I’m not sure what to make of Chuck Schumer’s quote from yesterday:
And let me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves
Forget about political tone-deafness (and any purple-state GOP leader who doesn’t have that quote posted on signs and T-shirts and bumper stickers by week’s end should be cashiered for incompetence) for a moment; the quote betrays (or utilizes) a complete ignorance of history. Convincing the locals to do the fighting for you is the mark of successful counterinsurgency warfare; departing from that (as the US did in Vietnam under Kennedy and Johnson, to its eternal chagrin) is a recipe for disaster. Kaplan in Imperial Grunts quoted innumerable Special Forces and Marines who said exactly that. Ed put it well:
Remember when the criticism of the Bush administration was that they didn’t understand the complex social structure of tribal life in Iraq? Remember when we heard nothing but how Bush and the US were bulls in a china shop, insulting tribal leaders and forcing them into the insurgencies?
Exactly. We’re doing the job right – belatedly, to be sure (to our chagrin) but according to fairly clear lessons from military history.
So – is Schumer merely a historical illiterate?
Or is he (as I suggested on the Hewitt show yesterday) just making sure that the Big Lie – “the surge is a failure” – hits the news cycle before Petraeus comes to town, so that the Administration and Pentagon’s good news actually looks like damage control to those who still get their information from the evening news (and anyone who votes for Chuckles Schumer numbers gullibility as the least of their problems)?
“Big Lie”? Reichstag fire? Nazis on bikes? We’re going to the Hitler well a lot this week, don’t ya think?
Ja
I thought “Big Lie” was a Clinton reference.
What’s this about a Watergate type scandel in the Catherine Willie breakin?
Are Hillary’s fingerprints all over it?
Schumer’s an idiot if he thinks that any military can defend a civilian population from insurgents who operate from within that civilian population.
PeterH observed: “Schumer’s an idiot if he thinks that any military can defend a civilian population from insurgents who operate from within that civilian population.”
Actually the guy who thought that is named “Bush”, PeterH. He’s kinda conducted a whole war on that assumption.
Schumer’s an idiot if he thinks that any military can defend a civilian population from insurgents who operate from within that civilian population
Actually, everyone’s wrong.
PeterH – the whole idea of counterinsurgency warfare is the separate the insurgents from the civilians.
Schumer – idiot.
Clown – Bush (or the Pentagon) conducted the first three years of the war…not on “that assumption”, but using the wrong approach entirely.
OK – everyone but me is wrong…
“Schumer’s an idiot if he thinks that any military can defend a civilian population from insurgents who operate from within that civilian population.”
1. Schumer’s an idiot for any number of reasons.
2. if the insurgents are able to operate from within a civilian population, they are not going to need or want defending. The insurgents HUGE mistake was to start killing those same civilians since they were lower hanging fruit than American soldiers. Now those civilians have a stake in helping our soldiers. Which is why some who in the past fought us are now on our side. The hard part, as always, is what to do when the insurgents are defeated.
3. The reason not to listen to the democrats is that their idea of how to proceed is “Bush’s war. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
Very helpful. It’s like having a wreck in your car then taking it to the garage to have it fixed and have the mechanic tell you that you shouldn’t have been driving that day. Helpful advice, yet your car still needs fixed.
“Repeat A Big Lie”
Bummer . . . I thought ‘mitch’ was finally coming clean with his new blogging tactic.
Flash
“Repeat A Big Lie”
Bummer . . . I thought Flash was finally dropping his ‘mitch’ schtick.
Master of None
Mitch, I think we’re saying the same thing. Schumer is casting this
“defense of civilians” as though it’s a conventional war. Behind Schumer’s statement is the assumption that somehow it’s unfortunate that the civilians have had to figure out that they have to fight the insurgents rather than provide them cover.
Maybe I should have said that no conventional military can defend a civilian population from insurgents while those insurgents are operating from within that civilian population.
Yes, of course the first step is to turn the civilian population against the insurgents. And then give that population confidence that we’ve got their back, so to speak.
Chuckie will say anything to undermine the War and-or the Bush Administration. Nothing is to low or to Un-American if it gains power for this Schmuck.
In the transcript on Schumer’s website the “despite the surge” comment is omitted.