"US won't pull Marines from Iraq"

[randy_byers]

Okay, I know that my political posts are about as interesting as, oh, every other uninformed political post on the intertubes, but sometimes I can't help myself.

Anyway, a while back I read that the Marines had requested that there be a restructuring of deployments so that the Army handled Iraq and the Marines handled Afghanistan. I thought at the time that this was the Marines saying that Iraq was an idiotic waste of time and resources. Today the Seattle Times reports that the Secretary of Defense has turned down the proposal, and it contains some black comedy along with an interesting insight into the military perspective.

Marine Corps Commandant James Conway is quoted as giving several reasons for the proposal. First he indicates that things are getting so quiet in Anbar Province that "lance corporals are complaining that they don't have anybody to shoot." Ho ho ho! "But that doesn't drive strategic thinking, of course," he is quick to assure us. Nice to know!

Next comes a more feasible reason: "There's a little bit of a recruiting consideration here in this," he said. More baldly: "Switching to Afghanistan at lower numbers would give Marines more time between combat tours, while appealing to those potential recruits who like the idea of fighting in the country that gave haven to al-Qaida before it carried out its Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Conway said." So it's apparently easier to motivate people to fight their actual enemies! How surprising.

Then comes the punchline: "He referred to the Marines' current duty in Iraq's Anbar province as almost like occupation duty." Yeah, almost! "Occupation is not the right word here, but the long-term security forces, that's not a Marine function," he said.

If "occupation" is not the right word, why is it the first one that occurs to him before he remembers the politically correct one? Still looks to me as though the Marines are saying that Iraq is an idiotic waste of time and resources.

Comments

Lest anybody forget

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

the country that gave haven to al-Qaida

That will be the country that tried to hand Osama bin Laden over to the World Court in 1997 until Clinton ordered airstrikes on Kabul.

Or perhaps the country that tried to hand Osama bin Laden to the world Court in October 2001 until Rumsfeld and co vetoed any deal.

It's certainly the country supplying far more heroin to the west since the invasion than before it.

And maybe its the country whose government was only recognised by two of our allies (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) because of its opposition to the building of an oil pipeline across its land to link Russian oilfields to the sea and thus reducing oil prices.

Re: Lest anybody forget

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

Oh and is that an assertion that Iraq didnt give haven to al-quaida? So the Marines are saying the government lied then.

Re: Lest anybody forget

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

Re: Lest anybody forget

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Well, bin Laden would seem to be the one to have gained the most from all of this, and to have gotten exactly what he wanted: the US invading Afghanistan, where many a great power has failed to prevail.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

References? I did some searching and didn't find anything to substantiate.

From what I've read (Taliban by Ahmed Rashid, and general news), Bin Laden made himself indispensable to the Taliban by providing money and troops. Maybe the Taliban were willing to hand Bin Laden over in 1997, when they might not have felt he was valuable to them, and they still had some hope of getting in good with the western powers. But it also could have been a diplomatic ploy without any sincere meaning. Or maybe there was no such offer. I don't know. We are talking Afghan politics here, so it's worth taking with a grain of salt. It's also possible that through 1997 the U.S. did not recognize Bin Laden as a serious threat and make whatever effort was necessary to get him.

The U.S. cruise missile attacks were in response to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August 7, 1998, which were linked to Bin Laden. In other words, I don't think there was a sudden breakdown in negotiations due to an inexplicable U.S. attack. The embassy bombings were brutal, with hundreds of innocent Africans killed. As for Taliban policy towards Bin Laden, my guess is the U.S. counter-attack did not have any effect one way or another. Any anger the Taliban felt at missiles hitting Afghanistan was probably balanced by anger at Bin Laden for provoking the attacks in the first place. Probably the most important factor to the Taliban was Bin Laden's usefulness inside Afghanistan. Just before the Africa embassy bombings, Bin Laden's troops provided significant help to the Taliban in the capture (and rape) of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Later (on September 9, 2001) Bin Laden's organization assassinated Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance and the only remaining opponent to the Taliban's complete control of Afghanistan. I don't think it's realistic to expect the Taliban would have handed over one of their most useful and powerful military allies. Also, with the number of fighters and resources Bin Laden had in Afghanistan, including control of Tora Bora, it's not clear that the Taliban could have handed him over even if they wanted to.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

War Plan Iraq by Milan Rai cites reports in The Telegraph and other news agencies detailing these stories. The 1997 deal was brokered by the pakistan Foreign Minister and took place shortly before the US attacks. It is reported that mullah Omar had become frustrated with binLaden's unpredictability but it is also quite likely that he feared US reprisals (rightly as it turned out.) and sought to avoid them.
The 2001 deal was negotiated by one of the Saudi princes who has strong links with bin Laden but was scuppered by the US government's refusal to acknowledge the jurisdiction of The Hague and by their unwavering determination to defeat the Taliban. Many sources link this to the Taliban opposition to the oil pipeline (hence Saudi support for The taliban and Iraqi opposition for instance.)

