How About Doing Your Job?
Jules Crittenden has a good post up, in which he wonders why the different media are not offering “an actual, meaningful, in-depth look at the execution of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq by someone who has taken the time to understand what its goals and methods are, and isn’t just interested in kicking the crap out of it from a distance.” Jules looked at the AP, at the NYT, at the WaPo, at other major newspapers / organizations who have made quite some ‘in-depth series’ recently, but none of them offers what Jules wants to read – and I agree with Jules that it is incredibly important for media to look at it.
It may be that some other prominent newspapers, the LA Times, the Chicago Trib, are doing it. If so, it hasn’t come my way and I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time to scroll through all of them. I can assure you the Boston Globe isn’t doing it. They pulled out of Baghdad years ago and have now shuttered all their foreign bureaus. My own paper has never had the resources to do more than parachute into foreign trouble spots for a couple of weeks or a couple of months at a time, and these days, we aren’t doing that any more. That may well be true of your local newspaper, too. Which makes the work of organizations like the Associated Press, the New York Times and the Washington Post that much more important.
So please let me know if you find it: An actual, meaningful, in-depth look at the execution of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq by someone who has taken the time to understand what its goals and methods are, and isn’t just interested in kicking the crap out of it from a distance. An effort to understand and report fairly on what may be the last chance to prevent a bloody humanitarian disaster on a scale not seen since Cambodia, quick, before the opportunity is thrown away.
I was going to wrap this rant up right there, but I read back over it and still can’t believe it. It is absolutely stunning in its absence. A screaming vacuum. I wonder how it is this possible.
Do not just let Jules know, if you find it – let me know as well. I would be more than interested in reading it and sharing it with you all. We get the bad news, what about the strategy used? How does it work? What should we focus on? What are the main goals and where? Etc., etc.
Lastly, Jules wonders:
So the question is, are these leading news organizations lazy, or stupid, or is it that they just don’t want to know?
I am not sure what the correct answer is, but I do know that they should do this. A screaming vacuum indeed.
In a way, this is related to the post I published earlier today about how the world will perceive a withdrawal from Iraq that will result in genocide. American media should report about this as well. It misses from most columns. I am a foreigner, and as such, I am surprised, greatly surprised, by the approach most American political analysts take.
26 Responses to “How About Doing Your Job?”
Perhaps such in depth focus would have been wise pre-war.
More to the point, he’s asking for something that isn’t there. What the newspapers are covering and what the Administration is saying is the extent of the strategy. How can people not realize this after so long?
Clear, build, hold. Classic counter-insurgency. Etc. It’s that simple. The troops are out of their bases and operating in small command outposts where they do lots of recon and searching for enemies in an effort to push them out of the area. Then they use the decrease in violence to try and get the locals on board and start cooperating (operating under the assumption that they are being silenced through fear at the beginning). The Iraqi forces are then supposed to come and act mostly autonomously — in cooperation with the locals — and make sure the bad guys can’t move back. The American troops then move on and repeat.
Then we are hoping that the security will be established and the national government can move in and start building the area, which will increase a sense of nationalism and shared purpose and decrease sectarianism.
In areas where we can’t operate we look for alliances even if it means working with potential enemies and try to convince them to secure their area.
There, that’s basically it. He’s just throwing a hissy fit because it’s not working. From what I’ve read (from first hand sources and news reports) we don’t have enough forces to secure enough areas. When the small command groups go to a neighborhood they get pummeled for a few months until they figure out the lay of the land, start putting on the hurt…….and then the bad guys just leave and go somewhere else. Of course almost none of the Iraqi troops are showing up or helping, and the rare ones that are good at fighting do it in side by side support roles instead of autonomously, so they can’t do the “hold” part.
The national government can’t do anything besides bicker so there goes the “build.”
So we’re back to “clear” which is what we’ve always been doing.
Michael, are you sure genocide is the right word for what would follow given a US withdrawal?
I was under the impression that a genocide was usually a single-genre killing… usually a single race or ethnic group of people. If the US left, an all out civil war would break out among everyone, not just against one particular group, so genocide would be the wrong term to use, right?
Or is there another meaning to the word I’m not familiar with?
I should also note that in general, traditional wars have a vastly different emphasis on strategy than counter-insurgencies. In a war with fronts, strategy is of prime importance. How the supply line is managed, how the armies are split up and work together, which strategic locations to fight over and which to leave till a later date, how to attempt to trick the enemy — all of these questions arise to form vastly complex strategies which is why the History Channel is there.
In these wars, tactics are relatively standard. Sure, a quick move by a battlefield commander has changed the course of countless wars, but in general the goals are clear and the methods precise.
In contrast, counter-insurgencies operate on almost no strategy whatsoever. Sure there are personnel and logistics decisions to be made but what I outlined above makes up the bulk of the strategy. (Of course there is operational strategy, like when to go after certain targets, trying engaging the populace etc, but this tends to be rather ad hoc and we wouldn’t find out about it much anyway.) In these wars, group tactics become the focal point. The “what” of our troops’ goals has been pretty static for the last 3 years, with a few exceptions. The “how” is constantly changing, both reactively and proactively, although it always seems to fall on the reactive side of the equation.
