Let’s look at some of Petraeus earlier bullshit, where he gave us a ‘rosy picture’ implying we should stay the course. I guess all those Iraqi’s he trained turned out so well, that the surge wasn’t needed..

And I love his Jan. 2005 comment where he let slip that: “Iraqis must provide for their own security. The coalition cannot impose a peace on Iraq, nor can force make democracy flourish”.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3158
September 14, 2003 . . ..

Rumsfeld: My problem is the people who are saying we need more troops are not giving any good reasons. There’s no substance to their arguments, they’re just saying we don’t have enough. Our military people say we do, and they then explain why they think they do, and why they want the effort on increasing the Iraqi capability. So I listen to the two sides of the argument. I would increase the number of troops in five minutes, if people would come to me and make a decent argument, but all I see is critics saying, you need more troops. Something has to be wrong. . ..

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=26181
June 28, 2004 – Recent adjustments made to improve Iraqi security forces are working, a senior U.S. officer in Baghdad said June 27..

. . . “But, there are also areas where we see considerable success,” he pointed out. For example, he said, Iraqi security forces had months ago assumed a variety of important security tasks from coalition forces in the north and south of the country. . . .

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=1643
January 05, 2005. . ..

GEN. METZ: — and that’s because my good friend, Dave Petraeus, he’s supposed to put me out of business. And every time I see him I hug him and say, “Dave, you’ve got to put me out of business. I’m the Multinational Corps fighting here. You’re building the transition security capability — get on with it.” And he is. And we really are a team. We’re good friends. But I look to him to memorize all those numbers. And when he gets them trained and they become tactical control, take on to the Multinational Corps, we employ them and they are good troops. . ..

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=24406
Jan. 10, 2005 – The U.S. Army general in charge of training Iraqi forces said here today that the job is tough, but it is a mission that must be accomplished before coalition forces can leave Iraq..

. . . Iraqis must provide for their own security, Petraeus said. The coalition cannot impose a peace on Iraq, nor can force make democracy flourish. . . .

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=31204
March 14, 2005 . . ..

“It’s making a big difference. You see it in Fallujah, you see it in Baghdad,” he said. “You also see it in places like Tikrit and Mosul.” . . ..

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=16991
Aug. 2, 2005 – The chief of the coalition command charged with training Iraqi security forces said “enormous progress” has been made in the effort. . ..

. . . Given continued progress and acceptable conditions, Petraeus said, the United States may be able to reduce troop presence in the country next year, noting this depends on political progress as well as progress in the security capabilities of Iraqi forces. . ..

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=18152
Oct. 5, 2005 – The Iraqi security forces have made enormous progress over the past 16 months, the U.S. Army general who oversaw their training for more than a year said during a Pentagon news conference today. . ..

The general said it is a mistake to fixate on the Level 1 unit. He said Americans should to expand their understanding of the readiness levels and what each unit brings to the fight. . ..

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=18157
Bush Pleased With Progress of Iraqi Security Forces.

Bush spoke to the press following a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq. Rumsfeld and the generals briefed the president on the status of Iraqi forces and coalition operations in Iraq.

Submitted by James Craven on September 2, 2007 – 8:49pm.

Petraeus: Another “Go-To-Guy” for Bush (Part 1)

Please read the new, Updated, Official, “U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Handbook” written by Lt. Generals David H. Petraeus U.S. Army and James F. Amos USMC(Skyhorse Publishing, 2007 or U. Chicago Press, 2007). You will see why, apparently, Petreus was really selected and given his present assignment by Bush. You will also see that his “Report” on the status/effectiveness of the “surge” in Iraq and where to go from here, expected soon this month, was really already written a long time ago.

The whole Bush Family, in addition to being known for being control freaks and obsessed with their image in history, is also known to be big on short-term loyalty to friends and timeless vengeance against enemies. They do not like having anyone around them even capable of coming up with–let alone expressing–an opinion contrary to theirs. After all, if your position, wealth and power is a Calvinist-based and “Predestined” manifestation of God’s Will, then how could “God’s servant”–or his views on anything–be wrong? And how could any contrary opinions be right?

It appears they got another “Go-To-Guy” in Petraeus.

