Fallujah -- "a bloody vaudeville show"
"Operation Phantom Fury" is the name the U.S. military has given to the operations in Fallujah this week and it seems appropriate. The troops going through the hard slog of taking the city appear to be facing phantoms.
U.S. planners seem to be fools. What did they expect? When we first invaded Iraq, U.S. planners anticipated that Hussein was preparing a massive last-ditch defense of Baghdad, with burning oil moats and chemical weapons attacks. Instead, the Iraqi army surrendered and Baathist loyalists simply disappeared into the shadows, waiting for the day to launch the insurgency our troops are now battling.
And in Fallujah, for weeks the preparations have been going on and the tough-guy talk from U.S. commanders and Allawi has been non-stop. Meanwhile, they just happened to delay entering the town until the weekend after the U.S. presidential election.
Ignoring all past behavior, U.S. planners expected a massive last-ditch defense of the city. Instead, it appears that the insurgent leaders left weeks ago along with most of their followers, leaving what has turned out to be a well-trained, but minimal sniper defense of the city.
Fallujah will be taken in the next few days. Of that, I have no doubt. And Fallujah must be taken if we intend to pacify the country. But once again the "U.S. planners" seem to be doing just enough inadequate and unimaginative planning to make sure U.S. troops are bogged down in a frenzied and deadly quagmire. And doing all they can to make sure that the rest of the country is not, in fact, pacified.
Increasingly, it feels as though U.S. actions in Iraq are no longer about "bringing democracy to the middle east," or even reconstructing the country. In fact, U.S. actions in Iraq no longer seem to be for the benefit of Iraqis at all, even as a show of strength to impress or to cow them. Rather, U.S. actions seem calculated to play well back home.
James Wolcott comes to a similar conclusion in reviewing Colin Powell's sad little performance the other day. It seems Colin likes his job after all, and decided to play Rumsfeld's Mini-Me by warning "old Europe" that the U.S. will continue to be "aggressive" in defending our interests. Unfortunately, Iraq isn't the only place the tough guy talk ain't working these days.
After watching our "Grand Coalition" stumble about in Iraq, European leaders now know that the U.S. can't back up the tough talk. We can't "go it alone." We can't frighten Turkey to follow us into hell any more than we could France and Germany. We can't back up the threats and insinuations of "consequences" for denying us what we want.
Wolcott quotes Emmanual Todd, a French demographer and author of After the Empire, describing the U.S. today as a "big bully," very good at attacking the shit holes of the world in order to put on a "show of force." And "show" it is. As Wolcott notes, though, that show is only fooling Americans.
Hell, the leaders of Iran, Syria, and North Korea aren't even quaking in their respective boots these days.
And Fallujah, writes Wolcott, is a perfect example of the "theater of operations" campaign the U.S. has become so intent on performing.
On this Veterans Day, we can only wish that our troops were directed by less cynical leadership and more intelligent "U.S. planners."
U.S. planners had expected to battle a massive insurgency in Fallujah, but much of the fighting has been against small teams of guerrillas. For American troops, the enemy is a shadow, flitting between balconies and down alleyways, shooting RPGs from crevices two blocks away, then disappearing.
After busting through neighborhoods in northeast Fallujah behind a line of armor Monday night, the 2-2 Task Force soldiers found themselves ahead of other troops in the city and taking fire from snipers hidden in the honeycomb of houses around them. Military intelligence reports suggest that the insurgents have left caches of weapons - mortar tubes, RPGs, stacks of AK-47 rifles - scattered in houses around town, waiting for them to run in and grab at a moment's notice.
Bullets pinged by the soldiers, and RPGs zipped overhead. Mortar rounds came flying down. Blasts of gunfire would begin with a loud, violent start, and just as soon be over.
"When the rounds come in, we have to take cover," said Sgt. Joseph Alvey. "By the time we come back up, they're gone."
U.S. planners seem to be fools. What did they expect? When we first invaded Iraq, U.S. planners anticipated that Hussein was preparing a massive last-ditch defense of Baghdad, with burning oil moats and chemical weapons attacks. Instead, the Iraqi army surrendered and Baathist loyalists simply disappeared into the shadows, waiting for the day to launch the insurgency our troops are now battling.
