On War

I'll admit that William S. Lind's column first came to my attention over at Counterpunch. But they apparently pick it up from it's other site, Military.com. Regardless of where you read it, though, Lind takes a conservative perspective on the Iraq war. I use the term conservative with care: Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, et al, can hardly be referred to as conservative. Anyway, here's a sample of Lind's latest:

Note: read the whole thing. Lind offers an allusory call to Kaiser Wilhelm, circa 1918, as his metaphor.

As the Baath fades, true Fourth Generation forces will rise, leading to more fighting among Iraqis and an eventual multi-sided, permanent Iraqi civil war...

another long, hot summer with no security and little electric power may generate an intifada on the Palestinian model; the U.S. Army's use of Israeli tactics increases this possibility, because it leads Iraqis to visualize themselves as Palestinians. Second, the morale of American troops in Iraq, already low, may decline to the point where the U.S. Army starts to crack, much as the German Army did in August, 1918. Third, when the Marines go back into Iraq, they will use very different tactics from the Army, tactics that might have worked had they been applied earlier. But again like Germany in 1918, the situation will be too far gone for any tactics to redeem it.

* The war in Afghanistan will unroll like all previous Afghan wars. The Taliban will slowly but steadily retake the countryside, while we cling to Kabul and try to prop up our puppet government. The only question is when we, like the British and the Soviets, will recognize reality, give up and go home.

* Far more important than either Iraq or Afghanistan is Pakistan, where the state is crumbling. 2004 may well be the year when it goes over the edge, handing the international Islamic jihad 40-50 nuclear weapons. His Majesty said, "General Musharraf is about where I was at the beginning of November, 1918."

And, if you haven't yet figured it out, here's the real prediction:

But I did follow up his last comment with a final question: was "something real" likely to happen in 2004? His Majesty sighed. "Look for something big, real big, right before your election. Al Qaeda has an excellent sense of timing."

"But wouldn't that help reelect George Bush?" I asked, puzzled.

"Ja, genau," the Kaiser replied. "I guess you haven't spent enough time at court to really understand these things. As Bismarck said to me just yesterday, al Qaeda and George Bush need each other."

Oh, and one other thing: don't necessarily expect the "next big thing" to be of Middle Eastern origin. As Lind notes:

Look for non-Islamic Fourth Generation forces to make their mark in the United States. America is now making war on the FARC in Columbia, and it is likely to return the favor. "Remember, they've got a better distribution system in the United States than the Reichspost had in Germany."

Meanwhile, Adolfo Gilly, also over at Counterpunch, reveals the following about what's happening in Bolivia:

We stop in El Alto to buy grilled meat to take with us. I look at the name of the place: "Taliban Grill." Not unusual, because in El Alto, a dynamic Aymara city of 800,000 inhabitants, I already saw at least two minivans which had, on the rear windshield, Che Guevara on one side, Osama Bin Laden on the other, and the word "Love," in English, in the middle.

The "Global War on Terror" might just become more global than we think...