# Petraeus' approach to counterinsurgency is a cure worse than the disease **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 9, 2007, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593 "2007-09-09T18:52:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/1 "2007-09-09T18:52:33Z")
According to [this](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070924/hayden) article by Tom Hayden in _The Nation,_ the U.S. occupying forces are now relying heavily on Iraqi militias (technically part of the regular army but pretty much independent of its chain of command) to fight the insurgents. It’s a version of the “Kit Carson Scouts:” Indians recruited by the U.S. to fight the Navajos and Utes. Many academics are actively defending this practice as the only way to win. But, if you look at it closely, it’s much like our support of the “death squads” in El Salvador, and in Vietnam. > [@](#): > > Separating the insurgents from the population is indeed eating soup with a knife. In practice, that means breaking down doors in the middle of the night, creating barricaded and tightly controlled enclaves where residents live behind concertina wire and blast walls and beneath watchtowers, surveilled constantly by US and Iraqi troops who control ingress and egress with eye scanners and fingerprinted ID cards. Residents stay home at night and are pressured to report anyone who is missing. Mass displacements, roundups and detentions of Iraqi civilians have all nearly doubled since the surge began in February. The Pentagon’s euphemism for this coercive program is “gated communities,” a new name for a very old tradition. > > In the days of Kit Carson, native people were herded into reservations while US troops destroyed the insurgents and their natural resources. In Malaya in the 1950s the British destroyed the Chinese communities at the base of the insurgency while herding civilians into “new villages” behind barbed wire. In South Vietnam the enclosures were called “strategic hamlets,” and the assassination campaign to root out Vietcong guerrillas was called the Phoenix Program. To empty the countryside of potential Vietcong sympathizers, Harvard’s Samuel Huntington advocated “forced urbanization.” Sometimes this kind of thing works, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, it is **never** a thing worth doing. Even if we disregard basic moral objections – and there is no reason why we should – the practical results are undesirable. Such militias in practice operate outside the laws of war even to the extent the government observes them in such a situation. In many cases, they kill prisoners, they kill noncombatants, they torture, they become indistinguishable from the insurgents in their acts of terror. It only compounds the inevitable misery and destruction of war, and sows the seeds of bitter resentment towards the conquerors that may endure for generations. Which is what is happening in Iraq. > [@](#): > > The most fitting metaphor for Iraq today might be that of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. The effect of the “gated communities” and Kit Carson Scouts–indeed, the effect of much of the US occupation since 2003–has been to grind native populations into a state of anarchic fragmentation, with the vacuum filled by multiple sectarian militias. Consider the following evidence: > > § A bombshell Pentagon report in September recommends “scrapping” the sectarian Iraqi police force and starting over. > > § According to a July Los Angeles Times analysis, the current Interior Ministry, heavily funded and advised by Americans, is run by loyalists of the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and is responsible for secret prisons and torture. An average of one to two employees are killed each week, with Sunnis now “almost entirely purged from the ministry.” > > § The prestigious Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group noted last year that the Iraqi police “routinely engage in sectarian violence, including the unnecessary detention, torture and targeted execution of Sunni Arab civilians.” > > § The White House’s own July benchmarks report noted “evidence of sectarian bias in the appointment of senior military and police commanders” as well as “target lists emanating from the Office of the Commander in Chief that bypassed operational commanders and directed lower-level intelligence officers to make arrests, primarily of Sunnis.” > > § According to the New York Times, as of the end of 2005, in Baghdad there were eight to ten secret prisons operated by militia units that reported directly to the Interior Minister. > > § BBC television reporter Deborah Davies showed footage of torture and ethnic cleansing against Sunni civilians in late 2006, reporting that “it’s all happening under the eyes of US commanders who seem unwilling or unable to intervene.” > > § The United Nations has accused the Iraqi government of failing to address allegations of torture inflicted on the several thousand new detainees rounded up during the current Baghdad security plan. > > § According to the US Government Accountability Office, since 2004 190,000 US-made AK-47s have gone missing, with many thought to be in the hands of various Iraqi militias. Worse, these tactics are entirely counterproductive in terms of the goal of creating a stable and united Iraqi state and society – assuming that really is our government’s goal here. > [@](#): > > Perhaps this is more than a case of