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2006-12-06 Iraq
U.S. troops reassigned as advisers to Iraqis
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Posted by .com 2006-12-06 02:16|| || Front Page|| [11140 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Just like Vietnam... in reverse. Boggle.
Posted by .com 2006-12-06 03:34||   2006-12-06 03:34|| Front Page Top

#2 I am just livid over this drek, not in my name you bastards in Washington, you ain't selling out our military or Iraq in my name.
Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2006-12-06 03:53|| www.sockpuppetofdoom.com]">[www.sockpuppetofdoom.com]  2006-12-06 03:53|| Front Page Top

#3 Sucks the Big One, don't it? I'm pretty much burned out on Iraq, now. Still a month to go before the assholes actually take power and they're already warming up the Peace with Honor Big Skedaddle thingy. Been there, seen that.
Posted by .com 2006-12-06 04:14||   2006-12-06 04:14|| Front Page Top

#4 While I am also tired of the Iraq news, and want the Dems to get on with solving the world's problems (the price of gas has risen 15% here since the election; I want some Pelosi scalp!)- this article is really just more of the same gloom and doom.

"Help them move into the lead" - many are already in the lead, and those of us who read here know that there are examples of courage and heroics in the Iraqi Army that somehow leak past the MSM filters.

"And no replacement troops are being asked for" means either 'don't try and sneak in more troops later under the guise of more trainers', or 'the rest of the troops are being left unprotected', or both.

"As you stand up the teams, you stand down the combat units." Where have I heard that before?

"The teams will watch more for abuses" - meaning they have not been watching enough, and if we had just left Saddam in power, the abuses (if any) would've been less visible (better).

"Risk to trainers became evident..." Duh. Risks to newsmen? Risks to innocents? War zone? 72 raisins? Get a clue.

"Resulting in more civilian casualties..." is the cloud over the silver lining of less American involvement. Durn war. So little upside. Just that there is lotsa fodder for hungry press folks.

"Red lines, if crossed..." means the MSM will still be able to critize the Americans for what the Iraqi Army does bad. "Have they crossed the 'Red Line' yet?"

It's still a long war to "unfunding" the war, and the opposition does not have a mechanized army, in the guise of 'insurgents' (a la North Vietnam) to march in after the Americans withdraw.

So cheer up! Send the ACLU a Christmas card!
Posted by Bobby 2006-12-06 06:26||   2006-12-06 06:26|| Front Page Top

#5 Yeah, you're right. Just feeling kinda low, trading Rummy for Gates, Bolton leaving, etc - not the best week of the year. I just had this flashback feeling thingy... If it wasn't for the fact that Pelosi is terminally retarded, lol. HTF did she ever get to be the Dhimmi House Leader, anyway? Her technique that good? Ah well, I'm sure everything will be purdy peachy, real soon, now. Heh.
Posted by .com 2006-12-06 06:48||   2006-12-06 06:48|| Front Page Top

#6 No Pelosi isn't permanently 'retartded' - Lets not allow her to use that excuse. She isn't retarded and knows exactly what she is doing and shold be held fully responsible for her actions. Her problem is that she is more interested in advancing her agenda that of her 'friends' and achieving power at any price then she is in supporting and governing the United States.

She and her ilk are willing to trade Iraqi lives and our freedom for her personal power.

And the opposition does have a army to roll and start the bloodbath (see Vietnam/Cambodia) after we 'redeploy'. Lets not forget that the opposition is Iran who is seeking desperately to become a 'regional power' and obtain a stranglehold on oil exports (along with Chavez). If they can get that then they can practically dictate terms of our surrender.

Pelosi and her friends know all this - they are not retarded - you don't get where they are by being so. They, like europe, think they can get good surrender terms which will allow them to stay in power.
Posted by CrazyFool 2006-12-06 08:11||   2006-12-06 08:11|| Front Page Top

#7 To actually consider the article, I think it is a good thing, that is, placing larger numbers of Americans with Iraqis at all levels of their military.

The reason being is that we really want to change their military *culture* to one of professionalism. We have to break them of hundreds of years of Arabic bad habits of all sorts, and get them to want to do things the proper military way--and only the proper military way.

Their biggest damn problem is that there is nothing in their culture to compel them to stay in uniform, stay on post, and do their duty even when they would rather be at home with their family. No sense to total commitment to their uniform and their unit.

By placing Americans with them, it provides an example, and evaluation, and it checks over their shoulder to insure that they are not infiltrators or misusing their authority. Most importantly, it gives the unit time to get its act together, while giving it objective performance analysis. Their commander can no longer lie about unit performance.

Before negative comparisons with Vietnam are made, remember that after the US pulled out, and left the ARVN with no support whatsoever against an enemy with unlimited support from Russia, the training we had given the ARVN was good enough for them to hold out for TWO YEARS.

