Articles by Herschel Smith

In Concerning the Failure of Counterinsurgency in Iraq, I argued that the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy employed by the U.S. in Iraq has failed. I argued that this failure is not attributable to the warriors in the field, nor is it a detraction from the effort they have expended and the blood and limbs they have lost. Rather, it is due at least in part to the adoption of David Galula’s principles of COIN, coming mostly from the situation he faced in Algeria. To be sure, his book is serious study, and much wisdom can be gleaned from his theories. But the global war on terror is a “horse of a different color,” and requires its own theoretical framework.

While the list isn’t comprehensive, I cited seven reasons that the Iraq situation is not entirely conducive to application of the same COIN doctrine, and gave hints as to things that might be considered in the development of revised doctrine for the war. President Bush will soon announce his strategy for going forward in Iraq, and it seems prudent and timely to pull one thread in the tapestry of a revised strategy, perhaps the most important one. Without this thread, the rest of the fabric unravels.

Pointing to a border with Syria that has not been secured, I said that “The battlefield, both for military actions and so-called “nonkinetic

Just reported from Fox News:

The United States launched a strike Monday against suspected Al Qaeda members in Somalia, a senior U.S. official informed FOX News.

The attack by the Air Force AC-130 gunship, capable of firing thousands of rounds per second, left casualties on the ground, but it is not clear if any of the dead were targeted terrorists, the official said.

The U.S. could have been targeting two terrorists — Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Nabhan — who are connected to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa that left more than 200 dead. Officials have long suspected those involved in the bombings have taken refuge in Somalia.

There may have been a scent of terrorist movement when Al Qaeda operatives taking cover in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu were likely chased out of their hideouts as Ethiopian forces cleared out Islamists who had taken power there.

The move marks the first time the U.S. has mounted a mission in Somalia since forces pulled out in 1994, two years after entering on a mission to feed starving people there. However, due to the bombings, the U.S. has shared intelligence with allies such as Kenya and Ethiopia and this fresh attack could be part of an ongoing anti-terror operation.

It is about time. More on the AC-130 can be found here.

The coming weeks will set the course for the closing of U.S. action in Iraq.  Given the recent flurry of activity to put the final pieces in place, it is wise to reflect on the failure of counterinsurgency thus far in Iraq, and ascertain exactly what more proposed troops will do, how they will do it, and what would demarcate a victory.

There is no doubt that positive reports can be found concerning the state of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and particularly so when the reports come straight from the front by Milbloggers. There is of course progress being made, but this progress may be characterized as slow, arduous and dangerous, whether from Milbloggers or main stream media.

The Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen involved in OIF have performed marvelously, have done everything that has been required of them, and have made progress despite the overly-restrictive rules of engagement, lack of appropriate equipment (e.g., fourteen Marines getting killed by an IED due to driving down a desert road in an Amphibious Assault Vehicle) and lack of adequate forces to do the task at hand.

The emphasis on force protection for U.S. troops has led to low casualties, by design, compared with previous wars.  This is an admirable feature of the war planning for OIF. But it is becoming clear that the application of counterinsurgency (COIN) tactics in Iraq, and particularly for the Anbar Province, have been a dismal failure as it regards effecting the desired outcome.

In Eschatology and Counterterrorism Warfare I discussed the exodus that is occurring from Iraq, with the Anbar and Diyala Provinces being particularly hard hit. There are now 1.4 million displaced Iraqi citizens and every day sees three thousand more who flee the country. Working the back alleys and neighborhoods where there is no constant U.S. presence, the Sunni insurgents are waging a campaign of murder and intimidation to demonstrate that neither the Iraqi government nor U.S. forces can protect people.

It is stylish to cite David Galula and claim that the U.S. approach to Iraq has been too heavy handed. The solution, it is claimed, is to see that 80% of the solution is and will always be political. But just to show how utterly irrelevant Galula’s system is to Iraq, consider a single quote: “The battle for the population is a major characteristic of the revolutionary war. . . . The objective being the population itself, the operations designed to win it over (for the insurgent) or to keep it at least submissive (for the counterinsurgent) are essentially of a political nature. . . . And so intricate is the interplay between the political and military actions that they cannot be tidily separated; on the contrary, every military move has to be weighed with regard to its political effects, and vice versa.”

It sounds nice. Now take a closer read: “The objective being the population itself, the operations designed to win it over (for the insurgent) …,” has exactly backwards what the insurgents and counterinsurgents have been doing.  The U.S. has been trying to win over the population, not keep it submissive, and the insurgents have been trying to keep them submissive, not win them over.   If anything, intimidation has been the one and only tactic of the insurgency.  The premise being false, the system then suffers in misapplication. Perhaps a more poignant example comes from a West Point essay, “Hearts and Minds as a Misleading Misnomer.”

The easiest way to understand legitimacy is to ascertain how or to whom a citizen turns to solve his or her social, political or economic problems. If citizens desire educational reform, and they rely on the government to fix that, then the government’s system has legitimacy … similarly, if citizens have decided that the insurgent’s system will best provide land reform, then the insurgent has captured legitimacy from the regime … in many instances (the Viet Cong was a great example), terror, violence, and coercion are short-term “sticks” that the insurgency employs until the long-term “carrots” (solving citizen problems) validate their proposed system.

