It’s Nice of Us to Tell Our Enemies What We’re Doing

In boxing, it’s called “telegraphing” a punch when a boxer gives advance warning of the punch he’s about to throw. It’s a surefire way to lose a fight.

We’ve made the same mistake in Iraq, over and over again. Why do we feel the need to announce our plans before we execute them?

The latest example of this is the announcement of the “surge” in American troops deployed in Iraq. According to this article in the Houston Chronicle, Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia is going undercover to wait out our “surge”.

Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements.

"We have explicit directions to keep a low profile ... not to confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down," said one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr…

Mahdi Army militiamen say that though they remain undercover now, they are simply waiting for the security plan to end….

and…

Mahdi Army sources said that their heavy weaponry had been moved from Sadr City or hidden since the announcement.

We’re going to lose the war in Iraq if we continue to put our plans on national television and on the front pages of our newspapers.

The original post can be found at:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2007/01/its-nice-of-us-to-tell-our-enemies.html