I've been reading a book by Robert Kagan entitled Dangerous Nation, about the history of America's international relations. Kagan's thesis is that, from the start, the US was more involved and interventionist, and less isolationist, than conventional wisdom would indicate.
But that's not the portion of the book I'm writing about today. I've been reading the part about the Civil War. In the earliest days of that conflict, people thought it would be possible to wage the war in a relatively "civilized" and circumscribed manner. Instead, it was transformed into one of the bloodiest and most "total" of modern wars fought up till that time.
McClellan, Lincoln's first Union commander, preferred to wage a "gentleman's war." Ulysses S. Grant later described McClellan as one who "did not believe in this war...[letting his] ambivalent attitude toward the conflict influence [his] military performance." Thus do perceptions of a war's justness and necessity color the decisions made in the course of it, even by commanders.
McClellan, who was relieved of his military duties in March of 1862, famously ran for President against Lincoln on an antiwar platform in 1864. He lost, partly due to the impressive battle victories of one of his successors, Sherman, who was his very antithesis.
Kagan writes about the ever-controversial General Sherman [emphasis mine]:
The northern generals who prosecuted the war most effectively , and most ruthlessly, had more understanding of its ideological purposes..."We are not only fighting hostile armies," William Tecumseh Sherman declared, "but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war"....Therefore the North must "make the war so terrible...[and] make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it "...The Union's conduct of the Civil War would remain, for American commanders in both world wars of the twentieth century, the very model of a great war...a war of 'power unrestrained' unleashed for 'complete conquest.'
Sherman famously said "War is hell," a stark statement that encapsulates the horror of war. He's been accused of committing war crimes during the Civil War, but the evidence is that his campaign against the civilians of the South was mainly limited to destroying property, although it certainly caused a great deal of suffering--as intended.
Sherman also had a way with words. He's the author of many famous quotes about war which show a fascinating combination of the compassionate and the implacable. Sherman felt the two were closely linked in war--in order to ultimately be compassionate, one had to be ruthless, because half-measures kept the population in an undefeated state, ready to wage war again:
Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and defeat.
War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.
The scenes on this field would cure anyone of war.
War as a remedy for war--it seems paradoxical. And yet, it worked for Sherman. And it seems that the dreadful wars of the twentieth century--World Wars I and II--bore out the principle that if a war is bad enough that a people actually feels defeated (not just humiliated or tricked, but defeated and war weary), they are unlikely to start another.
The First World War, bloody and vicious though it was, was not really a total war in the sense Sherman meant, although it came close. Fought mainly by armies (although those armies were decimated; an entire generation of Europeans lost its "best and brightest" men) it was stalemated for an exceptionally long time, and ended through an armistice--and then a treaty, Versailles--that was so unsatisfactory in resolving it that World War II was not long in coming.
The reasons the Germans were able to come back so quickly to start another war, despite their defeat in WWI, are complex. But one of them was probably the fact that although they felt humiliated by the terms of the Treaty, they somehow managed to feel that they had not really been conquered. In fact, in his rise to power, Hitler played on that perception: German defeat was not a "real" defeat, but the result of a betrayal by domestic forces of a varied nature (including, of course, the Jews)--the "stab in the back" theory.
World War II was, by all definitions, a total war. It involved civilian populations far more heavily; in WWI, most of the civilian deaths had been from influenza and famine, but World War II featured heavy civilian bombardment as a common tactic of the war. In fact, it seems that the experience of the total war of WWII decisively ended even the idea of warfare for Western Europe. It made its inhabitants, harking back to Sherman's words about the South, "so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it."
Revulsion for what they suffered during World Wars I and II--compared to the relative lack of suffering on American soil--is part of what has led to European pacifism and belief in the talking cure, as well as their contempt for what they see as America's tendency to resort far too easily to war. Europe feels itself to have been "cured" of war. The only problem, of course, is that the cure hasn't spread to the world of Islamic totalitarianism. Au contraire.
The first Gulf War was very different than the American Civil War, World War I, or World War II. The Gulf War was waged in a comparatively "easy and safe"--and limited--manner. However, contradicting Sherman's statement that such wars end in defeat, it was won by the US and its allies.
On reflection, though, Sherman appears to have been correct, after all. The Gulf War was "won," but the win was so limited that it led almost inevitably to the present Iraq War. Saddam's defiance at the end of the Gulf War; his massacre of those who, counting on our help, rose up against him; and his flouting of sanctions and inspections; clearly indicated that neither he nor the Iraqi people (except for his victims) had felt the sting of true defeat.
The present Iraq War illustrates the same dilemma of the "easy and safe" war leading to defeat--or, in this case, the perception of defeat, one that seems to have overwhelmed much of our electorate and our MSM.
"Easy and safe" (relatively speaking, of course; no war is either) is a good description of the initial military campaign of the Iraq War. The degree to which that first stage was "easy and safe" was the degree to which the forces now wreaking havoc there felt undefeated. At the time, it was "easy" for them to pretend to roll over during the initial war, which lasted only a few weeks, and then to regroup for the asymmetrical war they've been fighting ever since (a war which, like all modern wars, appeals to our own media--which certainly doesn't seem to need a total war to feel defeated).
I am most decidedly not advocating using the civilian bombardment techniques of World War II in Iraq. But I am suggesting that we acknowledge that we need to be willing to do what is necessary to win, and to make the actual enemy feel conquered (a la, take out al Sadr and his minions, for starters), and not to just go for "easy and safe." If we do the latter, we are doing no one a favor--including most of the Iraqi people.
[General Sherman on the topic of the MSM:
I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.
If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.]
[Cross-posted at neo-neocon.]
I don't find much to disagree with. I was never for going into Iraq, but not because I thought going into Iraq was wrong. I was against going into Iraq because no Western government currently has the will or desire (cojones) to do what has to be done to set up an independent democratic government in the western tradition. Take the new regime in Somalia, instant whippings for traffic infringments, instant and harsh punishment for any infringement, and not surprisingly the anarchy of Mogadishu vanishes in days. Could our soldiers do this sort of thing? A rhetorical question is -- Is the GW Bush willing to kill half a million followers of Moq. Al Sadr? If the answer is no, get out and leave the Iraqis to their misery. If the answer is yes, then get on with it, Sherman style.
The entire mechanism of 21st century western governance and society is just not designed to ride roughshod over subjugates. Quite simply, we're too civilized. That's not such a bad thing, but it is certainly a hindrance when trying to subdue a few million simpletons who have been fed a steady diet of subjugation, humiliation, fear and 7th century fairytales their entire existence.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for our Military. Either unleash 'em, or call 'em home.
Roger.
Hey Neo,
Great post. For all the negative press our troops get, they might as well be waging total war. Our troops get vilified in the press while the jihadist are portrayed as holy warriors or freedom fighters. Go figure.