This philosophy marks the COIN training in the U.S. armed forces today. Solving social, political and economic problems is the hallmark of successful COIN, it is believed, and hence the U.S. attempts to do it better than the insurgents.  Far from being too late or not vigorous enough in the application of Galula’s views, we have applied his theories with a vengeance.

Yet upon serious reflection, the reader will see that something is deeply wrong. The insurgents in Iraq have never transitioned to the next phase of insurgency, the phase we’ll call “system validation.” The only interest that they have shown in education has been to threaten and kill teachers and professors; in the words of one Baghdad citizen, “I forced my son to leave school. It’s more important that he be alive than educated.”

Among conservative Milbloggers, of which I am one, it is not popular to say that our strategy is wrong in Iraq, perhaps because it is seen as a reflection on the troops rather than of the leadership. But the idea that a failure rests on the shoulders of the troops is surely false and just plain wrongheaded.  With perfect troops, the wrong strategy will doom U.S. efforts. In addition to studying positive reports about the successes in Iraq, it is useful to study contrary viewpoints to round out our understanding of the situation.

Some reports directly from Iraq paint a picture of the nation as a killing field, leading exactly to the exodus we are witnessing.

The last three months have been the worst in Iraq’s history. There have been more killings of innocent people than the worst days and months the country has passed through in the past.

According to official figures at least 100 innocent Iraqis perish everyday. The figures of course cannot be trusted as many more murdered Iraqis are buried as relatives find it unnecessary to report their deaths.

Our municipalities now spend more time collecting human corpses form (sic) the streets of major cities, particularly in Baghdad, than gathering garbage.

Most of these corpses do not carry identity cards and hospitals lack the means to identify them. Many are buried in mass graves.

Closer to home, in testimony before Senate Armed Services Committee, Lt. General Michael D. Maples admitted to a badly deteriorating security situation in Iraq.  NCOs who have been to Iraq report stories reminiscent of the wild west: “The locals have repeatedly conveyed to us horrid tales of shop owners being pulled from their places of business and executed directly outside their storefronts, or mysterious uniformed men driving up and snatching people right off the street, never to be heard from again. Most of the wealthy homes now stand empty, their owners having fled to less politically free but certainly less volatile Middle Eastern countries.”  The Anbar Province is described as a wasteland.

Ramadi has been laid waste by two years of warfare. Houses stand shattered and abandoned. Shops are shuttered up. The streets are littered with rubble, wrecked cars, fallen trees, broken lampposts and piles of rubbish.

Fetid water stands in craters. The pavements are overgrown. Walls are pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel. Side roads have been shut off with concrete barriers to thwart car bombs. Everything is coated in grey dust even the palm trees. The city has no functioning government, no telephones, and practically no basic services except sporadic electricity and water supplies. It has been reduced to a subsistence economy.

There are stray cats and wild dogs, but few cars or humans. Ramadi’s inhabitants have either fled, or learnt to stay indoors.

Concerning amelioration of the violence, Maliki stopped the targeting of the Sadrists, and the U.S. is in what is called by the U.N. Security Council a ‘security partnership’ with the Iraqi government.  The U.S. can no longer take unilateral action in Iraq, of course, unless the political will exists stateside to do so.  This is doubtful.

So why the failure of the Galula model for COIN? What is so different about Iraq? Perhaps the following list is a beginning point for what will without a doubt be the subject of many future dissertations at war colleges.

First, treating the disenfranchised sect as if they were “in play.”  Robert Haddick (Westhawk), similar to Michael Rubin, recommending that the U.S. give up on Sunni reconciliation, comments:

As General Abizaid predicted, Iraqi society, at least the Sunni Arab portion, rebelled against the “antibody.” Since then, the U.S. military has attempted to fight a counterinsurgency campaign, using several standard techniques. Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad, America’s very demanding ambassador in Iraq, has forced Iraq’s political elites to form a “national unity” government. He has also worked tirelessly on political reconciliation with Iraq’s rebellious Sunni Arab community. The U.S. has spent the past two years developing and mentoring an Iraqi army and police force. Military operations have been restrained and highly discrete, with the aim of targeting those who might intimidate the population, while also attempting to avoid alienating the population into siding with the insurgents.

These are all classic counterinsurgency gambits, designed to provide an attractive alternative to the insurgency, with the hope of drying up its support. Unfortunately, the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign has failed. The failure rests more with Saddam Hussein’s legacy than it does with American tactics. Iraq’s Sunni Arabs were never “in play,” ready to be talked or bribed into supporting the Shi’ite/Kurdish majority government in Baghdad. As for Iraq’s Shi’ites and Kurds, they have thirty years of very painful memories. And the recent failures at reconciliation have done nothing to improve trust among Iraq’s sects.

If Haddick is right, and I believe that he is, the effort to win the hearts and minds of the Sunni minority was doomed from the beginning.  The overthrown sect had too much at stake simply to crumble and acquiesce to Shi’ite and/or Kurdish rule, or so they thought.  The situation was never conducive to the application of Galula’s principals.  We tried to fit a square peg into a round hole, and all the more so each time it didn’t work.

