Groups of Iraqis are now threatening armed attacks, including suicide bombings, to get the US out of Iraq. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=2&u=/nm/20030602/wl_nm/iraq_army_dc
They really don't care if we're there or not, all they want is the $$. If they were getting paid they'd be fine.
Economic hardship is a much more likely cause of uprisings than any ideological reason. If they would quiet down when they get paid, why arn't they getting paid? We've only given 60,000 government employees $20 each. But 60% of the Iraqi population works for the government. They are going without. Their food is running out. It isn't panic time yet, but it can be seen in the horizon.
"All of us will become suicide bombers," said former officer Khairi Jassim. "I will turn my six daughters into bombs to kill the Americans." Happy Father's Day!
Finally, some common sense has been given to post war planning. Somehow, the neocons were asleep during the lectures on early 20th century and how the disenchanted, homeless soldiers of the Weirmark reconstituted under nationalists socialist themes. Liberated Military that will renounce the Baathist regime can be a powerful resource in post-war stabilization and are better suited than our guys at enforcing local civility. If anything, they can ensure there won’t be anymore ethnic cleansing and can better monitor the porous borders. Another thing is that this would lessen Iraqi dependence on ‘coalition’ forces and start turning to Iraqis (other than Iranian Mullah backed clerics & Ayatollahs) for solutions. http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20030623/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_193
Someone should consider finding the US military a copy of the Small Wars Manual text or any other major COIN texts.
Globalsecurity.org listed the Somalia engagement and our peace commitment in the Balkans when I ran a search on “small wars manual COIN” here’s the link I need to check out www.foreignpolicymagazine.com on my own time Yahoo referenced this on the same query. As America comes to grips with its present Terror War instead of looking for all the answers in the future, perhaps it would behoove us to learn from the hard won lessons of past. A recent editorial regarding the current war best encapsulates the continued value of the manual: “[Al Qaeda’s actions] seemed a case study in the kind of asymmetric warfare, that is, warfare aiming at key enemy vulnerabilities rather than at the enemy's main force, that had flummoxed American forces in Vietnam and might soon flummox them again in Afghanistan. Here is something that al Qaeda didn't know: For a century or more, the United States made a specialty of fighting small wars against elusive foes that used asymmetric tactics. And no one ever did it better.” (Jonathan Rauch, National Journal, 18 June 2002). it refers to the Banana Wars period of enforcing the Monroe Doctrine prior to WWII and a policy of “operations undertaken under executive authority, wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or external affairs of another state whose government is unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the foreign policy of our nation” which is identical to the unofficial reasoning for suddenly making AIDS therapy and food supplies readily avail for vulnerable nations in Sub-Saharan Africa in other news, 6 British soldiers were KIA and 8 others wounded in the fluidic power vacuum the removal of the baathist regime caused.
The Americans should be changing their tactics to more suit a COIN campaign. Learn from their past, the British lessons, and lessons from other wars. There's a website that has most of the Rhodesian COIN manual. http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/