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| Bill Whittle on The Surge |
| 2008-01-04 |
| Mr.Bill gets sometimes too carried away for my taste with his own considerable writing talent, but this is some good stuff. The title in the original is "Forty Second Boyd and the Big Picture" Parts 1 and 2. This is the key section of Part 2: General Petraeus -- just perhaps -- is in the process of winning such a victory i.e., a "swordless" victory in Iraq. By brilliant diplomacy, deep understanding of the culture and the judicious use of gunpowder and money, it appears he has severed most of the Sunni tribes from al Qaeda and used them as "Awakening" peacekeeping militias against their former allies. General Petraeus is not fighting the last war; he is fighting the next one. He did not arrive there and just hope for the best. He observed. He oriented. He decided. And he acted. And then he observed again to see what effect he had. And again. And again. To paraphrase the drill instructor in Forrest Gump, I'd support Petraeus for President if it wouldn't be a waste of such a damn fine general. This is not firepower. This is not attrition. This is, rather, an intelligent, delicate, sophisticated, maneuver-based strategy. A light, but sometimes deadly touch. Fingertip control. Water flowing downhill, into the cracks which our enemy cannot fill. If this continues, Gen. Petraeus will have walked into the camp of the enemy and used his own sword against him. That is a profound species of victory. You can not put a value on the power of an idea such as the one that drives Gen. Petraeus' "Awakening" strategy. A man's ultimate motivation is to provide for his family. A man, when all is said and done, is powered by nothing more or less then the desire to make his family safe and proud of him. "Awakening" is working because most Iraqis now have come to the conclusion that we are not there to steal their oil or their land and that the average man may cooperate with us without compromising his honor or the respect of his family. As our side of the scale rises, they are confronted with an ever more desperate al Qaeda whose decision loop lags further behind us every day. Desperate, they become more cruel. For American infidels to sail halfway across the world and win the hearts and minds of Muslims when they themselves cannot, is a tremendous shock to them. Why, I suppose someone like Katie Couric might even call it a Grim Milestone. Ouch, that's a twelve-stitch cut there. When Osama bin Laden launched the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, he explained in a video to his own followers that it was because America was a paper tiger too afraid to take casualties, and that defeating The Great Satan would be even easier than defeating the Soviets. "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse," he said. Screech: "I tole him not to say that. I tole him." I wonder if our illegal, immoral, unilateral cowboy adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq may have tempered this view somewhat. This Great Saladin is now reduced to living in a cave, calling for the end of Global Warming and begging for recruits to fight in Iraq. Now available from Rantburg Books: "REMF: A Military Biography of Osama Bin Laden." |
| Posted by:Matt |
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| Posted by: Glung McGurque2454 2008-01-04 22:24 |
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| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-01-04 21:42 |
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| Posted by: Frank G 2008-01-04 19:16 |
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| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2008-01-04 17:33 |
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| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-01-04 14:33 |
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| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-01-04 07:54 |