Second, ignoring the affects of a thousand-year religious war within the population in Iraq.  Sunni-Shi’ite relations constitute a thousand year religious war, and to assume that democracy (or freedom) would heal divisions and become seminal in the region with the overthrow of Saddam’s regime might have been hamhanded and naive.  At the very least, plans to address this deeply held religious divide should have been made, and security in such a powderkeg would certainly necessitate more force projection and quicker response to the initial violence upon toppling of the regime.

Third, failing to recognize the affects of the previous regime having trained the Iraqi people to cower in fear of violence.  American freedom for several hundred years has created an indomitable spirit that would make an occupation of the U.S. impossible for foreign troops, no matter how many there were or how long they tried.  Iraq is the perfect contrast.  Saddam’s secret police created such a culture of fear and treachery that they were ready-made for the brutality employed by the insurgency.  They have decades of simply staying alive under their belt as preparation for the terrorists.  They knew exactly what to do, and it didn’t include sustaining risk to assist the U.S. in hunting down the enemy.

Fourth, oil money.  The scandalous and idiotic oil-for-food program poured money into a region that was otherwise destitute because of sanctions, and this money didn’t go to the people who needed it.  So even sanctions didn’t help to strip the enemy of his funds.  In the broader region, the ready availability of large sums of cash make it easy to hire mercenaries, from both inside and outside Iraq, to battle U.S. troops.  The easy availability of oil money also creates criminal elements when there is no stable government to police them.

Fifth, the nexus of terrorism and technology.  Just forty years ago, an insurgent may backpack a single artillery shell along the Ho Chi Minh trail for months, only to see it used in a second, and then turn around to hike the trail and do it all over again.  Technological advances and the cheap availability of high tech equipment has radically changed the face of terrorism.

The world is now characterized by the near-instantaneous proliferation of information and misinformation, ease-to-use communication systems, and technologies that provide cheap, readily improvised WMD capabilities. At the same time, the development of our cultural, social, economic, industrial, and political structures offers vulnerabilities never dreamed of by earlier terrorists. This presents unprecedented problems for security forces, problems that are neither purely military nor purely law enforcement, but a mixture of both, with a lot of complex intelligence demands. All this places complex strains on governmental jurisdictions, and the intersection of the public and private sectors, not to mention civil liberties, cultural traditions, and privacy.

We were utterly unprepared for the toll that IEDs would take on U.S. troops, and even after it became obvious that this was a leading tactic of the enemy, we reacted with lethargy.

Sixth, not recognizing the dynamic scope of the battlefield.  Recently captured intelligence documents show an undeniable link between Iran and the violence in Iraq.  John Little comments that “If these documents actually surprised anyone in our intelligence community we’re in trouble. Finding supporting documentation is a good thing but Iran’s desire to destabilize Iraq, and their willingness to deal with anyone in the process, should have been well understood before these documents were siezed.”  But we may indeed be in trouble, not learning our lessons from years gone by.  Michael Rubin points out that from even before the war began going on into the first months of the war, Iran was training militia and sending huge sums of money and materiel into Iraq.  Their plans have been active for years.  Over to the west, insurgents pour in across a Syrian border that has not been securred.  The battlefield, both for military actions and so-called “nonkinetic” actions to win the people, is dynamic.  As one insurgent is killed, another pops up in his place, coming not from any action the U.S. has or has not taken in Iraq, but rather, coming from hundreds or even thousands of miles away due to a religious hatred that has been taught to him from birth.  The war in Iraq is both figuratively and quite literally a war without borders.

Seventh, the utilization of violence as an exclusive-use procedure by the insurgents.  The insurgents have not yet transitioned from violence to “system validation.”  There is no compelling need to do so, as Iranian influence in eastern Iraq exceeds that of the U.S., many of the Sunnis want nothing of reconciliation, and there is an exodus of refugees from Iraq to other parts of the world.  The success achieved by the insurgents (and Shi’ite militia) ensures the continued use of violence.  There is no need to fix something that isn’t broken.

It has been said that successful COIN warfare takes ten years on average.  Even if this is true, we do not have ten years to perform COIN operations in Iraq.  And the U.S. public is not to blame.  Four years has been given to the administration, and at least the first couple (after the toppling of the regime) were squandered.  This squandering of time and resources, while it affected public sentiment in the U.S., affected Iraq even more.  The U.S. public, even now, is likely to give the administration longer than the situation on the ground in Iraq will allow.  The critical path to solving Iraq doesn’t rest with public sentiment.  If Iraq is a killing field sustaining an exodus of refugees to Syria and Jordan as it appears is the case, we simply do not have ten years.  The basis for this boundary condition is Iraq, not the U.S.  The same COIN strategy, six years from now, will see the annihilation of the Sunni population and rise of Iran as the only true power in Iraq.

I have been vocal in pointing out the effects of inadequate force projection in Iraq.  It appears at the moment that there will be a modest troop increase.  But force projection is not the same thing as force size.  Victor Davis Hanson’s observations point to a different problem than one of force size.  Hanson’s recommendations focus on the what and how of U.S. engagements.

There have been a number of anomalies in this war, as a brilliant American tactical victory in removing Saddam has not translated into quick strategic success. But one of the most worrisome developments is the narrowing of the recent debate to the single issue of surging troops, as if the problem all along has just been one of manpower.

