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THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL
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The investigations of Marines for possible
murders of Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November and, more
recently, in Hamdaniyah, seem set to follow the usual course.
If anyone is found guilty, it will be privates and sergeants.
The press will reassure us that the problem was just a few "bad
apples," that higher-ups had no knowledge of what was going
on, and that "99.9%" of our troops in Iraq are doing
a splendid job of upholding, indeed enforcing, human rights.
It's called the "Abu Ghraib precedent."
The fact that senior Marine and Army leaders don't seem to know
what is going on in cases like this is a sad comment on them.
Far from being exceptional incidents caused by a few bad soldiers
or Marines, mistreatment of civilians by the forces of an occupying
power are a central element of Fourth Generation war. They are
one of the main reasons why occupiers tend to lose. Haditha,
Hamdaniyah and the uncountable number of incidents where U.S.
troops abused Iraqi civilians less severely than by killing them
are a direct product of war waged by the strong against the weak.
There are, of course, lesser causes as well, and it is on the
lesser causes that we tend to focus. Poor leadership in a unit
easily opens the door to misconduct. Overstretched, overtired
units snap more easily. Every military service in history has
included a certain percentage of criminals, and a larger percentage
of bullies. The fact that in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the insurgencies
are getting stronger, not weaker, generates increasing frustration
among our troops: nothing they do seems to yield any real progress.
The enemy's highly effective use of IEDs leads units that have
been hit often and hard to take their frustrations out on the
civilian populations, since they cannot find, identify or shoot
back at the people who are hitting them.
But all of these factors are secondary to the power of weakness
itself. We may find it easier to grasp what the power of weakness
is and how it works on us by first imagining its opposite. Imagine
that instead of facing rag-tag bands of poorly equipped and trained
insurgents, our Marines and soldiers in Iraq were in a very difficult
fight with an opponent similar to themselves, but somewhat stronger.
What would fighting the strong do for them? Being David rather
than Goliath, they would see themselves as noble. Every victory
would be a cause for genuine pride. Defeats would not mean disgrace,
but instead would demand greater effort and higher performance.
Even after a failure, they could still look at themselves in
the mirror with pride. Knowing they faced a stronger enemy, their
own cohesion would grow and their demand for self-discipline
would increase.
If the enemy's overmatch were
too great, it could lead our units to hopelessness and disintegration.
But a fight with an enemy who were stronger but still beatable
would buck us up more than tear us down on the all-important
moral level.
Now, to see the situation as it is, turn that telescope around.
Every firefight we win in Iraq or Afghanistan does little for
our pride, because we are so much stronger than the people we
are defeating. Every time we get hit successfully by a weaker
enemy, we feel like chumps, and cannot look ourselves in the
mirror (again, with IED attacks this happens quite often). Whenever
we use our superior strength against Iraqi civilians, which is
to say every time we drive down an Iraqi street, we diminish
ourselves in our own eyes. Eventually, we come to look at ourselves
with contempt and see ourselves as monsters. One way to justify
being a monster is to behave like one, which makes the problem
worse still. The resulting downward spiral, which every army
in this kind of war has gotten caught in, leads to indiscipline,
demoralization, and disintegration of larger units as fire teams
and squads simply go feral.
Again, this process is fundamental to Fourth Generation war.
Martin van Crevald has stressed the power of weakness as one
key, if not the key, to 4GW, and he is correct. It shows just
how far America's military leadership is from grasping Fourth
Generation war that its response in Iraq has been to order all
troops to undergo a two to four-hour "refresher course in
core values."
They are caught in a hurricane, and all they can do is spit in
the wind. The rest of us should get ready for the house to blow
down.
William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion,
is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the
Free Congress Foundation.
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