Abu Muqawama: Post
Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS. Abu Muqawama retains the right to delete comments that include words that incite violence; are predatory, hateful, or intended to intimidate or harass; or degrade people on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. In summary, don't be a jerk.
From the Dept. of Poorly Chosen Historical Analogies
I interrupt my blogging hiatus to bring you the following report.
Christopher Buckley, one of my favorite authors, read Matthew Hoh's letter and is now calling for us to withdraw from Afghanistan. All fine and good. But he chooses an unfortunate historical analogy:
Reading [Matthew Hoh's] letter, I thought of the famous exchange between the Confederate soldier and his Yankee captor.
Why do you hate us so, Johnny Reb?
Because this is our land, and you’re on it.
Ah, yes, I remember the Great Southern War for Independence. How the Union Army, fearing quagmire, realized its errors and so wisely withdrew from the newly declared Confederate States of America... uh, hold on... what?! Maybe Christopher Buckley has read different histories of the U.S. Civil War than I have, but I think the Union Army ended up sacrificing a couple hundred thousand dead to affirm federal supremacy, preserve the union and end slavery. I'm not saying Afghanistan is in the same ballpark or even in the same sport in terms of importance, but we can all agree Buckley would have been wiser to have stuck with the tried-and-true Vietnam analogies on this one.
Of course the Union Army did
Of course the Union Army did not withdraw, and this is Buckley's point. In order to win a conflict like our civil war, the union "ended up sacrificing a couple of hundred thousand dead to affirm federal supremacy." The Union Army meant business, no tea drinking, road paving, or school building. On the contrary, the Union Army scorched the earth on their way to Victory.
Buckley is stating that for America to truly win this war in Astan, we would have to be willing to get medieval with our enemies. Since America no longer fights wars to win, at least since 1945, we should just pack up and go home.
What's our won/loss record since 1945?
rc - you are binary. you're
rc - you are binary.
you're fighting on the subcontinent now. you need to start thinking in test cricket terms - ie after 5 days, the result is a hard fought draw.
actually based on my theory
actually
based on my theory of Andrew Exum being the Mossad agent coordinating all jihadi groups in the middle east, by saying we need to 'get medieval' you have just used the code word to let him know your martyrdom operation is underway.
enjoy the virgins.
hey ex you went to Penn,
hey ex you went to Penn, right? you can appreciate this bit of genius
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/phillies_hope_to_end_364_day_world
Two comments: "We don't want
Two comments:
"We don't want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it. " William Tecumseh Sherman. That approach works, more or less, in a conventional war between equals.
But by 1872, support for full reconstruction of the South against Southern opposition had dwindled to the point that the occupation armies withdrew. The South was able to disenfranchise African-Americans for another hundred or so years. So Buckley's analogy may be more apt than it seems at first.
Yeah, that's true. You could
Yeah, that's true. You could argue the South won in a Clauswitzian sense. And I have.A common theme in arguing
A common theme in arguing against continuing involvement in Afghanistan is that the real epicenter of the Taliban and Al Qaeda is in Pakistan. However, the only thing that we can do in Pakistan is work at convincing the Pakistanis to do what is necessary to interdict the Taliban and AQ. Doing so requires assessing what keeps Pakistan from doing so. While there are numerous reasons, one of them is concern that the West will simply abandon the region when things get tough and given the choice between a disadvantageous accommodation with the Taliban and a Taliban takeover, it would be better to have a disadvantageous accommodation with the Taliban. Captain Hoh, and those agreeing with him, are arguing that we should prove to the Pakistanis that their suspicions about us are correct, thus they have no chance for a future with no Taliban and are thus better off seeking a somewhat tolerable accommodation with them.
More to the point, here are
More to the point, here are the ROE the Union was fighting under. Their author, Francis Lieber, explains them here - with special reference to counterinsurgency. Advocates of PC-COIN will certainly be amused by the contrast!
On the broader question of why there was no insurgency in the south after 1865, Charles Francis Adams Jr. (an Adams, also a Union general, also a leading historian of his day) explains it here. Essentially, Southern sympathizers worldwide expected that the Confederates would take directly to guerrilla warfare, as the Spanish had and as the Boers later would.
They did not realize that Southerners were not Spaniards or Boers. Given the pragmatic brutality of the Yankees and the aristocratic gentility of the Southerners, there was simply no way that the Southern ruling class would have been willing to cover the land with more blood and achieve nothing. Pashtoons they were not. Although sometimes I suspect that Pashtoons are surprisingly responsive to rational incentives, themselves.