It hasn’t. The dilemma involves the need to fight an asymmetrical war of counter-insurgency that hinges on what troops do, rather than how many are engaged. We have gone from a conventional victory over Saddam Hussein to an asymmetrical struggle against jihadist insurgents to what is more or less third-party policing of random violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Our past errors were not so much dissolving a scattered Iraqi military or even de-Baathification, but rather giving an appearance of impotence, whether in allowing the looting to continue or pulling back from Fallujah or giving a reprieve to the Sadr militias.

So, yes, send more troops to Iraq — but only if they are going to be allowed to hunt down and kill vicious and sectarians in a manner that they have not been allowed to previously.

This surge should be not viewed in terms of manpower alone. Rather it should be planned as the corrective to past misguided laxity, in which no quarter will now be given to die-hard jihadists as we pursue victory, not better policing. We owe that assurance to the thousands more of young Americans who now will be sent into harm’s way.

Whether we take Haddick’s approach or Hanson’s approach (giving up on the Sunnis and leaving versus forcing their hand by a drastic strategy change), 2.0E4 more troops doing the same things and pursuing the same strategy will bring disrepute to U.S. warfighting capabilities and more U.S. casualties.  It has been said that the difference between the Viet Cong and the jihadist is that the VC didn’t follow us home, and the jihadist will.  And so they will indeed.  Yet we are waging partial war with forty year old COIN doctrine that is more applicable to the VC than the jihadists.  A different paradigm is needed, one that squarely faces the murder and suicide cult that is jihadism; that doesn’t patrol Marines down city streets to get sniped without ever firing a shot at the enemy because we have hamstrung our own snipers with our rules of engagement; that recognizes that mothers don’t care about an education for their children compared to keeping them alive; that recognizes and addresses the dynamic battlefield where borders and foreign fighters are as important as the local government; and that realizes that mutual trust will be difficult, or perhaps impossible, in a land where lies and deceipt are ubiquitous and constant.

A moderate troop size increase coupled with the same strategy and tactics will be likened – and properly so – to Olmert’s last desperate battle with Hezballah where, in order to save face and make the war effort appear as a victory for Israel, he sent more IDF troops to their deaths and then retreated.  It will neither appear as a victory nor accomplish anything good.

It is being reported that there are plans to destroy the Iranian enrichment facility at Natanz.

Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with conventional and tactical nuclear weapons, Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper has reported.

Citing what it said were several Israel Defense Forces sources, the paper said two Israel Air Force squadrons had been training to blow up an enrichment plant in Natanz using low-yield nuclear “bunker busters.”

Two other sites, a heavy water plant at Arak and a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, would be targeted with conventional bombs, the Sunday Times said.

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously last month to slap sanctions on Iran to try to stop uranium enrichment that Western powers fear could lead to making bombs. Tehran insists its plans are peaceful and says it will continue enrichment.

Israel has refused to rule out pre-emptive military action against Iran along the lines of its 1981 air strike against an atomic reactor in Iraq, though many analysts believe Iran’s nuclear facilities are too much for Israel to take on alone.

The newspaper said the Israeli plan envisaged conventional laser-guided bombs opening “tunnels” into the targets. Nuclear warheads would then be used fired into the plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce radioactive fallout.

IAF pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000 mile round-trip to the Iranian targets, the Sunday Times said, and three possible routes to Iran have been mapped out including one over Turkey.

However, it also quoted sources as saying a nuclear strike would only be used if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene. Disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, the paper added.

Washington has said military force remains an option while insisting that its priority is to reach a diplomatic solution.

Fox News military analyst Col. David Hunt, when asked why the Israelis would divulge this information, responded that he believed that it was possible that the U.S. did it, in order to stop this plan.  Col. Hunt: “No one in their right mind wants nuclear footballs being lobbed around in the Middle East.”

The problem with Col. Hunt’s analysis is that it is only compelling if the U.S. has a viable means of stopping the Iranian nuclear program.  And the notion of “viable” includes willingness to execute it.  If we don’t, then it would be irresponsible for the IDF to not have a plan.  The U.S. should be assisting the IDF rather than undercutting their efforts.

We have known about HMMWV gunner shields for some time now.  But the insurgents have known that they can toss a fragmentation grenade into the turret of a HMMWV, and cause a lot of damage.

A vehicle is an confined space.  As post-9/11 war planning was being done for Afghanistan, I sent a letter to a number of different recipients in the Department of Defense advocating the use of weapons that capitalized on the use of caves as a confined space.  As anyone in industry is aware (chemical, nuclear, steel, etc.), a confined space is dangerous, since there is no rapid means of egress.  I had recommended that we use long-burning oxygen-consuming weapons at the mouths of caves, thereby suffocating the inhabitants.  In other words, take the strength of the enemy’s habitatation and use it against them.

The insurgents have used the HMMWV confined space against U.S. troops, until, that is, American boys unleashed their adaptive powers.  Chicken wire.  Build a wire mesh around HMMWV turrets, as a sort of hemisphere of protection, where fragmentation grenades simply bounce off of the mesh and land on the street.