This is precisely why there is so little information on strategy but a ton on tactics presented through exposés. It’s also why it’s so hard to gauge actual progress. We can’t point to a hill we’re holding or bridge we’ve destroyed and say “see, we’re one goal closer to finishing.”
BTW, I’ve seen a lot more “strategic analysis” done in European papers (and the CS Monitor) which looks at the political goals, talks to intelligence officials, etc. I don’t think those would be satisfactory for him, as they make our stuff look rosy.
David, I think Michael is assuming the Shiites would dominate the Sunnis. I think this is unlikely. The greater risk is regional conflagration as countries from all sides jump in to support their side and use Iraq as a proxy more than it already is. Or worse.
They NYT did, in fact, do several such in-depth stories before the war, most of them negative on it, as I talked about in the comments here.
And as others have said it’s really to early to judge the efficacy of the effort, which is why the major report is due in September and not July.
For anyone interested in a more detail explanation of the “surge” they only need to read this.
Strangely, as informative as Mikkel and Entropy are, I had somehow managed to get a pretty good idea of what the surge is about from traditional sources -NPR news, i.e.
I don’t understand the uproar in the article or this post.
Uh…no. CI efforts with no strategy are CI efforts that will fail. CI requires an arguably more complex set of strategies and tactics than conventional, so called 3G warfare.
I think there are several issues raised by the post Michael quotes from. One is the downside of a 24 hour news cycle. Instead of taking the time to do some background research, reflect, and analyze before writing a piece, the media are all trying to be first with a story, or at least not last. So we end up with TV repeating the same sound bites and same story every 20 minutes, even when there is nothing to say. The newspapers go with what they find first, then rush off to find the next breaking story.
It is expensive to do analysis, and the newspapers are competing with the TV, radio, and bloggers, trying to be first. Placing staff in distant locations is expensive, and this seems to be an expense many papers try to eliminate. Simpler stories require less staff, therefore cost less to produce.
News as entertainment. The broadcast media may have made this much worse, but the newspapers have to take some of the blame for this themselves, back to the yellow journalism of a hundred years ago and before. Punchy, provoking sensationalism gets more readers than dry, thoughtful analysis. when a network or a paper decides to target a specific audience, then the entertainment and the news focus complement each other. Which is why I dropped the New York Times subscription years ago – too much rah rah for the liberal wing of the Democratic party, too little substance, too much ignoring the stories that don’t fit what the target audience wants to hear. (For years the same claim, but from a Republican party cheer leading perspective, could be leveled at the Chicago Tribune.)
I agree that there is a problem with lack of substance in many news sources. But I don’t see a simple fix for it. Perhaps the closest thing is blogs. They vary from the good to the terrible, but there are some very good blogs that cover controversial subjects and offer some well informed analysis. You have to know what you are looking for, and go out and beat the electronic bushes. I would try some of the military history sites if I was looking for comments about the counter insurgency in Iraq.
I think TMV does better than many blogs by offering thoughtful AND thought provoking comment about many issues in the news. Thank you to the editors, writers, and posters from the peanut gallery.
This almost sounds like the Kristol meme. Maybe the Critter could send an email to Andrew Bacevich, he’s been their and lost a son.
Domajot: “I had somehow managed to get a pretty good idea of what the surge is about from traditional sources -NPR news, i.e. I don’t understand the uproar in the article or this post.”
Domajot, I would disagree. There has been a notable lack of explanatory depth in the MSM’s coverage of the “Surge”. Almost invariably, coverage is human-interest focus on soldiers’ stories, or mostly just passing coverage of the latest car bombing, massacre etc.
TMV presents a good example of this:
You may remember a few months back a high number of helicopters being shot down in Iraq. Shaun Mullen…in posts here…connected the dots, with the help of a contact in Iraq, and theorized that this marked a new insurgency tactic with serious implications for the “Surge”.
The NYT did not arrive at this conclusion until an article several days later.
With all due respect to Shaun, there is no way the NYT — with all its resources — should have been “beaten” to the post on this story by Shaun. Yet it was.
Perhaps this is because of an anti-military bias at most MSM outlets (see, for example, the Washington Post’s self-described “anti-military military correspondent” who denounced the US military as “mercenaries” a few months back).
Thus, I think Michael has a point. Whether one agrees with the war or not, I would say the MSM coverage has been superficial and valueless at best.
Just to add:
I believe Orson has a point when he suggests that blogs may be a “fix” for this problem.
On the helicopter story, for example, there was an incredible amount of detail provided here at TMV by Comrade Rudi and others…detail that the MSM simply cannot provide.
Yah, sometimes blogs are shite…and (cough, cough) biased…but this medium can serve a very useful purpose in that regard.
Entropy I knew I was using the wrong word by saying “strategy” but I don’t know how to refer to it. I mean like theater-level military operations with centralized command built around formal battles.
