Iraq War: Welcome to the West Bank

Two recent pieces paint a depressing picture of how the American approach to the Iraq War has the potential to lurch from disaster to disaster. Both via Billmon, who also has good comments on it.

The London Independent reports on an incident in which US soldiers bulldozed farmers' crops:

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops. ...

"They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees," said one man. Ambushes of US troops have taken place around Dhuluaya. But Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby US base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees, said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.

Billmon raises some pointed questions about the legality and advisability of doing this. I wouldn't say that something like this is always wrong in a guerrilla war. But it only makes sense as part of a larger effort that can successfully provide security to those who collaborate with the counter-insurgency forces. And they doesn't seem to be the case here.

The other piece is this from Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin, who says, "A new strategy is needed that consults more with Iraqis and takes a tougher stance toward troublemakers." A Charles Bronson strategy, by his description. Billmon comments with more than a touch of bitterness, "I love it when soft, middle-aged newspaper columnists who couldn't tell the business end of a rifle from a long handled shovel start screaming for other people to go commit bloodly mayhem."

Steve Gilliard (10/12/03 post, "US soldiers bulldoze farmers' crops") has also commented on this story.

Tags: billmon, counterinsurgency, coin, iraq war, steve gilliard, small wars, trudy rubin