Fighting war and peace and ideas for citizens who vote

I’ve just read a wonderful article on the internet by an “I think” intellectual, Tony Corn, who seems to be smart, well read as to history, and can certainly write. Here’s the link to a very long article: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/09/clausewitz_in_wonderland.html I call him an intellectual because his article appears to me to be as much for his peers as us other people. He has other articles, also.

I read his article mostly as an objection to the Clausewitz influence on military professional military education (PME) that dominates our military schools today and has for many years. His point is that civilian smart intellectuals and educators who teach our senior Commissioned Officers all too often teach a traditional Clausewitz war from the past; and are doing normal traditional education as they have been hired and taught. Tony Corn offers solutions to his objection at the intellectual level. Good on him for making us voters think. And I read his message that the military leadership (Commissioned Officers mostly) subsequently suffer from their PME during their time in Iraq. This may be valid. He notes few words are given to the Strategic Corporal concept (Krulak), for example. PME of Staff Non-Commisioned Officers, and Non-Commisioned Officers is not mentioned at all in his article.

From his article is a really good point:

In Iraq as in Afghanistan, real professionals have learned the hard way that -- to put it in a nutshell -- the injunction "Know Thy Enemy, Know Thyself" matters more than the bookish "Know Thy Clausewitz" taught in war colleges. Know thy enemy: At the tactical and operational levels at least, it is anthropology, not Clausewitzology, that will shed light on the grammar and logic of tribal warfare and provide the conceptual weapons necessary to return fire. Know thyself: It is only through anthropological "distanciation" that the U.S. military (and its various "tribes": Army, Navy, etc.) will become aware of its own cultural quirks -- including a monomaniacal obsession with Clausewitz -- and adapt its military culture to the new enemy.

My following part of this article applies to voters and is about the military since it was left holding the bag in Iraq. Some think that is appropriate, that the military was left holding the bag. I still think we Americans had, and still have, a mission to accomplish and go forward to accomplish, and this is most important.

Of course what is the mission? I think our President has said it often enough to where even I can understand it.

What I don’t understand is how we are presently task organized to accomplish the mission. To my simple mind, only one person can be in charge of the effort. This would be a person who is accountable, and can be replaced if he fails.

And I am a little confused as to political accountability both in the US, the UN, and the rest of the world.

Best I can read, no one is in charge and everyone is in charge. That is a formula for western disaster and a highway an eastern enemy can drive through.

Now I am not talking about “time phasing” problems from occupation to Iraq sovereignty. I am talking about some kind of responsibility chart that has somebody at the top, and I mean a local somebody, not a D.C. or London, UN, or EU type. All the good efforts by DOD, DOS, UN, World Bank, AID, EU, and other do gooders are usually wasted until there is a coordinated and unified effort under one person who controls a local Iraq agency. Does Dwight Eisenhower come to mind? He may not have been perfect military wise or even political wise, but he was in charge (and subject to firing/replacement).

I have tried to no avail to find such a responsibility chart circa September 2006. Maybe that is why I am not a politician, but, I can still vote.

Most of us Americans would be very proud of our ingenuity and flexibility in trying to win the peace. Inspite of all our boo boo’s we are noble. I think the French and many EU leaders also say we are naïve and all this is a waste. I think many State Department intellectuals think the French are correct. I respectfully disagree.

The French have their Algeria colonial experience and war that they lost, in the end. That the French government after WWII was trying to impose it itself for colonial reasons is a given. A wise man would read the lessons learned from the people involved. Ignore any present day French politician. Finding any of this, especially in an English translation, is most difficult. There are quick summaries, primarily through the Army War College, but to find it at Amazon.com is impossible in the English translation. This report is two years old, so maybe others can succeed where I failed two years ago.

Since I am a Marine, I am prejudiced; but for those interested please read the Small Wars Manual published in 1940; or just buy the National Geographic series of CD’s from 188x or so to learn how to be anthropologic in your homework. Even today I have read a 1913 National Geographic article about the non-Christians in the Philippines. It includes a picture of an Army captain later killed in the small war. He had a Moro boy on his lap, and I wonder what ever happened to the boy?

Most of us voters think we won the invasion of Iraq. Most of us voters think the winning of the peace is presently (9/9/06) up for grabs. Most of us are not willing to tolerate the continuation of whatever is going on in Iraq’s bad areas. Most of us know that most Iraqi areas are peaceful.

Most of us want to win in Iraq because it should bring us peace in the war on Islamic terror. Islamic terror and our families protection are voter basics.