As for the Al-Quaeda itself, there are disputed theories as to how it operates. One that has some credence is that it actually acts as a sort of clearing house/funding agency for disparate smaller groups by offering funds, weapons or knowledge/training as much as it actually acts in itself as a terrorist group. In this respect the saudi government has effectively supported bin Laden as much as the Taliban (partly familial links, partly because of the usefulness re the pipeline, and other reasons.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I do remember reading in the newspapers at the time that the Taliban had offered up bin Laden sometime after 9/11 and before the US attack, although I didn't remember any of the details about the deal. Whether they really could have delivered him (and what, if any, effect that would have had on al Qaeda) is an interesting question.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Any 1997 deal would not be "shortly before" the U.S. attacks which were in August 1998. Also, going back to the original statement, the U.S. air strikes (actually cruise missiles) were not on Kabul, but on an Al Qaeda training camp just inside the Afghanistan border from Pakistan, about 94 miles from Kabul. And I repeat that it is exceedingly unrealistic to think that the Taliban would hand over the man who had just helped them conquer the city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

When was this supposed deal in 2001? In 2001 the Bush administration was in power. Before September 11, they didn't have any interest one way or the other in the Taliban or Bin Laden. Only after September 11 is there any determination at all to defeat the Taliban. (Keep in mind that the U.S. at the time was controlled by religious conservatives who have much more in common with the Taliban and Bin Laden than with you and me. Also, the Bush administration foreign policy was focused (if one can use that word) on reviving discredited cold war policies against the Soviet Union, um, Russia, and China.) I don't know but I would expect that at the time all sorts of people were popping up and offering to hand over Bin Laden. The tough question is whether any of those offers were credible. I'm very dubious. At the time Bin Laden was protected by a very large force of experienced soldiers and was executing a successful retreat to Tora Bora and the Pakistan border region. Any offer to hand over Bin Laden would have to include penetrating his security and getting back out with him. It would be slightly less unrealistic to consider an offer to get in and assassinate him in a suicide operation, but that was exactly what Bin Laden's organization did to Massoud, and I think the chances of being able to do that back to Bin Laden were basically nil.

The idea that an oil pipeline across Afghanistan was any real factor in this is great fodder for conspiracy theories, but it is completely unrealistic. The Taliban actually was quite happy to have a pipeline crossing their territory and signed a deal in 1998 with Unocal and a Saudi company to construct one (for gas, not oil). The pipeline was not built because of the minor detail of Afghanistan being in an ongoing civil war. Work is still stalled.

The story line seems to be that the U.S. could have gotten Bin Laden in 1997 and 2001 but failed because of U.S. attacks which were motivated by Taliban opposition to an oil pipeline. I'm very unhappy with U.S. policy under the Bush administration, and there were some serious problems under Clinton. I believe in taking any criticism seriously and trying to get to the bottom of it. But this is just ridiculous.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

The oil pipeline theory has always reeked of conspiracy theory to me as well. I think it was Victor who argued at the time of the Iraq invasion that the plan all along had been to put Iran in a pinch between US-controlled Afghanistan and Iraq. That makes a lot more sense to me, although that whole "US-controlled" aspect sure hasn't worked according to plan.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What a mess.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Clinton tried to get Saudi Arabia to accept Bin Laden in 1996, when Sudan was reportedly willing to arrest him and send him over, but couldn't get the important cooperation of the Saudis. Links are on this page, under the headline "Myth: The Sudanese offered to turn bin Laden over to the U.S., and Clinton refused." The WaPo article link is dead, but the text can be found here.

The upshot is that Clinton knew in 1997 that Bin Laden was a threat, and he was interested in doing something about him.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

The split rather makes a mockery of the idea that marines are naval troops! When did the US decide it needed two separate armies?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Not sure I follow this exactly, but I did think it was interesting that the Marine commander essentially said, "We're an expeditionary force, not an occupying force." But I'm not sure how being an expeditionary force distinguishes them from the Army either. Is an expedition different than, say, a campaign?

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Traditionally marines were soliders who served on ships, and the special skills needed for raiding parties made them an elite force. But while the Royal Marines are clearly an Army regiment in the UK, it seems in the US they are a 4th branch of the military

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, "The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is a branch of the United States military responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the U.S. Navy to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces. Since the Marine Corps works alongside U.S. Naval forces, it is part of the Department of the Navy for administrative purposes."

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I wonder how the Navy get to Afganistan?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe that's why the Secretary of Defense said no to the proposal. "Sorry, guys, there's no way for us to get you there!"