(AP\/Jacob <\/p>\n Why we can’t win<\/strong><\/p>\n Our We couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, the presence The reason we cannot win in Iraq is a simple historical Occupation simply doesn’t work, and never has, except Meanwhile our own troops are hunted like dangerous game, We are convinced that in today’s world not only are War used to be fought under the cover of distance and Starting with Vietnam, Americans found that their wars Today, things are a thousand times worse. Cameras are Electronic news collection and distribution, combined War is horrible – always has been. But in the The Israelis essayed the only winning format for modern We can’t win on the ground in Iraq, and the longer we U.S. Marine Pfc. Willis Tomblin, of Jackson, Ohio, reads mail from home and then burns it to prevent insurgents from collecting personal information about him, at his base in Karabilah, Iraq, seven miles from Syria, Friday, Dec. 9, 2005. (AP\/Jacob … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/burnmail.jpg\")
U.S.
\n Marine Pfc. Willis Tomblin, of Jackson, Ohio, reads mail from home
\n and then burns it to prevent insurgents from collecting personal information
\n about him, at his base in Karabilah, Iraq, seven miles from Syria,
\n Friday, Dec. 9, 2005. <\/em><\/p>\n
\n Silberberg)<\/em><\/p>\n
\n piece<\/a> on the growing similarities
\n between Iraq and Vietnam elicited some interesting comments<\/a>.
\n James lays a host of post-Vietnam geo-political ills to our precipitous
\n retreat,
\n while Chad<\/a> notes the presence of oil in Iraq makes it a different case
\n than Vietnam, which was purely political.<\/p>\n
\n of so much crucial oil in Iraq has maneuvered us into a situation were
\n we cannot win and we cannot walk away.<\/p>\n
\n fact, which has been well known since the Roman Empire regularly had
\n to put down tax rebellions and defiant vassal states. After winning
\n a war,
\n there are only two ways to deal with your defeated enemy. One, install
\n a government more aligned with your aims and requirements, either
\n a puppet government or a sympathetic local faction, and then leave. Two
\n utterly destroy the people, culture and infrastructure of the country
\n to a degree that insures they will never bother you again. That
\n includes killing men, raping women, razing villages, burning houses,
\n slaughtering livestock and basically not leaving stone piled on stone.<\/p>\n
\n in extremely short term emergency situations. ANY group of human
\n beings will instinctually resist and eventually hate outsiders
\n who come armed into their territory and tell them what to do, even if
\n they arrive as saviors from some greater evil. The longer the outsiders
\n stay, the more they will he hated. Resistance
\n will lead to attacks. Attacks will lead to self-defense, which
\n will produce brutality and non-combatant casualties. This in turn will
\n produce
\n martyrs, holy warriors, suicide bombers, orphaned children burning with
\n a white hot flame and dedicating their entire existence to making the
\n occupiers
\n pay.<\/p>\n
\n brutalized themselves by fear, paranoia and the brutality with which
\n they are forced to respond. They are shot at, blown up, hunted, haunted
\n and vilified, and then they are dumped back on America’s streets. The
\n full fruit of this misbegotten policy will not be borne for many years
\n to come.<\/p>\n
\n occupations doomed, but even prolonged military operations will prove
\n impossible to sustain. The reason is obvious – public exposure.<\/p>\n
\n darkness. "The fog of war" was more a lack of public access, and
\n of reliable real-time information on what was happening on the battlefield. During
\n our War of Independence it took at least 6 weeks for the news of each
\n battle
\n to get back to the
\n King of England and the British public, and at least as long for their
\n King George to get his orders back to his troops in the field. Even during
\n World War II
\n the public got it’s war news from newspapers days later, and their images
\n from newsreels which were weeks old. <\/p>\n
\n were in their face, or at least in their living rooms. In addition to
\n the immediacy of the moving images invading their homes every evening,
\n the monumental war machine was leaking like a sieve. The Pentagon Papers
\n exposed the rotten underpinnings of the war, and every time some particularly
\n sordid episode of war making turned up, like the Mai Lai massacre, there
\n seemed to be witnesses, cameras, and recordings around.<\/p>\n
\n in every pocket and on every wall, and leaks more common than legitimate
\n news sources. The pictures smuggled out of Abu
\n Ghraib<\/a> prison and the
\n flag-draped coffins were the forbidden images of last year. Now,
\n the government is trying to keep the lid on its Gulag of secret prisons
\n in Europe and the Middle East. Here’s betting that 2006 sees the
\n first smuggled images and first-hand accounts from "Inside the CIA’s
\n Secret Torture Prison". An insatiable public needs to know.<\/p>\n
\n with the blogosphere and citizen journalism, have created a situation
\n in which it is almost impossible for an organization as large and unwieldy
\n as the US government to keep anything secret. <\/p>\n
\n past it was possible to keep it at arms length, and to romanticize and
\n paint it in patriotism and heroism. The reality of modern warfare
\n and reporting is that in anything slower than a lightning blitzkrieg
\n like the initial attack on Iraq it is
\n impossible
\n to
\n orchestrate the press coverage
\n – and normal people will not abide with graphic evidence of the savagery
\n and ugliness of warfare in their private lives on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
\n warfare in the Six-Day War of 1967. Anything much longer than that is doomed
\n to failure. It is becoming increasingly clear that the winning play would have been
\n to topple Saddam, and then withdraw in a parade of praise and bouquets,
\n to a nearby redoubt like Kuwait (we didn’t save it for nothing, after
\n all) ready to reintervene should a similar threat to our legitimate interests
\n arise in the future.<\/p>\n
\n stick it out the more we will be hated, vilified and estranged from
\n our moral
\n compass. Unfortunately,
\n we can’t afford to leave, either. Tomorrow we will try to explain
\n why, and the answer might surprise you.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"