (Reagan)
    [n] Lebanon Deployment (Reagan)
    [o] Persian Gulf Escorts (Reagan)
    [p] Invasion of Panama (GH Bush)
    [q] Haiti (Clinton)
    [r] Bosnia/Kosovo (Clinton)
    [s] Somalia (Clinton)
    [t] Haiti (GW Bush)
    [u] Phillipines vs. Muslim terrorists (GW Bush)

    Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 18, 2007

11. David Y., thanks for your comments, but I believe you didn’t apply my main points to a broader understanding of the essay. The author’s use of Clausewitz was fundamentally a tautology – he could just as easily have said “Wars are fought when people wish to fight and not fought when they don’t wish to fight” – very true, but not much help in developing practical military analysis.

    Your view of WWII and the subsequent Cold War is currently accepted wisdom in some quarters, but ignores historical reality. MAD wasn’t developed as a doctrine until more than a decade after WWII and was primarily a rationalization for a pre-existing attitude. American attitudes on war are historically a dichotomy between idealism and realism – a constantly swinging pendulum. In May of 1945, realism was in control; we realized the Soviet Union had 200 + divisions in Europe, we had about 80 divisions including British, French and Canadian.

    The Red Army had defeated the greatest military power in the world, was highly proficient at combat and possessed weapons equal to and in some respects (tanks, tactical air support) superior to our own. Our military leaders counted our forces, counted the Soviet Union’s, realized we didn’t possess overwhelming military superiority and decided to withdraw. The pendulum had swung from idealism to realism and regardless of what the Soviets did to the citizens of eastern and central Europe, we’d had enough and wanted to go home. The military stalemate that lasted for the next 4 decades illustrates the triumph of self-preservation over idealism – calling it lack of “motivation” is one way of looking at it of course.

    Your comments on war aims in the war on terror indicate you may be confusing tactics with strategy. Your definition of our goals in WWII is incorrect and illustrates a possible confusion over military tactics, military strategy and political goals. To organize a 9 million man army to fight a major war such as WWII, you need military rather than political goals – political goals change rapidly (the pendulum again) and are subject to frequent compromises. The current political battle between Republicans and Democrats over Iraq illustrates this point. Strategic military goals must remain relatively fixed to allow time to build an adequate force structure, position the forces, fight campaigns, etc. – all of which can take years and involve tremendous material and personnel resources. Your goals should also clarify what constitutes winning the war.

    Our strategic goals in WWII were as follows: (1) Dissolve the militaristic governments of the Axis powers, (2) The surrender and disbanding of the Axis armed forces. From these goals, we built subsidiary strategic goals for the European Theatre: Keep England in the war and use England as a staging area to invade occupied Europe, keep the Soviet Union in the war and prevent the Soviets from negotiating a separate peace with Germany. These subsidiary goals spawned high level tactics: lend-lease for both the British Commonwealth forces and the Soviet Union, for example. In fact, one historian has quipped that we defeated the Nazis using Russian blood paid for with spam.

    It wasn’t until late in 1943 that we even began to consider how to deal with a defeated Germany and various plans were put forth, but these plans in no way changed our original strategic military goals. Your interpretation of our goals as being to retake Western Europe for Europeans, rebuild it and change the political environment is revisionist and based on subsequent events – they weren’t the goals at the time. In fact, I’d recommend you review historical information regarding the Morgenthau Plan for Germany (Morgenthau was the Treasury Secretary).

    Under this plan, Germany was to be divided into 5 to 7 different regions, forfeit their entire industrial base as reparations and revert to a completely agrarian economy and agricultural based society. The Roosevelt’s, Franklin and Eleanor, contributed the concept of moving all German men between 20 and 40 years old to Central Africa to engage in a massive public works program for the remainder of their lives; Eleanor was still undecided over what to do with the German children.

    I assume you may be referring to the “Declaration on Liberated Europe”, a highly idealistic (and never implemented) plan that involved free elections for all liberated countries and national self-determination under the supervision of a “European Commission”. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin supported the document, but Stalin was determined to adhere only to those parts of the document that sanctioned his plans for post-war Europe. A consummate realist, Stalin believed that victors impose their political system on the enemy to the extent of their armies advance. That’s exactly what he did and we turned our backs on Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Czechoslovakia and half of Germany, while claiming dominion over those European countries our forces occupied.

