Modern Trench Warfare

The First World War was, of course, famous for trench warfare. A protracted stalemate rather than a series of decisive battles. The politicians and monarchs were mostly content to "let it bleed" rather than be innovate enough to bring the war to a military or diplomatic end.

We are once again in trench warfare.

Since the president's troop surge in Iraq began this past February, we have all waited like gimps in an infirmary for General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker to descend from Mount Iraq. Toting, we hoped, stone tablets with directives with which to lead us to the Promised Land.

No such luck.

Petraeus's testimony before congress on Monday was a mixed bag. Its drama diluted by the slew of similar mixed bag reports recently released by the GAO and the ISFIAC among others. The gist of all:

Yes, the surge -- or is it, The Surge? -- is helping to quell violence. Though it's hard to gauge exactly to what degree as the violence in Iraq tends to decline in the heat of summer and measured year-to-year deaths for both civilian and military are actually higher than last July/August.

No, the Iraqi government has not taken advantage of whatever lull there is to strengthen its position and secure long term political gains.

So, then, from Petraeus nothing definitive which either side could use to force the debate here at home.

The president and his cronies can't say the continued bloodshed will produce tangible results. The Democrats and their lackeys can't say the surge -- The Surge -- is an abject failure.

And with the President having nothing politically at risk, with the Congress lacking the votes and the spine to truly force the issue...

Well, our men and women in uniform remain stuck in their trenches.

Petraeus says the 30,000 "surge" troops should stay in place until at least next July. Nearly 120,000 will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

The foreseeable future being the next decade.

Ironically, as the Petraeus/Crocker show goes on, President Bush is making double-super-secret trips to Iraq (double-super-secret despite the fact it's supposedly safer there now) where he's floating the idea of drawing down troops.

Genius!

Bush can now claim he'd like to reduce our footprint in Iraq, but Petraeus -- the one guy in the Gov. who's got even a shred of credibility -- is telling him he can't.

And the war goes on.

Settle in, folks. It's likely to be quite the wait before our Armistice day.

Comments

[1fliteup]

Stopping this war is very simple NO MORE FUNDS!!

[Brainoverbraun]

It is my personal belief that the US is responsible for the mess they made in Iraq and they should clean up the mess and not just go running home like a baby when the going gets tough. However, having said that, I do not understand the overwhelming air of helplessness in the US right now. You went to Iraq to "show them how Democracy is done" and yet you all act like you live under a Dictatorship. If you want change it is in your hands - boycott tv stations that show ads by war supporters, organize demonstration at candidate speeches and debates to make your position known, organize petition and letter writing campaigns to make clear to your respresenatatives that they serve at the pleasure of the people. These are just a very few suggesstions of what you can do. The fact that most Senators get voted in again and again no matter what kind of job they do tells me that Americans have the government they deserve and are completely responsible for the actions of that government!

[Bocababs]

When the MSM said that BUSH won this one on the Politics side of things, my first thought was and the troops lost. Great article today, John. It comes under the heading "War for Industrial Complex."

[oogabooga]

The Dems should be debating the coming withdrawal from Iraq, instead of how long we'll be there. The PNAC bandits stole the Florida election and made their puppet the president. Then they went on their war spree. They have spend $1 trillion of borrowed money on their rampages in Iraq and Afghanistand. And they still want to do Iran. When will a major Dem candidate have the guts to stand up and say these neocons are psychos and we have to get rid of them before they finish off our country? We're on the ropes, folks. We need a candidate with guts.

[wetman]

Vietnam veterans, my brothers, speak out. demand peace.

[daedalas]

it's all being set up for the coordinates cheney mapped out preWar--the oil fields. we will stay in Iraq til it's stable--bush and cohorts are after the oil.

that's why they won't back away, why there's been a huge construction for the Green Zone: we're there cuz the oil's there.

oil as the wmd

[MordechaiShiblikov]

The deep, bottomless, pitch black trench is the morally and intellectually corrupt character of George Wanker Bush who will allow the dying and the pain to continue so he doesn't have to admit to the world that he is the miserable, petty little screw-up that he is. When this abomination that is the occupation of Iraq is finally over, Bush, from the friendly confines of some golf course or bass fishing boat, will say that when he was president he was winning the war. It was the traitors and yellow bellies who betrayed the troops and stabbed them in the back. The MSM will say we told you so, and the dead will still be dead and we'll still hear their screaming in our ears.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

This blog is far better than the MSM.

Thank you all for such insightful analysis.

[Dangoodbar]

Will someone please tell me why Americans have not taken to the streets to protest this sorry state of affairs as they did almost 40 years ago and continued to do until the Vietnam War was ended.

It is not only the Democratic Congress that lacks the will to end this war.

[DGW]

This war and all future wars for the US will not stop until there is a mandatory draft. The protests of 40 years ago were because the average Joe was going to be forced to go over there and quite probably die. This war is being fought by volunteers, people who have chosen to fight there fore the American public is annoyed but not really mad.