Amen, Roger. Unleash em or bring em home.
"total wars" have been fought since time immemorial --- yet we still have wars.
Its not the quality of the war, but the quality of the peace, that matters in determining the likelihood of further wars.
What's especially disturbing about the implications of this essay is that the correct objective of war is not to defeat armies and get governments to surrender --- its to slaughter enough non-combatants to discourage another war. Our failure in Iraq was, according to this essay, a failure to go into Anbar province after we took Baghdad and defeated all of Iraq's armies -- and level the place to prevent the Baathist insurgency. And then to go and slaughter any Iraqi nationalists like al-Sadr who might object to the US doing whatever the hell it wanted to in Iraq.
Sorry, but that's not why we're in trouble in Iraq right now --- we screwed up the peace there -- literally from day one when we stood by and allowed libraries and hospitals and museums to be looted (while we made sure no one came near the Oil Ministry.)
But if it makes you feel better to think that we didn't kill enough women and children in Iraq during the initial campaign, and now we have to go out and slaughter a whole bunch more of them, well, Sieg Heil, Baby.
But if it makes you feel better to think that we didn't kill enough women and children in Iraq during the initial campaign, and now we have to go out and slaughter a whole bunch more of them, well, Sieg Heil, Baby.
Yes, the way Sherman slaughtered indiscriminately slaughtered women and children in the South...oh wait.
The point is merely that in order to win, the other side needs to understand that they are defeated, otherwise, by definition, the war isn't over.
Sherman achieved that via property destruction.
There's an element missing from this whole analysis though, and that is that the US IS going for a total crushing defeat of our opponents. The field of battle isn't military however, that's just the carrier.
We appear to be going for a repeat of the cold war here, where the real battlefield is cultural. Remember Whisky, Sexy, Democracy? Total domination, carpet bombing of jeans, music, and Starbucks was my understanding of the plan.
The new American style of conquest. Total war via assimilation. We're not going to invade and kill them all, we're invading and brainwashing them all. Or that's the theory.
Unfortunately, the whole attacks run afoul of friendly fire from a significant chunk of our intelligentsia that believes our culture is evil and should be destroyed.
The good news is our enemies definitely fear it, hence the violence over face-veils and cartoons.
The bad news is we're doing a piss-poor job of pushing it. During the cold war we made fun of the colorless, humorless world of the Communists and actively showed off how much better we had it, but we don't seem to be able to bring ourselves to do the same thing with the fundie-Islamists. We need to be mocking the hell out of their superstitious, misogynistic 'perfect' states, and we're not.
A shame, because if we were serious, I'd think we'd have a pretty good shot at it working.
Luka, you miss the point. As long as man has ambition, there will be wars. It's not about how many innocents are killed. One is too much. Whether the US is in Iraq for the right reasons or not is irrelevant to this string. What is relevant is what it takes to win. Sherman, Grant and Lincoln understood. Truman understood this.....without fat man and littleboy (which caused much less destruction than carpet bombing) the japanese were willing to fight forever. Without Shermans tactics, the south would have fought on. The mere reputation of Ghengis Khans hordes caused kingdoms to collapse. Most Iraqis want peace. Iraqis only respect strong leaders. You hear it over and over from OBL and his comrades "The west is a weak civilzation". Militarily, we are not weak. Our collective political will is weak. Either decide to go for it, or get out. Get in it to win it, or get out of it. From day one, looters should have been shot on site. The slide into anarchy was directly caused by the US. It could have been stopped by being tough up front, 400,000 more troops would have helped too, Mr Rumsfeld. Like it or not, the taliban subdued vast swaths of Afghanistan, not by being nice, but by cracking down. The same has just happened in supposedly ungovernable Somalia. Tito in Yugoslavia was a hard case. But at least Bosnians were not being slaughtered in the streets, croats weren't killing Serbs (when they weren't killing bosnians) etc. Either unleash the dogs of war, or bring 'em home so I can buy 'em a beer. Then we can wait....till the hordes get really nasty, and we go after them for real, with full political will. Sorry to be blunt. In my schooldays, bullies were only further encouraged with appeasement. It is harder to defeat a weak nation with an iron will, than a strong nation with no will. Winston Churchill understood this very well in 1940.
'nuff said.
I don't agree Treefrog. Our cultural offensive worked in the cold war because it was directed at people not that much different from us. Eastern Europeans are, after all, Europeans. The Persians, Arabs, and "Stanis" are not enough like us for a cultural offensive to work. They have a primitive tribal culture with a barbaric honor/shame ethic and a religious fundamentalism that, while perhaps on some level attracted to "Whiskey, Sexy, Democracy," is ultimately horrified by it. An analogy would be trying to convert people who aren't gay to your point of view by exposing them to the pleasures of a gay bathhouse. Some of your interlocutors might have a perverse fascination, but the majority will simply be revolted. That's how people in the ME see your "Whiskey, Sexy, Democracy." You can't convert these people and you certainly can't reason with them. Crushing, humiliating conquest of them is the only answer.
Yes, the way Sherman slaughtered indiscriminately slaughtered women and children in the South...oh wait.
the reason I brought up the slaughter of women and children was not the references to Sherman, but this...
and despite the author's protestations that she is not advocating the bombing of civilians, in advocating the destructure of al-Sadr's forces that is precisely what she is doing. We're talking about militias here -- people who live at home, but fight an enemy as an "organized" unit --- and given that in Baghdad, Sadr's support is concentrated in slums, there isn't a bomb smart enough to avoid civilian casualties.
(and we won't even get into the fact that Sadr would be targeted because of his political opposition to the occupation, and not because the Mahdi Militia has been killing lots of Americans--Sadr is suddenly the focus of attention because he withdrew his support for the Maliki government in protest of Maliki meeting with Bush in Jordan.)
I just wish for once that these warblogger types would stop and think about all the various positions they have taken in support of this war -- and Bush's prosecution of it. I mean the only reason that Maliki is PM is because we didn't want someone closely aligned with Iran to be PM.... now suddenly the guy who objects to Iranian influence in Iraq almost as much as he objects to the occupation is the enemy?!?!?!
Earlier today, another poster provided quotes from an interview with the an al Jazeera bigshot who discussed the importance of the Palestinian issue to the self-image of Arabs. It seems that the right wing is just like those Arabs -- so afraid to admit they are wrong, or to accept defeat, that they would rather sell their souls.
It is harder to defeat a weak nation with an iron will, than a strong nation with no will. Winston Churchill understood this very well in 1940.
I don't disagree.... my problem is what happens when two iron willed forces come up against each other -- and one is an occupying army, and the other a population that doesn't want to be occupied -- and that population has arms and outside support?