"based on my theory of
"based on my theory of Andrew Exum being the Mossad agent coordinating all jihadi groups in the middle east, by saying we need to 'get medieval' you have just used the code word to let him know your martyrdom operation is underway.
enjoy the virgins."
:lol:
I thought Abu Muqawama was the secret bigfoot missing link between Hezbollah and the Mossad to coordinate the secret elimination of the Wahhabis. Muqawama strikes me as more a black turban with secret Jewish blood than the zionist salafi wizard of Oz you describe.
"Abu Thaar," you meant that
"Abu Thaar," you meant that reconstruction ended in 1877. A lot was accomplished in those 12 years; which is a long time if you think about it. Many Black Americans were elected to high public office during those 12 years.
Mencius Moldbug :"Although sometimes I suspect that Pashtoons are surprisingly responsive to rational incentives, themselves." Agree with you here.
"the zionist salafi wizard
"the zionist salafi wizard of Oz"
there you go Andrew, bet you've never been called that before.
So does this mean Ft. Sumter
So does this mean Ft. Sumter was the 9/11 of 1861? An attack by a group of heavily armed extremists, who enjoyed safe harbor and support, on a symbol of the United States?
While segregation (and worse) continued for another 100 years, I find it hard to think, even in a "Clauswitzian sense" the South "won". The Union was preserved, and Federal preemption of interstate laws and issues was solidified. Because of that, it was always inevitable the last refuge of slavery, desegregation and Jim Crow, would end. It's hard to imagine that leaving Afghanistan in its current state would lay the seeds of peace and security, even in 100 years. Appomattox fundamentally changed the South even if some of those deepest changes wouldn't be seen for a century. Leaving Afghanistan now fundamentally changes nothing. They couldn't be more different.
And if you want an example of the Patrician South, look no further than RE Lee who shot down any talk from his officers to continue the fight in the mountains.
Yeah, 1876. It's not the
Yeah, 1876. It's not the war, it's the occupation. The Taliban aren't the equivalent of Jeff Davis and Lee; more like the night-riders. I don't say that war is easy, but occupation is really really hard. And the acts of the occupiers are undone the moment they leave.
Well said, Ex. Is it just
Well said, Ex.
Is it just me, or should we declare a moratorium on bad and far-fetched historical analogies to Afghanistan?
Last week it was the NYT comparing it to a failed English COIN strategy in France after Agincourt, then it's Buckley, and today in the NYT I noticed that Timothy Egan is invoking the spectre of Napoleon and Napoleonic overreach.
www.madpadre.blogspot.com
Oh c'mon Mad Padre, it's
Oh c'mon Mad Padre, it's easy and fun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maori_wars
If I recall my history
If I recall my history right, the South was actually having its fair share of trouble with pro-unionist insurgencies, not just in West Virginia (which broke away), but in East Tennessee (which did not), the Appalachian Hills area, and so forth. The Union, meanwhile, didn't have much of that outside of the some of the border slave states.
oh dear despite my
oh dear despite my facetiousness, there are parallels
Although Titokowaru's forces were numerically small and initially outnumbered in battle 12 to one by government troops,[1] the ferocity of their attacks provoked fear among settlers and prompted the resignation and desertion of many militia volunteers, ultimately leading to the withdrawal of most government military forces from South Taranaki and giving Titokowaru control of almost all territory between New Plymouth and Wanganui.
I might be wrong, but I got
I might be wrong, but I got the impression that Buckley used the analogy to highlight the intractability of civil wars, owing to how both sides view it as "their land." Therefore there's no room for a third party, and not really any use for one, either.
One if not the primary
One if not the primary explicitly stated reason for our involvement in Astan is to create a government which will reliablely participate in the GWOT. For this government to be reasonablely successful in this role, it will need the support of a significant majority of the Afghan people. Much of the discussion on this site concerns tactics and problems associated with these two issues, as well as the broader questions of why the US should fight in Astan and how this fight, in what ever form it may take, fits into the overall US national interests.
However, the discussion here about why regular Afghans fight or support the Taliban or AQ is distorted by our Western point of view. We cannot understand that if we provide them with significant infrastructure improvements; if we jump start their economy; if we provide security from the bad guys; ect., why they would still fight. More importantly we can't understand even if the fighting stops why they would still be an unreliable (at least as how we define that term) partner in the GWOT.
