I've been reading this New Yorker article about counterinsurgency by George Packer. Now a lot of us may not like his politics (he's a liberal hawk), but I always read his articles since they are chock full of interesting info. Packer has also acknowledged that Iraq is disintegrating so quickly that these counterinsurgency techniques would be too late to implement there. But this goes to the terrible threat of jihadist groups popping up all over the globe. The Iraq War has increased this threat; also, Afghanistan is still salvageable using these techniques. Just to be clear, counterinsurgency is perhaps only 25% military and 75% political (doing the soft things like community outreach, services, diplomacy, etc.).
Here's a link to the New Yorker article:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061218fa_fact2?page=1Very interesting, even talking about obscure insurgencies in Indonesia, why some counterinsurgency efforts have failed while others have succeeded. One remarkable piece of info I got from the 60 Minutes interview with Bush, was that only now is he reading the "Battle of Algiers" -- for goodness sake, I watched that movie a couple of years ago, as essential to understand what we were up against in Iraq. That tells you how out of touch and behind the president is.
Now the two guys interviewed for Packer's piece were working at the State Department under Condi Rice. Obviously, they haven't been listened to. Now here's the kicker: Crumpton, one of these super smart guys, has RESIGNED. The Carpetbagger Report has it:
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9629.html#more-9629Henry Crumpton isn’t a household name, but he has a pretty important job: he’s the Coordinator for Counterterrorism for the State Department. Crumpton recently announced his resignation, and with about two weeks left before stepping down, he apparently feels less compelled to stick to the party line.
An ex-CIA operative, Crumpton told NEWSWEEK that a worldwide surge in Islamic radicalism has worsened recently, increasing the number of potential terrorists and setting back U.S. efforts in the terror war. “Certainly, we haven’t made any progress,” said Crumpton. “In fact, we’ve lost ground.” He cites Iraq as a factor; the war has fueled resentment against the United States.
Crumpton noted some successes, such as improved joint efforts with foreign governments and a weakening of Al Qaeda’s leadership structure. But he warned of future attacks. “We don’t want to acknowledge we’re going to get hit again in the homeland, but we are,” he said. “That’s a hard, ugly fact. But it’s going to happen.”
Demonstrating the kind of commitment to counterterrorism for which the Bush White House is famous, Crumpton, a career CIA agent who led the agency’s campaign in Afghanistan after 9/11, will be a civilian in two weeks — and no one has been nominated to replace him in the key counterterrorism position.
Indeed, it’s also worth remembering that Crumpton has only been on the job for about a year, at which time the administration has not taken his concerns as seriously as he’s like.
It may have something to do with why he’s resigning.
Okay, so why could Kerry own this issue?
1. He has direct experience in counterinsurgency unlike ALL OF THE OTHER CANDIDATES, even John McCain. Techniques have evolved since Vietnam, but the underlying problems remain, so he can talk about this with an authority none of the others can. He can also talk about how when it fails there's nothing you can do -- once the fatal mistakes are made -- further counterinsurgency efforts will be too little, too late. Since this is now a global counterinsurgency, it is foolish to concentrate on only one place which has already failed. Going the diplomatic route, and CONTAINING the insurgency to Iraq is vital. I will admit that conceding that the Iraq counterinsurgency effort has failed would be risky, that our leaving could very well leave behind chaos for some time (I agree with Packer that Dems who act like the violence will go down when Americans leave are delusional), but if Kerry can acknowledge this, and talk about containment and diplomacy while making gains elsewhere in the world and even in the Middle East, this will give him points for candor. It may well be that the parties inside Iraq will eventually sue for peace when they become exhausted, but that may take some time.
2. He has direct experience in examining how terrorist organizations finance themselves which would also mean understanding a GREAT DEAL on how they work. He shut down BCCI for which OBL had an account. I'd like to hear a LOT MORE about this.
3. He has already proposed back in 2003 much of what these counterinsurgency experts have talked about. The "soft side" of counterinsurgency (remember that's 75% of the war) -- here, DrFunkenstein excerpts a speech about just that:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=273&topic_id=118606What I like about this is that it sounds tough, while it actually is completely in line with Senator Kerry's thinking on how to fight these movements (largely intelligence gathering and law enforcement) along with massive diplomacy and engagement with nations at risk (the soft side). The 25% "war" aspect will comfort Americans that he is prepared to use our military as necessary, but not in a limited way and not in a reckless manner. People feel uncomfortable with diplomacy only, as they always think back to before WWII and appeasing Hitler. But if the soft side of fighting terror does include a small military component that will calm those fears.
Now we've talked about Energy Independence, but jihadist groups are not just about oil. The social networks that end up creating this radicalism need a reason not to make violence, which means economic revitalization and governments that provide services and security. But by all means, perhaps someone can tie this global counterinsurgency effort to Energy Independence, that would be really creative and interesting.
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