We Broke It, We Own It

Billmon once again produces a definitive discussion of the pros and cons of an immediate withdrawal from Iraq by the U.S.

We are faced with some hard decisions ahead. What happens if we beat a fast retreat? Will Iraq collapse into a complete civil war with ethnic cleansing and massive civilian death and suffering? Will we have triggered a holacaust of destruction with our irresponsible effort to remove Saddam from power with trumped up intelligence and everchanging justification of what we are trying to accomplish? Who knows the extent of carnage that will result.

What will happen if we contiue our stubborn struggle to suppress the insurgency? We know we will kill more civilians. We know that more Americans will die and be maimed. Regardless of our presence it is getting worse and most likely will continue to do so. How long are we to hang on before we give up and leave?

Is there anyone who will not admit that we are responsible for all the past destruction and all the future destruction? The majority of Americans foolishly supported the invasion and many still trumpet the mistaken and misleading "Support The Troops" mantra.

Billmon has come to the same painful realization that I have. Something has to give. Regardless of the outcome and the probable disastrous results we really have no choice but to recognize the fruitlessness of trying to make a bad situation better with more violence and death at the hands of American soldiers. It's like when the firefighters arrive on scene with the building already too involved to try and attempt to put out the fire. All there is to do is try and keep the fire contained and let it burn itself out.

We have set the middle east on fire and poured fuel on it for two years with our agression and lack of a coherent strategy. It is fully involved and there is nothing left to do put pull back and protect, as best we can, the exposures. There is no upside here.

To quote Billmon:

We have to get out -- not because withdrawal will head off civil war in Iraq or keep the country from fallling under Iran's control (it won't) but because the only way we can stop those things from happening is by killing people on a massive scale, probably even more massive than the tragedy we supposedly would be trying to prevent.

Defeat, in other words, isn't the only alternative to failure. It could also lead to the kind of warfare that CIA counterinsurgency specialist Michael Scheuer warned about in his book Imperial Hubris:

Progress will be measured by the pace of killing and, yes, by body counts. Not the fatuous body counts of Vietnam, but precise counts that will run to extremely large numbers. The piles of dead will include as many or more civilians as combatants because our enemies wear no uniforms.

Killing in large numbers is not enough to defeat our Muslim foes. With killing must come a Sherman-like razing of infrastructure. Roads and irrigation systems; bridges, power plants, and crops in the field; fertile plants and grain mills -- all these and more will need to be destroyed to deny the enemy its support base. Land mines, moreoever, will be massively reintroduced to seal borders and mountain passes too long, high, or numerous to close with U.S. soldiers, As noted, such actions will yield large civilian casualties, displaced populations, and refugees.

Again, this sort of bloody-mindedness is neither admirable nor desirable, but it will remain America's only option so long as she stands by her failed policies toward the Muslim world.