Presto.  Protection from confined space vulnerabilities.  Once again proving that American troops are the most adaptive and innovative in the world.  God bless them.  Isn’t America a great nation?

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A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona’s border with Mexico. Note that this is not the Syrian-Iraqi border, but the U.S. border.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state’s West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.

So how is it that Guardsmen are forced to retreat when attacked at the U.S. border? The answer lies in understanding the assigned mission of the Guardsmen. The current administration and many in Congress see America as a “state of mind” rather than a place to live and defend. Border security is not taken seriously because they do not believe in an America with borders.

This explains the role of the Guardsmen. Since arriving in mid-June, the Guard has assisted the Border Patrol by manning control rooms, repairing roads, fences and vehicles, and spotting and reporting illegal border crossings to the Border Patrol. President Bush said last spring he would have up to 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to assist the Border Patrol.

Note well. The Guardsmen are not even armed. Posse Comitatus does not prevent the use of U.S. troops from performing functions on U.S. soil, even policing functions. It just requires the approval of the President and Congress to use them in this manner. But because most people in Washington do not understand this, or simply do not care, the Guardsmen are not armed and are not instructed or even allowed to perform policing functions, even at the border with Mexico. They assist with roads, fences and office administrative functions.

It is manifestly obvious that to use U.S. warriors in this manner besmirches their honor and reputation, insults their dignity, puts them at undue risk, wastes their time and equipment, and turns them into road workers and administrative clerks. It is unseemly and scandalous in the superlative degree.

As a solution to this embarrassment, we should either arm them with M16A2s and instruct and empower them to arrest those who violate the sovereignty of the United States and kill those who resist, or let them go home, after which we can admit to our children that we don’t care about the security of our country any more.

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Courtesy of Oak Leaf at Polipundit, we have this informative post from June of 2006.

Unfortunately, I must report that “Armed

I have fairly extensively covered (links below) the newly-engineered Modular Tactical Vest (MTV) to be in use with Marines early in 2007, replacing the Interceptor body armor system. Now, enter the main stream media, with what can only be characterized as feel-good, softball coverage that creates more questions than it answers and stirs the pot without adding anything to the state of knowledge of the body armor situation. CBS News recently had an article entited “For Marines, ‘MTV’ Means Something New.” David Martin begins his article telling us why he began investigating the story.

One of the things that made October such a bloody month for American troops was a dramatic increase in sniper attacks. The U.S. military refuses to say exactly how many sniper attacks there were or how successful they were on the ground; that is information the enemy could use.

Let’s pause here for a moment. In my article Snipers Having Tragic Success Against U.S. Troops, using information taken directly from MSM reports, I discussed how snipers in Iraq (and mainly in the Anbar Province) were becoming seasoned enough to aim for gaps in the body armor of Marines, particularly the arm pits where there were gaps in side SAPI plate coverage. This is widely known within the military, and modifications in body armor have been targeted to ameliorate these weaknesses. So one would naturally assume that the improvements of the MTV over the Interceptor at least in part pertain to this issue. And one would naturally assume that a media article would discuss this. Right? Continuing:

But this will give you some idea: There were more sniper attacks in the first 10 days of October than in the entire month of September. There are insurgent videos on the Internet that show American soldiers being killed, along with an interview with a guy who claims to be the commander of the Baghdad sniper brigade. Boasting of his accomplishments, he says a book called “The Ultimate Sniper,” produced by a former U.S. Army major and distributed by a U.S.-based publishing house, “is one of the main books we use to train our snipers.”

I was looking into all of this, and as part of that story, went down to the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va. to see a new body armor vest that will be issued to Marines heading to Iraq early next year.

The idea was to try on the body armor to see how protective it is against sniper fire. The Marine vest shields the torso against 7.62 millimeter ammunition (which is what an AK-47 fires) and below, but the head and the neck are still exposed. The helmet will stop shrapnel but not a round from a high-powered sniper rifle.

The Marines who were showing us the equipment said the Corps is spending $33 million for 60,000 of the new vests and that most of the improvements had come from ideas submitted by Marines fighting in Iraq.

The vest is officially called the Modular Tactical Vest and so, not surprisingly, there were “I Want My MTV” headlines about it in the Marine Times.

What did surprise me, though, was the Army’s interest in the story. I couldn’t figure out why the Army had such an interest in a story about Marine Corps body armor until I saw a letter to the editor in Stars and Stripes, an independent newspaper widely read by troops overseas.

The letter’s author complained that an article about the MTV “implied the Marine Corps’ new [body armor] is superior to the Army’s. … This is a disservice to soldiers wearing [the Army’s body armor].” So, that was why the Army was so interested in my story; they thought that it would create the impression that Marines were wearing better body armor than Army soldiers.

For the record, the MTV uses the same ballistic shields as the Army body armor. The differences have to do with the way it fits on your body and the way it allows a Marine to carry all his combat gear.

To me, the Marine vest felt more comfortable because it distributes the 30-pound weight over your entire torso instead of having the weight hanging on your shoulders. But it still leaves some very vital parts of your body exposed to a sniper.

As for that former U.S. Army major who produced “The Ultimate Sniper” — he’s not returning phone calls.

