Please read the new, Updated, Official, "U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Handbook" written by Lt. Generals David H. Petraeus U.S. Army and James F. Amos USMC(Skyhorse Publishing, 2007). You will see why, apparently, Petreus was really selected and given his present assignment by Bush. You will also see that his "Report" on the status/effectiveness of the "surge" in Iraq and where to go from here, expected soon this month, was really already written a long time ago.
The whole Bush Family, in addition to being known for being control freaks and obsessed with their image in history, is also known to be big on short-term loyalty to friends and timeless vengeance against enemies. They do not like having anyone around them even capable of coming up with--let alone expressing--an opinion contrary to theirs. After all, if your position, wealth and power is a Calvinist-based and "Predestined" manifestation of God's Will, then how could "God's servant"--or his views on anything--be wrong? And how could any contrary opinions be right?
It appears they got another "Go-To-Guy" in Petraeus.
The very opening of the "Counterinsurgency (COIN) Handbook" (HB), which it says is updated and official doctrine for both the U.S. Army and USMC is quite revealing about the military, DOD and the HB authors themselves.
"This field manual/Marine Corps warfighting publication establishes doctrine (fundamental principles) for military operations in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment. It is based on lessons learned from previous counterinsurgencies and contemporary operations. It is also based on existing interim doctrine and doctrine recently developed." p.xiii
And further:
"Counterinsurgency operations generally have been neglected in broader military doctrine and national security policies since the end of the Vietnam War over 30 years ago. This manual is designed to reverse that trend. It is also designed to merge traditional approaches to COIN with the realities of a new international arena shaped by technological advances, globalization and the spread of extremist ideologies--some of them claiming the authority of a religious faith. p. xiii
This is amazing. U.S. COIN doctrine has not been updated for some 30 years, since the end of the Vietnam War (What about COIN doctrines of U.S. allies?), yet U.S. Forces have been sent, in the past, and are being sent as we speak, into new present insurgencies as COIN forces, not only without sufficient military forces, weapons and supporting institutions (according to this Handbook), but also without current COIN Doctrine. They are in the present, as they were in the past, "experimental subjects" to provide the lessons for a new COIN doctrine that was not developed for their benefit over a period of 30 years during which time the U.S. has been involved, and is involved in many COIN operations in many places.
What is really amazing about this Handbook, and this really reveals the authors as "Go-To Guys" and Bush Administration apologists, is that it takes some of the basic classic COIN errors and long-known COIN "lessons" ignored by the U.S. Administrations in past and present insurgencies against the U.S. and its puppet regimes, caused partly by a lot of U.S. Imperial hubris, and lays them out not as gross and costly--in blood and treasure--errors, incompetence and even crimes, but as inevitable aspects of any insurgency:
"One common feature of insurgencies is that the government that is being targeted generally takes awhile to recognize that an insurgency is occurring. Insurgents take advantage of that time to build strength and gather support. Thus, counterinsurgents often have to 'come from behind' when fighting an insurgency. Another common feature is that forces conducting COIN operations usually begin poorly. Western militaries too often neglect the study of insurgency. They falsely believe that armies trained to win large conventional wars are automatically prepared to win small, unconventional ones. In fact, some capabilities required for conventional success--for example, the ability to execute operational maneuver and employ massive firepower--may be of limited utility or even counterproductive in COIN operations. Nonetheless, conventional forces beginning COIN operations often try to use these capabilities to defeat insurgents; they almost always fail." p. xv
This is priceless; especially with the somber, authoritative, self-assured and bureaucratese-riddled tone (that know-it-all zealots love so much) in which it is written. So all the Bush Admin. screw-ups, incompetence and even crimes, along with previous costly--and long-well-known--lessons not having been learned and applied, are to be seen as simply inevitable or highly likely aspects of initial stages of all insurgencies. They are not to be seen as mistakes, incompetence and even crimes. Specifically, the launching and executing a pre-emptive, illegal, aggressive war (what 11 Nazis were hanged for at Nuremberg)all without:
a) sound pretexts, objective intelligence, multilateral support and truth rather than lies;
b) sufficient awareness of the nature, scope, depth, players and orders of battle of players in the conflict into which U.S. forces were being inserted;
c) proper force structures, equipment, doctrines, serious planning for sustained COIN operations, measures of progress and "success" and an exit strategy;
d) Domestic understanding of the reasons for and popular support/funding of likely necessary force structures, deployments, sacrifices, costs etc;
e) Commanders with serious COIN experience and integrity and capable of telling Bush what he needs to hear not what he wants to hear; and capable of resigning over principle and protecting their troops and the rule of Law;
f)authority and support in international law, institutions and multilateral political and military support;
g) Add your own here...
Check this out:
"Insurgents have an additional advantage in shaping the information environment. Counterinsurgents seeking to preserve legitimacy must stick to the truth and make sure that words are backed up by deeds; insurgents on the other hand, can make exorbitant promises and point out government shortcomings, many caused or aggrivated by the insurgency. Ironically, as the insurgents achieve more success and begin to control larger portions of the populace, many of these asymmetries diminish. That may produce new vulnerabilities that adaptive counterinsurgents can exploit" p. 1-3
So any failures of the handpicked Government of Iraq (in elections in which some Islamicist political parties and candidates were not allowed to run) are caused only by the inevitable early successes of the insurgents that occur in all insurgencies and not by the incompetence and lack of support for the Iraqi Government and U.S. forces supporting it. And even if the insurgents widen and deepen their spheres of operations and achieve more successes, this is also good news as they increasingly expose their ugly sides to the masses and will ultimately lose support. Either way, "staying the course" will eventually--and inevitably--produce light at the end of the tunnel that is not even a bigger trainwreck coming.
Petraeus and Amos write in their Forward:
"They [commanders] must ensure that their Soldiers and Marines are ready to be greeted with either a handshake or a hand grenade while taking on missions only infrequently practiced until recently at our combat training centers. Soldiers and Marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors..." p. v
What happened to the "cakewalk"? What happend to the welcoming of the liberators with flowers like the "liberation of Paris"? Damn, if this manual had just been written before the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and if those who launched them had read and understood it, better yet if they had not conspired, planned, launched and executed an illegal war and with insufficient forces and equipment, how many innocents on all sides would be alive today?
Further, do they not teach some international law at the War Colleges? Soldiers can never become "nation builders" as it takes long historical periods to build a nation. A nation, is a group of people who share: a) common and historically-recognized territory; b) common culture and language; c) common polity and institutions of governance; d) common economic life; e) common national identity, mechanisms for determining membership of the nation, and desire to remain as a nation. The most military forces can ever become is instruments of regime change of a given nation which, by the way, is specifically prohibited in international law (no nation, acting outside of legally recognized international institutions and mandates has legal "standing" to conduct "regime change" in/of another nation--for obvious reasons).
End part One