In this context, the comparison to the American Civil War is apt, because at least in a general way it can help us understand how the Afghan people view our presence on their land. Anyone from the South or who has lived in the South for a significant amount of time would immediately understand this comparison, as for a non-trivial minority of Southerners the War and its after-effects still influence their political and cultural points of view today. I am not talking about the Klan. I'm talking about regular people.
This point of view may be considered ridiculous to an outsider, but it exists. To ignore it and pretend it doesn't play a part in the ebb and flow of US domestic politics is foolish. Likewise an Afghan version of this point of view exists. For cultural, religious, and historical reasons it is far different from the Southern point of view. But to ignore it and pretend it doesn't play a part in the ebb and flow of what is going on in Astan is foolish.
BTW, anyone notice that
BTW, anyone notice that Turkey just joined Iran and Syria in a non-agression pact?
@diablotekhe, "...my theory
@diablotekhe,
"...my theory of Andrew Exum being the Mossad agent ..."
Ah. Ahem. Ahem. Little attribution ...ahem.
And since nobody steppin forward to claim, I claim the Drunkerdcon for myself . ;-o)
And for those who know me...
From Peggy Noonan's column
From Peggy Noonan's column today...
"We're Governed by Callous Children
Americans feel increasingly disheartened, and our leaders don't even notice."
"He felt government doesn't understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they're human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they're all rats. (That would be you, Chamber of Commerce.)"
"We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice."
We hate DC
My own analogy would be they think the world is their LEGO set, and they can infinitely re-arrange it.
Elf: We all know he is
Elf: We all know he is Iranian, dont we?
Elf - my sincere apologies
Elf - my sincere apologies for the apparent commission of plagiarism. I thought I'd come to that one independently, after falling off a ladder...
@Diablotakahe, "I thought
@Diablotakahe,
"I thought I'd come to that one independently, after falling off a ladder..."
LMAO. you win the internets today, dude.
I hate to get serious. But
I hate to get serious. But if there's an analogy, it's our Indian wars on the American Frontier.
Complete with the tribes backing the strong horse. They were key to us winning at every step, in particular up thru the mid 19th century.
Sadly, just as we get the team and a real strategy in place, even getting NATO (!) in a fighting mood, we elect an urban intellectual - who is NOT a wartime Commander as POTUS.
It's over kids. Get them outta there. The American People have spoken. Now they must suffer.
RE- the Indian war analogy - before the shitstorm starts - not saying it was fair, or just, or anything.
I will point out that fairness and justice are usually packed away with the good china when the banner of war is raised.
And the enemy raised it, whatever his c*ntlike "grievances". They chose their fate as well.
" Gen. Stanley McChrystal
" Gen. Stanley McChrystal has said that counterinsurgency is “an argument to win the support of the people.” But it’s not an argument won through sophisticated analysis. It’s an argument won through the display of raw determination. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/opinion/30brooks.html?_r=5
Steve Sailer post: Nicholas
Steve Sailer post:
Nicholas Kristof opines in the NYT:
"Dispatching more troops to Afghanistan would be a monumental bet and probably a bad one, most likely a waste of lives and resources that might simply empower the Taliban. In particular, one of the most compelling arguments against more troops rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there."
It’s hard to do the calculation precisely, but for the cost of 40,000 troops over a few years — well, we could just about turn every Afghan into a Ph.D.
What's the old Heinlein saying?
Never try to teach a Pashtun tribesman to be a Ph.D. It wastes your time and it annoys the Pashtun tribesman.
@Visitor 507, I don't know
@Visitor 507,
I don't know whether this is your argument...but if Kristoff is stunned by that "math" here's another stunner - they will burn down the fucking school. That's how they express their "annoyance".
I love how Libs who make sure a pretentious fuss about their education and sophistication can't learn that lesson, no matter how many times it happens. All ideology all the time.
Come on, we were all school kids once!! The Taliban are simply living out the fantasy of burning it down.
Judging on what "education" has done for America's "elites" maybe they're right.
If we leave, we leave. Bye
If we leave, we leave. Bye now.
Don't delude yourselves.
Oh Elf: You're so cruel to
Oh Elf:
You're so cruel to Visitor/Inquisitor 17:07 (are we using Zulu time here?)
