Counterinsurgency for Suits

"Sometimes I've believed six impossible things before breakfast."
--the White Queen in "Through the Looking Glass"

I like the quote because I imagine that's what life in the White House must be like.

But on to the concerns of the moment.

I have reservations on the appointment of Lieutenant General Petraeus to the be the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. My concern lies mainly with his conventionality of training and experience.

While he performed admirably in Northern Iraq, and co-authored the new Army manual on counterinsurgency (CI), he is not Special Operations. And if there ever was a slot designed for a Special Forces type, then the Iraq post is it.

Former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld sang the praises of Special Operations Forces and relied upon this asset to deal with Afghanistan. But when push comes to shove, the conventional Army circles the wagons and appoints a conventional officer for the top slot in Iraq.

However, General Schoomaker, Army Chief of Staff, is Special Forces, and his leadership should have provided this CI document on a more timely basis. I guess formulating arguments for increasing the size of the Army and getting more money to continue this Iraq inanity probably takes up a lot of manhours.

Why didn't the State Department co-author this new text? The JFK Special Warfare Center should have been the proponent agency to publish the document. Moreover, why is the Department of Defense the lead agency in Iraq if we are running counterinsurgency operations? National policy used to dictate that all military efforts were controlled through the ambassador of the country in question--CMO, or Civil Military Operations.

Aside from the technical niceties, which have taken a sound drubbing from this administration, why is America interested in fighting counterinsurgencies in Iraq anyway? Why do the internal problems of sovereign states become a problem for the U.S. military? This should be a State Department function, with military options to be enlisted as a last resort. Since most authorities agree there is no military solution, why is GWB intent upon surging?

The first paragraph in my counterinsurgency manual would be: If the effort is worth the expenditure of young lives, then let our leadership share that burden, with their families participating in the shooting. Seems fair to me.