Recipe For Iraq: Slice, Dice, And Serve With Rice

Recipe For Iraq: Slice, Dice, And Serve With Rice.

By R.J. Godlewski

“I believe that a consensus can be found that would categorize terrorists as private or state-sponsored groups operating largely outside the control of the national military whose fundamental goal is to intimidate people and their governments into recognizing the group’s ideologies and/or religious beliefs through the coordinated use of indiscriminate murder, torture, and the destruction of private and public properties, especially that which will achieve a great deal of attention by local and international media organizations.”

INTEGRATED TECHNICAL WARFARE: An Organizational Guide to creating a Corporate Counterterrorism Force By R.J. Godlewski

I have to agree that what began with “Sock and Awe” is turning out a lot like a Detroit sports season – absolute domination early that quickly fades into an early exit once the opposing ‘team’ decides to get serious. Unfortunately, we spectators cannot simply wait and pray for next season; the battle that our team is engaged within is a do or die conflict whose repercussions will devastate the world for decades if we lose.

Besides the Islamist terrorists who are licking their chops and dreaming of global domination, the mainstream Iraqis and their Middle Eastern compatriots are watching – nervously, if not participative -- to see whether the United States can adapt to this situation. This is the key; if we cannot adapt to the situation in Iraq then the Iraqis themselves will decide that changing their world is not worth the effort. The United States and its allies need to win the war at all possible costs. Supposing that the current troop surge fails to achieve its intended results, further options for victory must be planned; failure being simply the exercise of a Vietnamesque “cut and run” order of abandonment.

Unfortunately, surrender in Iraq is the easiest – and therefore most popular – action to contemplate. Not a single member of the Democratic Party’s parade of presidential hopefuls even dares look at the prospects for victory. They have long since concluded that there is no value in having our troops emerge victorious or in a peaceful, democratic nation smack in the middle of the planet’s cesspool. They merely see a political opportunity in the hordes of ill-informed citizens who have been manipulated into believing that the war in Iraq is merely President Bush’s way of pocketing oil money. Fortunately, however, I am an American and I support our brave troops in their quest for absolute victory. In this regard, I will continue to push for tough measures against the insurgents, strong support from our Congressional leaders, and teaching our apathetic public that losing in Iraq means losing here at home.

Being an American also means that I am a realist. If the surge fails to produce results, then it is because the Iraqi people haven’t stepped up to the plate. This means that our next step must be one in which we pull away from traditional counterinsurgency practice – that is, we abandon the “hearts and minds” approach and concentrate on the “raw application of power” that even the most stoical individual can relate to. I’ve already discussed this within a past article, but feel that more clarification is needed. We must have a plan in place should the surge fail and, quite frankly, this plan would need to be executed within the shortest possible timeframes.

If the surge fails, I suggest that we pull our troops back to seal (like in hermetically) the country’s borders – primarily that with Iran and Syria – and forfeit any significant troop presence within the cities. Once we’ve basically isolated the nation from the rest of the world, we begin to slice wide swaths of “depopulated” zones horizontally through the country. By this, I mean, that we create areas that are devoid of anything and enforce this with B-52 and/or B-2 air strikes using MOAB and newer, larger weapons. We simply fry anything that crosses into these territories.

Next, we ‘dice’ the country into neat little cubes by cutting other swaths of Iraqi nothingness from the south through the northern part of the country. By carpet bombing anything that moves into the “dematerialized” (as opposed to simply being demilitarized) zones, we can control the country as if it were a big three-dimensional bingo pad. The final process would be a delicate mix of capitalistic compassion and vengeful militarism. I’m all for economic development and would love to see a chain of mini malls or resorts to employ all of those out-of-work Iraqis. A decent, steady paycheck would do more to ensure that Iraqis spend more time courting virgins than trying to gain their affection in heaven by way of self-detonation. Yet, not all Iraqis are merely interested in decent paychecks.