avoiding an ugly, unwanted phenomenon that is difficult to shut down. One explanation is hard to discount, however unnerving it might be. Soon after the 9/11 terror attacks, Vice President Cheney spoke of working “the dark side,” doing apparently unspeakable things “quietly, without any discussion.” Neoconservative military analyst Robert Kaplan has argued that counterinsurgency should be conducted “off camera, so to speak.” The divide-and-conquer strategy was articulated by President Bush himself, who declared in his 2001 address on confronting terrorism that the United States would “turn them one against another.” > > Bernard Lewis, perhaps the dominant neoconservative voice advocating the Iraq War, proposed dismembering Arab nationalism back in the early 1990s, writing that “if the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civic society…the state then disintegrates–as happened in Lebanon–into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, religions and parties.” In 2005 a longtime Israeli foreign ministry official wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, titled “Israel Could Live With a Fractured, Failed Iraq,” that “an Iraq split into three semi-autonomous mini-states, or an Iraq in civil war, means that the kind of threat posed by [Saddam] Hussein…is unlikely to rise again.” > > The specter of forced partition is directly accelerating with the US troop surge, and sectarian civil war is already at hand. What is lacking is recognition that the United States is the driver of both; the surge has doubled the number of Iraqi refugees, and the civil war features American funding, weapons and advisers on all sides. “We sit back and watch because that can only benefit us,” said one top commander of insurgent groups battling each other in 2006. > > More evidence for this exploitation of sectarian chaos comes from Stephen Biddle, a Harvard PhD now at the Council on Foreign Relations and an on-the-ground adviser to General Petraeus in Baghdad. The Biddle plan, as described in a 2006 Foreign Affairs essay, called for playing both sides of the sectarian divide, something like the colonial defense of occupation as the only way to keep the barbarians in balance. After the United States had put the Shiites (and Kurds) in power, Biddle advised manipulating their behavior by “a US threat to cease backing the Shiites coupled with a program to arm the Sunnis overtly or, in a semi-clandestine way…substantially reduce the Shiites’ military prospects” against the Sunni insurgents. > > Alternatively, Biddle proposed that the United States might unleash greater Shiite military power by providing tanks, armored personnel carriers, fixed-wing attack aircraft and the like to increase the Shiite capacity to “commit mass violence against the Sunnis dramatically.” The reason? To provide an “important incentive for the Sunnis to compromise” on their longstanding demand for an American troop withdrawal. > > This is dangerous territory, playing the “devil’s game,” in the apt phrase of author Robert Dreyfuss. One danger is that it can be played both ways. Iraqi militias are not only using the Americans to go after their rivals but seem to have turned their weapons on the occupiers. Just where and how did those 190,000 AK-47s disappear? After routing their local rivals, who might the Kit Carson Scouts turn against next? Maybe this really is “a war we just might win,” but we won’t win anything but a Pyrrhic victory **this** way. When Petraeus comes to Congress to testify, somebody needs to tell him to completely rethink his approach. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/2 "2007-09-09T19:39:45Z")
According to what I’m reading, the Good General, the Commander of Candor, has agreed to give an hour-long exclusive interview with Fox Gnaws. At last, we will have an opportunity for a fair and balanced approach, with hard-hitting, probing questions. “General, are the Democrat Party traitorous swine who hate our troops, or merely a bunch of lilly-livered pussies?” ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/3 "2007-09-09T20:54:16Z")
Is there a “clean” way to do this thing? I mean this is literally [the guy who wrote the book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus) on CI. Who am I to cite against him? [This guy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hayden)? From what I’ve read, his stuff is in line with the other experts. [Small Wars Center of Excellence](http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/reading.asp) There’re very, very many things about war that’re very, very objectionable morally. It seems that putting Iraqis in charge of Iraqi security could be a good thing. We can’t bear the White Man’s Burden indefinitely for these poor, little, brown-skinned people who can’t be trusted to police themselves. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/4 "2007-09-09T21:01:23Z")
They can be trusted to police themselves, the difficulty comes when you ask them to police each other. The Sunni have no reason to trust an overwhelmingly sectarian police force. And our committment to democracy assures that the Shia _must_ have the upper hand in any “federal”, unified Iraq. Now, if they have quietly taken this “unified, federal” concept and drowned it in the river, their approach makes sense. If they are hoping for an assured stalemate and a balance of power, they will have to arm the Sunni to the teeth, as well as stand ready to guarantee their safety. In a partitioned Iraq, this may be possible. As well, it assures GeeDubya of an invite to stay as long as his black little heart desires, I suspect the Sunni will be perfectly willing to permit us to spend our blood and treasure on their behalf, and it will meet with the approval of the Sunni majority of Islam. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/5 "2007-09-09T21:41:12Z")
