"Historically, the average time for a counter-insurgency campaign to be conducted with a successful outcome has been 14 years." He doesn't say how he arrived at this number, but given his unwillingness and that of his colleagues to consider the influence of the jihad ideology in making this counter-insurgency so persistent, it is likely that he just averaged together a smorgasbord of counter-insurgencies and arrived at this number.
Now why did he think that comparing Afghanistan to counter-insurgencies of a huge variety of types and circumstances would be more illuminating of the Afghan situation than a sober, realistic study of the ideology of Islamic supremacism? It is testimony to the thickness of the fog of political correctness that envelops us all.
More on this story. "'A Counter-Insurgency Takes a Long Time, Longer than We Thought,'" from Spiegel, August 11 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
[...] SPIEGEL: The tribal areas are located in Pakistan. How can the problem be solved in Afghanistan if it is being caused in another country?McKiernan: The militant tribal groups that operate with impunity in the tribal areas are a problem for Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. The causes of the insurgency are extremely complex. Historically, the average time for a counter-insurgency campaign to be conducted with a successful outcome has been 14 years.
SPIEGEL: So we still have seven more years to go?
McKiernan: No, I didn't say that. A counter-insurgency takes a long time, longer than we thought. We also need additional military capability -- regardless whether it comes from Europe, the US or Afghanistan.
SPIEGEL: For a year now, the Americans have been working closely together with ISAF peacekeeping troops down a list of high-ranking Taliban commanders, who are either being targeted for assassination in commando deployments or arrested. But isn't the supply of jihadists endless?
McKiernan: We have had some effect by targeting Taliban leadership inside Afghanistan. In some cases they were killed. In other cases we captured them. This has had some effect, but there is a manpower pool and while I will not say that it is inexhaustible, we also can't see the bottom of the pool yet....
"Historically, the average time for a counter-insurgency campaign to be conducted with a successful outcome has been 14 years."
-- from the article above, quoting General McKiernaqn
Two previous postings about this kind of "in general" or "on average" or "historically" argument, that ignores the the reality and permanence of Islam and of the Jihad, and of the inculcated hostility toward Infidels, that Islam makes as the source of that insurgency "
"As for those who say things like 'on average, insurgencies last about ten years,' to them one can only reply: what would you think of someone who self-assuredly proclaimed that 'on average, American wars last an average of 2.1 years' or 'on average, wars around the world since 1500 have lasted about 13.16 years' or 'on average, civil wars last about 3.7 years'?
You would see right away how vacuous and jejune are such remarks. But for some reason, those "counterinsurgency experts" who make such statements, and then as well think they are little-lawrence-of-arabias with their knowledge of the "Sunni tribes" and their ability to really get to know those sheikhs because they are aware of how to sit, and which hand to use, and what formulae to utter, and how to listen patiently as the local Arab, continue to utter them. Yet that local Arab knows exactly how to manipulate the American army officer who is under the impression that it is he, the American, who is doing the manipulating. He presents his wish-list for still more money, still more of those nice advanced American weapons and, oh yes, some more raids by American soldiers on that particular sheikh's particular enemies, whether or not they belong to Al Qaeda, which is not, pace Patraeus and Bush, the only problem -- for there are a dozen different, mutually hostile, constantly shifting in their allegiances groups in Iraq, but all of them, in the end, consist of Muslims, and therefore none of them, in end, can conceivably be won over, not their hearts, and not their minds, to be real, as opposed to temporary and feigned, friends of American Infidels.
The article above makes one furious, and sad. Furious at the stupidity. Sad for the troops, sad for the soldiers being asked to be there, fighting for something, trying to do something in Iraq, that makes no sense -- none.
[Posted by Hugh at June 25, 2007]
[re-Posted by: Hugh at March 4, 2008 10:06 AM]
#2. Another post where the "in general insurgencies last" argument is discussed:
“The "surge is working." That should take care of the demographic changes, with an ever-larger and ever-more-aggressive and menacing Muslim population in Western Europe. That should take care of the Muslim menace in Latin America. The "surge is working." Iraq will be prevented from disintegrating, Iraq will be guided to prosperity, Iraq will become not a source of disunity and demoralization for the Camp of Islam, but rather, what this Administration always knew it could be, a Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations.