The schools ploy has merit. I have run into stories (on the Inter-Tubes), featuring the status of schools built in Taliban/other Takfiri freakazoid Goatherds territories. It seems that they are fond of using them as local headquarters and such...great places for your cadres to meet n greet, a ready made classroom for your sub contractors to apply for day labor type work, get the latest scoop on IED placement/concealment etc.
Just dedicate an unmanned platform to every schoolhouse in the sticks and wait for the eyes in the sky to confirm only the presence of bearded MAM's...then hit them with the attendant Hellfire and damnation missile. It should be good for at least one strike.
Potential spanners in the works: (monkey wrenches in the gears...for all y'all that ain't internationalists)
1-The Mc Krystallnacht ROE's are too fey to even entertain this scenario.
2-After one strike, the Talibs host 24/7 Wedding parties with a Mohammed look-alike in an Elvis costume, in order to foil the Americans' latest tactic.
At the very least, the Public Affairs' professional liars can spin success for at least one news cycle. Today's wars (and their limp-dicked wannabe conflicts), are won by winning the news cycle...one day at a time.
@FastEddizie -Yah I take
@FastEddizie -Yah I take your points same.
With one exception - I think you get it, but operation no troops/all drones is B.S. My reading of the Press is when no military person would hack off on the Biden ...gasp, hack ..."plan" his own aides did. Not even whatever they're smokin on either end of Penn Ave (or in the middle) could get them to seriously countenance it. It's total fantasy, like Joe's badinage in Diners long closed. Or maybe he breaks into the boarded up diner and mumbles to himself.
But seriously folks. If we leave, we leave. Then you wait, on their timetable.
And Wallah they will come.
Correction:
I wasn't cruel to visitor 507, I was cruel to Kristoff's fantasy plan.
Is there a psychological term for "drone masturbatory fantasies"?
@ AM actual, Poorly chosen
@ AM actual,
Poorly chosen Historical Analogies - hey look. At least it' s something other than VietSpam.
"On the broader question of
"On the broader question of why there was no insurgency in the south after 1865, Charles Francis Adams Jr. (an Adams, also a Union general, also a leading historian of his day) explains it here. Essentially, Southern sympathizers worldwide expected that the Confederates would take directly to guerrilla warfare, as the Spanish had and as the Boers later would.
They did not realize that Southerners were not Spaniards or Boers. Given the pragmatic brutality of the Yankees and the aristocratic gentility of the Southerners, there was simply no way that the Southern ruling class would have been willing to cover the land with more blood and achieve nothing. "
So, in other words, this historical analogy we are using to analyse our current situation panned out completely differently to the historical analogies being used to analyse it at the time?
The South won in a
The South won in a Clausewtizian sense? How so? The South fought the war in an attempt to preserve their peculiar institution and to resist Northern supremacy within the Federal Government. It failed on both points. Slavery was ended, the Southern economy was crushed and the North still holds the electoral college. Are you suggesting that the North passed it's culminating point of attack and it's reconstruction era withdraw constitutes a Southern victory a la Bonaparte's withdraw from Moscow? I'm intrigued. The north fought to preserve the Union. People who espouse the theory of equality for blacks as the driving force behind the war need to re-read their antebellum history. The continued oppression of blacks is irrelevant in the context of a Northern victory. The rebellious states were brought back in line and the supremacy of the Federal Government was re-established.
P.S. I finished On War today. Been reading it since freaking June. God its dry.
ok while we are making
ok while we are making analogies
from http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com
Your weapons usage may surprise you
"The MK-19 is your most valuable weapon in Afghanistan and every patrol should have at least two," observes Bruce Roett. (Think on this, little grasshoppers: The MK-19 automatic grenade launcher fires as many as 350 40mm grenades a minute out to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.)
meanwhile over at the new zealand wars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmyNqO6LAvQ
From The Declaration Of
From The Declaration Of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/text.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From Article 1, Section IX of The Constitution of The Confederate States of America:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/csconstitution.htm
One of... One is a
One of...
One is a Declaration of Independence and a statement of ideals.
One is a Constitution which is a contract of how the so agreed consent to be governed.
@elf thanks, i guess freedom
@elf
thanks, i guess freedom and/or equality are contingent upon one's constitutional well-being (and proficiency of arms).
Why doesn't one of you
Why doesn't one of you scorched earth advocates write up how you think it would work? How would you find the Taliban? Do you care? Would you just go in and wipe out every village along the border? Then what? Stay forever, annex Afghanistan?