And that training was only a small percentage of what we have given the Iraqis. And the Iraqis are not fighting a conventional foreign army in numbers--even if foreigners are supporting their insurgents.

So when we pull out, we want the Iraqi military to be the backbone of their nation, hopefully much like Turkey's military. And, if necessary, able to take charge of the government if things go to hell.
Posted by Anonymoose 2006-12-06 09:40||   2006-12-06 09:40|| Front Page Top

#8 Its one half the program. They've missed using the program used in Korea for KATUSAs [Korean Augmentees to the United States Army]. Koreans with a little bit of English were placed one or two per squad or section. They provided some linguistic support. It came in valuable a number of times during my tour. They, however, got to live among Americans and say first hand that the old bane of corruption and abuse of authority was not accepted as normal. This was not only important in the direct and immediate military sense, it paid off for those who completed their time and went back into government and business afterward. In Korea there’s a KATUSA o’boy network. Business, we’re talking names like Samsung, Goldstar, etc wanted those who had done their tours for those reasons among others.
Posted by Procopius2k 2006-12-06 10:08||   2006-12-06 10:08|| Front Page Top

#9 
These people are idiots. CW-II gets closer and closer.
Posted by Mick Dundee 2006-12-06 10:17||   2006-12-06 10:17|| Front Page Top

#10 Good trainers are rarer than the politicos think. Poor training may be worse than no training.

At this point in time, people also need to recall that Iraq and its government are running things. If there are problems with Iraqi units, they bear a great deal of the responsibility. One of the things we should be trying to teah the Iraqis is personal responsibility. The answer to poor unit operation may very well be making the Iraqis responsible. Daddy can't do everything.
Posted by Chuck Simmins">Chuck Simmins  2006-12-06 11:31|| http://northshorejournal.org]">[http://northshorejournal.org]  2006-12-06 11:31|| Front Page Top

#11 Bobby-well said.
Posted by Jules 2006-12-06 12:26||   2006-12-06 12:26|| Front Page Top

#12 #10 - Chuck: It's hard to instill personal responsibility when Allan says that everything that happens is HIS will. You're fighting 1400 years of conditioning. Most NCOs and just about ALL officers higher in rank than Lieutenant have been through at least one situation where they've been in a training role, and know how to act.

Vietnam turned into a disaster because Congress withheld funds to supply the Vietnamese army with guns, ammunition, and supplies, including aircraft fuel. The Vietnamese weren't so much defeated as simply ran out of the ability to fight. There's so much crap lying around in Iraq the Iraqi army could probably scrounge enough to fight for five or ten years. Much, if not most, of the Iraqi army are learning, and performing quite well. They've pretty much mastered fire discipline, which is a heavy indicator of how far they've come. They're developing coordinated operations, and their NCOs are becoming more effective at small unit actions. The senior officers are still a problem, but I see them being phased out over the next five to ten years as junior officers progress up the ladder.

What's going on here, I think, is that Abazaid knows that Congress may pull the rug out from under his command at any time, and wants to accomplish as much as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. He understands that if we pull out, the Iraqi army will bear the entire brunt of defending the nation against both Al-Qaida and Iran. He wants to give them as much of a chance as possible.
Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot  2006-12-06 12:38|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]  2006-12-06 12:38|| Front Page Top

#13 "We're going to double, triple, quadruple the size of the transition teams," Pittard said on a recent visit to the main training base for the Iraqi Army, in a windswept area called Kirkush near the Iranian border.

Was that the sound of the Mad Mullahs' sphincters tightening I hear? Mehopes that a LOT of our "trainers" at this base are SpecOps taking a "peek" over the border there.

And, in general, I'm with OP's opinion I think Abizaid sees the "writing on the wall" and wants to make the best of a bad situation when the Donks start defunding the war effort. The parallels to Vietnam are uncanny and it makes me want to spit p!ss in Pelosi's Bran Flakes if she allows this to happen again. Live by 2 quotes:

(1) "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

(2) "All it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing."

I'm not giving up on our Congress yet (remember, most of the Donk Freshmen are fairly conservative or at least, moderate). Pelosi's basically 0-for-2 in her nominating far-left politicos to head positions, so maybe we and/or the Iraqis can weather the storm the next 2 years and win this thing, once and for all.
Posted by BA 2006-12-06 14:16||   2006-12-06 14:16|| Front Page Top

#14 Just like Vietnam... in reverse. Boggle.

I was thinking the exact same thing, .com.

