Fort Knocks (Or, "Your House Is My House" -- Part II)
I took a little heat a week and a half ago for raising the issue of the way U.S. troops were treating homes and property in Fallujah (Original post). While presenting an image of a couple soldiers sleeping in an occupied home, I asked what was appropriate in terms of making use of the property.
As an example of the response, a blog based in England called "th-inkwell" had this to say:
I'll tell you what's goddamned appropriate. Anything - ANYTHING - that is necessary to win. It's appropriate to blow craters in the city, it's appropriate to reduce walls to cement dust, it's appropriate to storm mosques and schools, hospitals and private homes - in fact, anywhere a murdering group of thugs is hiding - and kill or subdue them, in that order. If the building happens to sustain damage, it's one of the costs of victory.
I understand the tendency to say that "war is war" and that I'm being naive. The problem, however, is that I was not simply basing the judgment of the treatment of property and infrastructure in Fallujah on my own sensibilities. Rather, it was based on terms established by the military itself. I'm sorry to contradict the folks who saw this engagement in terms of "win at all costs" (or, "reduce the place to dust"), but it was the expressed strategy of our own forces in Fallujah to, above all, secure the ultimate goodwill of the local (non-insurgent) population.
There were numerous statements supporting these objective in news accounts and Pentagon briefings leading up to the attack. For more concrete evidence of this mindset, however, one might also refer to the military's own "Counterinsurgency Operations" field manual. Here are some excerpts:
In order to defeat an insurgent force, US forces must be able to separate insurgents from the population. At the same time, US forces must conduct themselves in a manner that enables them to maintain popular domestic support. Excessive or indiscriminant use of force is likely to alienate the local populace, thereby increasing support for insurgent forces. (From Section 2-66 -- Rules of Engagement.)
Judicious application of the minimum destruction concept [is recommended] in view of the overriding requirements to minimize alienating the population. (For example, bringing artillery or air power to bear on a village from which sniper fire was received may neutralize insurgent action but will alienate the civilian population as a result of casualties among noncombatants.) (From Section 3.43 -- Defensive Operations.)
Infrastructure protection and repair/rehabilitation (for example, electrical power and water, electrical pole repair teams) are critical both for improving the populations’ physical well-being as well as for the positive psychological effect it creates. The electrical grid is a good confidence target (very visible), and there is no effect equivalent to the lights going out. “Turning on the lights” in Port-au-Prince contributed to reducing criminal activity (as measured by the murder rate) by about 40 percent in a two-month period (observed in Haiti). (From Section C-37 - Lessons Observed During Past Operations.)
So, how successful was the military in adhering to its own set of terms (including protection of that vital electrical grid)?
According to this report in Wednesday's NYTimes:
The full extent of the damage inflicted by American bombs, tanks and artillery is only now becoming apparent. The number of buildings destroyed in the fighting is far higher than 200, the figure released last week by the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, engineers and commanders say. The city's power lines are so badly damaged that in most of the city, they will have to be ripped out and rebuilt from scratch - a project that will take six months to a year, American engineers say. Damage to the city's water and sewer pipes, already badly corroded before the invasion, is milder but will also take months to repair.
And then, there's this from Reuters today:
More than 200,000 people who fled Falluja ahead of the U.S. offensive have yet to return and many are in desperate need of aid, with temperatures in Iraq heading toward freezing, a new U.N. emergency report says.
Figures compiled by the International Organization for Migration show that 210,600 people, or more than 35,000 families, took refuge in towns and villages around Falluja in the build up to the U.S. assault, launched on Nov. 8.
Nearly all those people remain outside the city, where the population was estimated at 250,000-300,000 before the attack.
U.S. forces are maintaining a cordon around Falluja as sporadic fighting continues and are preventing refugees from returning, saying they want to stagger the return so that basic facilities can be restored before people go home.
Most areas of the city remain without power, water, sewage and other basic services and it is expected to take much longer than previously thought to start reconstruction as hundreds of buildings are completely destroyed.
On the other hand, perhaps my friend in England is right -- meaning that the military's "hearts and minds" strategy was just a smoke screen. Certainly, it wouldn't surprise me if the true intention of Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld was to skip all that messy "nation building" business, and just turn the entire Sunni Triangle into a parking lot.
Just one more point: Because I'm on the "image beat," I've been very disappointed in the minimal visual coverage of the devastation in Fallujah (at least, so far). Gratefully, the NYTimes has been a notable exception. Here, for example, is a slideshow of the aftermath from their Multimedia section (link).
