Shades of Afghanistan

A few weeks back i tried expressing some thoughts about how the Iraq War is much more like the Soviet experience in Afghanistan (1979 - 1988 or so), than it is like any conflict the US has been involved in previously.

During the course of those musings i had occasion to quote Major Gen. Rick Lynch, who is the commander of US forces in the area south of Baghdad.

Well, Lynch is back in the news again, in the context of the deadly bombing of a bridge in Mahmoudiyah that severed the main north/south highway, and what he's got to say for himself this time is perplexing, to say the least.

In Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, whose forces control the area of the bombing, spoke at length about U.S. efforts to draw Sunnis into the security forces.

"There are tribal sheiks out there who say 'Hey, just allow me to be the local security force. I don't care what you call me. ... You can call me whatever you want. Just give me the right training and equipment and I'll secure my area.' And that's the direction we're moving out there," the Third Infantry Division commander said Sunday in a meeting with reporters.

Lynch said contacts with the Sunnis, who make up the bulk of the insurgency, were a matter of pragmatism.

"What's the long term effect of arming members of the Sunni population? ... What I've seen over time is the Sunni population saying 'enough, we've had enough of these attacks' ... As a result you see them wanting to arm themselves so they can protect the population mostly against al-Qaida," he said. "So, we've got to reach out to them."

If you're like me, your response to this has got to be, "What the fuck?!" We've just spent most of the past 4 years fighting against the "Sunni insurgency." We've been trying to create and train "the Iraqi army." Our entire presence in Iraq is predicated on supporting the "Iraqi government" of Maliki.

Now, we're going to let a two-star General start making policy decisions about who we're supporting and arming and what side we're taking in Iraq? Don't we have an Iraq war czar, a Secretary of Defense, and a Commander-in-Chief?

Is the Bush administration in such total disarray that we're going to sign up whatever two-bit warlord has been blowing up our troops for the past 4 years, through money and weapons at them, jsut because they say they'll fight al-Qaeda for us?

The lessons of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan should be, don't do this. It's stupid, and it's going to end badly. And it's not worth the sacrifice of our soldiers.

UPDATE: This New York times article indicates that Gen. Petraeus and his second in command Lt. Gen. Odierno, have signed off on this program. Our friend Maj. Gen. Lynch also appears:

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division and leader of an American task force fighting in a wide area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers immediately south of Baghdad, said at a briefing for reporters on Sunday that no American support would be given to any Sunni group that had attacked Americans. If the Americans negotiating with Sunni groups in his area had “specific information” that the group or any of its members had killed Americans, he said, “The negotiation is going to go like this: ‘You’re under arrest, and you’re going with me.’ I’m not going to go out and negotiate with folks who have American blood on their hands.

The Times goes on to note:

The requirement that no support be given to insurgent groups that have attacked Americans appeared to have been set aside or loosely enforced in negotiations with the Sunni groups elsewhere, including Amiriya, where American units that have supported Sunni groups fighting to oust Al Qaeda have told reporters they believe that the Sunni groups include insurgents who had fought the Americans. The Americans have bolstered Sunni groups in Amiriya by empowering them to detain suspected Qaeda fighters and approving ammunition supplies to Sunni fighters from Iraqi Army units.

In Anbar, there have been negotiations with factions from the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a Sunni insurgent group with strong Baathist links that has a history of attacking Americans. In Diyala, insurgents who have joined the Iraqi Army have told reporters that they switched sides after working for the 1920 group. And in an agreement announced by the American command on Sunday, 130 tribal sheiks in Salahuddin met in the provincial capital, Tikrit, to form police units that would “defend” against Al Qaeda.

We are so fucked.