How do you manage to break the will of that population short of indiscriminate massacres and other war crimes?
The problem is that while occupying forces always have the option to withdraw, indigenous populations have nowhere to withdraw to. The "iron willed" occupied, because they have no choices, is going to win -- or die trying.
Fred...
"These people" can be converted. Lots were converted in Iraq under Saddam, lots were converted under the Shah in Iran, lots are converts in Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. etc. etc.
The problem is that in any culture with a dominant religion, there are going to be those who see this "conversion" as heretical. And the various situations in the last 50 years in the Arab world have lead to the empowerment of those who object to "conversion."
There are a variety of factors at work here -- most notably, cold war efforts by both the US and Russia to encourage religious fundamentalism in the client states of their enemies. (see Iran -- and Afghanistan)
But there are other factors involved as well. For instance, we've "converted" the Saudi Royal family. But there is a big problem -- the Sauds aren't just the rulers of a nation, they are the "protectors of Islam". So when members of the Saudi Royal family show signs of "conversion" to cultural norms that are at odds with traditional Islam (like drinking), there's a problem. And the way that the Sauds covered up that problem was to "buy off" the religious conservatives -- empowering them, and now we wind up with al Qaeda.
So "conversion" is far from impossible -- its just a question of how you convert. And, in case you were wondering, "by force" isn't an option.
luka:
"and despite the author's protestations that she is not advocating the bombing of civilians, in advocating the destructure of al-Sadr's forces that is precisely what she is doing. We're talking about militias here -- people who live at home, but fight an enemy as an "organized" unit --- and given that in Baghdad, Sadr's support is concentrated in slums, there isn't a bomb smart enough to avoid civilian casualties."
So what you are saying is that private militias are actually civilians and should be left alone? How do you feel about the Mafia? Street gangs? Drug smuggling gangs? Terrorist cells?
Actually there is an easy way to smart-bomb Sadr and his top lieutenants. Find out when he's speaking in the mosque and bomb it.
And avoiding civilian casualties isn't the goal. The goal is to pacify the militants and their civilian supporters and make Iraq safe for everybody but the Qutbist and Khomeinist jihadis.
Percent of strategic decisions made by the president: 100%
Percent of strategic decisions made by the MSM: 0%
Percentage of Bush requests for troops that have been granted: 100%
Percentage denied because of MSM or Democrats: 0%
Yes, clearly the culprit is the MSM. Over here in the alternate universe at Winds of Denial.
This is fast becoming the Belleview of Blogs. So many guys imagining themselves to be Napoleon, wandering around talking such amazing nonsense. No longer just armchair historians and armchair generals. You've now been drafted into front-line BABs -- blame-avoidance brigades.
You're heroes, really, standing tall against . . . American reporters. God bless you in your courageous work of boldly fixing blame for a middle eastern war on the bi-coastal reporters who are really running the show.
Psst: You didn't hear it from me, but David Gregory's apperances on Imus are secret, coded reports to general Pace, ordering him where to place troops. No one makes a military decision that isn't vetted by either Gregory or Al Roker. Isn't that right, Bonaparte?.
nice dodge, takhallus...
In the simple world you live in Bush issues orders and everything happens ... on Earth, where I live and manage vastly smaller projects ... there is a really complex set of interactions that determine outcomes.
It's what Clausewitz called 'the fog of war'; you can look it up. I'm glad you are so sure of the certainty of what's going on. I tend to think things are murky and uncertain...and that managing our way through that uncertainty is what happens in reality.
But in Cloud-Cuckooland, I'd say your charges would stand.
Back over to you...
A.L.
To neo and all those who have empathized with the Sherman-esque model of war:
Does this mean that you would support the use of nuclear weapons to impress upon others our will to win?
Face it, the entire Army, even if all 400,000+ combat troops could be deployed simultaneously and indefinitely, would not have the same psychological impact as just a single modern American nuclear weapon, all of which are significantly stronger than Fat Man or Little Boy. The media would carry the image around the world in seconds, too, greatly magnifying the visual effect. The point of neo's argument seems to be that you must attack the collective psyche of the enemy until they are willing to accept defeat. Others have noted the psychological effect of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the Japanese public.
Isn't that the logical conclusion of the "total war" argument? Why would "total war" only mean "total conventional war?" If not, then there has to be some logical (or not logical, but moral) stopping point, some brake, on the argument that the "whatever it takes to win" principle runs up against at some point.
Terror is a very difficult tactic to stop. Anyone who is surprised that we are having trouble just hasn't examined history.
Two tactics have often worked. The first is the police state - no civil rights, whatever it takes to extract information, and state spies everywhere. The Soviet Union relied mostly upon this and set up the same system in Eastern Europe after WW2.
A variation of the police state is the hermit state. Control by isolation is added to the police state regimen.
The USSR sometimes used the other effective tactic: counter terror without limits, right up to extermination. Stalin's terror in the Ukraine ended opposition to his policies there. It ended a few million Ukrainians too.
Lest Russia get all the credit let's consider the final rebellion of Scotland in 1745. After decades of rebellion and another serious rising - that of Bonnie Prince Charlie - the ruling English were fed up. They made sure the 'highlands' would never rise again. And it wasn't pretty.
A lot of Scots ended up in America where they were quite pleased to help our revolution against England in 1775.
Back to Iran. We are operating with the handicap of being unable to use the time-tested methods. And I don't say we should. We do continually get acccused of everything under the sun. It is very hard to know what is sometimes done and when; certainly war is not pleasant.
About all we really know is that our classic military strength isn't very effective against stealth and terror. It wasn't made for this job.
But knowing what doesn't work well isn't all that helpful.
What he actually said, more than a decade after the war was over, was "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell."
What he said during the war, after the fall of Vicksburg when Grant and Sherman were working together to develop a comprehensive strategy for ending the war, was: "The enemy must be made to understand that war and personal ruin are synonymous terms."
The target of Sherman's march to the sea was the fat part of the south which had done much to foment secession in the first place, but which was until then largely immune to the effects of the war. They felt none of the hunger that the cities and the Confederate army were suffering from. Every household earned one draft exception for every 20 slaves it owned, so many of these planters did not even have sons serving in the CSA. They continued to grow cash crops, cotton and tobacco, even though Richmond was begging them to grow food. Their contribution to the war they had helped start was to bitch about Jefferson Davis.
Sherman's march has been portrayed as one of the most severe measures of the war, an act of "total war", which is and always has been ridiculous. The Georgians lost their slaves and their cattle. Compared to the tens of thousands of soldiers who lost their lives, their suffering was trivial. Compared to Antietam and the Wilderness, Sherman's march was a humanitarian gesture.
Since we're not ready to march through Saudia Arabia and Pakistan, which have no turkeys or sweet potatoes to steal, I'm not sure that we can take a page from Sherman in a literal sense. But Sherman's point was that war should be waged at all levels, including the economic and psychological.