(photo:-- AFP/Mehdi Fedouach on Wed Dec 1)
Your blog is more of a must read since you were 'discovered' a week or so ago. The writing has become more disciplined. It used to be I'd sit in the choir and be preached at. The extra care is appreciated.
Posted by: Brian | Dec 03, 2004 at 01:48 PM
Brilliant!
Thanks.
Posted by: Haven | Dec 03, 2004 at 07:27 PM
Interesting but the winning the whole hearts and mind thing is so 2003, if you know what I mean. I think we're in the "blow shit up because we cant think of a better strategy" right now, and as far as this goes, laying waste to Fallujah seems pretty succesful. Sadly, it won't win the war, but it sure looks good on TeeVee to a lot of folk.
Posted by: Pounder | Dec 03, 2004 at 08:42 PM
mmmmmm the military manual seems to have gone and let history influence it. something th-inkwell doesn't seem to let get in his way.
Posted by: Terrible | Dec 05, 2004 at 06:35 PM
Since we allowed a large part of Iraqi history, culture, medical equipment, etc., to be looted after we "won", why is our appropriation of other people's property an issue now?
Posted by: vachon | Dec 05, 2004 at 06:45 PM
Yet another pile of anti-American propaganda masquerading as "analysis".
What does analysis do? One thing is provide context. For instance, one might compare the damage in Fallujah to other instances of the USA military taking cities, like, say Aachen in WWII. Alternatively, one might have looked at other recent urban battles involving local rebellions such as Grozny or Hama. Hama's a particularly interesting and relevant case, although I doubt you've heard of it. It's an excellent antidote for Middle Eastern complaints about the unprecedented brutality of the USA.
If historical context wasn't a good idea, perhaps some data allowing an estimate of the relative damage. So 200 buildings were destroyed. Is this out of 201? 2,000? 2,000,000?
There's also the exploration of plausible alternatives (which is precisely what my analysis here is doing). For instance, what alternatives existed to an assualt on Fallujah? Surrender? Allowing the continued existence of an enemy armed camp that was a supply and rally point for much of the violence in Iraq?
But of course no "analysis" here would be complete without gratuitious yet ridiculous shots at the Bush administration. If the strategy was to create parking lots and "just break stuff", why didn't we just send in the B-52s and do so? Or do like we did to Tokyo and kill over 100,000 people in a single night by burning them to death? Or use artillery from outside the city? If the goal were parking lots, they'd already be parking lots.
In fact, the USA took casualties and spent enormous efforts to minimize the damage, precisely as described in the military manual entries you cite, which you'd realize if you spent any time analyzing instead of digging for anti-Bush factoids.
The damage in Fallujah, compared to other similar actions (see above) was remarkably light. It will go down in military history books as a historical victory, a turning point in the history of warfare. I actually like the analogies to the Tet Offensive, because of course that marked the end of the Viet Cong. The indigenous Communist forces in South Vietnam were never again a significant factor. But that military action was spun by pundits in to a defeat, exactly the same way you are working on Fallujah.
Now there would be a good piece of media analysis for you. Why didn't the NY Times nor you provide any of the context I mentioned above? Why no comparative figures, only descriptions of damage? Surely, if the goal were to enable readers to understand the situation, some sort of yardstick would be essential. Yet none is provided. Laziness, stupidity or deliberate misdirection? Analyze that.
P.S. Perhaps I'm judging the NY Times too harshly, and it's just a form of lamentation rather than the kind of ahistorical contextless "analysis" your post is.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy | Dec 06, 2004 at 02:26 PM
hi there
could you please let me know which U S State
fort Knocks is in please in need to know for a
quiz i am taking part in
thank you for time in this matter
Cheers
Dave Barnett
Posted by: Dave Barnett | Mar 09, 2005 at 02:12 AM
Anything? *Anything*? Well if we will do *anything* to win, let's do what'll actually work.
Hand control over their economy and their resources (uh, OIL) back to them! Get the foreign workers out, the foreign corporations, the foreign "investments" which are no more than looting.
Put them back to work rebuilding their own country, with a massive socialised WPA-style project. Spend American money. Hire IRAQI contractors, not Americans.
Idle hands are the insurgent's (and the mullah's) workshop. What's the unemployment rate in Iraq right now?
Uh, yeah, I thought so.
You can't possible kill enough bad guys, because the very act of killing them creates more bad guys: their entire families who shake their fist at the sky, take up arms, and vow revenge for your insult to their family.
How can you not understand this? Insurgents kill one guy in your squad, what are you filled with? Hate and the desire to avenge his death. Put that boot on the other foot now, and you understand why this war is so stupid and unwinnable.
Posted by: Publius | May 13, 2005 at 11:55 PM