Insurgent Tet Offensives and Nanny 911

Senator John McCain fear an Iraqi Tet Offensive may be launched by our friendly neighborhood Jihadists in response to the troop surge. McCain may fear this, but I welcome it; Tet was an unmitigated disaster for the Viet Cong, and would have ended the war in America`s favor had not Walter Cronkite and his ilk had complete domination of the dissemination of information in the `60`s and `70`s. Those days are gone, and an insurgent Tet-style offensive would most likely spell their doom.

According to historian Steven Hayward;


The Tet offensive was a military failure for the North Vietnamese. North Vietnam failed to take any major South Vietnamese city except for Hue, from which they were ejected within a month but not until after massacring over 3,000 South Vietnamese civilians, an episode only lightly reported by the media. Except for Khe Sanh, Hue, and one or two other locations, the enemy offensive was spent within a few days. By the end of February Hanoi was ordering a general retreat, which ironically happened to coincide with the moment of maximum pessimism in Washington. Out of a total attack force of 84,000 troops, nearly 50,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were killed in Tet. These losses decimated the Viet Cong, destroying their command structure and morale among troops. Viet Cong offensive capabilities suffered and dwindled for the next three years; much of the rest of the war was fought by North Vietnamese regular army troops. Viet Cong defections increased dramatically in the aftermath of Tet. The U.S. suffered 1,100 dead; the South Vietnamese lost 2,300. Indeed it can be argued that General Giap botched the attack; having achieved tactical surprise, the attack was dispersed too widely, with not enough troops in any one location to score decisively.

The Tet offensive failed in part because one of the central premises that South Vietnam’s population would spontaneously revolt was wrong. In fact, the lack of an uprising exposed the hollowness of North Vietnamese propaganda claims. But Tet did provoke an uprising among U.S elites, including the inner circle around President Johnson. Because of the prior political and public relations handling of the war at home, Tet demolished the illusion of control and progress.

In short, Tet wiped out our enemies in Vietnam.

We have everything on our side in an Iraqi offensive; our weapons are far superior to anything we used against the Viet Cong, we are fighting in a much more open battlefield, and, most importantly, the news media won`t be able to convince everybody that it was a defeat for our side. The new media hasn`t anywhere near the strength of the Dino`s, but the MSM no longer has a monopoly. People can go on the internet, can listen to talk radio, and will hear the casualty numbers for themselves. The MSM may try to spin this, try to pretend we are losing, but too many people will have access to the information. Of course, many people will believe what they hear from Cutsie Katie and company, but they simply can`t fool all of the people all of the time anymore.

Part of our problem in Iraq is that nothing seems to happen except a steady drip of daily American casualties. I believe Americans would rally if the insurgents would be so foolish as to launch all out war against us. Despite what would be a desperate effort to paint this as a failure of Mr. Bush`s war plans, Americans would realize that we are, indeed, in a real shooting war, one that we are fighting as well as our enemy. America has grown bored with the lethargy of a campaign-less holding action, and a major attack and subsequent counter attack would reignite passion on our side. It ISN`T 1968, after all! The American People will jump on board when they see something happen.

Tet was analogous to the Battle of the Bulge during WWII; a desperate attempt to break an American stranglehold. The Bulge attack failed because the American forces weren`t going to be stopped by petty politics back home, and because the media-in that case radio, newspapers, and war films-was onboard. Tet succeeded because a monolithic media tricked the American public into viewing it as a defeat, rather than as a shocking victory. I think an Iraqi Bulge/Tet would dwarf those previous battles, and would probably break the back of the insurgency for good.

