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2003-10-27 Iraq

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Posted by Murat 2003-10-27 9:44:23 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 While many call suicide and other bombs the tools and means of the weak and poor to express themselves ,they are instead the tools of expediency and sheer laziness of the ruling and upper classes to control and direct the wealth and people of the causes they say they fight for.Be it Islamist,Irish or American so what George Bush says is true to an extent but instead of desperation it is more caused by the love of death and apathy of humanity

Posted by Anonymous 2003-10-27 10:08:48 AM|| 2003-10-27 10:08:48 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 George Al Sahaf speeking?

Killing U.S. military personnel proves to be a rather difficult endeavor, so the next thing to do is bomb Red Cross offices and hospitals? Yep, sounds like desperation to me.

And your point was...?

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-27 11:13:44 AM|| 2003-10-27 11:13:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Yesterday I commented that this is not the Tet Offensive, but now it looks like it as an incredibly pitfiful version of Tet. This is to Tet,what the touch football game in my back yard is to Monday Night Football.

Maybe we can get Sean Penn to play the Jane Fonda role and wander about Tikrit looking for Sadaam to let him know that the Americans are breaking.

It would be interesting to discover whether the anti-war rallies over the weekend were scheduled to coincide with the start of Ramadan in hopes that there would be attacks.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-10-27 11:33:57 AM|| 2003-10-27 11:33:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 SH - I hope we get to kill as many of these gutless turds as VC were wiped out during Tet. Hollyweird and Walter Crankcase notwithstanding, it was one of the very very few "stand-up fights" of VietNam - and they were decimated. Bremer's doing it right, though I wish he was far more charismatic.

Posted by .com 2003-10-27 11:56:28 AM|| 2003-10-27 11:56:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 SH & .com - I agree. This ain't no TET no matter how the anti-war crowd wants to paint it. If you guys want a good laugh check out www.democraticunderground.com - most of the posters there make Not Mike Moore look like a Pat Buchannan wanna be. They were actually hoping Wolfowitz got killed in that attack over the weekend.

As I've said before reconstruction will be long, arduous, and messy but it will eventually happen. This isn't going to be overnight. It's going to take patience and a lot of gritty determination on all our parts. Americans just need to remember we're dealing w/a 50 yr old infrastructure and a people who have no idea what democracy looks like.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-10-27 12:10:36 PM|| 2003-10-27 12:10:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 So it's a sign of desperation? Probably true in part, but that simple fact hasn't helped the Israelis stop the attacks in a much smaller area than Iraq. The other part is that the radicals are going after civilian targets to frighten non-americans into leaving. Not to mention that like in 'Nam, we're fighting an enemy with an open border. I think some of you boys are in for a very rude awakening.

Posted by Slumming 2003-10-27 12:11:08 PM|| 2003-10-27 12:11:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Not to mention that like in 'Nam, we're fighting an enemy with an open border. I think some of you boys are in for a very rude awakening.

-Negative. The 'Nam comparisons do not wash. Some of these posters are 'Nam Vets and I'm an active duty Marine. We know the difference. I have friends who have jsut returned from Baghdad, this is not even in the same league. The mission is different, the goals are different, the enemy is different, and the terrain is 100% different. The Ba'athists and foreign fighters will get their licks in, hit & run, but eventually will be subdued. Israel's also a whole other situation completely & not a very good comparison.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-10-27 12:38:45 PM|| 2003-10-27 12:38:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 All wars are different. The common threads are the same: tactics, strategy, and grand strategy. Guerrilla tactics flourish when you have suitable territory for hiding, open borders, and a portion of the local population willing to support you. The essence of guerrilla war is the avoidance of direct combat, while resorting to indirect methods to wear down the patience, will, and morale of the enemy. The tactics go back to the Roman general Fabius, who hid out for years in the mountains of Italy using hit and run methods against the Carthiginians. I would suggest the book Strategy by Liddell Hart.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 1:20:43 PM|| 2003-10-27 1:20:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 I think some of you boys are in for a very rude awakening.

You're hoping so, aren't you slumming? I think you are in for a rude awakening in the next round of elections. Big turnout in DC last weekend?

Posted by B 2003-10-27 1:24:30 PM|| 2003-10-27 1:24:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Big turnout in DC last weekend?

Huh? So big it didn't make the news. I had almost forgot there was an idiotarian convention in DC. Was there even a couple thousand? Anyone know? There was a pro-War/pro-America rally in Atlanta this weekend. Still going on as a matter of fact, I'd guess between 150,000 and 200,000 people. Suck on that. Beyatch.

Posted by Swiggles 2003-10-27 1:45:08 PM|| 2003-10-27 1:45:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Am I hoping for a rude awakening? Of course not. Am I expecting one. Probably. Has the military done anything wrong? Not at all. Does the military create grand strategy? No. Those are political, economic, and social strategies, to be formulated by the government leaders responsible for the war. Was that thought out by our government leaders? Not with any sense of reality. Finally, am I anti-war? Not that simple at all. Unlike many of our present leaders, I did my time. Volunteered in fact. It's just that before you start one, you had best be sure what you're going to do after the bombs stop dropping. Nobody bothered here, except with a bunch of vague platitudes. Given recent history, and the hatred of islam for the US, a guerrilla war was almost inevitable. Now we've got a big "oops, what now".

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 2:25:12 PM|| 2003-10-27 2:25:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 slumming - so you're confident that the listed components (you left out cash, arms, logistics, etc) will allow guerilla tactics to flourish. Sorta like heat, oxygen, and fuel = fire. I would say that, as with the HOF=F formula, removing one or more of these essential components would make the presence of the others either irrelevant or far less so... and the guerillas would not have the required means for success. So hypothetically, of course, if the support of the local population was removed - or more precisely - the ability of the local population to provide support (food, shelter, communications, store arms, etc.) was removed, then what level of insurgency would you expect?