Finally, I want to point out that Sherman was a moderate on the subject of MSM reporters.
A reporter in the Army of the Potomac named Edward C---y wrote a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer claiming that General George Meade had wanted to retreat after the battle of the Wilderness (instead of pursuing Lee) but had been overruled by Grant. The story was based on camp rumors and it was false.
Meade, who had a very bad temper, had C---y brought to headquarters under guard. He demanded that C----y reveal his source for the story. When C---y refused, Meade had him tied up and drummed out of camp on a mule, with a sign around his neck that said LIBELER.
Grant observed all this without interfering, but he did intevene a few days later when General Ambrose Burnside threatened to shoot another reporter.
The MSM got their sneaky revenge, though. For the rest of the war, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other sympathetic newspapers left Meade's name out of all their dispatches. Meade disappeared from the newspapers completely, and people thought he'd been relieved of his command.
[I had to edit Edward C---y's name to avoid the blacklist filter. He had a very unfortunate name. In a way, George Meade is avenged.]
Unleash em or bring em home.
Unless you have overwhelming numbers, winning a guerilla war on the cheap requires making the innocents in the middle fear you more than they fear the insurgents. And that means being "the more evil bastard". Total war indeed.
And while nobody here is advocating atrocities against civilians, just what does "off the leash" mean? If your enemy is willing to slaughter civilians indiscriminately, what on earth can you do to make yourself even more fearsome except the same, but moreso?
Americans like to think of themselves as good guys. To win the current war would require either vastly greater resources than Americans are willing to commit, or tactics that will tarnish America and her soldiers for decades.
The second point is that while a great many soldiers might appreciate being "off the leash", how many of the rest would be scarred forever by being the ones who actually perform whatever tactics are "off the leash"?
Unleash em or bring em home.
I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Iraq is not worth the price that victory would require.
#13
Uh, what? The fog of war has nothing to do with the MSM. The fog of war refers to the disorientation, disconnection, confusion that are inevitable when men are required to do desperate things.
"Winds" has moved seamlessly from "Everything's going great, and anything you hear to the contrary is an MSM lie," to the new position, "Okay, it's screwed, but it's still the fault of the MSM."
So the MSM was wrong when they said the war was going badly, and now that you (finally) agree the war is going badly it's still -- somehow --the fault of the MSM for having told you what you were too slow to figure out.
Has it ever occurred to you that the MSM has become the new Jew? No matter what's happening it's the fault of the MSM. Utopia would bust out out overnight if only the MSM disappeared.
But never do we see the dots connected in any rational way. We never see what you think the MSM has done to lose this war which . . . wait, I'm confused now, is it lost, not lost, going really well?
The Bush administration has gotten 100% of every single thing it has asked for. 100%
And at the point where the Bush administration went fatally off-the-rails and screwed this war up they still had the enthusiastic support of the MSM. (Hey, maybe that's how the MSM lost the war? Too much support?) The war was lost while the embeds were still giddily enjoying the statue toppling. The war was lost in the first month when we heard, "Stuff happens." Since then it's all been postscript.
Of course the war could have been salvaged had we been prepared to admit mistakes and make a much bigger committment. Except, you know what? No one -- least of all you -- would admit that the war was a mess. You fiddled while Rome burned. Don't blame the MSM, it was the people like you, AL, who told us there was no cause for alarm and everything was going fine. Guys like you who can't tell the difference between patriotism and blind, stubborn, boosterism.
We could have salvaged this whole thing back in spring and summer of 2003. What were you doing and saying back then, AL? Let me guess: blaming the MSM for expressing doubts about Rummy's genius.
#18 from m. takhallus: "Has it ever occurred to you that the MSM has become the new Jew?"
That had never occurred to me.
War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.
I disagree. Chivalry and restraint are damn good things, and they often make a subsequent peace more possible and better.
Depending on the war and the opponent. And alas, we do not have the kind of enemy now that is impressed by our mercy.
Luka (#10),
The Iraqis were emphatically NOT converted under Saddam, they were beaten into submission by Saddam. Iran under the Shah was equally primitive at the grass roots, hence 1979. The Shah paid the price for trying to drag the Iranians into the 19th century. And while the Saudi royal family may be converted, their population is not and I don't believe ever will be. If the royal family tries to deprive them of their "loved Egyptian night" they'll quickly suffer the same fate as the Shah.
Um, takhallus, you must have been reading someone else's stuff here at Winds if you think my message has been 'it's all OK' I think I've pretty consistently said it's not as bad as it looks. and that's important.
Here's the phrase in Clausewitz that led to the 'fog of war' phrase:
So yes, that does apply to the MSM, and policymakers, and the public.
Back to you.
A.L.
What Sherman represents to me is one of many military strategist that understood that defeating a democratic state need involve defeat of the population supporting the war. General Lee understood this although his implementation differed: invading the North around election time, and daring military operations to "show" the North. The enemies of the U.S. in nearly every war understood this. Americans don't seem to.
PD
For some reason Americans keep wanting a war where all of the fighting is like some sort of chess game. Over and over again, it seems, we learn the same lesson that fighting a war means making the other guys decide not to fight. It's not necessarily in our control what it takes to do that. That's why, in a way, all of the "Laws of War" are great, gallant, wonderful, and righteous feel-good statements. Of course we all support them, unless we ourselves are faced with an existential threat.
That's why it's so important to be really, really sure that you want in a war before you start one.
I think the lesson of the American Civil War is a good one, as is the lesson of interaction with the AmerIndians in the 1800s. The Islamic world has been beaten severely in an effort to bring them into modernity, as consequently it's made matters worse. Emotionally, my greatest desire is to leave them all alone and in their dark ages. But 9-11 has shown us that some fundamental Islamists will take any opportunity to feel offense and announced jihad. In fact, such regular whining, complaining, shouting, and violence is and integral part of their culture now. So what I personally want doesn't seem to have much to do with anything. Just like in all wars, our enemies will make their decisions about how much force we must use to pacify them.
I know that sounds very dire over the long run. The reason such force (to me) is coming is that we've been winning so much. Those DVDs, personal computers, MTV, jeans, burgers, and satphones have been making a huge difference in the rest of the world. The west may be very decadent, but we've got the best system the world has ever known for taking care of people and making everyone's lives easier and more enjoyable. The nutcases see and understand this. We are winning. Oddly enough, because of that, the stakes in the game have been raised tremendously. And that's why those dire predictions may come to pass. We may "convert" a hundred million people to peaceful and posperous lives, but another 100K could (and probably WILL) unlease a holy terror on us sometime in the next 40 years. We need more manpower in the military.
