I read this in the print version last week and wanted to post it. I hope someone did not previously do so. A couple of other points are that the Indian Wars were fought by an all-volunteer force. The U. S. conducted the wars over a period of decades. There were domestic factions that were against the war from the same regions, but never to the extent they are today. The wars ended at Wounded Knee as a result of media exposure.
An overlooked truth about the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq in particular, is that they both arrived too soon for the American military: before it had adequately transformed itself from a dinosaurian, Industrial Age beast to a light and lethal instrument skilled in guerrilla warfare, attuned to the local environment in the way of the 19th-century Apaches.
My mention of the Apaches is deliberate. For in a world where mass infantry invasions are becoming politically and diplomatically prohibitive--even as dirty little struggles proliferate, featuring small clusters of combatants hiding out in Third World slums, deserts and jungles--the American military is back to the days of fighting the Indians.
The red Indian metaphor is one with which a liberal policy nomenklatura may be uncomfortable, but Army and Marine field officers have embraced it because it captures perfectly the combat challenge of the early 21st century. But they don't mean it as a slight against the Native North Americans. The fact that radio call signs so often employ Indian names is an indication of the troops' reverence for them.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/26/2004 8:32:59 AM ||
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#1
For inciteful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of
a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while
bringing âcivilizationâ to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.
Some excerpts:
Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. âThree special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the
moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe
unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for
conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.
Chapter 4. The Army, Congress, and the People. Shermanâs frontier regulars endured not only the physical isolation of service at remote border posts; increasingly in the postwar years they found themselves isolated in attitudes, interests, and spirit from other institutions of government and society and, indeed from the American people themselves...Reconstruction
plunged the army into tempestuous partisan politics. The frontier service removed it largely from physical proximity to
population and, except for an occasional Indian conflict, from public awareness and interest. Besides public and congressional indifference and even hostility, the army found its Indian attitudes and policies condemned and opposed by the civilian officials concerned with Indian affairs and by the nationâs humanitarian community.
Posted by: Don ||
09/26/2004 10:38 Comments ||
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#2
Thank God for John Ford. Luckily (and I use the word with all due respect) the entire US Army after the War was made up of fighting Calvary.
#3
the Army never learned the lesson that small units of foot soldiers were more effective against the Indians than large mounted regiments burdened by the need to carry forage for horses...
Hmmmm. Methinks walking to battle out West is a losing proposition.
Had it not been for a deluge of settlers aided by the railroad, security never would have been brought to the Old West.
Not a bad idea. I think I'll hitch up my covered wagon now. Can anyone point me in the direction of Fallujio? Ben, Hoss and Little Joe, where are you when we need you?
#4
[A]s one general officer told me, "you want to whack bad guys quietly and cover your tracks with humanitarian-aid projects." Because of the need for simultaneous military, relief and diplomatic operations, our greatest enemy is the size, rigidity and artificial boundaries of the Washington bureaucracy.
Both this article's title and the bolded sentence above synopsize what we are confronted with for many years to come. In the absence of any credible deterrent or incontrovertible incentive for Islam to change its drift into militancy, we will need to start whacking the bad guys wherever they are. If our allies won't help us, then we need to surreptitiously conduct such operations on their soil. The profound hypocrisy of so many other nations declining to assist with fighting terrorism whilst they simultaneously huddle beneath America's military umbrella repudiates much of their sovereignty.
They cannot at once delcare themselves to be unaligned in fighting terrorism and continue hoping to benefit from America spilling its blood while protecting them. France and Spain are the most egregious examples, but there are many lesser ones. Such fair-weather-friends somehow ignore that America is the central target of terrorism. Spain's own reaction to 3-11 demonstrated this in spades. If America is obliged to shoulder a vast majority of the burden and risk, then much of the decision making process will be wrenched from the hands of those who refuse to actively engage in the fight.
Some of those denied decisions will involve exactly when, where and how we go about disposing of those who present the greatest risk to American security. For European countries to welcome jihadists like Qaradawi means that they forfeit any influence over America's policy of eliminating those same threats. Once the outside world understands the necessity of confining militant Islam to those host countries that sponsor, harbor and finance terrorism, such policy can change. Until then, it's open season on terrorists and terror advocates wherever they are.
#6
Calm down, 6334, we're NOT going to nuke Mecca. That would turn the entire world (including the Brits and Aussies) against us. It would ruin everything we're working for. It isn't going to happen.
Likewise, a "starvation seige" might be superficially appealing, espeically if one is frustrated, but it's a really, really bad idea. Far better for us to take the slow, methodical, inexorable approach of intel, target, more intel, better target, over-and-over again. Those who oppose us need to see that we're relentless, and those in the middle need to see that we're careful and humane. That's how you win the small wars.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/26/2004 16:01 Comments ||
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#7
A6334, has anyone told you today that you're crazy as an outhouse rat?
Posted by: John Birch ||
09/26/2004 16:01 Comments ||
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#9
Battling at close quarters against a hostile, occupied people is tactical insanity. The solution in Iraq is to take no prisoners, and let the Iraqis do the killing for us. I would impose starvation sieges: food for bagged jihadis. Of course, that would be after I nuked Mecca, the head of the Islamic snake.
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent 9-26-04
The assassination of Hamas official Iz a Din al-Sheikh Khalil in Damascus on Sunday has the fingerprints of Mossad intelligence agency chief Meir Dagan all over it, assuming Israel did indeed carry out the hit (at the time of writing, Israel had not yet officially claimed responsibility). When Dagan took up his position as Mossad chief, he placed the goal of striking at terror wherever it may be in the world at the very top of the security and intelligence services list of priorities. Dagan believes that terror must be hit whatever the costs and possible dangers. This is the first time since Israel ran a spy ring in Egypt in the 1950s that such an operation has been successfully carried out in the heart of an Arab country with which Israel is embroiled in a conflict.
Israel killed Khalid al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) in 1988 in Tunisia, which is far away from Israel, has limited military capabilities and is not in active conflict with Israel. The operation to kill Abu Jihad, Yasser Arafat's deputy in the PLO and commander of operations in West Bank, was carried out by the Mossad, Military Intelligence, the Israel Air Force, the Israel Navy and the Sayeret Matkal elite force. Israeli's 1997 botched assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Amman took place after Israel had already signed a peace deal with the Jordanians.
Israel has also carried out dozens of operations in Lebanon, including car bombings akin to those seen on Sunday. Lebanon, however, is considered to be Israel's "backyard," where it once had a vast infrastructure, including informers and collaborators built up during its occupation of the southern security zone, as well as having easy and quick access to many areas. The apparent decision to extend Israel's policy of targeted assassinations into Syria is a new stage in Israel's war on terrorism. It is meant to clearly signal to Syria that it no longer enjoys immunity and it must expel all terror group leaders, especially those from Hamas.
One may go as far as to assume that the decision also took into account the U.S.'s tacit support. The Bush administration has issued numerous warnings to Syria to end its support for terrorist groups. This new policy also brings with it new dangers. An escalation in activities against Hamas may prompt the militant group to step up its attacks on Israel. Hamas leaders have so far refrained from issuing orders to attack Jews or Israeli targets abroad. In light of Sunday's assassination, however, this policy may well be reviewed.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
09/26/2004 4:08:43 PM ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
