What about counterinsurgency? The fundamental ethical question is no different today than when the theologian Paul Ramsey posed it forty years ago in a classic Vietnam-era essay: “How is it possible, if it is indeed possible, to mount a morally acceptable counterinsurgency operation?” Can a counterinsurgency effort “abide by the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate military objectives while insurgency deliberately does not”?
Military scholar Edward N. Luttwak is among those who believe that it is not possible to successfully conduct a morally acceptable counterinsurgency strategy. In a provocative 2007
article in Harper’s, he argued that the “methods and tactics of counterinsurgency warfare” in the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual constitute nothing less than military “malpractice.” (The Field Manual, published in late 2006, was written by a team working for Army General David H. Petraeus and Marine General James N. Mattis; it applies to both the Army and the Marine Corps.) Reviewing a draft of the Field Manual, Luttwak considered it profoundly misguided and argued that who, advertently or not, shelter the insurgent forces.the only surefire way of defeating an insurgency—indeed, an “easy and reliable way of defeating all insurgencies everywhere”—is to use conventional forces to terrorize the civilians
who, advertently or not, shelter the insurgent forces.
To make his case, Luttwak cites historical examples of conventional forces that crushed insurgencies. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire, for example, controlled entire provinces “with a few feared janissaries and a squadron or two of cavalry.” These forces didn’t have to hunt down rebels; they simply demanded their surrender from locals. According to Luttwak, “massacre once in a while remained an effective warning for decades.” Before that, imperial Rome with a mere 300,000 soldiers could not disperse its infantry throughout all of the empire’s cities, towns, and hamlets. “Instead, they relied on deterrence, which was periodically reinforced by exemplary punishments. Most inhabitants of the empire never rebelled after their initial conquest.” And during the Second World War, “terrible reprisals to deter any form of resistance were standard operating procedure for the German armed forces.” Luttwak thinks that this willingness to out-terrorize insurgents is a “necessary and sufficient condition of a tranquil occupation.”
For Luttwak the choice is stark. If counterinsurgency is to be effective, it must necessarily resort to direct and intentional attacks on the civilian population as a means to deter insurgents. ...
Luttwak acknowledges that Americans are not willing to fight insurgents using this method, a refusal he calls “principled and inevitable.” This acknowledgment speaks to the extent to which the requirements of just warfare—the principles of discrimination and proportionality and of noncombatant immunity—have become internalized in the war-planning and war-fighting doctrine of the U.S. defense establishment. And indeed, those just war principles are at the core of the newly emerging American counterinsurgency doctrine. The protection and security of, and the provision of basic goods and services to, the civilian population—the waters in which the insurgent fish swim—is the very essence of the strategy presented in the Field Manual. ...
Whom Does International Law Protect?
....While the United States is devising ways to ethically mount counterinsurgencies, insurgents who employ terrorist tactics are receiving new protections under international law.
Take, for example, Protocol I, a 1977 treaty that contained amendments to the Geneva Conventions. Most controversial is its Article 44, which relaxed the traditional Geneva standards requiring combatants to distinguish themselves from the civilian population by wearing a “fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance.” Under Protocol I, combatants are required to be thus distinguished from civilians only when they are actually engaged in an attack, or find themselves in military preparation for an attack. Although 168 nations have ratified or acceded to the Protocols as of late 2008, the United States has consistently refused to ratify the treaty. President Reagan articulated the fundamental reason in a 1987 message to the Senate:
Protocol I is fundamentally and irreconcilably flawed. It contains provisions that would undermine humanitarian law and endanger civilians in war. One of its provisions, for example, would automatically treat as an international conflict any so-called “war of national liberation.” Whether such wars are international or non-international should turn exclusively on objective reality, not on one’s view of the moral qualities of each conflict. To rest on such subjective distinctions based on a war’s alleged purposes would politicize humanitarian law and eliminate the distinction between international and non-international conflicts. It would give special status to “wars of national liberation,” an ill-defined concept expressed in vague, subjective, politicized terminology. ...
Expert Bahasa ibu: English Jumlah entri: 1807 Bergabung: February 1, 2008 Lokasi: United States
RE: ...and war
You beat an insurgency by getting the villagers on your side, and to like you and dislike the insurgents. Plain and simple. Deliver medicine, help people, sit down and drink tea and listen. Be respectful, ask questions. Explain your side and what you want.
What you don't do is what Blackwater did in Iraq, which is what you described.
[Diedit oleh John Bunch pada July 2, 2009 8:23 PM]
Bahasa ibu: Polish Bergabung: February 18, 2003 Lokasi: Poland
RE: ...and war
'The War Is a Breeding Program for Terrorists'
Germany's military deployment in Afghanistan has split public opinion back home. SPIEGEL talks to former German Defense Minister Peter Struck and Jürgen Todenhöfer, a prominent critic of the war, about civilian victims of American bombing attacks, negotiations with the Taliban and the role of al-Qaida.