Sherman was ahead of his time in waging war. He understood that industrial capacity was going to decide the eventual outcome. He also understood that victory is obtained by destroying the enemy's will to fight, not just his ability. That was the reason for his campaign to "make Georgia howl." It is the missing ingredient in the current US policy. If we had followed his example in Tikrit, Falluja, or Ramadi -- by ordering the city evacuated, then utterly leveling it -- the troops might be home now.
Emotionally, my greatest desire is to leave them all alone and in their dark ages. But 9-11 has shown us that some fundamental Islamists will take any opportunity to feel offense and announced jihad.
9-11 was not an act of jihad under "fundamentalist islam." It was resoundingly condemned throughout the Islamic world -- including "fundamentalists".
It was considered heretical, not merely because of the heinousness of the act itself which no school of Islamic thought was permissable, but it was also considered heretical because Osama bin Laden did not have the clerical authority to declare "jihad". (Not even the Taliban defended it as a legitimate act, their clerical counsel demanded proof of bin Laden's responsibility before turning him over -- and the US refused to provide that proof.)
9-11 was the act of a charismatic madman, much like Charles Manson and David Koresh.
We may "convert" a hundred million people to peaceful and posperous lives, but another 100K could (and probably WILL) unlease a holy terror on us sometime in the next 40 years. We need more manpower in the military.
David, stop and think about this for a moment. If we'd managed to convert 99.9% of Muslims into "peaceful and prosperous lives", I don't see how more manpower in the military would be an effective means of dealing with the other 0.1%.
effective strategies would include
1) using our 100 million peaceful and prosperous new friends to deal with the nutballs in their own midst.
2) relatively small special forces units that could go in and take out smallish cells of suspected terrorists.
3) Bombing the living crap out of any significant concentration of terrorists.
but none of those require more "manpower."
Winning the war on terror is going to mean not operating from fundamentally flawed premises (like thinking that 9-11 was considered a legitimate act of jihad by anyone who wasn't clinically insane), nor will it mean not thinking hypothetical problem through, and then not rejecting obviously absurd solutions to those problems. (like recommending more military manpower in a hypothetical situation where 0.1% of Islamic people represent a threat to us.)
I mean, c'mon, you're a systems guy -- you know this already.
"9-11 was the act of a charismatic madman, much like Charles Manson and David Koresh."
Absolutely fascinating, luka. I believe I was making a case that the people who were primitive Islamists were going to be a problem, and you answered that the religion itself condems it.
Well, aside from the dangers or perhaps falling out of favor with the local Imam, it still seems to be a recognizable pattern of violence associated quite specifically with the Muslim religion, tribal areas, and modernity. I believe whether it is kosher or not is beside the point.
"I don't see how more manpower in the military would be an effective means of dealing with the other 0.1%. " -- my bad. What I meant to say was that for purposes of dealing peacefully with populations, we'll need to be prepared to "go big". -- Even if going big in Iraq is not going to happen. As Mitch pointed out, we can make quite an impression with lots of boots and lots of explosives without crossing any lines. That seems like a good thing to be prepared to do. That's all.
"1) using our 100 million peaceful and prosperous new friends to deal with the nutballs in their own midst." -- My gut is telling me that coke machines and twinkies aren't going to make foreign populations like us, just like our stuff. So initially, you're going to see hundreds of millions of people who hate us a lot but can't get enough American Idol on TV. Strange situation! But the most likely. That mezzanine generation will have to pass from the scene before the truly rational next generation is ready to subdue the crazies.
"You're a systems guy --" uh oh, the dreaded back-handed compliment! LOL. I don't know very much, luka, ask my teenage sons. They seem to think I'm lucky to be able to dress myself most days. And I used to be superman. Must be some kind of disease.
I think I accidentally mixed several topics. Apologies. If the topic is "the lessons that Sherman demonstrated" then yes, blowing stuff up, having a lot of troops -- whatever it takes to instill the "greater belief in failure" that another commenter mentioned earlier. My point was that by insisting on a smaller military, we are limiting our flexibility in helping people decide not to fight, that's all.
If you want to talk specifics, different conversation entirely.
The reporters name re: Meade was Edward C rapsey
luka,
Over and over again the Islamist tell us that their biggest grievance is humiliation. And what is their humiliation at the root?
That there is no caliphate and that the missing caliphate does not control the world.
Mo promised them the world and all they have is c rap to live in. Thus they want vengance, retribution, and power and control.
I don't think that circle can be squared.
Going by the definition of a total victory, What exactly will be required to get a total WOT victory?
I'd say by getting this total victory in birthplaces (and big sustainers) of terrorists.
IMHO, I don't think Iraq was near being the birthplace or a big sustainer of this global Jihad that we are all fighting. So winning there may be a part of the victory, but not a total victory on terror.
Well, aside from the dangers or perhaps falling out of favor with the local Imam, it still seems to be a recognizable pattern of violence associated quite specifically with the Muslim religion, tribal areas, and modernity. I believe whether it is kosher or not is beside the point.
Lets start with the idea that if the violence is not endorsed by the local Iman, its no more "Islamic" in nature than the bombing of abortion clinics is "Christian". (in other words, you can't blame Islam for something if its not endorsed by clerical authority. Feel free to blame Arab history and culture as it exists after long periods of British colonialism, etc., but not Islam.)
Secondly, I don't see the relationship between "tribal areas" and violence. You'll have to clarify what you mean by "tribal areas" for me (for instance, do you mean areas where national/central authority is defacto subordinate to local/tribal authority?)
Finally, while "modernity" is a factor, I think that the pace of change is what is critical here. (Another appeal to the systems guy in you! :) )
There seems to be an assumption that all a smart Muslim would have to do is spend an hour exposed to Western culture to recognize its superiority. After all, its so self-evident to us!
One of the things that kills me is when people refer to Mid-eastern culture as "primitive" because of stuff like women being denied equal political rights. After all, women were guaranteed the right to vote in federal elections only 86 years ago .... and that was after over 70 years of suffragette activism. And lets not even discuss stuff related to sexual taboos -- hell, the US is a "primitive" culture when compared to lots of Europe, and we've seen how religious conservatives in the US have consistently fought any kind of rights for gay people. Nevertheless, Americans tend to insist that other cultures adapt to our "modern" norms with little or no hesitation -- and this causes major problems.
Another factor is related the relationship between religion and politics. In the post-colonial period, most countries that wound up with western or soviet influenced non-sectarian governments were also authoritarian in nature -- the mosque wound up being the only outlet for dissent, and rejection of "the modern" in favor of religious fundamentalism was how that dissent was expressed. (The exact same dynamic of houses of worship as the only place where dissent could be expressed resulted in Black churches being at the heart of the civil rights movement in the US) In Eqypt, it was the (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood, in Iran and Iraq, Shia fundamentalism developed.