But since, as General Petraeus and Col. Kilcullen and Col. Nagl, all of them "thinking hard" about the problem of "counter-insurgencies" (and all of them apparently utterly oblivious to the world-wide nature of the Jihad, and all of the varied instruments of Jihad), have told us that "on average, insurgencies last about ten years" which, amazingly, just happens to be the amount of further time we have just been told by an important Iraqi general (our friend, our ally) has said that American forces will have to remain in Iraq (about "ten more years") in order to ensure what would be, from his point of view, a good outcome -- a unified Iraq, with the Sunnis more or less acquiescent in the transfer of power to the Shi'a, but hoping by dint of superior training and cohesion and aggression to slowly retake the center of power, Baghdad, possibly ministry by ministry, and then in the city itself, block by block -- but what is never asked by those "counter-insurgency" boys, with their iron laws derived from a hodgepodge of previous conflicts -- would we not laugh off the stage, or out of court, anyone who came to assure us that "on average, civil wars last about 4.7 years" or "on average, wars last about 11.3 years" or...well, you get the idea. And would we take seriously someone who did not recognize that the "insurgency" in Iraq, unlike those in, say, modern Kenya or Malaysia or Greece, are not those of one group fighting against one power (the rulers), either for independence for to gain control, but rather a fight that involves three clearl distinct groups -- the Sunni Arabs, the Shi'a Arabs, the Kurds -- and then, within those groups, further internecine warfare (for example, there are Shi'a who support Sadr, and those who support the SCIRI or Da'wa parties, and there are still others secular enough to follow Allawi, or Chalabi, once the great hope of the naive policy-makers in Washington).
"The surge is working." So we can keep plowing money and men and materiel into Iraq, for a goa. that I maintain cannot be attained, and that in any case makes no sense, makes the very opposite of sense. And meanwhile, the economic damage inflicted (now self-inflicted) on the United States plays right into Muslim hands, right into the "economic warfare" that Osama Bin Laden, for example, has repeatedly discussed -- but that part of his taped views is always passed over in silence by American commentators, who prefer to focus on sensational threats of violence.
We can lose the captains in the army. We can watch morale continue to plummet, and confusion reign, as those who hitch their wagons to the Iraq venture keep telling us that "the surge is working" and no one dares to explain why the "surge" is "working" only in the sense of decreasing, temporarily -- as long as the tribal sheikhs in Anbar continue to have their demands for money and weapons, so extravagant, so constant, met by the Americans who have no policy other than sheer bribery, and as long as the Mahdi Army and the other Shi'a do not yet feel they are threatened, in Baghdad, by a renewal of Sunni power, but the minute they do, it will be the mixture as before.
And meanwhile, now in Latin America, as in Western Europe, as in East Asia, the instruments of Jihad are being deployed, and already being exploited.
But the Americans don't see it. They are focussed on Iraq, on "winning" in Iraq. For, you understand, because everyone keeps repeating it so mindlessly, "the surge is working."
[Posted by: Hugh at January 22, 2008 10:25 AM]
"Historically, the average time for a counter-insurgency campaign to be conducted with a successful outcome has been 14 years."
-- from the article above, quoting General McKiernaqn
Hugh has it exactly right and I would like to add that any General during WWII who would make such outlandish comments would probably have been fired on the spot.
I'll bet that there were not many insurgencies during the WWII timeframe. Some japanese could be included in that definition but they didn't last very long. They lasted only a few months because we were not afraid to use the proper weapons on them.
Kilkenny Cats.
From French sociologist Jacques Ellul's little essay on 'Jihad' in Islam, written as foreword to Bat Yeor's "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam", I quote the following trenchant observation, which puts a different twist on the oft-repeated canard that jihad is an 'inner struggle':
"Since the *jihad* is not solely an external war, it can break out within the Muslim world itself - and wars among Muslims have been numerous, but always with the same features."
"Hence...the jihad is an institution and not an event, that is to say, it is part of the normal functioning of the Muslim world."