This isn’t exactly on topic, but the thing that pisses me off most is that Al Anbar province is always cited by the administration and its minions. Whenever the success, or lack of it, is brought up, Al Anbar is the first words out of their mouths. Folks, the surge isn’t in Al Anbar provice and unless I’m badly mistaken the local tribal chiefs kicked Al Qaeda out of Al Anbar before the surge started. Or at least they had begun to do that. The added troops were put into Baghdad where results are mixed to say the least. In addition, the residents of that city have pretty well segregated themselves into homogenous neighborhoods. We have also built walls to separate those neighborhoods. The 25000 extra troops might not really be all that big a factor. And whether or not the violence in Baghdad is down, the Shia dominated government appears to have no intention to share power and the whole purpose of the surge goes forlorn and neglected. I don’t really give a shit what Petraeus says. There appears to be no progress toward what GW claims is the end goal. That is, a stable unified Iraq that will be an example to the Mid East and an ally against terrorism. There isn’t even a hint of any progress toward a stable Iraq, let along all those other pie-in-the-sky statements. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/6 "2007-09-09T21:48:36Z")
[QUOTE=PatriotX] Is there a “clean” way to do this thing? [/QUOTE] Not any more. At the beginning, there might have been a less-dirty way to do it if we had to do it at all (which we didn’t). From [_Armed Madhouse,_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525949682/sr=8-1/qid=1154309833/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8683277-1203300?ie=UTF8) by Greg Palast: > [@](#): > > There are kooks and cranks and conspiracy nuts out there who think George Bush, from the moment he took office, had some kind of secret plan to invade Iraq and grab control of its oil. They’re wrong. > > There were two plans. I’ve got them both. One is 323 pages long, the other 101 pages. “Plan A:” In February 2001, a meeting organized by Colin Powell’s State Department was held in Walnut Creek, California, in the home of Falah Aljibury, an Iraqi-born consultant on Iraq’s oil industry. The “Three-Day Plan” they came up with was “an invasion disguised as a coup,” “kind of a Marine-supported Bay of Pigs.” Saddam was to be replaced by some Ba’athist general cashiered by him, possibly the exiled General Nizar Khazraji – “the secret group was already contacting Saddam’s generals to switch allegiance. Then, according to their playbook, there would be snap elections, say within 90 days, to put a democratic halo on our chosen generalissimo.” > [@](#): > > Crucially, the quickie coup-cum-invasion had friends where it counted. “The petroleum industry, the chemical industry, the banking industry,” Aljibury told me. “They’d hoped that Iraq would go for a revolutiojn like other revolutions that have occurred in the past and government was shut down for two or three days” . . . > > The idea was that no matter which strongman the Bush team designated, they would “bring him in right away and say that Iraq is being liberated - and everybody stay in office . . . everything as is.” And by “everything” he meant, first and foremost, the key thing, the oil ministry and state oil company. While the Walnut Creek committee was busy-busy with many topics, Aljibury said, “It quickly became an oil group.” That would have been rather dirty and cynical, but it probably would have worked. Iraq would have remained as stable as under Hussein, it would have become friendlier to the U.S. and less dangerous to its neighbors, and the sanctions could have been lifted, boosting the economy. And Iraq’s oil industry would have ticked along, pumping and exporting oil, without disruption. “Plan B:” But in November 2001, following the U.S. victory in Afghanistan, the Pentagon, dominated by neoconservative PNAC members Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Elliot Abrams, had other and very different ideas: > [@](#): > > It was nothing like State’s three-day quickie. The neo-cons’ 101-page confidential document goes boldly where no invasion plan had gone before: the complete rewrite of the conquered state’s “policies, laws and regulations.” Here’s a sample: > > - Pages 8 & 21: A big income tax cut for Iraq’s wealthiest and complete elimination of taxes on business revenues. > > - Pages 35 & 73: The quick sale of Iraq’s banks, bridges and water companies to foreign operators. > > - Page 45: The application for Iraq to join the World Trade Organization, kindly ghostwritten by U.S. government contractors. > > - Page 28: A “market-friendly” customs law – a kind of super-NAFTA – aiming for complete wipeout of tariffs that had protected Iraq’s industry from cheap foreign imports. > > - Page 44: New copyright laws protecting foreign (i.e., American) software, music and drug companies. > > Odd to attach to an invasion plan. It was more like a corporate takeover, except with Abrams tanks instead of junk bonds. There