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06-12-2006

COUNTERINSURGENCY TACTICS LED TO HADITHA, JUST AS THEY LED TO MY LAI

Daniel Ellsberg, a defense intellectual, released the Pentagon Papers, which he had secretly copied, to the public in 1971. Working under U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, he also surveyed counterinsurgency and "pacification" plans in Vietnam. Ellsberg spoke with Global Viewpoint editor Nathan Gardels in California on Sunday.

By Daniel Ellsberg

Nathan Gardels: We've been down this road many times before, in the Malay peninsula, Algeria, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan. Does counterinsurgency inevitably lead to the massacre of civilians?

Daniel Ellsberg: Such massacres are extremely likely to happen. It is in the nature of occupying forces fighting insurgents who live indistinguishably among their own people and who melt in and out of combat at will, striking only when they have a tactical advantage.

The dynamics of counterinsurgency strategy lead to murders like those in My Lai, Vietnam or now Haditha in Iraq because the essence of that strategy is to try to stop local cooperation of a sufficiently sympathetic public - whether they are active supporters or just looking the other way - with the insurgents.

Maj. Gen. Muhammad Abdullah al-Shahwani, director of Iraq's National Intelligence Service, has said what anybody involved in a counterinsurgency knows: "The U.S. occupation has failed to crack the problem of Iraqi support for the insurgency among the Sunni population (in Al Anbar province). Most do not actively support the insurgents or provide them with material or logistical help, but, at the same, time, they won't turn them in."

It is therefore highly frustrating for American troops because they are always at risk and they can't find the guys, who they know are there somewhere in a village or town, who plant the roadside bombs. This is what Robert Jay Lifton has referred to as "an atrocity-producing situation."

I don't accept the idea, however, that the murders of civilians in My Lai or Haditha are somehow a result of the breakdown of ethics and discipline, or because soldiers under stress "snapped." My direct experience in Vietnam as a counterinsurgency strategist and "pacification" planner, as well as the historical record from the British efforts in Malaya to the French in Algeria, suggest they usually happen under orders. Often, the most contested areas are designated "free-fire zones" where you shoot first and ask questions later.

Indeed, in response to their frustration and lack of effectiveness, an American military source was quoted (in Newsweek) as calling for new offensive operations in Iraq by special forces to "create a fear of aiding the insurgency." Another source concurred, saying that, as it is now, the population is paying no price for support it is giving to the terrorists. From their point of view, it is cost-free.

So, when you see an atrocity like Haditha, look for a tactical order. When you find an order like that, which you virtually always do, as was the case in Vietnam, look for a policy approving such actions as moving people out of their villages so they can't support the insurgency, or terrorizing or torturing them to inform on the insurgents - as we saw in Abu Ghraib. When fighting a guerilla force, the high command will tend to discard the ethical rules of conventional war and adopt policies that necessarily target the civilian population who hide and support the insurgents.

In a counterinsurgency war which is failing, as this one is in Iraq, expect such a policy to exist. Expect the orders to be given. And expect the orders to be carried out. Anyone who has been on the ground in counterinsurgency wars knows that most "incidents," as the military likes to call them, are not "discovered" publicly and no one is punished.

Troops on the front line understand the message: Somewhere among innocent-looking villagers are those waiting to kill you, or those who will assist them with information or in some other way. Only if you show them there is a price to pay will you enhance your chances of survival. Counterinsurgency always leads to this kind of desperation.

"Accidental" bombings from the air, which are the largest cause of civilian casualties, are also a warning that collaboration will bring destruction down upon a population. We saw more of this in Vietnam, but there may be more yet to come in Iraq.

The problem is all this doesn't work. Terrorizing a population always deepens their collaboration with the local insurgents. It forces people in the middle of the road to take sides.

Remember the Battle of Algiers. The French brutally put down the nationalists, some of whom used terror tactics like blowing up cafes. It was said that almost every family knew someone who had been tortured by the French. But that brutality turned the country against the French. Nobody could remain neutral. So the French were finally forced to leave. They lost the war.

Gardels: Now that Zarqawi has been killed and some others rounded up, is there light at the end of the tunnel, as they used to say in Vietnam?