I`ve theorized that war, and especially a war of pacification such as we are engaged in today, has similar elements as childrearing; the basic rules employed by parents and teachers to control unruly children are applicable to insurgencies. It is necessary to present a united front to the child or guerilla-they cannot perceive weakness or division. If they do, they will attack at the weak spot, rendering the efforts by the stronger partner pointless. Punishment needn`t be overly harsh at all times, but must be meted out in proportion to the misbehavior. In war it will be necessary to kill the enemy, and even execute some of them, but that punishment must not be applied to their families, or neighbors, or groups. Group punishment is a bad idea, whether it be your children, your class, or your rebelling Sunnis. Group punishment leads to anger and resentment in all cases. The offender must be dealt with, not everybody. Punishment must be meted out swiftly and deliberately, and cannot be shrugged off or half-hearted. It is then no longer justice but arbitrary. There must be a carrot as well as a stick, with rewards being offered as well as consequences. Early on, we should have offered a one-time amnesty, for instance, and illustrated that we would kill anyone who violated it, for example. The trick is to provide firm rules which must be obeyed. There cannot be wiggle room, or the savages-little tykes or Jihadists-will slip through.

We made innumerable mistakes in Iraq; we have given the enemy every reason to believe they can win by partisan bickering over the issue and ``votes of no confidence`` (no united front). We have either meted out weak punishment, or have offered San Francisco party style punishments which simply angered the populace. It was necessary to publicly hang or shootguerrillass, yet we either held them for interrogation, or for trial, or simply let them go, thus destroying everybody`s faith in our resolve and our justice. We let Muqtada Al Sadr slip by us, when Iraq needed to see him punished for willfully resisting us. We have lost respect by our crazy rules of engagement, by our willingness to blame our own for doing their job-such as that soldier who was excoriated for shooting the possum-playing Jihadist. We have tried to buy the friendship of the Iraqi people, rather than win their respect through a job well done. How many parents lose control of their children by trying to be their friends, rather than their parents? We needed to make ourselves the masters (overlords, if you like) of the Iraqis; we could always win their hearts and minds later. They needed to respect us, and that respect would be born of a healthy fear. That does not mean the type of fear inspired by Saddam and his brutality. It means a fear born of firmness and enforcement of rules. The type of fear held by a child for his father, or the type of fear meant by ``fear of the Lord``. Respect earned by fair discipline, by strict but decent behavior.

Remember, it was Hammurabi who codified ``an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth`` and he was an Iraqi. This legal system has been in place for as long as civilization has been around in Iraq, and our allowing the enemy to kill our soldiers and innocent civilians is not justice. It is not mercy, either, because these killers aren`t just killing our people. The Iraqis deserve a safe, stable, just environment. They deserve to know they can walk the streets, eat in restaurants, go to work, spend money, live their lives without being molested. That is the carrot we can offer. The stick needed to be used against the insurgents, the thieves who are stealing the average Iraqi`s life and peace. They see us fail to act, fail to hang the killers of their friends and family members and cry ``where is justice?`` They realize we cannot or will not protect them, so they turn a blind eye to the thugs, or actively help them so as to avoid becoming their prey. Our policy of ``winning hearts and minds`` has lost us both.

Perhaps we should call Nanny Central and request the advice from one of the stars of Nanny 911?

During the Mexican War, General Winfield Scott ordered that any Mexicans caught fighting out of uniform be summarily shot. Harsh? Yes, but it was absolutely necessary to stop what would have become a flood of partisan attacks. Scott understood that this type of evil duplicity cannot be tolerated, and he took the necessary measures-measures learned through the bitter history of warfare. We have tried to reinvent the wheel in Iraq, and this effort has failed.

So now we may be faced with a major offensive to stop our surge; I say ``bring it on!`` It`s not too late to regain control of the situation, but it is going to require a bloody lesson be taught, just as an out-of-control kid must learn discipline through the most unpleasant experiences.

Don`t forget the foreign fighters in Iraq; I`ve said all along that we cannot win without dealing with Iranian and Syrian support for the insurgency. The President is finally giving America evidence that Iran has been in this for a while. Actions must be taken to deal with Iran. We missed our opportunity a few years back; we could have launched the insurgency into Iran, used the old Contra trick of building and supporting a movement to overthrow the Revolutionary Government. Many Iranians expected this very thing, but, like the Kurdish uprising against Saddam, America limped back to the stable, leaving the would-be revolutionaries without hope of support. As a result, Saddam stayed in power, and Iran is now on the verge of acquiring atomic weapons as well as supporting our enemies in direct conflict with our troops. That is, of course, an act of war, but will we do what is necessary?

I say ``Bring it On``!