    Your stated aims for the present conflict are actually a combination of military tactics and vague strategic goals. Prevent the enemy from establishing command and control centers is a tactic; while respond to the threat of Islamic regimes is too vaguely defined to allow development of effective military strategy. To fight a war effectively, you need specific and well defined strategic goals (refer to the WWII primary and subsidiary goals above). You also need a force structure that can achieve your goals. My point was that I’m not sure we have such a force structure at present - how do ballistic missile submarines, armored divisions and stealth bombers support counter insurgency?

    I think the author of this essay is trying to recast the war on terror into a more conventional conflict that will allow us to fully employ our present force structure. I also have no opinion on building walls around our nation; that’s an ideological issue folks on this website find fascinating, but I simply disagree with parts of this author’s military analysis and supporting examples.

    Comment by Pat Skurka | February 20, 2007

12. David Yerushalmi:

    Several questions.

    Those who have opposed the invasion of Iraq have demanded demonstrable "proof" that Saddam had WMDs, he posed a threat, or whatever. Have any of these ever defined what level of proof they want? Is it proof beyond all doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, more likely than not, or what?
    Also, there are claims the U.S. had no right to invade another sovereign country that had not attacked/invaded us. However, there are other acts recognized by international law that justify going to war besides an overt attack/invasion. Can you list some of them?

    Comment by sedonaman | February 22, 2007

13. The questions asked of me by the anonymous sedonaman are both a bit obtuse and suspect. It is suspect because the answer to both would appear self evident. But in the spirit of good faith and for heuristic reasons, I will venture to respond.

    To take the second question first. The question of “international law” is for a nation only of secondary concern at best. While the “law” might recognize such acts as an embargo as a jus ad bellum, which does not include invasion necessarily, if a nation’s political leadership entrusted with national defense believes the nation’s security is at risk even without an attack on the Homeland or on some sovereign territory of the nation, that political leadership would be compelled to act to reduce or to eliminate the risk.

    An example. If a group of Soviet bombers capable of carrying nuclear warheads were flying toward the US during the height of the Cold War you can rest assured they would have been attacked long before they had entered US air space. Our attack would of course have been an act of pre-emptive war but it would have been a quite obviously correct act. Even in a case without a Cold War, if unidentified military aircraft capable of delivering nuclear bombs were observed flying toward the US, the same result should occur.

    I say that “international law” is secondary because no nation would survive in the real world if it only responded after receiving an international legal brief to do so. Moreover, in wars of extinction, especially those which occupy the world’s powers, the winner as the only one left standing is the one who says what international law is.

    The very notion of international law is an absurdity unless one embraces the notion of a World State. That does not mean of course that nations will not enter into all sorts of treaties and conventions predicated upon certain agreed upon “rules” which come to be known as “international law”. And, if these rules are innocuous enough, nations will bow to their demands even if in a particular case it is not good for the nation. This is so because the nation determines that in the long run, obedience to the agreed upon rules is beneficial. Thus, a nation might accept trade sanctions arising out of an international treaty because it has markets to protect and also knows it might take advantage of the same rules tomorrow. However, it could never be said that a nation which believed it confronted a threat of annihilation from another would tolerate that threat simply because the judgment of “international law” concluded that the grounds for “self-defense” didn’t yet exist.

    As to the first question. The threshold of “evidence” required is not a forensic science. The political and military leadership charged with assessing these matters must consider the quality of the intel, the amount of evidence, the history of the actors, the wherewithal to carry out an attack, the kinds of pre-emptive and/or retaliatory strategies available, and the likelihood that other non-war methods might be effective.

    Critics who say that the Iraqi invasion was wrong because the intel appears to have been wrong in retrospect – although there are plenty of good, smart people who are in a position to know who suggest there was WMD and either it was moved or is still buried (I don’t know so I assume for the sake of this little exercise that the intel was wrong) – are themselves patently irrational. The question is NOT whether the intel was right or wrong after the fact (although one ought to work to improve intel gathering and assessment based upon what one learns to be the facts). The question is was the decision to go to war reasonable given the evidence at hand. Nations which defend themselves ONLY when the evidence that their national security and existence is at risk is a CERTAINTY are likely to be burying quite a few of their own citizens or learning to speak a new language in short order. But trying to measure the threat level as Near Certainty, Probable, Possible and the like is itself a silly exercise. These are matters of judgment, much of it innate judgment based upon one’s experiences and instincts. That is why we have leaders. They make difficult decisions every day to protect us.