Saudi Arabia is a different case -- one where the King is not merely the head of a state under Sharia law, but the "protector of Islam" and head of the Royal Family.
Oil wealth lead lots of the Royal Family to accept "modernity" with a vengeance -- in ways that were well outside what was permissable under Sharia law. As the "protector of Islam" and head of the Royal family, he should have cracked down on that behavior---but instead he chose to buy off the conservative clerics who raised objections.
The final factor is the acceptance throughout Arab culture of retribution as a form of justice. And this is a serious problem, because every time we kill an "innocent civilian", we risk creating a whole bunch of "terrorists".
In other words, the problem is complex... that being said, as a systems guy, you know that there are some complex problems that are solvable with simple solutions. Unfortunately, IMHO, terrorism inspired by radical islamic fundamentalism isn't one of them.
Luka,
I'm not getting into blaming Islam at all. From simple observation, the HUGE majority of Muslims believe the struggle of jihad to be an internal on to reach spiritual perfection. A view I share.
However literalists in all faiths have a tendency to screw it up for everyone. My belief is that the philosophy of fundatmentalist Islam is problematic for modernity. By problematic, I mean that the modern world is viewed as an assault, and that violence is authorized to stop it's progress. I don't blame the religion -- such a concept would not make sense.
By tribal I mean areas that tribal influences and primitive norms have lasted well into the modern age. Certainly parts of the nomadic Arab culture fits, as do parts of Indonesia.
I also don't think it is the pace of change. I used to think that, but not any more. I feel that at one point, perhaps peior to the colonial period, this might have been the case. By now, and because of quite frankly a lot of dictators like the Shah who tried to drag their people in the modern age, there is institutionalized violence in reponse to the principles of the Enlightenment. This is an important concept to either understand or not. The days of there being an insult and then a reaction are over. Large parts of societies with fundamental Islamic worshippers are ready to be insulted no matter what the external stimulus. To apply western ideas about justice and civility in such areas is an excercise is futility, in my opinion.
I understand it is a complex problem, and I understand that there are guiding simple principles that can make dealing with complex problems easier. Sometimes they cannot be simplified. However, we have learned some important things during the Enlightenment that are true for any people, no matter their heritage or culture. You have to have a method where the government can be self-correcting in a non-violent manner. This usually means voting, freedom of political speech and freedom of assembly. You have to separate your belief in God and an afterlife from what you would use the power of the state to accomplish. You have to tolerate people with different beliefs than your own in a peaceful manner.
These are non-negotiable. They're not western, white-man ideals, they are fundamental principles of the univere. With modern technology and ways of killing one another, you cannot have major sections of people living in two worlds like this. It's not a battle between civilizations, it's a battle FOR civilization.
My opinion only.
Daniel....
I don't have much to disagree with what you wrote, except....
I think you would agree that "tribalism" is not a necessary condition for creating a terrorist. (Bin Laden is the perfect example... son of an industrialist, educated in the West.... Bin Laden is a product of a "tribal" environment only in such a broad sense that "tribal" becomes far too non-specific to be useful).
And I still hold that the rate of change is extremely important. Mere exposure to "modernism", once it is rejected, means that the "change clock" has to be reset. I think Iran is the best example of this.... You had the Islamic Revolution that rejected just about all things western, but as time passed things changed. "Modernity" was being accepted, slowly but surely, by the clerics -- mostly because the Iranian population was well ahead of them. (of course, everything changed once the Bush regime became a threat -- but that is a whole different dynamic at work.)
"rate of change" may not be a necessary component, just like "tribalism" isn't. But it is a component in many cases, and needs to be considered when trying to come up with a comprehensive strategy against radical islamic fundamentalism.
In my role as a citizen of the Great State of Georgia, I suppose it's my duty to point out some other famous Sherman quotes:
Fun guy, Sherman. Custer was one of his subordiantes.
Fun guy, Sherman. Custer was one of his subordiantes.
Grim is trying to to tarnish the reputation of one of our greatest generals by citing the fact that Col. George Armstrong Custer was one of his subordinates for a time.
Okay, I'll admit that Custer failed to learn all of the basic military lessons he should have under Gen. Sherman and other Union generals such as: always do thorough reconnaissance of an enemy position before attacking, and, do not divide your forces when attacking an enemy that vastly outnumbers your unit.
The near annihilation of the 7th Cavalry by the Sioux and the Cheyenne at the Battle of the Little Big Horn was the result.
Of course, we could apply Grim's attempted tarnishing of a great man's reputation by the failure of selected subordinates to another American hero. Let's see how that works:
"Fun guy, George Washington. Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr were two of his subordinates."
Since Gen. Benedict Arnold was a traitor to the US during the Revolutionary War and Aaron Burr was a traitor to the US after the war, George Washington was a trainer of traitors and a complete failure.
Oops, that's Gen. George Washington who led the American armies to final victory in the Revolutionary War and later served two (2) successful terms as the first President of the United States of America. He is known as the Father of our country and is rated by historians as one of the top three or four presidents in the history of the US.
However, by Grim's logic about Gen. Sherman and Custer, all of George Washington's achievements and victories are overshadowed by the failures of two of his subordinates.
Good luck with that, Grim!
Grim, Sherman was Commanding General of the Army from 1869. Everybody in the Army was his subordinate.
Custer did not serve under Sherman during the Civil War, so it wasn't Custer who set your ancestor's barn on fire. Custer served in the east, under McClellan, Meade, and Sheridan.
Letter to Gen. John Hood, September 27, 1864: "I have deemed it to the interest of the United States that the citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove, those who prefer it to go south and the rest north."
Sherman speaking further:
A Savanah newspaper editor in October of 1864:
Hoods orders to General Wheeler:
Most of my male acestors were probably confederate soldiers, but to me, Sherman is a great American and what is needed today is Sherman-style campaign in the tribal areas fo Pakistan.
Buck,
Well said! I agree completely, with one caveat: We need to use the Jacksonian rules for war with dishonorable opponents whenever we fight militant Islam. The jihadis routinely violate every rule of the Western warfighting code. As a result, they have lost the right to any of the protections that we extend to combatants or non-combatants of an enemy population that generally fights honorably.
They want a war without rules or limits and that is exactly what we should give them.
General Sherman scorched the earth of the South during his March to the Sea (and then through S. Carolina and N. Carolina), but he never directly targeted the civilian population of the Confederacy because the Confederates generally followed the rules of the Western warfighting code and were entitled to its protections. Our modern-day General Shermans must not limit their troops to the destruction of Islamic infrastructure and Islamic property. They must directly target the Islamic population base that is the true foundation of militant Islam's power.
We have repeatedly crushed ruthless savages and savage nations using these methods. Militant Islam will be crushed just as certainly by Jacksonian warfare. All we have to do is muster our full power and fight without restraints.
