"Insurgents" and Game Theory
Dean
Marginal Revolution has an excellent game theory analysis of the Iraqi "insurgency"--and notes, quite correctly, that there is no clear policy direction for responding to most of them.
This is one of the reasons why I have little patience with those who look at terrorist attacks in Iraq and say that it's proof that we're failing. This is a ridiculous position, and the proof that it's ridiculous is that if you ask the people who say this what will make the terrorist attacks stop, they can give you no clear or specific answer. Well, some suggest one answer: "Get the U.S. out of Iraq now." But that would not stop the bombings, it would just get U.S. troops out of the way. Innocent Iraqis seeking freedom and human rights would be stuck facing these lunatics on their own--and the resulting death and chaos would be hideous, and would likely destroy any chance of democracy and respect for human rights taking root in that land.
As I have said many, many times over the years, it is extremely easy to look at a list of negative events and say "this is screwed up." The question is, what would make it not screwed up? What's your recommendation? Any idiot can find fault; what's the solution?
As I and others have noted, there honestly is no "insurgency." Daffyd Ab Hugh explains what insurgencies look like better than I can. Furthermore, we already know, both from opinion polls and the elections in February, that the vast majority of Iraqis do not support the "insurgents." The "insurgency" is a motley collection of lunatic fringe religious extremists hellbent on imposing theocracy, raging young men with no coherent philosophy except hate, and the tattered remnants of the old fascist regime who want to see fascism returned.
This is what creeps some of us out so much: that some people are willing to apologize for these fascists and murderous fanatics as if they are the natural expression of everyday Iraqi attitudes. They aren't: most Iraqis hate them. The "insurgents" don't desire freedom for Iraq, they want to re-impose tyranny. It is a matter of both human rights and international security that they not be allowed to succeed.
As a former President once said, sometimes there are no easy answers, but there are simple ones. In this case, we fight a long and difficult war of attrition against the extremists while working as hard as we can to help a new, democratic, human-rights-respecting government take root.
If someone else has a better plan, I'd like to hear it.
* Update * By the way, if you ever needed proof that the Kosites and other apologists for the "insurgency" are creepy crypto-fascists, terrorist apologists, and hate-filled, ignorant cretins, Ron Brynaert will be happy act as living proof for you. Extra points for the incoherence and the shrieking rage there, Ron.
Related Posts (on one page):
- "Insurgents" and Game Theory
- The Phony Iraqi "Insurgency"
This is one of the few times I actually clicked on a nut-job link you provided, and I'm trying to figure out exactly what Ron's point was, other than the fact that he really, really dislikes you a whole bunch.
There are certain blogosphere sources that I'll rarely link: Daily Kos and Little Green Footballs top that list, because while they may often have interesting information, the hate-freak contingent they accumulate is just too strong for my stomach.
This is why, similarly, I will rarely link to WorldNet Daily, Democratic Underground, Free Republic, The Nation, The Drudge Report, Llew Rockwell, Lucianne Goldberg, or Front Page Magazine.
We have an enemy who hides behind civilians and whose main targets are women and children in restaurants, malls and on buses and who avoid direct combat even when going after military targets (USS Cole, Marine barracks in Lebanon, etc.)
Now, they're mostly fighting our military. That's genius. I mean, we could be chasing them around the world or having them come to us.
Bring-it-on after all.
They can (I just found out, while double-checking my memory) actually download this work from the Marines here.
In fact, I just downloaded it; it's in .pdf form.
The truth of the matter is that the United States has had more experience fighting guerrillas the past century and a half than nearly anyone else on the planet, with the possible exception of Great Britain. One of the common threads has always been that operations like this take time. You can bitch, complain, cavil, and fault-find all you like, but they take time.
I think part of the problem -besides a general ignorance of how things military generally work, or don't- is that people get their ideas about war from movies, wherein there's always a resolution by the end of the film. Good guys win, bad guys loose and (usually) get killed. Do movie makers do this to brainwash people? No. They do this because most people like happy endings.
So when it comes to judging the success or failure of things military, most folks (to a degree) unconciously use their only "experience" with war in movies as part of the metric. Needless to say, this results in some pretty screwy judgments.
Or maybe they're reading any and all anti-war stuff and figure if they can make Iraq look hopeless enough to enough Americans, the Yanks will leave and leave Iraq to the terrorists.