    Parenthetically, one might argue that our national political and military leadership misread the level of the threat from Iraq, but given what President Clinton had said before Bush and what all intel services thought Saddam had, it was certainly reasonable to have made the decision to go to war. That doesn’t preclude a reasonable man from reaching a different conclusion. Not that Clinton is a reasonable man, but he stated explicitly when he was president that the evidence pointed to WMD and a willingness to use it, but Clinton concluded there were other means to arrest the threat.

    Further to even suggest that one ought to apply a kind of criminal law jurisprudence of self defense to the defense of nations is absurd. The criminal laws of self defense for a People presupposes Peoplehood, affinity, a civil order, and most importantly a political order. While the UN tries to suggest a kind of law of self defense in its charter, the law of any given nation and its own laws of war do not and do not for very good reason. The so called “community of nations” is a fiction. There are alliances and friendships but these can be altered overnight.

    Thus, within a national context, if John is attacked by Sam, John has the legal right to defend himself. But once he has successfully thwarted the attack, self defense law does not allow him to chase after Sam and kill him or to go after Sam’s relatives standing peacefully nearby. If you applied these rules to nations, an invasion would not necessarily be grounds to attack another country. What if the attacked nation could repel the invasion with relative ease? Should it be limited to repelling the invasion and stop at its own borders? As I mentioned earlier, while the UN Charter does suggest such an outcome, no nation would so limit itself and for very good reason. An example: what if the leadership of the invaded country had good evidence that once the invasion was thwarted no further immediate threat existed? Should we say as we do in self defense that the attacked nation may engage in no further hostile acts? While a nation might take that tact, and while the UN might give lip service to such a rule, there is no actual obedience to this rule in fact unless imposed by a larger power on a weaker power. (Thus, Israel was forced to abide by a cease fire after both the 6 Day War and the Yom Kippur War before victory/surrender had been achieved.) And, it is so because there is no global community. The Global Village is a fiction. There is no Peoplehood consisting of all of mankind. While we might all be children in the eyes of G-d, we are not all brothers and sisters in fact. While a father and patriotic citizen might give up his life for his family and nation, no nation would give up its existence to preserve the global community.

    To pursue one's enemies to the ends of the earth even after they pose no existential threat serves a real and valid prophylactic function. Nations cannot risk appearing weak in the eyes of their actual and potential enemies. War is not simply a method to defend against attack. As Clausewitz suggests “War is . . . an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” It is by extension an act of force to compel potential enemies to abandon as yet unknown plans to do us harm.

    To go one step further, this case could be made in Afghanistan. Given the arguments of the Anti-War Left and Right, a strong argument could be made that after 9-11 there was no reason to attack Afghanistan. We could have engaged in all forms of diplomatic “warfare” such as isolating Afghanistan, tearing down the al Qaeda financial network, penetrated its world wide networks through counterterrorism, intel tactics and the like and we could have achieved nearly the same result without “upsetting the Muslim world”. Indeed, operationally, al Qaeda was less a threat than Saddam. Once we knew what al Qaeda was capable of, we could have defended our national interests without starting a war that we still are not prepared to finish.

    I would argue that we went to war there for good reason (although because we are fighting per a limited war doctrine as in Iraq, we cannot possible win that war). While killing Osama and the other senior and mid-level leadership and destroying its command and control center was key, it was also important to show the world that if you attacked America you paid the price. This point has been made by Osama himself. America’s fecklessness beginning in Lebanon in 1983 and extending through all of the unanswered attacks since then culminating with the Black Hawk down fiasco was the blueprint for Osama's war strategy. Bog America down and wear her out. But there is of course a corollary to the axiom that wars are fought to prevent future wars: if you begin a war or take up a war of this sort you’d better be willing to fight it to win even if it is cruel and unfathomably destructive. “It would be futile-even wrong-to try and shut one's eyes to what war really is from sheer distress at its brutality.” Carl Von Clausewitz. “Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.” William T. Sherman

    All the best,

    David Yerushalmi

    Comment by David Yerushalmi | February 22, 2007

14. David Yerushalmi:
    Agreed. Thank you for your insightful response. I did not intend to appear “obtuse” or “suspect;” I was merely looking for information to counter some Leftist claims.
    Regards,
    sedonaman

    Comment by sedonaman | February 23, 2007

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