At least twenty-one Marines on a foot-patrol were close enough together to be either hurt or killed by one IED? That doesn't make sense. It reminds me of the comments by William Lind on the last occasion similar to today's:
In On War #130, I raised the question of why we
are doing sweeps in Iraq when the history of counter-insurgency tells
us sweeps don’t work. I was motivated to write that column by the death
of fourteen Marines in one Amtrack during a sweep conducted by 3/25,
Cleveland’s Marine Reserve unit.
The previous day, 3/25 had lost six men, two sniper
teams, under circumstances that were unclear. I recently received information
on that incident that raises a very important question, a question with
strategic, not merely tactical significance. I was told (not by anyone
in 3/25) that the six Marines were ambushed and killed by the Iraqi troops
they were attached to.
Let me say up front that I cannot confirm this report.
Because I cannot confirm it, I am using it not to make a point but to
raise some questions. The questions are, did this happen? If it did,
why were the American people not told? And – this is the question with
strategic importance – how often is this happening in Iraq today?
The reason the question has strategic meaning is
that the Bush administration’s strategy, if it can be called that, for
avoiding outright defeat in Iraq is to build up the Iraqi armed forces
and police until the war can be turned over to them. If those same Iraqi
forces are attacking American troops on a fairly frequent basis, that
is a significant piece of evidence the strategy is not working.
History suggests that it was never very likely to
work. Over and over, invaders have tried to raise proxy armies to do
much of the fighting for them. Only a minority of the troops Napoleon
used to invade Russia were French; most were coerced from reluctant
“allies” the French had previously defeated, like Prussia. Not surprisingly,
as soon as it could get away with it, the Prussian corps went over to
the Russians.
World War II offers a similar lesson. Hundreds of
thousands of Russians taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht changed sides.
Many were absorbed into regular German units as Hiwis, “willing helpers.”
Others formed a whole separate pro-German Russian Army under a Russian
general, Vlasov. As a friend in Washington recently said, compared to
“our” Iraqi forces, the Vlasov Army looked pretty good. But like most
such forces, when faced with real combat, it and the Hilfswillige melted
away.
Of course, there is also our own experience in Vietnam.
Remember “Vietnamization?” It reflected the same strategy the Bush administration
is now following: build up the armed forces of a friendly local government
and let them do the fighting. Some ARVN units did fight. But the Vietnamese
on the other side had a whole lot more motivation. As Saigon is now
Ho Chi Minh City, will Baghdad one day be Sadr City or, worse, Osama
City? I seem to see the Clio nodding “yes.”
If the American public is to assess whether or not
we are succeeding in Iraq, it needs to be told when Americans are attacked
by the “friendly” Iraqi government forces they are working with. Again,
I cannot confirm that this happened to the six snipers from 3/25. But
if it did happen and the public was not told, the Bush administration
will have been caught in yet another lie. That, too, has strategic significance
in a war we were lied into in the first place. If a strategy initially
based on lies must rely on more lies for its continuation, it is probably
not pointed toward success.
Other evidence already suggests that our attempt
to create our own Iraqi armed forces is not working. The police do an
excellent job of disappearing whenever the insurgents show up. Most
of the latest Iraqi Army recruits are (Kurdish) Pesh Merga or Shiite
militiamen who are putting on different uniforms while maintaining
their old loyalties. The insurgents have infiltrated everywhere:
Recently, U.S. forces have begun disbanding – sometimes forcibly –
the Iraqi National Guard we previously created because it has been
so thoroughly penetrated.
If, on top of this, our troops in Iraq are being
attacked frequently by Iraqi government troops, and this information
is deliberately being withheld from the American people, the crystal
ball has turned black. So, President Rove, just what did happen to those
six snipers from 3/25?
