The Small Wars Manual was written by the Marines to capture their learnings during the Banana Wars. It was the handbook for tactics and strategies for dealing with insurgencies. It was forgotten about during the Vietnam War, and rediscovered by General Patreaus who rewrote it for use by the Army in Iraq.
Useful hard-won knowledge like
an active and aggressive campaign against the hostile forces in the field is the most effective method of destroying their intelligence service, A guerrilla band which is constantly harassed and driven from place to place soon loses contact with its own sources of information; it becomes confused and its intelligence system breaks down. AS the occupation continues, superiority in this respect will gradually be obtained by the intervening forces.
Recently, another Army manual was recently rediscovered. It was written during WWII and called "Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II". It has some very useful information that could have helped our effort in Iraq from the very beginning had we remembered we wrote it. Simple stuff like
* Keep away from mosques.
* Avoid offering opinions on internal politics.
* Keep out of the sun whenever you can.
* Start eating only after your host has begun.
* Talk Arabic if you can to the people. No matter how badly you do it, they will like it.
It has other useful information that we have only recently begun to employ strategically to great effect.
[Lt. Col. John A. Nagl, who served in Iraq with the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, who wrote the forward to the republished edition] says it would have been helpful to know that there could be an uptick in violence during the holy month of Ramadan, which he experienced during his unit's deployment. If military leaders had read the 1943 guide, they also may have better recognized the power of the tribal leaders, known as sheiks, and especially the importance of allying with the Sunni leaders.
Another tip
* Be generous with your cigarettes.
This could have been usefully employed by al Qaida, if they had a mind to not be so dogmatic
The AQI installed Sharia court had sanctioned the amputation of the two “smoking fingers” for those who violated anti-smoking laws….
On the evening of the 24th I spoke with a local Iraqi official, Colonel Faik, who said the Muftis would order the severance of the two fingers used to hold a cigarette for any Iraqis caught smoking. Other reports, from here in Diyala and also in Anbar, allege that smokers are murdered by AQI.
Most Iraqis smoke and this particular prohibition appeared to have earned the ire of many locals.
After an American unit cleared an apartment complex on the 23rd, LTC Smiley, the battalion commander, reported that residents didn’t ask for food and water, but cigarettes. In other parts of Baqubah, people have been celebrating the routing of AQI by lighting up and smoking cigarettes.
We have a tendency in this country, as humans, to forget the hard lessons of the past. But sometimes, when you rediscover an old lesson the hard way by relearning it, and then are reminded that you already learned that lesson, it gives you added confidence that you are on the right path.