wasn’t a whole lot of thinking going on about strengthening the borders against insurgents, disarming private armies or securing Baghdad from looters; and not a thing about elections or “democracy.” . . . > > \ > > . . . Selling off banks and bridges was just the beginning. The would-be conquistadors left nothing to chance – or to the Iraqis. At page 74, the plan’s authors required Iraq to “privatize” (i.e., sell off) “all state-owned companies.” . . . Plan “B” was followed (except for the oil privatization, which U.S. oil companies refused to allow, but that’s another story), and we know how that worked out. It **might** have worked out better if we had committed 400,000 troops – the minimum number the generals advised Bush would be necessary to control the country effectively – instead of a mere 140,000; and if we could somehow have **gotten** that many troops in the field (we would have had to pull them out of practically everywhere else they’re stationed, starting with South Korea). But it’s too late now. At this point, the least dirty thing we can do is pull out our troops and let the Iraqis settle their differences their own bloody way. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/7 "2007-09-09T22:56:45Z")
Read Cobra II, BrainGlutton. You’ll know why we went in with so few. It’s sickening. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/8 "2007-09-09T23:34:58Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] I don’t really give a shit what Petraeus says. There appears to be no progress toward what GW claims is the end goal. That is, a stable unified Iraq that will be an example to the Mid East and an ally against terrorism. There isn’t even a hint of any progress toward a stable Iraq, let along all those other pie-in-the-sky statements. [/QUOTE] That’s a Democrat for you, screw what the guy who is actually an expert on this stuff says. If what he’s saying doesn’t fit with your ideological viewpoint on the decision to invade Iraq, then you’ll find pretty all the excuses you want to ignore what him and other military leaders have said. The switch to Petraeus as the leader of this situation, and the later surge must be looked at as a theater-wide shift, because that is what it was. Petraeus took over and started implemented procedural and policy changes _across the board_ that’s why we’re talking so much about Al Anbar province. It’s a province where Petraeus has said we’ve failed repeatedly in the past and what he and other leaders are saying is they learned from their failures and changed strategy. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/9 "2007-09-09T23:41:20Z")
I think [this quote](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/32867.html) by Bertrand Russell is rather appropriate. > [@](#): > > If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/10 "2007-09-09T23:43:07Z")
As I’m sure you are aware, **Martin** , there is a strong case to be made that the change in Anbar province has little, if anything, to do with Gen Petreaus or the surge. For one of many, > [@](#): > > …The sheik who forged the alliance with the Americans, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, traced the decision to fight al-Qaeda to Sept. 14, 2006, long before the new Bush strategy, but the president’s plan dispatched another 4,000 U.S. troops to Anbar to exploit the situation. As security improved, the White House eagerly took credit… [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801846\_pf.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801846_pf.html) ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/11 "2007-09-09T23:56:54Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] That’s a Democrat for you, screw what the guy who is actually an expert on this stuff says. If what he’s saying doesn’t fit with your ideological viewpoint on the decision to invade Iraq, then you’ll find pretty all the excuses you want to ignore what him and other military leaders have said. [/QUOTE] This from a consistent, knee-jerk supporter of whatever the latest bullshit from the administration lackeys, and GW himself is. It is undeniable that there has been zero progress toward a national government in Iraq that is acceptable to the Iraqis as a whole. Just how long are you willing to carry on this farce? I always wondered why those who had been roped into a Ponzi scheme kept saying “If he had just had a little more time he could have worked it out.” I’m seeing the same thing from you guys and I still wonder at it. It doesn’t make a bit of difference how expert Petraeus is as long as GW is in charge. Petraeus’ predecessors were also regarded as highly competent military officers. There was a story on NBC news just today about a neghborhood in Baghdad where things are returning to a not bad condition. However, it turns out that the neighborhood is all Sunni and surrounded by a wall to protect it from its neighbors, the wall being policed by US troops. One resident says he never leaves the area for fear of being killed in the neighboring Shia neighborhood. That’s progress for you. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/12 "2007-09-10T00:21:43Z")
