Cracking Walnuts with Sledgehammers

I found this at the end of a link trail started at Wizbang. The blog is at Argghhh!
First from Ralph Peters:

What really matters is what our forces are ordered - and permitted - to do. With political correctness permeating our government and even the upper echelons of the military, we never tried the one technique that has a solid track record of defeating insurgents if applied consistently: the rigorous imposition of public order.

That means killing the bad guys. Not winning their hearts and minds, placating them or bringing them into the government. Killing them.

And then from LTC Paul Finken:

If you want to win in Iraq, you have to take the gloves off like we did in OIF I and OIF II. We were aggressive and violently kinetic. It worked and the bad guys were deathly afraid of us and the people of Iraq respected us. Now we use kid gloves and the bad guys walk all over us and the people of Iraq don't think they should support us because we may pack up and leave and then they would be the object of reprisals. It's the hard right (lots of offensive action and firepower and not afraid to use it in a city) or the easy wrong (the kinder, gentler approach to dealing with terrorists to try and avoid casualties). I know which one works and which one doesn't. I know which one will solve this "problem". It will break a few eggs, but in the end we will have an omelet that will be passably good and tasty.

And lastly Captain David J. Baer

Massive firepower brought down on any transgressor is the answer. Sometimes you need to use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut if you want people to pay attention and learn the correct lessons in life. If an IED blows up outside someones house and the homeowners tell you that they don't know anything about, bulldoze the house and salt the ground. After you do that two or three times, Iraqis will shoot the terrorists themselves to protect their homes. I realize that this may not be totally in keeping with some people's concept of "the American way of war", but if we are in it to win it, we need to take all the steps required to totally destroy the terrorists ability to make war on us and turn the population against them. Right now, because of our kid glove approach, there is no threat to the average Iraqi that helps the terrorists or turns a blind eye.

I suppose I can understand the military's point of view on the topic. Unfortunately, history has a plethora of examples that show that this doesn't work. This type of actions were used in Malaysia and did nothing but increase the enemy forces. Cyprus showed the same thing. Vietnam is the strongest example of where this completely failed.

The problem isn't that you kill insurgents or "bad guys." The issue is that the collateral damage drives those who do support you away. Collateral damage is broadcast through the MSM in the Middle-east to increase the number of terrorists. Collateral damage is broadcast through the MSM in the US and loses your support at home.

There is also the issue with finding the "bad guys." Insurgents follow the basic principle set down by Mao for insurgencies.

The evolution of any phase in a mass-oriented insurgency may extend over a long period of time. A successful insurgency may take decades to start, mature, and finally succeed.
The classical phases of a mass-oriented insurgency are--
¡¤ Latent and incipient (phase I).
¡¤ Guerrilla warfare (phase II).
¡¤ War of movement (phase III).
An insurgency may not require all phases for success, nor are these phases separate and distinct from each other. Regardless of the number or the duration of the actual phases the insurgency undergoes, its leadership necessarily will initiate some type of final consolidation activities. These may include removing potential enemies or establishing additional control mechanisms. At a minimum, they will probably include educating the society about its new government. (Figure D-2 presents typical activities that may occur in each phase of a successful insurgency.)
Figure D-2. Typical Activities Within Phase of Insurgency

There needs to be a recognition that the people, in the country of conflict and at home are important for success. There is already a large enough population in the US that vilifies the military unjustly due to what they see in the press, using a sledgehammer will only provoke them to further levels of whininess.

The people of Iraq probably are for the most part happy that the US military is there. The problem is, the majority of them don't matter. Bulldozing their homes and salting the ground will not scare anyone, who is already terrified, into helping. That logic is just profoundly limited. You might have followed that proposal if you could provide security to those who you need to report IEDs. The problem is that they aren't getting that security. Militias aren't being established and controlled by the government, and the US military can't provide sufficient security, so the people will remain silent.

This tactic also misses the point that insurgencies require political solutions. They can never succeed by sheer military might. You could use military saturation to provide the security, but I'm guessing that the number of forces that would be needed are huge. The politics are also very complicated understanding the sectarian conflict that is also present in Iraq. Maliki's failure to pull the Shia tribal units into a consensus and control their militias are quite worrisome. With those militias like the Mahdi army out of control there are large numbers of death squads that can work with insurgent methods. And with the Shia militias on the lose, the Sunni militias are developing to counter them.

I can empathize with the desire to stomp them, but history shows that that never works.