[excerpt] Todenhöfer:
Of course the Americans had to react to that [9/11] attack. But did that mean that they had to bomb Kabul? It's absurd, bombing a country to fight a handful of terrorists who weren't even Afghans. The United States should have used special forces to eliminate Osama bin Laden. Instead, they allowed him to get away at Tora Bora, like in some slapstick comedy. And Taliban leader Mullah Omar was able to escape from them on a motorcycle.
SPIEGEL:
What has to happen in Afghanistan so that NATO can withdraw?
Struck:
Everyone involved agrees that we have to devote more of our attention to training the Afghan army and the Afghan police force. Unfortunately, this proceeded at a very slow pace in the past. The Bundeswehr is doing a lot more in this respect today.
Todenhöfer:
The Afghans are born fighters. They have been the target of attacks for thousands of years. Every 14-year-old boy in Afghanistan can handle a weapon. They don't need a lot of training. They need money. Why should a young, unemployed Afghan join the national army, where he makes less than $100 (€71) a month, if he can earn $400-600 (€285-430) with the Taliban? We have to pay the Afghan national army better. Only Afghans can defeat Afghans.
SPIEGEL:
The Americans are now taking the war to Pakistan. Is this the right thing to do, focusing more attention on the neighboring country, which is also unstable?
Todenhöfer:
The US attacks are weakening the Pakistani government, because the population increasingly sees it as an accessory or lackey of the Americans. The American drone attacks in Pakistan are constantly killing civilians. Several dozen people attending a funeral were killed in a bombing just last week. The alternative to this madness is that Afghanistan and Pakistan proceed jointly against the Taliban.
Struck:
I agree. An Afghan solution is impossible without Pakistan. We must succeed in convincing the Pakistani government to fight the Taliban together with the Afghans. Given the geographic circumstances, however, I believe a military solution is out of the question. In my view, diplomacy is the only option.
SPIEGEL:
You want to talk to the Taliban, Mr. Struck?
Struck:
Yes, that's the right approach. I have already spoken with Taliban officials in Kunduz. We have to include everyone, or at least the moderate Taliban. I would exclude someone like Mullah Omar. I've examined his record. He's a mass murderer.
Todenhöfer:
By the same logic, the Afghans whose family members died in a hail of American bombs would also have to reject talks with the Americans. If you want to exclude radical members of the Taliban from negotiations, it's as if the Americans had said during the peace negotiations with Vietnam: We will only talk to the moderate Viet Cong. That's ridiculous. We need a reconciliation "loya jirga," a tribal council in which all insurgents participate.
SPIEGEL:
Would you also negotiate with al-Qaida?
Todenhöfer:
Al-Qaida no longer plays a role in Afghanistan. Even the American commander-in-chief, General David Petraeus, says that. Anyone who claims that we would be leaving the country to al-Qaida if we withdraw is spouting nonsense. Criminals rarely return to the hiding place from which they have just been ejected.
SPIEGEL:
***If we are no longer hunting terrorists, what are we still doing in Afghanistan?***
Todenhöfer:
***We are fighting a national, anti-Western insurgency in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is of geostrategic importance***, because it is a place from which one can monitor Russia, India, Pakistan and China. The country is also phenomenally well situated in terms of the politics of natural resources. In fact, the Americans want to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan.
SPIEGEL:
You don't seriously believe that German soldiers are dying for economic interests?
Todenhöfer:
***I believe that our soldiers in Afghanistan are dying out of a falsely interpreted solidarity with the United States*** -- and that our politicians are perfectly aware of this.
Struck:
Our soldiers are not stationed in the Hindu Kush for economic reasons. We want to prevent this country from becoming a failed state, one that constitutes a risk of terrorism for the West. For this reason, I will support continuing the mandate for as long as I remain in the Bundestag. However, I am extremely disappointed with President Karzai. He has not managed to effectively combat corruption.
Todenhöfer:
But the ***international aid organizations are far more corrupt. Western companies are raking in profits of 400, 600 and sometimes 1,000 percent there.*** Only a fraction of the money passes through the Afghan government, while the rest ends up in private hands. In Kabul, a Western company submitted a bill for $10 million (€7.1 million) -- for a 1.5-kilometer (0.9-mile) metal fence around the Zarnegar Park. Karzai had the matter investigated, and it turned out that this fence was worth no more than $70,000 (€50,000). This doesn't exactly strengthen the Afghan's trust in Western development aid. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,633842,00.html
Bahasa ibu: Polish Bergabung: February 18, 2003 Lokasi: Poland
RE: ...and war
Colonizing Iraq
The Obama Doctrine?
By Michael Schwartz
[...]
Who Owns Iraq?
In 2007, Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve, toldWashington Post reporter Bob Woodward that "taking Saddam out was essential" -- a point he made in his book The Age of Turbulence -- because the United States could not afford to be "beholden to potentially unfriendly sources of oil and gas" in Iraq. It's exactly that sort of thinking that's still operating in U.S. policy circles: the 2008 National Defense Strategy, for example, calls for the use of American military power to maintain "access to and flow of energy resources vital to the world economy."