Some, whether of legitimate Iraqi heritage or not, prefer to fight than work, murder instead of marry, and destroy instead of build. These are the ones that need to be vanquished and in the most obvious way possible. Arabs understand raw power and America is the only nation that understands how to dish it out. We need to be brutal – there’s just no other way to act – and we must therefore trash any attempts at placidity. Remember, this course of action would not simply be Plan C of D, E, F… Consider it to be Plan Z – the final and absolute American action in Iraq. If the surge fails, we must decide to end our involvement with the punishment of Iraq as a whole, sending a powerful message to the entire planet that when our patience wears thin, there’s hell to pay.

Once we have neatly sliced and diced the country into symmetrical partitions, we would be almost ready to permit Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to move in and resume sound diplomacy for the region. I say almost because the primary problem in Iraq is not the existence of our troops there but the existence of conflicting and competing ethnic groups that are jockeying for power. We need to start taking these people out regardless of their nascent political ambitions.

Today, we have squads of soldiers and marines occupying tracts of urban real estate in an attempt to foster community relations while engaging within firefights with those who are not so cordial. This is bad for two reasons. First, we expose much more of our troops to enemy fire and Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs. Second, firefights are a waste of precious ammunition on fleeting targets that can keep tabs on our plans through the telegraphic nature of urban patrols. I suggest that we replace roving patrols with sniper-scout teams blending in with the local populace.

I know what you’re thinking – most people equate snipers with the most horrific form of soldier since the ancient ninja, but in my opinion (which is based upon historical fact), professional snipers within the U.S. military are the most civilized of any trained warrior. During Vietnam, for example, the conventional military unleashed an average of 50,000 rounds per kill – at a total cost of about $2,000 per enemy death. In comparison, the sniper force averaged approximately 1.3 rounds per kill at a few pennies per shot. What’s more, no legitimate sniper has ever inflicted a casualty upon an innocent person; they kill only those that they seek. Imagine if we could cover the cities of Iraq with clandestine teams of snipers instead of the much more visible ranks of soldiers and marines?

Snipers can hide within the urban environment and take out those who need to be taken out. Fewer wayward bombs, No more targets for IEDs. No more running from approaching patrols. Snipers can lay and wait, or move quickly through areas without arousing suspicion. By taking out specific targets, we can also antagonize their followers into, perhaps, grouping together (e.g., demonstrations, etc.) and presenting better targets for gun ships and high flying bombers.

Consider this example. The Mahdi Army led by radical cleric and sometime Iranian resident Muqtada al-Sadr is the thorn in the side of any peaceful Iraq. While he may have grandiose plans of political office, I think that this simple stooge of Iran needs to be taken out and decisively. My slight trace of naïveté thinks that he must be working with our forces or something for him to still be alive, but I just think that he needs to go. What could be simpler than taking out a two-bit despot and then bombing his followers into oblivion when they come out into the streets to protest?

Our past strategy in Iraq has failed because it is quite like trying to burst a balloon without compressing it against anything. You push the balloon with your hand and it simply moves away into another direction. In the case of al-Sadr and thousands of thugs like him, when our military comes looking they simply run away. We need to squash them from all sides until they burst. Of course, we simply can’t start shooting every Iraqi that sticks their head out into the street so accompanying my proposed sniper-scout teams would be larger groups of business people – the capitalists that seem to be needed by all and despised by twice as many. Once we’ve isolated Iraq into subdued little cubicles of real estate, we build up their communities one by one.

The sniper units will protect the reconstruction efforts, our bombers will protect the snipers, and our diplomats will protect our relations. There wouldn’t be a major troop reduction in my plan, but at least they would be removed from the more dangerous areas. Of the many plans floating around, there can be no solution for Iraq until we accomplish three specific goals. One, we isolate Iraq from its meddling neighbors and impose strict quarantine on what goes in and out of the country. Two, we take out everyone who is a threat to peace and security, even if it is only a political wannabe like Muqtada al-Sadr. Third, we rebuild Iraq into a beacon of all that’s good with free trade, free enterprise, and free from corruption. Iraq can exist as a free democracy working together to build a stable nation in the Middle East or it should become an example of what will happen if we lose our patience. The choice is definitely theirs to make.