History Geek isn't going to tell more history tales on how to not lose in Iraq. Not today, at least. No. Time to bring up another problem on which darn near no one has a grip.
The problem?
Demographics. More specifically, the number of young males in Iraq and the Mideast. This is a problem because it's the kids who do the fighting. To a teenager, fightin' and dyin' can be way cool, even way, way cool.
"Whoa there, History Geek." I can hear you thinking. "Just the other day, maybe a week or two back, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, announced that 'Young people' around the world want peace."
Sure enough, that's what she said. All over the MSM. The History Geek is certain she meant what she said. But, the Geek wonders if the world she examined included the Mideast or Afghanistan, or Iran, or--never mind, you get the point.
Ms Pelosi needs to get a grip on reality. She might even watch some of the videos on YouTube. The ones that popped up initially on Islamist web sites, the ones that show the fearless young jihadists taking the war to the icky-poo crusaders and the apostate local forces.
Or even the clips showing a montage of roadside bombs going off and vehicles going up usually with a fine display of fire and smoke and flying body parts. The damn things are so compelling that the US military has been responding with combat actualities of its own.
If the videos don't convince Ms Pelosi that war can be an exciting game for the young in mind and body, she could visit some of the books over at the Library of Congress. She'll find them under two categories: history and population statistics.
Or if reading is too much work, she might have her staff go out to the nearest hood and select a couple of hundred teenage males at random. (It has to be the hood because the sample, like the enormous majority of under 25's in the Mideast, must be comprised of those kids for whom the future holds little or no promise.)
Then get the sample together in an auditorium and show the videos. (Following the videos some of the neat computer games available on some Islamist sites can be offered, but this part is optional.)
And probably impossible.
Why?
Because the crowd will be going wild after the first few clips. Hoots will be hooted. Feet will be stamped. Seats will be pounded. Be warned, Ms Pelosi, the footage really gets the blood, young blood of any race, nationality, or religion up and running. The violence, actual and plotted, is guaranteed to be temple pounding, vein throbbing good!
Therein lies a problem. One which the US has never confronted before. Indeed, only one country has waged counterinsurgency against an opponent where the majority of the male population is still in the raging hormone, gonad pounding years under twenty-five. Israel.
That's right Israel. And, look at the success the IDF has been enjoying for forty years now.
The Israeli military is good, very good, despite occasional spectacular failures such as the one in Lebanon last year. The Israelis have political will out the ying-yang. They have no choice. For them the ongoing war is inherently existential. (Of course, it is existential for the Palestinians as well.)
Intelligence (open source) indicates persuasively that the vast majority of the fighters we are and will be confronting are drawn from the same nearly bottomless manpower pool as the hijackers back on 11 September 01. The under 25's.
Get a firm grip on this. In Afghanistan, and in the Palestinian conflict, the majority of the combatants, the suicide bombers, the roadside bomb planters, the snipers has been drawn from the most marginal, the most hopeless, the most alienated portion of the young male population.
Take a firmer grip on this. That reality is changing. Has changed. Particularly regarding the fighters in Iraq. Most particularly the foreign fighters who come to Iraq for some OJT in urban guerrilla warfare.
How is it changing?
As the emotional appeal of the Islamist world view and goals increases, and, it is increasing every day, a greater number of "advantaged" young men join the jihad. Members of the middle, and upper middle classes, young men with good educations, the chance for a genuine future with personal and economic security that many Americans would envy are chucking it over to enlist in the jihad.
Why?
There are a number of reasons ranging from the psychological to the anthropological but one central reason is rooted in history. The reason is identical to those used by the Fascists of Italy three quarters of a century ago. Or, the Nazis shortly thereafter. Or the Khmer Rouge whose Killing Fields blighted the late 1970s.
The reason comes as a statement followed by a question. "Once we were so great; now we are so small. Why?"
The reason comes in the answer to the question. It is an answer given by the Fascists, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, and now the Islamists.
The answer to the question "why," is simple, even simply wrong, but it has more power than a dozen dial-a-yield hydrogen bombs. "Because we have abandoned the faith of our fathers."
"Once we were so great; now we are so small. Why?" Pause. "Because we have abandoned the faith of our fathers."
There are many reasons why the Arab and Persian Muslims have fallen so far from the peak of greatness nearly a thousand years ago. Most of the reasons are inherent to the Arabs and the Persians themselves. These are unpleasant for any member of today's Arab or Persian societies to contemplate.
It is far easier to focus on the wrongs done to Arabs, to Persians, to Muslims by the rest of the world. There is enough truth in the bill of particulars regarding colonialism, economic colonialism, cultural colonialism to support calls for revenge and recompense.
There is enough truth to the charges that can be leveled against American policy in the Mideast since 1957 to support a specific set of accusations against the United States. To believe that the United States is the Great Satan, the oppressor of Muslims, the Final Crusader.
The substantial truth of the charges is irrelevant today. The precise apportionment of blame is irrelevant now. What counts is the appeal of the Islamist demand for redress of the past, the re-emergence of Islam to world prominence, not to say dominance.
Warped history is a powerful tool. Used in the answer to the question "why," it is a potent motivator of young men. It is a nearly invincible propaganda weapon, particularly considering that in Islam there is no separation between faith and state, nor can there ever be. No matter how peace oriented or violently militant a Muslim might be, the embracer of peace and the wearer of bombs agree that religion and politics are one and the same.
And so, the kids of privlege, just like Osama bin Ladin, folk hero, join in common cause with the kids of the souks, Franz Fannon's archetypal "Wretched of the Earth," to lay us low. Lay us low in Iraq. If successful there, lay us low throughout the world.
Inexhaustible manpower. Motivated manpower. Increasingly talented and educated manpower. More and more, combat trained and battle hardened manpower. That's the demographic problem we face.
The White House and Pentagon were gripless about this problem four years ago. They are gripless regarding it today. Do we flounder on or is there an answer?
Could be. Stand by for more hints from history.
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