The very opening of the “Counterinsurgency (COIN) Handbook” (HB), which it says is updated and official doctrine for both the U.S. Army and USMC is quite revealing about the military, DOD and the HB authors themselves.

“This field manual/Marine Corps warfighting publication establishes doctrine (fundamental principles) for military operations in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment. It is based on lessons learned from previous counterinsurgencies and contemporary operations. It is also based on existing interim doctrine and doctrine recently developed.” p.xiii

And further:

“Counterinsurgency operations generally have been neglected in broader military doctrine and national security policies since the end of the Vietnam War over 30 years ago. This manual is designed to reverse that trend. It is also designed to merge traditional approaches to COIN with the realities of a new international arena shaped by technological advances, globalization and the spread of extremist ideologies–some of them claiming the authority of a religious faith. p. xiii

This is amazing. U.S. COIN doctrine has not been updated for some 30 years, since the end of the Vietnam War (What about COIN doctrines of U.S. allies?), yet U.S. Forces have been sent, in the past, and are being sent as we speak, into new present insurgencies as COIN forces, not only without sufficient military forces, weapons and supporting institutions (according to this Handbook), but also without current COIN Doctrine. They are in the present, as they were in the past, “experimental subjects” to provide the lessons for a new COIN doctrine that was not developed for their benefit over a period of 30 years during which time the U.S. has been involved, and is involved in many COIN operations in many places.

What is really amazing about this Handbook, and this really reveals the authors as “Go-To Guys” and Bush Administration apologists, is that it takes some of the basic classic COIN errors and long-known COIN “lessons” ignored by the U.S. Administrations in past and present insurgencies against the U.S. and its puppet regimes, caused partly by a lot of U.S. Imperial hubris, and lays them out not as gross and costly–in blood and treasure–errors, incompetence and even crimes, but as inevitable aspects of any insurgency:

“One common feature of insurgencies is that the government that is being targeted generally takes awhile to recognize that an insurgency is occurring. Insurgents take advantage of that time to build strength and gather support. Thus, counterinsurgents often have to ‘come from behind’ when fighting an insurgency. Another common feature is that forces conducting COIN operations usually begin poorly. Western militaries too often neglect the study of insurgency. They falsely believe that armies trained to win large conventional wars are automatically prepared to win small, unconventional ones. In fact, some capabilities required for conventional success–for example, the ability to execute operational maneuver and employ massive firepower–may be of limited utility or even counterproductive in COIN operations. Nonetheless, conventional forces beginning COIN operations often try to use these capabilities to defeat insurgents; they almost always fail.” p. xv

This is priceless; especially with the somber, authoritative, self-assured and bureaucratese-riddled tone (that know-it-all zealots love so much) in which it is written. So all the Bush Admin. screw-ups, incompetence and even crimes, along with previous costly–and long-well-known–lessons not having been learned and applied, are to be seen as simply inevitable or highly likely aspects of initial stages of all insurgencies. They are not to be seen as mistakes, incompetence and even crimes. Specifically, the launching and executing a pre-emptive, illegal, aggressive war (what 11 Nazis were hanged for at Nuremberg)all without:

a) sound pretexts, objective intelligence, multilateral support and truth rather than lies;

b) sufficient awareness of the nature, scope, depth, players and orders of battle of players in the conflict into which U.S. forces were being inserted;

c) proper force structures, equipment, doctrines, serious planning for sustained COIN operations, measures of progress and “success” and an exit strategy;

d) Domestic understanding of the reasons for and popular support/funding of likely necessary force structures, deployments, sacrifices, costs etc;

e) Commanders with serious COIN experience and integrity and capable of telling Bush what he needs to hear not what he wants to hear; and capable of resigning over principle and protecting their troops and the rule of Law;

f)authority and support in international law, institutions and multilateral political and military support;

g) Add your own here…

Check this out:

“Insurgents have an additional advantage in shaping the information environment. Counterinsurgents seeking to preserve legitimacy must stick to the truth and make sure that words are backed up by deeds; insurgents on the other hand, can make exorbitant promises and point out government shortcomings, many caused or aggrivated by the insurgency. Ironically, as the insurgents achieve more success and begin to control larger portions of the populace, many of these asymmetries diminish. That may produce new vulnerabilities that adaptive counterinsurgents can exploit” p. 1-3

