Psst…Mr. Bush…It’s 90% Politics, 10% Military

The war against Saddam Hussein is rapidly being lost.  The U.S. is taking a beating in foreign press, most notably by al Jazheera.  It’s not just the military action – it’s the politics of the situation.  The U.S. is making little to no effort on the political front, save for the daily photo-op cum rant fest by Bush.

The underlying problem: the Bush Administration only listens to what they want to hear, not the entirety of the message. 

Michael Ledeen (previously bashed here today for blowing off the American public’s sensitivity to casualties) made the point best:

…Ledeen said his main critique of the war so far is not on military matters. Instead, he said, the administration should have treated the conflict as "90 percent political" and 10 percent military…

Why aren’t the Bushies listening, particularly to one of their own?

Kurdish military strategist Noshirwan Mustafa points out that the Kurds were able to defeat the Iraqi army in 1991 by attacking the source of its power: the branch of the ruling Baath Party, the local offices of the Iraqi intelligence, military intelligence, and security services.

This is key to the popular rebellion on which the U.S. military plans counted on so heavily.

Without these crushed, the local civilian population will not be free to rise up and remove the remnants of the Iraqi army.  It’s critical to political re-empowerment of the Iraqi people that first they feel empowered to rid themselves of their current government.

As they did in other towns and cities in 1991, the Kurds targeted these four institutions in Kirkuk. "If you can crush them," Mustafa says, "you can control the cities."

This would shorten the time line on the war substantially, reducing both military and civilian casualties and substantially improving the political position of the U.S.

Further, Mustafa says the lack of attack on the political front inside Iraq affects military outcome:

Mr. Mustafa is critical of other aspects of the US battle plan, asserting that the US has allowed the Iraqi leadership to maintain internal communications, has only belatedly targeted the country's mass media, and so far has neglected the "political dimension."

"Until now, the Iraqi population has no [reason for] confidence that this is a permanent change of the political system," Mustafa says

If the native-born people tell you this and have experience to back it up, why won’t the U.S. military and the Bush Administration listen?

Or is this just another example of “incestuous amplitude”-induced blindness at work?

5:29:01 PM    comment []

Missing Iraqi student…

Where am I?  am I in the U.S. or in some fascist dictatorship?  or is this one big, ugly Twilight Zone episode in which I’m now living?

One of the scary parts of this post isn’t just the missing student.  It’s the implication that the U.S. Department of Education may have ordered eradication of anti-war speech in schools.  As if it’s not already bad enough there’s insufficient money and initiative to teach social studies and history properly.

I may have to give serious thought to pulling my kids out of the school system here and home schooling them.

Assuming the government lets me do that…

UPDATE -- 30-MAR-03 4:40 PM --

As noted below in comments by Neva, the link above is not working.  I honestly don't know how I came upon the link; it was something I tripped across two days ago.  If you have access to LiveJournal, you may be able to pull it up.  I'll try my best to backtrack and find access to the site linked above, if at all possible.  Thanks for your patience.

Another interesting source of feedback on the current climate in the Detroit area: posts at Detroit News. 

UPDATE -- 30-MAR-03 6:30 PM --

After picking my way back through to the blog linked above, I'm pretty certain the post is a casualty, hidden now due to its content.  What a damned shame that any of us have to sanitize the truth -- particularly when there are young people at risk.  In this case, two losses: a teenager gone missing, who's now separated from his school and the teenagers who may have read the blog in question who now see an adult clamming up out of fear.

2:50:49 PM    comment []