The cost of the war is no big deal either. Thanks to Reagan and the initiation of deficit spending as a matter of course, Americans don't care that the future generations are going to pay for it. Americans live off their credit cards, why shouldn't the country? As long as they can get their SUV, cup of 5$ Starbucks and party all weekend, life is good and this Iraq thing is just background noise.

[WaterRat]

We compared Korea with WWI with its trenches, outposts, and shelling.
Whilst Iraq combat is more mobile, the morass we're in, certainly does resemble the same calamitous sickness that we endured in WWI.
The Iraq comparison with WWI is vividly and brilliantly captured by novelist C.S. Foster, when he tried to fathom out why the fighting in WWI wouldn't stop.
This one paragraph in Foster's "The General" should be required reading by all of the war lovers, especially Lindsey Graham, Hatch, McClain, Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al. None of them have any idea of what ground combat is.
As quoted by Chas. Messenger in "The Blitzkrieg Story."
" In some ways it was like the debate of a group of savages as to how to extract a screw from a piece of wood. Accustomed only to nails, they had made one effort to pull the screw out by main force, and now it had failed they were devising methods of applying more force still, of obtaining more efficient pincers, of using levers and fulcrums so that more men could bring their strength to bear. They could hardly be blamed for not guessing that by rotating the screw it would come out after the exertion of far less effort; it would be a notion so different from anything they had ever encountered that they would laugh at the man who suggested it."

[jm8094]

Oh, stop worrying about this war. Here's one of the headlines this morning: "Soldiers in Iraq back Petraeus testimony" (I guess they like being in Iraq, so why should we fret over it? They're pumped up and ready to fight, obviously.) The rest of us need to go about our business and forget about it (most Americans did around March 20, 2003).

When will the war end? One key benchmark will be when the Oil Law is enacted.

Bottom line: the U.S. is not leaving Iraq in our lifetimes (think Korea). So deal with it.

[coloneblog]

The Democrat controlled Congress needs to punish Cheney and bush. Thanks to Cheney/bush, I'm afraid the US is going to have a major presence in Iraq for decades and that thousands more people will likely die. It's going to drain us militarily, in our humanity and in our treasure. To shorten this debacle, the Democratic Congress has to rise-up now to punish Cheney/bush. The best way to do that is to legislate an Iraq War Tax, the burden falling on America's richest to pay for this ongoing war retroactive back to March 2003. We have to stop allowing Cheney and bush to stop charging the war on our national credit card and pay for it with today's dollars by sending the War bill directly to those who have benefited from Cheney/bush policies. This action will dramatically speed-up a downward trend in this foolish war. The Congress should be challenged to put this war on a "pay as you go" basis. Charging the War makes it too easy for Cheney/bush.

[MajorKong]

Mr. Ridley I found this post to be a breath of fresh air.

Listening to the political dialogue these days, one would think that all of recorded history took place between 1938 and 1945.

[Hemingway1312]

Mr. Ridley has written a lucid and insightful argument which, sadly, will hold true at least until early 2009 and far beyond that if a Republican wins the Presidency next year because Congressional Democrats are never going to take the risk of refusing to fund the war. Joe Biden is the epitome, vehemently urging that we must always fund the war in order to send better armor and equipment to our troops, trench warfare though it is.

As a Vietnam Vet who afterward joined Vets Against the War, I know why this all-volunteer army is the President and the pro-war Congressmen's trump card. In the late '60's when nearly everyone serving with me fully understood we were sacrificing our bodies and sanity in an egregious military mistake, we would invariably hear career officers and Non-Coms ("lifers") reply:
"Sure it's a stupid, hopeless war, but it's the only war we've got." .

General Petraeus and those many thousands of volunteer troops who regularly give Pres. Bush standing ovations know that without a war the career military are must endure being perceived as Sgt. Bilko types. Their esteem and massive levels of funding are totally dependent on risking what they believe is a reasonable level of casualties.

Therefore, if Congress does stop funding the war before the 2008 election, the outraged protests from Generals on down to multi-tour sergeants will be loud and vitriolic. Unlike Vietnam, we're not going to see mainly draftees gratefully coming home. Soon, numerous former officers and Non-coms would be running for Congress against those politicians who "sold them out" just when their brilliant surge had victory in Iraq nearly within their grasp.

Then, another nightmare WWI comparison will eventuate when these extremists ride their fictional "stab in the back" into power. That's how it was done in Germany following The Great War, and they didn't even have Foxnews to help them perpetrate it.

[yungturk39]

You nailed it on the head.

You can't call it a "surge" much less a "success" if the increased numbers of troops will remain in place indefinitely, or as the White House disingenuously puts it, "once the situation on the ground allows".

I don't think any reasonable person was expecting anything different from the vaunted Petreus report than what was delivered, which begs the question why some politicians bothered waiting for it in the first place. If you think we've wasted enough resources on Iraq, then that's all there is to it. General Petreus and his "surge" are just a continuation of this fraud, and his self-graded report card a ridiculous waste of everyone's time.

[Opus007]

Yung- good post. especially love "self-graded report card" !