And in Fallujah, for weeks the preparations have been going on and the tough-guy talk from U.S. commanders and Allawi has been non-stop. Meanwhile, they just happened to delay entering the town until the weekend after the U.S. presidential election.
Ignoring all past behavior, U.S. planners expected a massive last-ditch defense of the city. Instead, it appears that the insurgent leaders left weeks ago along with most of their followers, leaving what has turned out to be a well-trained, but minimal sniper defense of the city.
American marines called in two airstrikes on the pair of dingy three-story buildings squatting along Highway 10 on Wednesday, dropping 500-pound bombs each time. They fired 35 or so 155-millimeter artillery shells, 10 shots from the muzzles of Abrams tanks and perhaps 30,000 rounds from their automatic rifles. The building was a smoking ruin.
But the sniper kept shooting.
He - or they, because no one can count the flitting shadows in this place - kept 150 marines pinned down for the better part of a day. It was a lesson on the nature of the enemy in this hellish warren of rubble-strewn streets. Not all of the insurgents are holy warriors looking for martyrdom. At least a few are highly trained killers who do their job with cold precision and know how to survive.
"The idea is, he just sits up there and eats a sandwich," said Lt. Andy Eckert, "and we go crazy trying to find him."
Fallujah will be taken in the next few days. Of that, I have no doubt. And Fallujah must be taken if we intend to pacify the country. But once again the "U.S. planners" seem to be doing just enough inadequate and unimaginative planning to make sure U.S. troops are bogged down in a frenzied and deadly quagmire. And doing all they can to make sure that the rest of the country is not, in fact, pacified.
Increasingly, it feels as though U.S. actions in Iraq are no longer about "bringing democracy to the middle east," or even reconstructing the country. In fact, U.S. actions in Iraq no longer seem to be for the benefit of Iraqis at all, even as a show of strength to impress or to cow them. Rather, U.S. actions seem calculated to play well back home.
James Wolcott comes to a similar conclusion in reviewing Colin Powell's sad little performance the other day. It seems Colin likes his job after all, and decided to play Rumsfeld's Mini-Me by warning "old Europe" that the U.S. will continue to be "aggressive" in defending our interests. Unfortunately, Iraq isn't the only place the tough guy talk ain't working these days.
After watching our "Grand Coalition" stumble about in Iraq, European leaders now know that the U.S. can't back up the tough talk. We can't "go it alone." We can't frighten Turkey to follow us into hell any more than we could France and Germany. We can't back up the threats and insinuations of "consequences" for denying us what we want.
Wolcott quotes Emmanual Todd, a French demographer and author of After the Empire, describing the U.S. today as a "big bully," very good at attacking the shit holes of the world in order to put on a "show of force." And "show" it is. As Wolcott notes, though, that show is only fooling Americans.
Hell, the leaders of Iran, Syria, and North Korea aren't even quaking in their respective boots these days.
And Fallujah, writes Wolcott, is a perfect example of the "theater of operations" campaign the U.S. has become so intent on performing.
The US assault on Fallujah is a prime example of what Todd calls "theatrical micromilitarism." I mean, calling it "Operation Phantom Fury"--it's a sick joke. What's "phantom" about it? For months the US has been touting this incursion and publicly built up forces outside the city for weeks, giving the enemy plenty of time to rig explosives and/or skip town. Billing it as a "decisive battle"--another fraud. Guerrilla warfare operates on an entirely different set of rules; as has been oft pointed out, America won every major battle during Vietnam and still lost. What's unfolding is not a decisive moment but a ghastly production that trains hellfire on a symbolic target and "plays well" to American citizens as a flex of muscle, as witness the NY Post cover today of an American soldier with a cigarette dangling from his mouth with the headline "Marlboro Men Kick Butt." Civilian casualties, the destruction of homes and livelihoods, the absence of any significant capture of insurgent ringleaders, these are secondary to getting good action footage over which benedictions can be said.
On this Veterans Day, we can only wish that our troops were directed by less cynical leadership and more intelligent "U.S. planners."
posted by John at 4:59 PM
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