Know Thy Enemy
There are so many Senators and Representatives speaking out about the troop surge in Iraq. Some support it, some strongly oppose it. That seems to be the main content of their rhetoric – support or opposition. The few explanations offered consist of statements about military or political strategy.
Why aren’t any of them talking about the culture of Iraq and why that culture makes this strategy likely to succeed or fail? Remember the saying “Know thy enemy.� That step seems to have been skipped in this war.
There was a very informative article in the January 14, 2006 San Jose Mercury News Perspective. It was written by Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian studies at the University of Michigan.
Cole points out that the might and wealth of our country cannot win this war because we are not fighting against the wealth and might of another country, we are fighting a guerrilla movement. The guerrillas understand Iraq in a way that we do not. They know, Cole says,
“Iraq is a country of clans and tribes, of Hatfields and McCoys, of grudges and feuds. The clans are more important than religious identities such as Sunni or Shiite. They are more important than ethnicities such as Kurdish or Arab or Turkmen. All members of the clan are honor-bound to defend or avenge all the other members. They are bands not of brothers but of cousins. The guerrillas mobilized these clans against the U.S. troops and against one another.�
These guerrillas are not outsiders, they live in the very cities in which they fight and therefore the “clear and hold� tactic touted by President Bush is based on a misunderstanding of who we are fighting.
That is a pretty basic bit of information to be lacking when making the decision to risk the lives of 20,000 more Americans.