This is interesting for a main stream media report. Martin’s piece suddenly leaves the arena of the investigative and Martin becomes a mouthpiece for a byline to assuage concerns over body armor: “For the record, the MTV uses the same ballistic shields as the Army body armor. The differences have to do with the way it fits on your body …”

I have been told this too in response to my articles on body armor. The fact is that this statement is both true and totally incomplete. It paints the wrong picture, and those who traffic in such statements know it.

The Strategy Page helps in our understanding of the MTV, saying that “The U.S. Marine Corps is reequipping with new body armor. The Modular Tactical Vests protect more of the upper torso, while providing more freedom of movement. While weighing the same as the current vest, the new vest feels lighter because the weight is distributed more efficiently.”

Stars and Stripes is perhaps even more direct and informative, saying that “The new vests, which the Corps was expected to discuss Monday, are designed to provide added protection to the side of the torso, the lower back and the kidney area, Capt. Jeff Landis said in a Thursday e-mail to Stars and Stripes.”

The fact is that the MTV is designed to provide better protection against well-aimed rounds from snipers, giving more SAPI plate coverage for the Marine or Soldier. So why would there be a “byline” to begin with? The Stars and Stripes article gives us a hint as to why:

He said the Marine Corps believes the MTVs offer the best protection possible for Marines.

In addition to improved protection, the MTVs also have a Velcro attachment that allow rifle butts to fit better against a Marine’s shoulder to ensure accuracy, Landis said.

Soldiers will likely not get their new body armor until fiscal 2010 or 2012.

But the Army is looking at whether it can send the body armor component of the Future Force Warrior system downrange early, said Dutch DeGay, an equipment specialist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Center in Massachusetts.

“Our body armor, that we call the chassis, the U.S. Army Infantry School is drafting a capability production document on that body armor, on that design to see if it would be possible to build that early before 2010 or ’12 to get that in the field,

Eschatology, or the study and philosophy of the last things, is key to the proper understanding of counterterrorism warfare, but not usually mentioned in the same breath. Theologians do not usually engage in discussions of military strategy, and infantry officers do not usually read books in religious philosophy. Yet, on a grand scale, the two are intimately connected, and eschatology is the determinative factor in the motivation of the terrorist, even if his view of the end only involves the fulfillment of secular goals such as the will to power.

The Baathists had threatened to retaliate should the “crime” of executing Saddam Hussein be committed, saying that “The Baath and the resistance are determined to retaliate, with all means and everywhere, to harm America and its interests if it commits this crime.” FNC had reported just prior to Saddam’s execution from they U.S. officers in contact with the tribal leaders supportive of anti-coalition efforts that these tribal chiefs were propositioning them to “release Saddam, and he and the U.S. would handle the Iran problem together.”

Even for those who rejected the religious eschatology of victory embraced by al Qaeda and Ansar al Sunnah, they were loyal to the end, and hopeful for a resurgent Sunni rule in Iraq led by Saddam. Those who sided with the terrorists (Saddam’s secret police and the Fedayeen) merely found expediency in objectives: the driving of the coalition forces from Iraq.

So determined are the anti-coalition forces that they are willing to pursue a “scorched earth” policy to achieve their objectives. It was reported on October 23, 2006, that 500 000 Iraqi citizens had fled Iraq (primarily from the Anbar Province) to Syria. As of December 3, 2006, it is reported that 700 000 Iraqi citizens are in Syria and another 700 000 in Jordan, for a total of 1.4 million displaced citizens. One anecdotal piece of evidence is given to us by an otherwise non-remarkable person in the Anbar Province:

The gunman stood at the foot of his bed. “Are you al-Jaboury?” he yelled. It was 2 o’clock on a stifling July morning, and al-Jaboury had been sound asleep next to his wife. After hearing his name, the young Iraqi police officer didn’t hesitate. Grabbing the gun he had been stashing under his pillow every night since he’d joined the police 18 months earlier, he shot the intruder in the throat. The gunman’s accomplices all fled.

But the danger wasn’t over. “I knew the insurgents would come back, and maybe they would blow up the whole house,” al-Jaboury says. “My wife blamed me for joining the police. She said that I am a Sunni and that I know that the insurgents don’t like this, and that I would get killed sooner or later.” The next day, al-Jaboury left his wife, his daughter, and his home in the troubled Diyala province and took off in a neighbor’s pickup truck, loaded with fruit, and headed for Syria. He had $300 in his pocket.

Literally splitting families apart, the insurgents are willing to destroy the population and infrastructure to effect their end. They are willing to do this for the same reason that the 50 million dollar bounty on the head of Bin Laden is meaningless to those with whom he lives. They believe that they will win.

Until they are no longer convinced that victory awaits them, U.S. government largesse means nothing to the insurgents. No amount of so-called “nonkinetic” operations on the part of U.S. forces will “win the hearts and minds of the people” when wives are concerned about their husbands siding with the police for fear of them getting killed by insurgents.

This problem is exacerbated and compounded when religious pre-commitments are involved. Secular eschatology doesn’t compare in strength to religious eschatology. The Baathists need to see tangible results in time and space. When final defeat becomes obvious, although not yet fulfilled, the remnant might be persuaded to stand down, or simply disappear from the scene. Those who have a religious commitment need not see tangible results in time and space, and so nothing can dissuade them from their deadly adventures.

