Reading some of the books that came out last year -- a year too late -- about the woeful mishandling of the Iraq occupation, one is left with the sad impression that the BushCo cabal were not the only ones who dropped the ball.
The Army did not cover itself with glory, in that it failed to secure facilities leading to the rampant looting, and with all too few exceptions completely balloxed the counterinsurgency. In part, this is because the Army has positioned itself to follow something very like the Powell doctrine. It is great at lining up the big guns to blow the other army to pieces. Counterinsurgency, however, calls for different tactics, doctrine, training and equipment.
And the impression gets made that the Army basically decided that they didn't want to do it.
And then I thought some more. And realized that the Army brass was right. They shouldn't be prepared to conduct counterinsurgency operations. Because they should never be asked to do it.
Counterinsurgency is the doctrine of a colonial empire. Insurgency is the way that an occupide country filled with people of a different language, tribe, color, race, culture, whatever, resists occupation and control by a foreign, emperial military force.
This is what happened with the French in Viet Nam. With the French again in Algeria. With the British in Malaysia. Even there, when the British "won" the insurgency, their reward was to be able to pack up and go home with pride.
So the real lesson from Viet Nam was not how to fight a counterinsurgency campaign, although we did learn that. It was that it is not only extremely difficult; it isn't worth it.
Just what the hell is the U.S. of A. doing acting like, or becoming, an emperial power? How can we be the world's policeman when the world doesn't want it to, and we are so bad at it?
THAT is the lesson of Viet Nam that the hubristis morons of the Bush administration ignored when they decided that they could step into a country and situation that they knew nothing about, and transform it. THAT is the lesson of Viet Nam that the Army ignored when it set up its half-assed occupation, replacing patrols through the bush of Viet Nam with patrols through the streets of Baghdad, neither of which have any point other than to draw fire so that the soldiers can respond, and, somehow, kill enough enemy that they'll run out.
But the Army KNOWS that this is a stupid way to run a war. That's why they didn't prepare for it. They figured out -- there are, after all, plenty of intelligent people in the military, even if not in the White House -- that the U.S. military makes a lousy occupying power, and even more important that it shouldn't become one.
But when military policy is run by people who like to play with real military units as if they were plastic pieces on a war-game table, simple lessons get lost. Lessons not only of how to do stuff, but what to do.
But we know all that. We know that BushCo and the Republicans do not support the troops, and could care less how many of our own they kill, so long as the war profits flow into the coffers of the corporations that sponsor their political campaigns. That's why amid all the rhetoric of leaving Iraq, the Iraqis look at the billions being spent on permanent bases, and know we are there to stay. That's why the military can't tell Bush what will work, and why, because he doesn't care.
Real counterinsurgency doctrine says that to be successful, you have to invest in training the troops to be part of the country, including learning the language and living among the people. And then it will take decades, and billions, before you get it right. And it doesn't make sense because much as Cheney and his imperialist goons would like to think it, America is not an empire and Americans don't want it to become one.
Army counterinsurgency policy is really the right one, the only one to have. And it can be summed up in one, simple, four-letter word: DON'T.