What we need is more Sherman-style old-fashioned loyalty, in and out of the armed forces.
Admiral David Dixon Porter, who worked closely with Grant and Sherman during the war, said that both men were outstanding for the manner in which they set aside all personal ambitions and quarrels to win the war. Both men never failed to give credit where credit was due, including to the Navy that usually got the cold shoulder. They were men who readily admitted mistakes, and never let pride or jealousy get in the way of the mission.
Sherman, who was senior to Grant at the start of Grant's western campaigns, gladly accepted a subordinate field command under Grant, something that most Union generals would not have been so willing to do.
When Washington opinion turned fickle on Grant, as it did every time a setback occurred, Congress got the idea of flanking Grant by promoting Sherman to Lieutenant General. Sherman squashed the attempt, saying he would not accept a promotion that was aimed at undermining Grant.
James Jones:
They must directly target the Islamic population base that is the true foundation of militant Islam's power.
Good God, I hope that this is a troll.
I have no wish to tarnish Sherman's reputation. I'd just like you to know who you're talking about. Yes, he was a great commander with many fine points. He was also an advocate of literal genocide. For that matter, Custer's reputation is not of particular interest to me -- Errol Flynn lauded him, John Wayne praised him, and he has fallen into disrepute only recently. That may change again, as a thing which has gone one way can go the other.
What is of interest is seeing clearly who these people were. If you're going to invoke them as models, be sure that's who you want to be.
As for him burning "my ancestor's barn," my ancestors at the time lived in East Tennessee. They were familiar with Sherman from a different perspective. It's not a family matter with me, then, but one of having grown up in the areas that Sherman touched. His application of "total war" means something different to a man who has lived in both Atlanta and Savannah; who has followed the roads that lay along Sherman's path, and other roads he did not travel; and who can plainly see the difference between them, even today.
Grim:
Was there another, better, less destructive way to convince the south to rejoin the union and not to take up arms against it in the future?
The relevant question is not was Sherman brutal (he was), it's was he more brutal than he needed to be to accomplish the objectives? That question can be debated, but can't be known. What is known is that he acheived his objectives.
Eastern Tennessee was heavily pro-Union, so your ancestors were probably whistling "Marching Through Georgia".
Sherman was not an advocate of genocide, literal or otherwise. At the beginning of the war he had warned that the "young bloods" of the South would not give up without a hard fight, and was called crazy for it. Like Lincoln, Sherman had a pessimistic view of human nature, and he thought the South would never be tamed without a long period of military rule. But in Georgia he refused to arm freed slaves for fear they would take bloody revenge on their former masters. He could have out-sourced the genocide, and he declined in spite of much urging from the North.
Sherman, in fact, was the first to offer amnesty to civilian Confederates. (Grant gave amnesty to all Confederate soldiers when Lee surrendered.) Sherman was briefly but sharply attacked for this leniency, and the amnesty was withdrawn after Lincoln's assassination.
If you want to talk about Sherman's lingering effect on the South, was it one hundredth as severe as the effects of slavery and the by-products of slavery: poverty, feudalism, and underdevelopment? Would it be better or worse today if it had been left untouched?
Several of my ancestors did, indeed, join the Union army -- in fact, they abandoned the Quaker religion over the point. It's an interesting moment, when people who believed in nonviolence were forced to come to terms with the reality that justice in the world was only possible if they took up the sword. They did.
The questions you ask about the economy of the South are questions to which I have answers, but it would take us a long way from the topic here to discuss them in the length they deserve. There are three reasons I would say confirm that the South would have been better off, economically, if it had not been touched:
1) The South's industrial base was largely destroyed in the war. "Underdevelopment" was not a product of slavery so much as it was the product of the destruction of the development that had occurred, combined with the loss of any investment capital in the region. The northern banks which subsequently controlled investment did not wish to invest in Southern factories by and large, and therefore did not do so to a large degree.
2) By a similar note, small farmers -- both freedmen and whites -- were increasingly forced by the loan policies to be tenet farmers or sharecroppers rather than landholders. The percentage of land owned by those who worked it, rather than by the banks or agricultural corporations, declined steadily from the postwar era through the boll wevil's coming in the 1920s. The reason is that banks usually required the farming of cotton rather than other crops as a condition of making a loan, and the price of cotton was in steady decline. It therefore was harder and harder for a landholder to make his payments, and yet agriculture cannot be done commercially without credit.
3) The same policy instituted what is called an 'agriculture monoculture' in the South. Any student of Latin American history will understand how destructive a monoculture is to the economy -- even though great wealth can be had growing only coffee or only cotton, there are numerous flaws in the model that have predictably bad effects. Again, until the boll wevil destroyed the cotton economy and allowed people to begin exploring other crops, the South was locked into increasing poverty by the model.
Counterfactuals about the war don't lend any certain results, but these economic influences were more baleful than any alternative it is easy to imagine. Until the late 1920s, they impoverished the South year by year. What had been a vibrant and rich part of the nation in 1860 was destitute by 1926.
As for Sherman and genocide, I refer you again to the quotes. He was not writing 'early in the war,' but in 1864 -- and on his perceived need to "kill or banish" "men, women and children," and "repopulate Georgia" in order to achieve the peace he thought was most desirable.
Slavery was surely an evil and a great evil, but it was not the only evil. Some men who fought it deserve great praise; others, less. I have only good things to say about Grant's performance, for example, a brilliant general (especially as shown by his Vicksburg campaign). But I do not understand the reverence for Sherman.
Just to be clear -- the application of total war might be excusable in some contexts. If the Shi'ites in Iraq were to do it in al Anbar province, for example, that would be understandable -- because the insurgents are so often waging war against their women and children, and targeting innocents by design. I would not blame them for doing whatever had to be done to stop such a campaign.
Further, I expect I would even wage such a campaign myself. Not "I think I might," but the stronger: "I think I would." Given the provocation the Shi'ites face from the insurgents, and the failure of lesser methods, I think I would use as heavy a hand. If one of those insurgent bombs blew up my wife or my child, I am sure I would do so.
Knowing that, I have to worry about the idea of accepting Sherman as a model. If you take him, you get all that goes with him. I don't like what I see here that he did, yet I know that even I -- having seen it -- might do what he did or worse in some circumstances. It is because I don't think I am better than he was that I must urge a clear-eyed look at what he was and did.
That is why I said, "Be sure that is who you want to be." I suspect this is the most likely resolution of the conflict in Iraq, the most likely settlement of the battle for Baghdad and the quelling of the tribes in Anbar. If the point of this post is getting yourself mentally prepared for that -- well, take the warning. Take time to look clearly, and be sure that is what you want.