Guerrilla warfare is not the unique development of the twentieth century. Francis Marion fought the forces of Cornwallis to a standstill in the swamps of South Carolina, with an eschatology that was at least in part based on religious commitment. Even in the twentieth century, Vietnam was not the first example of such tactics. In my studies of World War II many years ago, I was fascinated to learn about the existence of “Hitler’s Werewolves.” A brief description of their accomplishments follows.

What did the Werwolf do? They sniped. They mined roads. They poured sand into the gas tanks of jeeps. (Sugar was in short supply, no doubt.) They were especially feared for the “decapitation wires” they strung across roads. They poisoned food stocks and liquor. (The Russians had the biggest problem with this.) They committed arson, though perhaps less than they are credited with: every unexplained fire or explosion associated with a military installation tended to be blamed on the Werwolf. These activities slackened off within a few months of the capitulation on May 7, though incidents were reported as late as 1947.

… Goebbels especially grasped the possibility that guerrilla war could be a political process as well as a military strategy. It was largely through his influence that the Werwolf assumed something of the aspect of a terrorist organization. Where it could, it tried to prevent individuals and communities from surrendering, and it assassinated civil officials who cooperated with the Allies. Few Germans welcomed these activities, but something else that Goebbels grasped was that terror might serve where popularity was absent. By his estimate, only 10% to 15% of the German population were potential supporters for a truly revolutionary movement. His goal was to use the Werwolf to activate that potential. With the help of the radical elite, the occupiers could be provoked into savage reprisals that would win over the mass of the people to Neo-Nazism, a term that came into use in April 1945.

And from an article on Minutemen of the Third Reich.(history of the Nazi Werewolf guerilla movement) The Werewolves specialised in ambushes and sniping, and took the lives of many Allied and Soviet soldiers and officers — perhaps even that of the first Soviet commandant of Berlin, General N.E. Berzarin, who was rumoured to have been waylaid in Charlottenburg during an incident in June 1945. Buildings housing Allied and Soviet staffs were favourite targets for Werewolf bombings; an explosion in the Bremen police headquarters, also in June 1945, killed five Americans and thirty-nine Germans. Techniques for harassing the occupiers were given widespread publicity through Werewolf leaflets and radio propaganda, and long after May 1945 the sabotage methods promoted by the Werewolves were still being used against the occupying powers. Although the Werewolves originally limited themselves to guerrilla warfare with the invading armies, they soon began to undertake scorched-earth measures and vigilante actions against German `collaborators’ or `defeatists’. They damaged Germany’s economic infrastructure, already battered by Allied bombing and ground fighting, and tried to prevent anything of value from falling into enemy hands. Attempts to blow up factories, power plants or waterworks occasionally provoked melees between Werewolves and desperate German workers trying to save the physical basis of their employment, particularly in the Ruhr and Upper Silesia.

In the end, the “Werewolves” were merely Hitler youth, lacked moorings and leadership, and lacked a cogent world view, and within a year or so they were finished. This is instructive. They saw that they had no chance to succeed, and vanished into the landscape in short order, lacking a vision for victory.

In this time of post-Saddam Iraq, we now have the knowledge that we have destroyed the only true enemy of Iran. Does the vision for the GWOT include considerations for the future of U.S. forces in the region to impede Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon? Does victory in Iraq include the notion of the creation of an ally in the GWOT? Does victory in Iraq mean that the Iraqis are able to stand on their own immediately, or is the lesser goal adequate – that of the U.S. providing security now so that some day this might take effect? And if we bring security, how would we do this? The casualty rate in December of 2006 rivals the casualties in the first and second battles for Fallujah.

It has been said to me recently by one serviceman that “since we were battling Saddam’s forces, defeat of the remaining Sunni insurgency in Anbar means victory.” This is true, given a minimalist definition of victory. But when the generals themselves cannot define an eschatology of victory, the servicemen are left to devise their own. With nuances, there will be as many definitions as are there are servicemen.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish my readers a very merry Christmas.  Remember to say a prayer for our troops this season, and also remember that the resurrected and living Christ is the answer to the travails of the world.  But it is His birth, his coming to earth, the incarnation, that we celebrate this Christmas.

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) … “And she will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21b).

Pray for peace.

**** SCROLL FOR 2 UPDATES ****

CNN is reporting that the events of Haditha are coming to a head.

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) — As many as eight Marines could be charged in the biggest U.S. criminal case to emerge from the war in Iraq in terms of Iraqis killed.

Camp Pendleton officials scheduled a briefing Thursday to announce charges in the shooting deaths of 24 civilians on November 19, 2005, in the Iraqi town of Haditha.

It is unclear how many troops will be named. Lawyers for two Marines have said they expect their clients will be charged. It is believed up to six others could join them.

The case focuses on motive. What is unclear is whether the civilians were victims of wanton killing by troops angered by the death of a comrade, or people caught in a hellish battle and killed as the Marines attempted to defend themselves from a perceived threat.

The shootings occurred after a roadside bomb killed one Marine from a squad on patrol. In the aftermath of the blast, five Iraqi men were shot as they approached the scene in a taxi and others — including women and children — died as Marines opened fire on a cluster of houses in the area.