In my perception, the strategy around CI is primarily bottom-up while traditional war is top-down, i.e. there is a lot more emphasis on the local command groups reporting results back to HQ who adjusts orders. I was trying to get at this by referring to operational strategy, but I have no idea what it’s called. Is that even distinguished in the military?
Anyway, my point was that I don’t see what the newspapers could report that they aren’t already. The set of macro goals are pretty straight forward, and most of the complexity is around a level that is shown in the exposés a bit but is very localized. Do you disagree?
Komrad Marlow – TMV talked about insurgency, France and Algeria in many posts. These subjects have also been discussed by MSM and the blogs.
The Chimp-in-Chief is currently holding a news conference, I wonder how many times he will mention al-Qaeda as the source of insurrection in Iraq, never mind militias or corrupt leaders.
Maybe the Critter and MvdG shoild also do their jobs. Prior to the start of the surge I found much on Colonel McMaster, who is McMaster?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/reading-list.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2023865,00.html
The modern US military uses a concept known as “centralized planning, decentralized execution” for both conventional and COIN environments. The principle difference is that in COIN decisions are “enabled” at lower echelons – simply because COIN is a more distributed fight. This concept has given rise to terms like “strategic corporals” and such.
What evidence do we have that there is a strategy?
The generals unanimously opposed escalation. Bush got different generals who would do what he wanted. There’s nothing suggesting that this is a carefully considered military strategy; everything points to this as simply escalation for the sake of escalation. I’m sure the officers on the ground are carrying out their orders as capably as possible, but to call that a ‘strategy’ is to indulge in the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Uh, not sure how to say this except you seem to have no idea what you’re talking about. The strategy is fundamentally different and the generals who oversaw past failures are gone or, in the case of Casey, in positions that don’t affect actual operations on the ground. Unlike Bush’s first term, the latest crop of generals, including Petraeus, were chosen for competence, not political loyalty.
Crittendan ought to go back and read those articles he’s complaining about.
Even Ryan Crocker and Davis Petraeus concede that the surge isn’t going to provide the quick fix that was promised.
So when Crittenden complains that the media aren’t reporting about the effects of the surge, he is completely wrong.
The problem is that the surge isn’t going to provide a reasonably successful end to the war within a reasonably short time-period.
I think people like Crocker and Petraeus should be congratulated for speaking frankly. If there had been more frankness along the way, maybe Americans wouldn’t be so tired of the war now.
Crittenden is just blowing smoke. Stop enabling him to blow his smoke on your audience.
Reality exists. Reality needs to be confronted. If you think the war needs to continue, you ought to be promoting the ideas of Crocker and Petraeus, not the snivelings of some axe-grinder who bashes the media from his own safe outpost in…the media!!
I don’t want to defend the media. The media did a horrible job in the lead up to this war. But the problems in Iraq aren’t the fault of the media, for God’s sake.
I wonder what Bacevich has to say? The insurgency was such a concern that McMaster was reasigned to Germany after his initial success.
Entropy – 20K troops isn’t a surge, it’s a trickle. Keep on spinning…
Maybe you’ll rip out your smoke detector after the WaPo great “investjournal” piece today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/11/AR2007071101895.html?nav=rss_email/components
Not sure what you’re talking about here. If 20k troops is not a surge, then it certainly is not an “escalation” either.
That’s because what Jules wants to read isn’t reality.
Perhaps he should try the fiction section of the Library? Or just stick to writing nasty crap about recently deceased people he’s never met.
This is nonsensical on its face. You’re asking us to believe that a) the generals chosen for political loyalty rather than competence opposed their boss’s plan, while b) the generals chosen for competence rather than political loyalty just happened to go along with it; and that c) Bush had a sudden and dramatic personality shift such that he now values competence over political loyalty, even though d) Alberto Gonzales is still Attorney General.
Right.
Maybe a half-hearted “surge” or “escalation”. After the failed Operation Together Forward, this is just reselling an old strategy. Putting lipstick on a pig(sorry for the cliche), still makes a pig a pig.
Lets remember that the surge idea was developed by Kagen et al at AEI. Casey and Abizaid along with other generals on the ground were NOT in favor of the surge at all. The Bush Administration then searched around for generals who liked the idea and put them in charge. The surge was not developed by our military but by a civilian think tank.
Except for a bunch of Bush loyalists, it doesn’t have much support anywhere. Even Petraeus seems less than enthusiastic when he says there is no military solution -only a political one.
About the sources of news, though, I have as many doubts about blogs as I do about the MSM. Even in the comments, it spells trouble, as far as I’m concerned, that so many people feel the need to self-identify by political conviction: as a consevative/as a liberrtarian… i can tell you such and such. The idea of reporting or analyzing as a non-participant has almost completely disappieared.
The only thing the Internet provides is greater variety, but variety in itself is no guarantee of ‘better’.
The customary advice is to find ‘reliable’ blogs. That can set a trap for relying on blogs that simply gratify natural inclinations and reenforce biases.
I there is a fix for the news problem, I don’t really see it yet, I’m afraid.