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| Iraq-Jordan | |
| StrategyPage: Sunni Arabs Commit Suicide | |
| 2004-11-01 | |
November 1, 2004: Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim Prime Minister, spent the weekend warning Sunni Arab leaders, especially those in Fallujah and Ramadi, to crack down on the political, religious and criminal gangs that operate in their territory. But many of the Sunni Arab tribal and religious leaders would rather see the Sunni Arab minority back in control of the country, either as a secular dictatorship, or a religious one. While the Sunni Arab minority are not willing to accept the authority of the democratic Iraqi government, they are not united on which Sunni Arab faction would run things. The only thing that unites the Sunnis is their use of terror against Iraqis, and foreigners, that they consider enemies. In the last two weeks, government operations in Sunni Arab areas has led to over 3,000 arrests. Among those picked up were nearly 200 foreigners.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #20 I am not familiar with the military equipment, but there are GPS units with lasers that you aim at an object. The laser light comes back with a distance. If you have an azimuth (compass direction) then you have a bearing and distance from your GPS unit. Send up those coordinates and you have designated your JDAM target. Better not screw it up or it will come down on you. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-11-01 9:50:45 PM |
| #19 The Marine on the ground radios the coordinates to the Buff I thought they just "lased" the site with a laser designator from a considerable distance. But I guess for GPS guided munitions that makes no sense. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-11-01 7:36:45 PM |
| #18 After the softening up gets done in Fallujah, there shouldn't be that many True and once we've cleaned out Fallujah the command structure that's organizing them should be pretty well crippled. When that happens the ones crossing the border into Iraq become a lot less dangerous. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-01 6:47:02 PM |
| #17 Good and thorough ass-kickings have a way of sorting things out. Hear! Hear! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-11-01 6:03:25 PM |
| #16 If the Arabs were on Okinawa, our losses would have been much less. The Japanese Imperial Army was very competent, Arabs are incompetent. |
| Posted by: Brett_the_Quarkian 2004-11-01 6:02:17 PM |
| #15 Faster Sunnis. You're dragging ass. The rest of the world would get it underwear bunched up if we went nuclear. There would be little domestic support for a nuclear option. Agreed the end result is pretty much the same as with conventional bombs. After the softening up gets done in Fallujah, there shouldn't be that many |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2004-11-01 5:43:46 PM |
| #14 Mrs. Davis I think you hit the nail on the head! We need to Nuke Fullujah, Ramadi, and Tikrit. For those anti-nuke folks, I remind you that they will be just as dead as if we bombed or shot them. This way is just more efficient and wont cost the any ally lives. Also I can think of no better place to use a nuke than in the rocky desert of Iraq. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2004-11-01 5:20:15 PM |
| #13 To win they don't have top kill a lot of GI's just drive them out before a functioning viable democracy is established. From the looks of the election they have come pretty close. Had they tried harder over the last month with lots of suicide attacks, they could have done it. We're fortuante they're stupid. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-01 5:15:13 PM |
| #12 From GlobalSecurity.org Japanese human losses were enormous: 107,539 soldiers killed and 23,764 sealed in caves or buried by the Japanese themselves; <I>10,755 captured or surrendered Check the captured or surrendered number and compare to Iwo or Saipan. It's still low but it was more than the US had captured in the entire Pacific Campaign combined. The average Imperial soldat was starting to see the end. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-11-01 4:44:18 PM |