[ … ]

No statements were given by the Marines following the Haditha killings, which were investigated months later, after a Time magazine story picked holes in the Marine Corps’ account that 15 Iraqis died in a roadside bomb blast and Marines killed eight insurgents in an ensuing firefight. Later reports put the number of dead Iraqis at 24.

[ … ]

Puckett said all the Marines involved in the incident agree that the killings were a highly unfortunate result of a lawful response to a perceived threat.

Defense lawyers have said that under military rules of engagement, it can be allowable for Marines to clear houses with fragmentation grenades and machine guns if they believe the occupants are threatening their lives.

If we can back off of this giddy and hyperventilating CNN account for a moment, I would like to mention some things we don’t yet know, some things we believe that we know, and some things that are an absolute certainty.

I have tracked the Haditha case since its inception.  There is still a dearth of clear information in the public domain concerning this case.  The lawyers for Wuterich and the others have yet to begin a defense, and the Marines who might be charged have yet to speak.

In my post Iraq: Land of Lies and Deceipt, I quoted a contractor in Iraq who made the following important observation:

I’ve been in Iraq for about 18 months now performing construction management. It is simply not possible for me to exaggerate the massive amounts of lies we wade through every single day. There is no way – absolutely none – to determine facts from bulls*** ….

It is not even considered lying to them; it is more akin to being clever – like keeping your cards close to your chest. And they don’t just lie to westerners. They believe that appearances–saving face–are of paramount importance. They lie to each other all the time about anything in order to leverage others on a deal or manipulate an outcome of some sort or cover up some major or minor embarrassment. It’s just how they do things, period.

I’m not trying to disparage them here. I get along great with a lot of them. But even among those that I like, if something happens (on the job) I’ll get 50 wildly different stories, every time. There’s no comparison to it in any other part of the world where I’ve worked. The lying is ubiquitous and constant.

It would not surprise me if there were multiple “witnesses” to “atrocities” concerning this event.  There might have been a atrocity, but we won’t necessarily know it based on the testimony of the Iraqis involved in the event.

The full story must come out, including the testimony of the Marines involved that day.  What we believe we know based on the reports is that room clearing operations were conducted that day directed at rooms from which enemy fire came.  The last paragraphs of the CNN story are important, and this will form the crux of the defense.

The one who led the stack into the room that day had previously been engaged in the battle for Fallujah.  The protocol was to toss in a fragmentation grenade, and follow with a stack of four Marines (a “fire team”), one whose billet it is to carry the SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon).  This day, the SAW gunner happened to be the one experienced from Fallujah, and who led the stack.

As I have pointed out before, this protocol does not distinguish between friend and foe.  There is no capability with this tactic to delineate a combatant from a potential noncombatant.  There can never be.  It happens far too quickly.  If our rules of engagement involve Marines and Soldiers hesitating to attempt to ascertain combatants from potential noncombatants, the insurgents will learn this and use it to their advantage.  Marines and Soldiers died in Fallujah as a result of room clearing operations, and many more would have died had this been the protocol.

There is another option if there are known noncombatants in a room.  The decision can be made not to engage in room clearing operations against that target.  Simply drive or walk away.  But if the decision is made that enemy fire is coming from a room and the room must be cleared, the sad truth is that, using these necessary tactics, the occupants of the room will die.  The answer to issues such as this in the future is not to change the rules of engagement resulting in more danger for U.S. troops.  The answer is to not engage in the operations to begin with.

Now to what we know with certainty.  Again, I have followed to story, and the assertion that the Time magazine article “picked holes in the Marine Corps’ account” is flatly wrong and just plain silly.  The Time magazine article, like most of the ones since then that have discussed the Haditha event, was pathetic.

Another thing we know with certainty is this.  Just the act of bringing the Marines up on formal charges will cast a pall over other Marines currently in Iraq and make them question their their actions.  Conviction of these Marines will make it worse.  This is true no matter what the Marines did or didn’t do and no matter what happened that day.

**** UPDATE #1 ****

Fox News is reporting that Wuterich has been charged with thirteen counts of murder, for saying to his squad, “shoot first and ask questions later.”

I do not believe that he meant that his squad should fire on noncombatants.  Nor do I believe that his men thought that he meant that.  The words pertain to the tactic called “room clearing,” as discussed above.  In order words, they weren’t knocking on doors.  They were engaged in a military operation.

I predict that if Wuterich is convicted in this case, the tactic of “room clearing” will disappear from Marine training and operations, and they will be left with a scarcity of tactics for MOUT.

Prior: Haditha Roundup category.

**** UPDATE #2 ****

Eight Marines are charged, four with murder, the other four with dereliction of duty.

Lance Cpl. Sanick Dela Cruz, who was written about in the Marine Corps News as an unsung hero of an August 2004 battle with the forces of Muqtada al Sadr, is one of the Marines being charged with murder.

Just to be absolutely clear, these eight Marines, with the room clearing tactics utilized that day, were entirely consistent with the same tactics and techniques taught to this very day in SOI (School of Infantry) at Camps Lejeune and Pendleton, and at the training facility at Mohave Viper.  There are no other room clearing tactics taught at these locations for one simple reason; there are no other military room clearing tactics in existence.