Remember Tommy Franks? Won the war in weeks and then bailed. He turns out to have been the smart one. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/13 "2007-09-10T00:24:45Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] I think [this quote](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/32867.html) by Bertrand Russell is rather appropriate. [/QUOTE] It certainly describes W’s and the neocons’ thinking on Iraq from day one. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/14 "2007-09-10T02:00:52Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] That’s a Democrat for you, screw what the guy who is actually an expert on this stuff says. If what he’s saying doesn’t fit with your ideological viewpoint on the decision to invade Iraq, then you’ll find pretty all the excuses you want to ignore what him and other military leaders have said. [/quote] Does Petraeus say that the Iraqis are making political headway? [QUOTE=Martin Hyde] It’s a province where Petraeus has said we’ve failed repeatedly in the past and what he and other leaders are saying is they learned from their failures and changed strategy. [/QUOTE] Iirc, Petraeus has been using these techniques from the gitgo. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/15 "2007-09-10T02:06:11Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] That’s a Democrat for you, screw what the guy who is actually an expert on this stuff says. [/QUOTE] Speaking of political parties systematically ignoring experts when it comes to matters of war, have you read _Fiasco_? ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/16 "2007-09-10T03:30:22Z")
Why is cooperating with local militias bad again? There’s a whole bunch of times where doing just that has been the “right” thing to do, depending on who the militias are. We Americans were once defended by a bunch of militias only vaguely associated with a national military chain of command. If the Iraqi militias that Patraeus is cooperating with actually legitimately represent the citizens of Iraq, what’s the problem with cooperating with them? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/17 "2007-09-10T03:45:36Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] If the Iraqi militias that Patraeus is cooperating with actually legitimately represent the citizens of Iraq, what’s the problem with cooperating with them? [/QUOTE] The problem is that there is no “Iraq,” not any more, only the factions; and that the various militias are not so much representing the citizens as preying on them. Reread Hayden’s article. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/18 "2007-09-10T06:03:28Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] That’s a Democrat for you, screw what the guy who is actually an expert on this stuff says. If what he’s saying doesn’t fit with your ideological viewpoint on the decision to invade Iraq, then you’ll find pretty all the excuses you want to ignore what him and other military leaders have said. [/QUOTE] Well, let another democrat take a stab. I am convinced that the definition of “Victory” (with a capital V) that Bush has for Iraq cannot be reasonably done in the timeframe he has set out. To achieve a “Bush Victory”, we’d need to be in Iraq for at least another decade. With the current political climate with the war, us setting up camp there for that length of time is not going to happen. Iraq is a failure. We failed in Iraq because our standard for Victory was unreasonably high and, in some cases, exercises in make-believe and wishful thinking. As a hard-leaning, nearly communist Democrat, I am thrilled that Petraeus has made significant strides in quelling some of the violence in Iraq. The problem isn’t that I want to ignore what his achievements, it is just that there is no military solution in Iraq. I agree with the Republicans that the political progress cannot occur without a safe Iraq, but sheesh, how are we supposed to do that with the steady drip-drop of American deaths? At what point will it be enough? 5000 American lives? 10,000? 100,000? I know that’s a question Cindy Sheehan would ask, but I believe it’s a question that begs to be answered - when will it be enough? How much should we sacrifice for some war-torn, sand-ridden shithole in the Middle East? It bothers me because I think that all of those federal dollars we pour into Iraq could be used to help Americans. We could build more schools, playgrounds; build new highways and improve down-trodden areas in the U.S; We could invest more into scientific and biomedical research; we could even use that money to ensure that every American could go to college for free or at a reduced cost. The Iraq War is just a colossal waste of resources. Unlike other democrats, I can’t blame the democratic Congress for allowing this to continue until they have a 60-40 majority to override a veto. - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/19 "2007-09-10T20:06:23Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The problem is that there is no “Iraq,” not any more, only the factions; and that the various militias are not so much representing the citizens as preying on them. Reread Hayden’s article. [/QUOTE] Hayden isn’t necessarily a better source than Patraeus, I think. For most of us, it seems to be a weaker one. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593/20 "2007-09-10T20:20:09Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] Hayden isn’t necessarily a better source than Patraeus, I think. For most of us, it seems to be a weaker one. [/QUOTE] Agreed. All I saw was a lefty op-ed, spinning faster than my washing machine on spin cycle. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petraeus-approach-to-counterinsurgency-is-a-cure-worse-than-the-disease/418593.md?page=2)