The sooner all non-Muslim strategists, diplomats, and political, religious and military leaders understand what M. Ellul understood 17 years ago, the better.
Then we non-Muslims would be far less inclined toward the sort of wasteful activity that one Australian commentator recently described, unforgettably, as:
"burning money and man-power in the Pakistani furnace".
Or, one might add, burning men and money in the Iraqi furnace.
Or, burning men and money in the Afghani furnace.
Just as the *normal* disposition of the Ummah toward its non-Muslim neighbours (and any non-Muslim populations unlucky enough to be trapped within its borders) is...WAR (both cold and hot), the *normal* state of intra-ummah relations is, also...WAR.
The more time they spend fighting amongst themselves, running down their resource base, the less energy they will have to strike outward. So why waste men and money inside the Ummah, trying to play policeman?
Our efforts should be concentrated on hammering the Muslim forces flat whenever they try to strike outward into non-Muslim territory; there may also be a time and place for strong, carefully targeted assistance to beleaguered non-Muslim communities trapped within the Ummah (Copts and Maronites, for example) or potentially threatened non-Muslim polities on the edges of the Ummah (I would put a lot more effort into helping places like Armenia and Papua New Guinea become stronger and more defensible, for example). As for southern Thailand, southern Philippines, Kashmir, and Muslim-occupied Judea and Samaria, to name some but not all of those regions where Muslims are attacking each other as well as the non-Muslims in territory that rightfully belongs to the non-Muslims, . ..rollback time. There, if applied intelligently and relentlessly, with a view to pushing out the Ummah altogether, men and money would be well spent.
In the last year the C-in-C of the British Army told trainee officers that they should expect the Afghan war to last 30 years.
"20 years..."
And then what? People in Afghanistan cease to read the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira? Cease to be inculcated with the idea that all of humanity divides into Believers and Infidels, and cease to believe that they have a duty to ensure that all barriers to the spread of Islam --including Infidel opposition -- are removed, and Islam not only spreads, but comes to dominate, everywhere?
Will that disappear, if after "30 years" that war is "won"?
Why?
On what basis does anyone suggest that? Or is it, rather, that the Commander in Chief of the British Army does not really understand the nature of the war being made, that it has no end, and that running around Afghanistan looking for Taliban, and at the same time plowing billions into that place for the sake of the local Muslims (who will not be grateful, nor become one whit less Muslim as a result), is merely a squandering of resources -- men, money, materiel, and attention, attention that the C-in-C of the British army might discover should better be paid right at home, in Great Britain, to those who deploy the Money Weapon (for mosques, madrasas, propaganda, Western hirelings), those who conduct the carefully-targetted campaigns of Da'wa, and those who, by their fantastic overbreeding (just look at Iraq, just look at Afghanistan, just look at the statistics for the birthrates of Muslims and non-Muslims in the countries of Western Europe), are conquering through demography what they could not conqer through qitaal, combat, or through terrorism.
Hugh
I am afraid that in the interest of brevity I have caused you to shoot the wrong fox.
I could not be bothered to look up his name but I was quoting General Sir Richard Dannatt and he was speaking at a private lecture to officer cadets at Sandhurst Military College - Britains West Point. They were only made public after the Sunday Times made a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
You should know that General Dannatt is hated by the Government for his honest and public statements about the demands being made on the army and the appalling way his men are being treated. It was reported that he was/will be punished for embarrassing the government by being passed over for the post of Chief of Defence Staff despite being the best candidate.
When he first expressed his concern 2 years ago a member of the public wrote,
"I agree whole heartedly with the views, honesty and integrity of General Sir Richard. Although it is not right for the military to interfere in constitutional matters, it is refreshing to hear of this honest officer expose the concerns of the services under his command. The lies, leaks and spin of this bankrupt government are again exposed as a total sham, especially in their treatment of their armed forces.
Thank you Sir Richard"
Take a look at the link and you may understand why our lying scum "leaders" hate him.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-410175/Sir-Richard-Dannatt--A-honest-General.html
Update
They are firing him, look up
"General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of Army, has become the victim of a "dirty tricks" campaign, The Sunday Telegraph has learned"
After all, what use is a man of honesty and integrity to them?