War of Shadows

By Chris Hedges

"I have spent most of my adult life as a reporter covering insurgencies, from the five years I covered the wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala to seven years in the Middle East and nearby regions, where I covered the two Palestinian uprisings and the civil wars in Algeria and Sudan, and finally to the three years I reported on the wars in the Balkans, including the rebellion in the Serbian province of Kosovo by the Kosovo Liberation Army......

The plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq will be accompanied by a subtle, but disastrous, change in the way the war is fought—a change that will almost assuredly increase the monthly tallies of American dead and wounded. The president warned that “deadly acts of violence will continue, and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties.” In his version of the war, these losses will allow us to climb from the sinkhole we have dug for ourselves to the sunlight of victory. Unfortunately, for Iraqis and for us, what the president proposes is a mistake of catastrophic proportions. It defies basic counterinsurgency doctrine and will leave American troops more vulnerable, more exposed and in greater danger in this war of shadows......

American forces, because they control the country’s infrastructure, must often remain in fixed, static positions. And troops in static positions are easily targeted by small, mobile rebel bands. During the war in El Salvador new guerrilla recruits, for their first kill, were often sent at night to attack one of the many small bridges held by government troops. The immobile targets were so vulnerable, the newly minted rebel soldiers were almost always assured of success......

The insurgents—Shiite and Sunni—have done what we failed to do. They have built a vast and effective support network within their communities, communities we were never able to reach from Humvees or the fortified walls of the Green Zone. Most of the insurgents are Iraqi. They speak Arabic. They worship in the mosques. They buy vegetables in the local markets. They love their country. And many have paid a terrible price for their patriotism and their faith. These neighborhoods are secure. They are just not secure for us. They will never be. And sending in new batches of Americans from Texas or Ohio or New York to patrol these streets will not make Iraq or America safer. It will ensure that even more mothers and fathers, American and Iraqi, will be ushered by George W. Bush into the long night of bitterness and grief."

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