Steve
Hmmm...well not defending of
Hmmm...well not defending of course the peculiar institution of course. However your next point...
"i guess freedom and/or equality are contingent upon one's constitutional well-being (and proficiency of arms)."
Yeah. Hell you don't even need to guess. Proven throughout all of our history. And mankind's.
Always.
I'm not really sure if you are conflating freedom with equality...you do have and/or between them.
Freedom to me means my Liberties first, and the vote (Democracy) second. Before we pop off, let's remember that was the Republic until Andrew Jackson came along.
Equality? Well if you mean politically and before the law --- a cautious OK.
If you mean economic equality NO HELL NO. I'm from the Rust Belt, I know how that ends.
Thanks,
Thanks, Elf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSvva3ZOlNg
"So, in other words, this
"So, in other words, this historical analogy we are using to analyse our current situation panned out completely differently to the historical analogies being used to analyse it at the time?"
If you mean that the whole concept of people revolting against the government because they're being oppressed is bunk, yes. People revolt against the government because they're not being oppressed enough. The only way to get them back, which is invariably effective if pursued with sufficient determination, is to oppress them some more. Or you can just let them go, which I must say was a perfectly plausible option in 1861.
So, for instance, the South rebelled partly because it thought it was being oppressed, and partly because it thought it could. The North felt that it couldn't. It won that argument. Greece rebelled against the Turks and Italy against the Austrians, for exactly the same two reasons. They thought they could because they could. They could because they had the British Navy on their side. Jeff Davis thought he would have this advantage, too, but it never quite happened, thanks to the diplomacy of Prince Albert and the pusillanimity of Lord Russell...
Steve, it's called the Raj.
Steve, it's called the Raj. Or possibly the Philippines.
I'm not even proposing that we learn from these experiences. I'm just saying that either we should learn from these experiences, or we should leave. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all.
Comment by Mencius Moldbug
Comment by Mencius Moldbug on October 29, 2009 - 4:59pm
"On the broader question of why there was no insurgency in the south after 1865, Charles Francis Adams Jr. (an Adams, also a Union general, also a leading historian of his day) explains it here. Essentially, Southern sympathizers worldwide expected that the Confederates would take directly to guerrilla warfare, as the Spanish had and as the Boers later would. "
Um, just in case you didn't notice, the South *did* conduct a guerrilla war, in fact a terrorist war, every bit as bad as Al Qaida. They conducted it against very carefully chosen targets, exploiting political splits in their enemies (white US forces vs. local blacks).
This was because (a) the US forces were capable of using massive retaliation, (b) the South was devastated - in OTL they were short of food; another farming season of war would have led to a famine, and finally (c) the most pro-secession zones had the highest proportion of black inhabitants (duh!) which had the potential of being an extremely potent anti-guerrilla force.
That's called 'intelligent warfare'.
Comment by Elf on October
Comment by Elf on October 30, 2009 - 3:08pm
"Sadly, just as we get the team and a real strategy in place, even getting NATO (!) in a fighting mood, we elect an urban intellectual - who is NOT a wartime Commander as POTUS. "
If I only had a dollar for every time I've heard a right-winger to excuse away failure by claiming 'I was just aboooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut to get it right!'.
Do you actually remember that we had 8 GOP years of your Texan TANG-boy in charge? Big hat/no cattle-but-talks-tough Texan WEC right-winger? With a whole platoon of right-wing GOP tough-talkin' failures running things?
Sorry, that was me.
Sorry, that was me.
Barry, Re your response to
Barry,
Re your response to Elf: the problem is that Bush was 1 part fascist, 999 parts water. Reginald Dyer he ain't, or even Curtis LeMay. Hydrogen peroxide at this concentration will disinfect a scrape on your knee. Pure hydrogen peroxide will amputate the leg. Your fascism sensor is turned up way too high and maxing out.
Re your response to me: the Confederates pursued guerrilla warfare (a) sporadically, and (b) unsuccessfully. Why? Again, click here for the answer. And again, imagine how Bush would have been portrayed had he endorsed this response - written by the father of the modern law of war.
AS retains the right to
AS retains the right to delete comments that include words that incite violence; are predatory, hateful, or intended to intimidate or harass; or degrade people on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. In summary, don't be a jerk.the diet solution
This blog also appreciates
This blog also appreciates the fact that the footage captures combat at its rawest, just the way Americans in their living rooms should see itads|part time jobs|import export
Add your comment