Fallujah 2014

--Media's misunderstanding of the Fallujah violence

 Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear --
 kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor  --
with the cry of grave national emergency.
Always there has been some terrible evil at home
or some monstrous foreign power
that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it
--Gen. Douglas MacArthur 
 _______________________

A follow-on to the recent post on Fallujah's "fall" (Fallujah Fallacy) is necessary for the civilian reader to understand the doctrinal thought behind military operations in urban terrain (MOUT).

"Haul Ass and Bypass" has been the pragmatic standard approach when fighting in a mobile theatre Army scenarios with comparative opposing forces. Most Armies decline to fight in cities to avoid civilian casualties and because it is a vicious experience that grinds down a mobile offensive war into a brute slugfest (examples are Stalingrad, Aachen, Nancy and Metz, St. Lo and Hue.)

Armor should not be used in built-up areas as it restricts their shock action and long range fires, and because tanks are designed to fight tanks. Using tanks to support close combat in cities is a waste of an asset. (Some would question even using mechanized Infantry in urban terrain, but since most of our Infantry are mechanized, that is what we use.)

The only reason to fight MOUT is to gain maneuver space to swing free and continue fighting for deep objectives to destroy the enemy's will and ability to fight. Killing is not the objective of warfare and needless killing is not a civilized military objective.

So why was so much combat power both then and now applied to Fallujah? It was not because we had the assets to squander, but something less logical. The effort was not military in nature, but something which could be compared to the German effort in the Jewish Ghetto of  World War II Warsaw (understanding that the latter was not arrayed as a military battle at all, though it devolved into the semblance of one.)

Neither Fallujah nor Warsaw enhanced any commander's  mobile operations. Both were punitive, vindictive and unjustified side tracks per the principles of war. The rebels in Fallujah and the Jews in Warsaw could be contained without hammering them into the ground. Simple containment efforts morphed into "cauldron battles", diverting invading forces from the main objective.

NEXT: Humanitarian failures in Fallujah

The Fallujah Fallacy

--2004 cartoon on what went unseen 

It is a popular delusion that the government
wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth.
Enormous effort and elaborate planning
are required to waste this much money
-- P.J. O'Rourke
___________________

Fallujah was neither won, nor lost, despite the shocked news headlines. The violence in Fallujah was not warfare then, nor is it now. It is sectarian violence packaged as warfare to serve the cynical needs of a invading nation. This godforsaken city served the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) template well, and according to the mainstream media, it's the gift that keeps on giving (for the puppeteers behind the scenes.)

Fallujah is a symbolic terrain, a body over which the warring tribes of Sunnis and Shias continue to fight for governmental power. It is not a rogue band of al Qaeda fighters causing mayhem but the citizens themselves. The Sunnis may be "al Qaeda affiliates", but if they do affiliate with this terrorist group it is out of sheer pragmatism and necessity as their goals do not extend beyond securing their city.

No democracy, liberty, freedom or women's rights are being sought; it is just a 1,300-year power struggle played out now with U.S. taxpayer dollars supplying both sides of the fight. What did the killing achieve at any level, and did we ever have a realistic policy in Iraq? The obvious conclusion (from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, et. al.) is that U.S. combat power does not build nations.

Saddam had controlled the violence in Iraq and The U.S. invasion unleashed unbridled violence, and the killing today is simply a continuance of the U.S. set-up. The U.S. gave much to Iraq, but the upshot is a continuing spiral of violence.

When Fallujah was recently wrested from Iraqi Shia control, this was not an al Qaeda success -- this was the Fallujans voting with their guns. The money has run out to bribe the "Sunni Awakening", and so all parties return to their tribal status quo.

As one Marine who fought there wrote in the Guardian (UK) last week:

The Iraqi government's recent actions in Falluja turned the non-violent movement violent. When the protest camp in Falluja was cleared, many of the protestors picked up arms and began fighting to expel the state security forces from their city. It was local, tribal people - people not affiliated with transnational jihadist movements - who have taken the lead in this fight against the Iraqi government (I Helped Destroy Falluja in 2004. I Won't Be Complicit Again.)

In addition, the press is loathe to recognize the role of Saudi Arabia in providing weapons, training and fighters to stoke the instability in Iraq. "Saudi Arabia" may be fungible with "al Qaeda fighters", but our "friendship" disallows such considerations.

Fallujah's fall is no surprise. It's "securing" was smoke and mirrors.

To RangerAgainstWar's mantra: Killing people in a war on terror is foolish if they can be replaced the next day. That is not warfare, but a simple cycle of violence.