| #11 The terrorists and their sunni cohorts want to make Fallujah the bloodiest operation for the Coalition because they figure that we will not have the stomach for casualties. They see our painstaking care with trying to avoid civilian casualties as a weakness to be exploited. We have sealed off Fallujah, so we have more control over civilians now, except for the morons who either sympathize with the terrorists or are trying to hang on to their hovels. Taking out the terrorists in Fallujah is a matter of our and Allawi's will. Okinawa was the same thing. The japanese saw an opportunity to inflict great casualties on the fleet (1500 ships) and with the land forces. The allied forces landed on Love-day (April 1, 1945) with now opposition. Dad was on the landings. He said that it was eerie. It took about 3 1/2 days to split the island in two, with only token opposition. Then the north half of the island was taken. The main opposition was in the south half and was well dug in and fortified. It was an extremely costly operation to destroy the dug-in Japanese forces, and it took 3 months. After the operation was over, they started staging equipment for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu. Dad said that he never saw so much equipment. Miles of rows and rows of amphibs, tanks, artillery, etc. getting ready for the invasion. When the bomb was dropped, there were alot of soldiers and marines who got a new lease on life and realized that they would not have to invade Japan. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-11-01 3:02:19 PM |
| #10 Not sure I see the Okinawa similarities. It should not be that bloody for us, we don't get a base there, and the nukes are for the mullahs in Iran who are not Sunnis and have already seen our nuke demonstrations. |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-11-01 3:00:45 PM |
| #9 Another huge difference between the current situation in Iraq and Okinawa is the presence of Iraqi troops who are on our side. There's no parallel for that anywhere in our WW II experience with Japan. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-01 2:57:07 PM |
| #8 Technology is a little better now than it was at Okinawa. The only reason the US takes casualties is its desire to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage. In cases like Fallujah, the innocents have by and large left the area. Anyone left is fair game and hunting season is about to commence. Fallujah is going to wind up on the receiving end of SPOOKY (AC-130U) and JDAM. B-52Hs can circle above the range of shoulder launched surface to air missiles and put 750 pound bombs on the GPS coordinates of any target pretty much on demand. The Marine on the ground radios the coordinates to the Buff and the radar nav transmits them to the selected bomb, the doors open and another jihadi meets his raisins. There is no need to manually dig these animals out of fortified positions. We just vaporize them along with their fortifications. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-11-01 2:43:49 PM |
| #7 See this or Google Okinawa suicide and read any of the 75,000 entries. Thus ended the campaign to capture Okinawa, which now became a giant air and naval base destined to play a major role in the planned invasion of Japan. British observers spoke of the Battle for Okinawa as "... the most audacious and complex enterprise ... yet undertaken by the American Amphibious Forces... more ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported, more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against shore targets" than any other operation in the Pacific. But not without a severe price for both sides. Thirty-four allied ships and craft of all types had been sunk, mostly by kamikazes, and 368 ships and craft damaged. The fleet had lost 763 aircraft. Over 4,900 sailors and 3,443 Marines were killed or missing in action and 4,824 Sailors and 16,017 Marines were wounded, making this the naval services' most costly campaign of World War II. Army casualties were 7,613 killed or missing and 31,807 wounded or injured. There were also more than 26,000 non-battle casualties. Japanese losses were enormous: 107,539 killed and 23,764 sealed in caves or buried by the Japanese themselves; 10,755 captured or surrendered. On both sides, nearly 170,000 died, over half were civilians. The Japanese lost 7,830 aircraft and 16 combat ships. The decision to use the atomic bombs without a demonstration was sealed by the suicidal resistance at Okinawa. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-01 1:45:59 PM |
| #6 Okinawa was the bloodiest battle in the Pacific during WW II and most of the casualties were inflicted by kamikazes. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-01 1:35:25 PM |
| #5 Okinawa??? |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-11-01 1:31:28 PM |
| #4 And the downside of this would be....? Okinawa |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-01 1:21:01 PM |
#3 Sunni Arabs Commit SuicideAnd the downside of this would be....? I'm with AzCat - faster, dammit. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-11-01 11:32:26 AM |
| #2 Sunni Arabs Commit Suicide Faster please. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-01 11:12:39 AM |
| #1 "No! No! The Fuhrer is not dead! He is in hiding, and will come back if we can prove ourselves worthy of him." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-11-01 11:03:28 AM |