Me hanging my ass in the wind

[pecunium]

Iraq:

An Najaf

Sadr (who bothers me, he bothered me when he was a new face on the block, and nothing I saw while I was in Iraq made him look any better, nothing I've heard of him since has done so either) has tried to give himself a win/win situation (for certain definitions of win).

If he gets killed, he's a martyr and gets some of what he wants. This presupposes a sincere religious belief in behind some of his aims. I think this much is true.

If the US/Iraqis back off, he's pulled an Hussein and lost a battle, but since he's still at large (a la the outcome of the Gulf War, where we stopped when we said we would, did what we promised and he claimed victory because we didn't break the rules and chase him out).

If we attack the Shrine of the Imam Ali, all hell breaks loose and we probably reap a whirlwind of our own sowing.

Can it be fixed?

Maybe. I think I have a solution, but I'm not there and I have a rocker, not a bird, on my shoulders, so the odds are slim I'd be listened to.

Invest it. Go back to renaissance type war.

Clear all the houses in An Najaf which are in 60mm mortar range of the Shrine, take photos of the condition, give a copy to the owners. Promise to pay them if they are damaged (we do this in Germany all the time. If Reforger chews up a guy's field, Finance pays for, cash, on the spot).

Invest the shrine.

Offer an amnesty. If they walk out, right now, we take their picture, fingerprints and parole.

If they wait, they get tried when they come out.

And then we wait. They get hungry, they get thirsty, they can come out. They get arrested, they get tried, and they end up in jail.

Sadr, he gets arrested and then he gets tried. Rebellion, treason, whatever the appropriate charge is. He gets convicted. And he gets prison, so he can't be martyred.

It would be expensive, and it won't be quick, nor all that satisfying, because they will kill Marines. They will destroy houses, and markets and schools and all sorts of things.

But if anything happens to the shrine... they will have done it, and the whirlwind will be less.

Comments

[apeppermintgirl.livejournal.com]

Your idealistic war plan is great, but the US military is brutal in achieving its objectives. Already 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the beginning of this war--but you NEVER hear those numbers.

I applaud your careful, painstaking and humane philosophy of necessary capture. Excellent! But can you see the US military, or any military sitting and waiting, when they can just destroy a structure from afar?

" Humaneness" is not part of the military philosophy, unless it's necessary to achieve their ends, or in some cases they can 'afford' it and it makes good PR with the country being invaded/occupied.

I liked reading your thoughtful considerations! :)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

This is a couple of firsts.

First, thank you for reading my stuff. More thanks for commenting, and thus letting me know you read it. I always wonder how many people are taking my RSS feed; which all LJ accounts seem to have, or perhaps just paid accounts... I'll have to ask, or just popping in. I know it's more than have me on the friend's list, but I don't know how many more.

I'm also curious about the way in which people find me.

But I am amused at the tenor of your response, because that makes it plain you didn't take the time to look at who I am, before you did it, because if you had, I don't think you'd have said some of that. If you would, power to you for the strength of your convictions.

Because I am in the military, so the answer to your question, "But can you see the US military, or any military sitting and waiting, when they can just destroy a structure from afar?", is yes, because I have.

I was on the roads of Iraq in the first weeks of April, 2003, and then in May, and then in June. We didn't destroy a lot of shit that we could have, not just in the legalistic terms of Geneva, but in the cold pragmatism of not getting killed. A lot of things were bypassed, and a lot of people allowed to go into their barracks and wait. People we could have blown to hamburger. People who posed a real threat (some of whom, now, happen to be members of the insurgency.

The "military" you portray as being philosophically inhumane, is not. It is a sum of its parts, and those parts are the warp and weft of America (or Britain, or France, or, or, or...) and reflect the values of the parent culture.

Abu Ghraib, for example, happened, in part, because we have horrible prisons, here in the states. When an Oregon Guard unit found Iraqis doing such things, they liberated the prison. The civilians made them give it back.

As for the numbers I never hear... You're wrong. Not only did I hear them, I still hear them. You seem to know about them (though I think your tally is a little shy of the mark) so you must be hearing of them somewhere too.

The "military" is not a monolith, nor is it the master of its fate. It is a tool to the ends of the polity which wields it. I suspect the Marines in charge of the situation in An Najaf would be more than willing to lay siege (because it would be likely to be less costly, in lives, equipment, initiative, and local good will than an assault) but the powers in Washington won't stand for it.

Politics here, will trump politics there. Can't have the US looking like a patsy, so we go in guns blazing and avoid a Khe Sanh situation, with a long battle that seems fruitless, which wouldn't be helpful in an election year (yes, I can be as cynical as anyone, comes of being a soldier for 12 years...Journalists got nothing on us when it comes to the seamy underbelly of human nature).

As to what the "military" can afford, about the only time we tend to, "inhumanity" is when we are trying to avoid unpleasantries like getting dead. That makes us a trifle testy, and we tend to respond with the tools at hand. Which may seem less than restrained to the outside observer, but in the heat of the moment, I'll take an artillery strike to wipe out a sniper, rather than trying to creep up on him, and risk getting a slug in my head.

Call me silly that way.

TK

p.s. feel free to go back and read the memories listed, "Deployment", to see what I thought during my stay in the war zone.