Sherman did not advocate genocide unless we reduce the term into meaninglessness. Did Johnston commit genocide when he removed the population of Dalton? Did the U.S. commit genocide in Fallujah? Did the Confederates commit genocide when they set fire to cities, houses and stores in front of Sherman's advancing troops?
What was done and what was advocated are two different things. Sherman did not commit genocide. He did advocate it -- the slaughter of men, women and children, in his own words; the elimination of an entire class of people, and the repopulation of the land with others who were more to his liking.
Grim, there were entire classes of people eliminated during the Civil War. Namely, the slaves, and the slave-owners. Naturally they included men, women, and children. They were not physically exterminated, of course, but it was the policy of the United States government (of which Sherman was an utterly loyal arm) that such classes must cease to exist.
These were not the only classes that perished. Another class was the poor white Southerner who was permanently unemployed by the slave economy. These were the men who fought and died by the tens of thousands - if anyone has a right to complain about "genocide" it was them, but it was not genocide, it was war, and it was not the doing of men like Sherman.
There was another very important class that also ceased to exist, though relatively few of them actually lost their lives. These were the people who lived on the edge of the slavery business, not as plantation owners but as traders and speculators. These were the people that formed the backbone of the secession movement, and who did more than anyone else to push the country into the war. They were not the Southern aristocracy, they were self-man men born into the lower social class of the South who got incredibly rich dealing in slaves. They cared nothing for the Union, and risking the future of the South did not bother them, either. They were in it for themselves. Sherman understood these men very well; he had long acquaintance with them before the war.
Finally, I do not think you appreciate the rhetoric and the temperament of the times. In those days comments about killing Yankees or Rebels, or burning down cities, were as common as remarks about the weather. Sherman was if anything more restrained than most. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson often said the only thing to do with Yankees was kill all of them. Neverthless, Jackson did not murder civilians when he had ample opportunity to do so.
This was not the American Age of Reason, Grim. This was the age of rhetoric and bloodshed.
Glen,
The "poor white southerner who was permanently unemployed" is not a class that ever existed. While the use of slave labor did remove certain jobs from the table -- notably cotton-picking -- there were other jobs that arose from the economy that were not fillable by slaves, both for practical and cultural reasons. An important example of the former type of reason was the expense of a slave, relative to a day's wages. Thus, dangerous work -- for example, moving the cotton bales, which ran to hundreds of pounds -- was normally done by white (often Irish) day labor, not slaves.
The poor white Southerner who was always underemployed certainly existed, but his problems worsened after the war for the reasons mentioned above. The destruction of the native industry and investment capital, and the rise of a monoculture based on cotton production alone, worsened not only his situation but almost everyone's.
None of which changes the fact that Sherman himself was talking about killing people. He wasn't thinking in Marxist terms about the 'destruction of classes.' He was talking about killing or banishing one group of people. You can put that down to the rhetorical excesses of the age if you like, but it wasn't an age that was limited to rhetoric. Precisely for that reason, rhetoric was more, not less, dangerous. If a general officer, today, were to write "we should kill or banish the X tribe, and repopulate the area with the Y tribe," he would be fired. In the Civil War, there was a very real possibility he would be taken up on the proposition.
Sherman was talking about a class of guerella fighters that were killing, looting and raping men and women in Kentucky regardless of loyalties, which the civil courts were incapable of addressing and therefore he was advocating banishment, not killing:
Sherman's attached leter to General Burbridge also makes clear that the "class" of people being discussed are guerallas that are not uniformed and are not entitled to the privileges of soldiers, but are merely "wild beasts unknown to the usages of war." He is insistent that these guerallas are not engaged in war, but in crimes (murder, arson, theft), for which the civil authority would ideally address, but is incapable. Therefore, Sherman directs the General to arrest "all males and females who have encouraged or harbored guerrillas and robbers," and once 300-400 or gathered, ship them down the Mississippi to be relocated somewhere else. "If they won't live in peace in such a garden as Kentucky, why we will kindly send them to another, if not a better land, and surely this would be a kindness and a God's blessing to Kentucky."
All of the letters on the topice are reprinted in this comment thread, but appear to have typos.
In other words, it is a very exact parallel to al Anbar province -- where the tribal structure seems to have supported various insurgent groups -- and the proposed solution is to clear the land by force of hundreds, men, women and children, and kill them if they resist.
Look, you can call that "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing," or you can call it "General Sherman's wise, humane and noble plan to bring peace to a troubled land." I don't care. I just want you to be clear on what he was suggesting, and what that implies for us if we take him as a model. That seems to be what is being proposed here, so I'll say it one more time: be sure that is who you want to be.
Iraq is the test market.If it works there will still be 1 billion Muslims 10 years from now.If it fails then the Japanese solution will be used and there will be 100 million exmuslims and 1 billion dead muslims .Yes there really is a military solution and we can kill them all just like all the carthagaians are gone when rome had had enough.We really don't need any arabs to pump oil they use our companies now and foriegn workers this is war to the death.The West or Islam are the only solution.One or the other will lose.winnig will be almost as bad but we will get over it with 25 cent gas.
Reading Grim and PD has been great. Sometimes we consultants have a tendency to be wishy-washy -- one of the jokes on management consultants is it's not unknown for them to say "I feel strongly both ways" when confronted with a difficult problem.
But I do. I feel strongly both ways. As a southerner, I know some of us still harbor ill feelings towards Sherman, 150 years later. At the same time, one cannot but acknowledge the fact that what he did, in fact, shortened the war. When Hunter marched through the Shenandoah Valley, burning the "Confederacy's Breadbasket" he was reviled: burning VMI, burning houses, having bush-whackers shot after a 10-minue "trial", etc.
But it shortened the war. The average Southern citizen decided (mostly) that without a farm, house, or land to go back to or cherish, fighting didn't make a lot of sense.
What followed, however, was 100 years of racial tensions and a lot of hidden violence when people didn't care much for armed men telling them how to think. In other words, you may end the overt violence, but the cultural and tribal issues are going to be pushed underground for another 100 years.
I'm in favor of having Iraqis self-segregate, and then using a little of Mr. Sherman's medicine. But what I'm in favor of counts very little: this is an Iraqi problem, not an coalition one. If there is a "failure" in Iraq, it is a failure of Iraqis, not of the coalition.
My pleasure, Daniel.
I agree with you almost entirely on this part:
"What followed, however, was 100 years of racial tensions and a lot of hidden violence when people didn't care much for armed men telling them how to think. In other words, you may end the overt violence, but the cultural and tribal issues are going to be pushed underground for another 100 years."
My only objection would be to say that there was some resolution of those tensions going on over that 100 years. When the 1950s erupted in what was a final resolution of at least the legal manifestation of those tensions, it was successful because the 'underground landscape' had changed.