What is left is for the vocal minority of us to demonstrate in the streets against the de-escalation of the war.
Posted by eLarson 2006-12-06 14:21|| http://larsonian.blogspot.com]">[http://larsonian.blogspot.com]  2006-12-06 14:21|| Front Page Top

#15 What was interesting is that at the confirmation/coronation ceremony over in the Senate the entire group was trying one-up each other on how fast they could condemn/surrender in Iraq. This whole Iraq Study Group is nothing but a boondoggle. We are already training Iraqi units to take over security, so the whole premise of the ISG is restating what we are already doing in Iraq. The press makes it sound like the Military was simply bumbling around until viola the ISG explains they need to establish security in Iraq for democracy to grow. WELL DUH! What did they think we were doing prior to this?
Posted by Cyber Sarge 2006-12-06 14:32||   2006-12-06 14:32|| Front Page Top

#16 The press's reaction to the ISG's report is an indication of the level of BDS in the media : all the ISG's report has done is formalize through a comittee of politicians what the military has been doing for the past 3 years in Iraq. We have been training and leading Iraqi units in the fight against terrorists in Iraq from the beginning. Now, it is the stated policy of the US to do that; cut-and-run is too damaging politically for the Dems to try it right now. So THEY will claim that they "forced a change on the Bush Administration", and use that for their election commercials in '08.
And the idea that having the Iraqis doing the biggest part of the fighting and dying in the Iraqi Campaign is somehow losing is beyond me. We want them to run their damn country, and defend it against enemies foreign and domestic. The US military is not the world's greatest nanny and cleanup service, the Iraqis will have to take their lumps and run things on their own at a certain point. What we need to do is make sure that enough of the ex-Soviet hardware leftover from Saddam's period is rehabed so that the Iraqi Army can be a mechanized force, before 2008. Because in 2008, the Dems will be ready to do a cut-and-run on the Iraqis - due to the Dems' internal dynamics in their primaries.
Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-12-06 15:55||   2006-12-06 15:55|| Front Page Top

#17 ISG= Iraqi Surrender Group

BTW, why would anyone want to listen to James Baker? Like I heard on the radio today, when an Iraqi citizen was aksed about James Baker and the ISG, he replied, "Who's James Baker?"
Posted by 0369_Grunt 2006-12-06 16:06||   2006-12-06 16:06|| Front Page Top

#18 I heard a great line by Lindsey Graham I think: “If you have a neighborhood that is plagued by crime you don’t pull the police out to fix it.” Why in God’s name is this logic missing from anyone on the left?
Posted by Cyber Sarge 2006-12-06 16:25||   2006-12-06 16:25|| Front Page Top

#19 CS, you're leaving out a major part of the puzzle. The lefties HATE AMERICA and don't want us to be seen as doing anything good anywhere. For us to help the Iraqis beat their internal enemies and become a stable country would a)demolish their Vietnam-era mindset (which would drive them nuts), and b) show that the US could use military force to do good in the world. They CAN'T allow that way of thinking to have any credence whatsoever. Hence the MSM's constant barrage of negative news from Iraq since the day of the invasion. Mick's right. CW-II grows closer every day.
Posted by mac 2006-12-06 17:07||   2006-12-06 17:07|| Front Page Top

#20 Well the French did tell you so
Posted by de Gaulle 2006-12-06 17:20||   2006-12-06 17:20|| Front Page Top

#21 Oh my god I missed the major thrust of the Iraki Surrender Gaggle. We need to let Syria and Iran help run the internal affairs of Iraq. Going back to my crime theme of earlier, this is akin to asking the Crypts or Bloods how we should police up a neighborhood that they don’t want any police presence. Or maybe I am just not looking at this through the prism of my intellectual superiors in D.C.?
Posted by Cyber Sarge 2006-12-06 17:26||   2006-12-06 17:26|| Front Page Top

#22 Or as I flippantly put it before: "Farmer to Hold Henhouse Talks with Fox, Wolf"
Posted by eLarson 2006-12-06 19:49|| http://larsonian.blogspot.com]">[http://larsonian.blogspot.com]  2006-12-06 19:49|| Front Page Top

#23 "Who's James Baker?"

Baker is a lawyer-politician who is a former White House Chief of Staff, Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State and various other things. He is a trusted friend of the Bush family and has been called up before in times of political need. He ran Bush Senior’s presidential campaigns and was President George W Bush’s man in Florida during the recount in 2000.

Baker is now a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts, which is deeply involved in the fight for the oil and gas of the Caspian Sea and is senior counselor to the powerful investment firm the Carlyle Group. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Baker was reportedly at a Carlyle investor conference with members of the bin Laden family in the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C. And his law firm Baker Botts is defending the Saudi government in a lawsuit filed by the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Google "james baker" "law firm" "saudi arabia"
for more.

Hat tip: Michael Savage
Posted by Bernie 2006-12-06 20:14||   2006-12-06 20:14|| Front Page Top

#24 It was meant as sarcasm, Bernie.
Posted by Pappy 2006-12-06 20:57||   2006-12-06 20:57|| Front Page Top

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