So any failures of the handpicked Government of Iraq (in elections in which some Islamicist political parties and candidates were not allowed to run) are caused only by the inevitable early successes of the insurgents that occur in all insurgencies and not by the incompetence and lack of support for the Iraqi Government and U.S. forces supporting it. And even if the insurgents widen and deepen their spheres of operations and achieve more successes, this is also good news as they increasingly expose their ugly sides to the masses and will ultimately lose support. Either way, “staying the course” will eventually–and inevitably–produce light at the end of the tunnel that is not even a bigger trainwreck coming.

Petraeus and Amos write in their Forward:

“They [commanders] must ensure that their Soldiers and Marines are ready to be greeted with either a handshake or a hand grenade while taking on missions only infrequently practiced until recently at our combat training centers. Soldiers and Marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors…” p. v

What happened to the “cakewalk”? What happend to the welcoming of the liberators with flowers like the “liberation of Paris”? Damn, if this manual had just been written before the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and if those who launched them had read and understood it, better yet if they had not conspired, planned, launched and executed an illegal war and with insufficient forces and equipment, how many innocents on all sides would be alive today?

Further, do they not teach some international law at the War Colleges? Soldiers can never become “nation builders” as it takes long historical periods to build a nation. A nation, is a group of people who share: a) common and historically-recognized territory; b) common culture and language; c) common polity and institutions of governance; d) common economic life; e) common national identity, mechanisms for determining membership of the nation, and desire to remain as a nation. The most military forces can ever become is instruments of regime change of a given nation which, by the way, is specifically prohibited in international law (no nation, acting outside of legally recognized international institutions and mandates has legal “standing” to conduct “regime change” in/of another nation–for obvious reasons).

End part One

“While we’ve spent the last six months snarking about Friedman Units and complaining aimlessly about spineless Democrats, Petraeus has been slowly and methodically carrying out an extremely disciplined military campaign with a very precise goal: gaining support for David Petraeus and the surge.

“And it’s worked. Even though there’s been no discernible political progress, minimal reconstruction progress, and apparently no genuine decrease in violence, he’s managed to convince an awful lot of people that the first doesn’t matter, the second is far more widespread than it really is, and the third is the opposite of reality.”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/011978.php

For your information, the methodology they used is exactly the same as they have used in Bosnia and other conflict areas for which they were praised by some of the very same people who declared their Iraq studies invalid and criticized their methodology. Odd, isn’t it, how the critics of their Iraq studies were very pleased and satisfied when the very same people used the very same methodology in Bosnia and the Congo suddenly found the people, the methodology, and the results completely invalid when they produced uncomfortable results in Iraq.

I hesitate to say, that since we have consistently from day one been dropping DU on the citizens of Iraq, we no doubt should count in many more who have not died yet, but will, into the total. One death is too many, and yes this is a terrible subject… one that should haunt every man and woman who consider themselves a part of the human race. For this country is responsible for the horror that has been done in our name… We must continue to fight this man who would be king…

Passive methods such as that used by IBC are useful and worthwhile, but it is well established that they produce significant undercounts, for what should be obvious reasons. Far, far from all deaths, even all deaths due to violence, are reported in the media, particularly in a situation such as obtains in Iraq, where there is very strong and active “information management” by the Americans.

The most reliable count has been provided by researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University. They used methodology that is proven to provide the most accurate counts, and is considered the state of the art for mortality studies in conflict situations. Their latest study, published in October, 2006, produced an estimate of 650,000 “excess” Iraqi deaths, at least one third of those were caused by “coalition” – in other words, American – forces. The estimate of one third deaths at the hands of American forces is certainly an undercount because they did not count a death as American-caused if there was any doubt at all on the part of the reporting household. The number of deaths at the hands of American forces per unit time has increased over the four and a half years of occupation.

The current estimate extrapolated over time gives us a probable count of more than one million “excess” deaths. Given The Surge™, and the enormous increase in U.S. air strikes since the study was done, it is certain that the U.S. is causing more civilian deaths than ever. (Air strikes are notoriously indiscriminate, and cause very high civilian casualties.)