After only five months in office, the Obama administration has already provided significant evidence that, like its predecessor, it remains committed to maintaining that "access to and flow of energy resources" in Iraq, even as it places its major military bet on winning the expanding war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There can be no question that Washington is now engaged in an effort to significantly reduce its military footprint in Iraq, but without, if all goes well for Washington, reducing its influence.
[...]
A professor of sociology at Stony Brook State University, Michael Schwartz is the author of
War Without End: The Iraq War in Context (Haymarket Books), which explains how the militarized geopolitics of oil led the U.S. to dismantle the Iraqi state and economy while fueling a sectarian civil war.
Bahasa ibu: English Bergabung: April 28, 2004 Lokasi: United States
RE: ...and war
The obsessiveness of some about Iraq puzzles me, but the obituary below might put that war into context. This, er, gentleman was an "old school" warrior — he wasn't too concerned about mass civilian casualties. Ask any SE Asian. (One who survived years of B-52 strikes, I mean.)
So...is the Iraq war something new, perhaps part of Bush's "war on Islam"...? (The earlier Iraq war was, then, part of Bush Senior's "prequel to the war on Islam"...?) Or is it of a piece: America's war on assorted swarthy Third World types? Too bad we can't ask McNamara.
Anyway, I'm going to go back to googling "pelosi" and "liar" (alternatively "obama" and "fiscal potlatch")....
Expert Bahasa ibu: English Jumlah entri: 1807 Bergabung: February 1, 2008 Lokasi: United States
RE: ...and war
Yes, and as if "securing oil flows" were some sort of heinous thing. How many weeks do you think the Japanese and German economies would last without the "oil flows" ??
As it happens, we have our suicide bombers too. "We" are the powerful, developed countries, the ones with an overriding concern for individual liberties and individual lives. "We" form a moral archipelago that encompasses the United States, Europe, Israel, present-day Japan, and occasionally Russia. Whether in real war stories or inspiring vignettes served up in fiction and movies, our lore is full of heroes who sacrifice themselves for motherland, democracy, or simply their band of brothers. Admittedly, these men weren't expecting 72 virgins in paradise and they didn't make film records of their last moments, but our suicidal heroes generally have received just as much praise and recognition as "their" martyrs.
The scholarly work on suicide bombers is large and growing. Most of these studies focus on why those other people do such terrible things, sometimes against their own compatriots but mainly against us. According to the popular view, Shiite or Tamil or Chechen suicide martyrs have a fundamentally different attitude toward life and death.
If, however, we have our own rich tradition of suicide bombers -- and our own unfortunate tendency to kill civilians in our military campaigns -- how different can these attitudes really be?
[...]
[Diedit oleh Jacek K. pada August 7, 2009 11:32 AM]
Bahasa ibu: Polish Bergabung: February 18, 2003 Lokasi: Poland
RE: ...and war
I picked up The Guardian Weekly at the train station and was thrilled to discover on the train that this is one of those respectable papers that carry (almost) no advertising. It's a pleasure to pay for publications like that, while knowing that they will be shortly extinct, replaced by electronic gizmos.
Anyway, here is an excerpt:
"Four years later, as a resurgent Taliban mounts daring operations in Kabul itself, the western mission in Afghanistan looks more doomed than ever. Desk-bound columnists, such as John Lloyd in the Financial Times this week, may continue to speak of western "honour" and warn that defeat in Helmand will embolden jihadists in Bradford. But no Taliban has been implicated in any terrorist conspiracy in Britain, and perhaps even Lloyd, a staunch supporter of Tony Blair's wars, doesn't assume that killing many more Muslims of southern Afghanistan would impress the Muslims of West Yorkshire.
When ill-conceived military adventures look doomed, their advocates tend to grow more strident about honor, especially if it can be upheld to the last drop of other people's blood. Richard Nixon's "peace with honor" primarily consisted of devastating Cambodia in addition to Vietnam; for some years now, maintaining honor in Afghanistan has amounted to little more than the Talibanisation of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Finally, the endgame in Afghanistan is in sight. Endorsed by the US state department, Britain's Foreign Office now speaks openly of talks with the Taliban. But thousands of British soldiers continue to fight, and the war, certain now to peter out in some face-saving compromise, has only just entered the most terrible phase for those still in the thick of battle. As Senator John Kerry, speaking in 1971 of his army service in Vietnam, put it, "Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands off Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say we have made a mistake."
"How do you ask," Kerry challenged the US Senate foreign relations committee, "a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" But of course governments can't ask this even if they awaken in time to the utter folly of their wars. Hence, our clear sympathy for objectors like Kerry, who refuse to serve as cannon fodder for the hubristic geopolitical experiments of politicians and journalists. Hence, too, our profound unease with uniformed men and women on active duty: they provoke our admiration for risking much more than we ever would, even if we suspect that they do so only to prolong other people's mistakes."
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