Summary: As we gear up for new wars in Syria and Africa, and rejoining old wars in Iraq, let’s a pause to think. Success will depend on learning from our failures since 9-11. Our greatest failures have been our initial failures: seeing the situation incorrectly and beginning before we have accurate information about our foe. The combination creates almost insurmountable barriers to success, barriers that we construct. We can do better.
Contents
- Familiar bad news about our new wars
- Reminders from the past
- We’re winning! Like always.
- Let’s remember the great advice we need the most
- For More Information
(1) Familiar bad news about our new wars
It’s become the one of the two standard themes for the starts of our wars: US intelligence tells us that we know little about our enemies. As Eli Lake explains in “ISIS Baffling U.S. Intelligence Agencies“, The Daily Beast, 14 August 2014 — “It’s been two months since ISIS took over Iraq’s second-largest city. But U.S. analysts are still trying to figure out how big the group is and the real identities of its leaders.” Excerpt:
The U.S. intelligence community is still trying to answer basic questions about the jihadists who tried to wipe out Iraq’s remaining Yazidis and who now threaten to overrun the capital of the country’s Kurdish provinces.
In a briefing for reporters Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials said the government is re-evaluating an estimate from early this year that said the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) had only 10,000 members. These officials also said intelligence analysts were still trying to determine the real names of many of the group’s leaders …
While many U.S. officials have warned publicly in the last year about the dangers posed by ISIS, the fact that the U.S. intelligence community lacks a consensus estimate on its size and the true identities of the group’s leadership may explain why President Obama over the weekend said the U.S. was caught off-guard by the ISIS advance into Kurdish territory.
{the usual fear-mongering follows, presented as analysis}
The second theme which marks the start of our wars: errors and outright lies about the wars. The sinking of the USS Maine and the Spanish-American War, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, Saddam’s WMDs and alliance with al Qaeda, and Afghanistan’s key role in 9-11. Let’s hope that what we are told about our enemies in this new phase of the Long War is more accurate than what we’ve been told so far.
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(2) Reminders from the past
Afghanistan: SecDef Rumsfeld interviewed by Wolf Blitzer, CNN’s “Live Today”, 8 March 2002 — Looking back 12 years we can see that five months after the invasion Rumsfeld was either grossly misinformed, lying, or both, as this looks like a combination of lies, exaggerations, and errors. Excerpt:
Q: Give our viewers a sense of the scope of this battle. How many al Qaeda and related fighters are there?
Rumsfeld: Well, it’s not clear to me. … These are very well trained fighters. These are hard dead-enders. These are hardline types. …
Q: Now when you say dead-enders, tell our viewers what you mean by that.
Rumsfeld: Well, I mean we’d be happy to have them surrender. But we haven’t seen anyone coming in and surrendering. …
Q: How realistic is that prospect that they could get hold of those kinds of weapons of mass destruction?
Rumsfeld: Well, we know they’re intelligent; we know they’re well financed; we know there are thousands of them. We know that they’ve got activities in 40, 50 or 60 countries. … Now it does not take a leap of imagination to understand that, with the desire they’ve demonstrated — and we have all kinds of intelligence evidence to that effect, that the al Qaeda terrorists want weapons of mass destruction, and the people they’ve dealt with over the years having those kinds of weapons. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that that is a very serious threat.
Q: Is there a link between these al Qaeda terrorists who still may be at large and the government of President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad?
Rumsfeld: I’m not going to get into intelligence information about where those links are. We know the countries that are on the terrorist list, and that’s one of them.
Iraq: SecDef Rumsfeld Press conference, 18 June 2003 — Three months after the invasion, much of what Rumsfeld knew was wrong. Excerpt:
And there’s no question but that in those regions where pockets of dead-enders are trying to reconstitute, General Franks and his team are rooting them out.
In short, the coalition is making good progress. It was made possible by the excellent military plan of General Franks and by the terrific leadership of the stabilization effort by Mr. Jay Garner and his team.
Iraq: SecDef Rumsfeld press conference, 22 October 2004 — Seven months after the invasion Rumsfeld was totally deluded about our foes:
So I would submit that the thrust of your question was not only imprecise but inaccurate, the idea that anyone is suggesting this is easy or that there are just a few problems or people. We’ve said repeatedly that it is tough and complicated and that there are a variety of different elements opposing the Iraqi government and the coalition.
And as you know well, they include a variety of categories, including foreign terrorists — relatively small number compared to the total, but probably among the most lethal criminals, people who do things for money — a relatively larger number of foreign regime elements and, quote, “dead enders,” people who have it in their mind that they have a chance to take back that country for a vicious dictatorship.
(3) We’re winning! Like always.
The two-punch combination of Kurdish forces backed by intensifying US air strikes seems to be working in Mosul. #ISIS
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) August 17, 2014
Terrorism expert Max Abrahms is an assistant professor of public policy at Northeastern U.
The US public find losing 4GW wars difficult to accept because we’re told that we’re winning until near the end, after years of losing. Most of our geopolitical experts (sensible people mindful of their careers) act as cheerleaders for our wars, and so assure us of success until we lose.
(4) Let’s remember the advice we need the most
Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.
The source of this brutal insight is not an ancient Chinese proverb, Benjamin Franklin, or Albert Einstein. Attributing it to these sources conceals the nature of our problem, revealed by the actual source: it’s an adage of Alcoholics Anonymous. They know everything about dysfunctionality (details here).
(5) For More Information
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Some posts about disinformation operations run against us:
- News from the Front: America’s military has mastered 4GW!, 2 September 2009
- Successful info ops, but who are the targets?, 1 May 2008
- Psywar, a core skill of the US Military (used most often on us), 26 November 2008
- Concrete evidence of government info ops against us, but it’s OK because we are sheep, 2 December 2008
- How the Soviet Menace was over-hyped – and what we can learn from this, 13 October 2009
- Another example of war advocates working their rice bowls, 24 December 2009
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