An example test might be the engagement and defeat of sympathetic support, say in the Sunni Triangle - a major source of indigenous trouble and a convenient store & hide for the Baghdad attacks, which would have occurred to some fair degree had we had a Northern Front to be the anvil for the Southern Front hammer. As it turned out, this area got a pass - and now is the primary thorn in the coalition's side, I'd wager. Make sense?

This is certainly the lynchpin region for those who want Iraq to fall back into Ba'athist control. And the situation has probably made strange bedfellows of the Sunnis with foreign fighters - even some Shi'a - with a common goal of driving out the coalition and then facing each other for control or the carving up of Iraq between them.

So what would we do if this hypothesis is satisfatory in covering the pieces needed for the current level of guerilla / insurgent activity?

Of course I have a suggestion, but it would get nothing but grief if it came from me - cuz I'm evil ;->

So, anyone?

Posted by .com 2003-10-27 2:30:45 PM|| 2003-10-27 2:30:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 I would suggest the book Strategy by Liddell Hart.

-Good to go, and I would suggest the book "Small Wars Manual" by the U.S. Marine Corps. Thanks for the rest of the history lesson. Although the
Iraqis are not one-tenth of what the V.C. were. When we start seeing a couple hundred servicemen deaths a week vice hundreds of civilian deaths then I'll have the rude awakening.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-10-27 2:46:12 PM|| 2003-10-27 2:46:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Execute all murderers rapists and kidnappers and the people who ordered them both in Iraq and elsewhere

Posted by Anonymous 2003-10-27 2:46:27 PM|| 2003-10-27 2:46:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 I'd agree with slumming's point that the post-war planning has been exceptionally weak. It's as if the war planners have been caught off guard by the quick success of the earlier campaign. Even the guerilla tactics at the start of the war should have been a hint of what's to come.
The US is in a no-win situation here: the kindler-gentler approach means the US will take casualties and criticism at home; the strong-armed methods that are required will play into the hands of Islamic propaganda and draw condemnation from the world (and at this day and age that's very easy to do).
If there is in fact progress in Iraq, someone in Washington should be proclaiming this from atop a mountain every day. Even if it's trivial. Otherwise every bombing will be seen as a failure.
Having said all this, it is still a bit early to call this thing a big failure. If two years from now we are still at the same stage as today, then maybe I'll start to worry.

Posted by Rafael 2003-10-27 2:53:39 PM|| 2003-10-27 2:53:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 The iraqis aren't even close to being a tenth of what the VC were. But that war lasted thirty years. Neither we nor the french were prepared for that. Of ourse the level of violence now doesn't come close to that: but then we knew we were in a full-fledged war. Also agreed that the items I mentioned are obvious, but many obviious things get overlooked. Such as you can fight with very limited cash and arms, and almost no logistics at all if someone else (like the Saudis and Syrians) will provide them for you. The base question doesn't relate to tens or hundreds of deaths a week. The goal of guerrilla war is to undermine the WILL of the enemy, not to defeat him. To maintain the will of the people, you have to honest with them up front what's going to happen before it actually happens; didn't happen here.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 2:55:46 PM|| 2003-10-27 2:55:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 To maintain the will of the people, you have to honest with them up front what's going to happen before it actually happens; didn't happen here.

Yes, it did. It's not the administration's problem that their statements have been twisted, that the opposition routinely lies about what was said before the war. The administration was honest and up-front; the opposition preferred to debate with strawmen.

And it just continues; for example, Clark used the "imminent" lie a few times in last night's debate.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2003-10-27 3:26:03 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com] 2003-10-27 3:26:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Honest disagreement here. But then, that's what the whole problem revolves around. WMD's are dangeroous to have around, particularly if you're as paranoid as Hussein, and worried your own generals will use them against you. Claiming you have them works just about as well. Myself, I think the Iraqis before the war were throwing out dis-information by the truckload, and the CIA and the Administration fell for it because it jibed with what they believed. Just please don't tell me that wasn't the justification for immediate war. It was. As the months roll by and no WMDs are found, the Admins authority drops correspondingly. Hell, even I believed him originally.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 4:00:41 PM|| 2003-10-27 4:00:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 If I hear one more person rant 'Poor post-war planning' I am going to track them down and BITCH-SLAP them! There is NOBODY on this earth (except maybe the DEM Dwarfs) that could predict what is going on now. For Christ's sake the 'war/occupation' hasn't lasted a year! The insurgents/terrorists are fighting in desperation. IF they could attack U.S. forces they would, so they DESPERATELY attacked a Red-Crescent site. This will NOT endear them to the local population. It has been the Iraqis that have lead our forces to weapons caches and terrorists. Also, most reports have US chasing THEM, not the other way around. If they are still bombing hotels next spring, I would concede defeat. All I am saying is give them a friggin chance to SUCCEED! It may take longer than a Hockey season, but it WILL be worth it. FINNALY: THIS IS NOT VIETNAM.

Posted by Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2003-10-27 4:08:56 PM|| 2003-10-27 4:08:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 As the months roll by and no WMDs are found, the Admins authority drops correspondingly.

Ah. Another person who has never bothered to read beyond the NYT version of the Kay report.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2003-10-27 4:13:34 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com] 2003-10-27 4:13:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 PLANS for WMDs have been found. I've gone quite a ways beyond the NYTimes, which by the way I don't read since they're way too slanted. Since when do PLANS constitute an imminent threat? He had them. He got rid of them sometime after the inspectors left. He lied to everyone about still having them to scare people off (probably one of the biggest blunders in military history). Our intelligence fell for the dis-information. The insurgents aren't desperately attacking civilian targets. They're TERRORISTs, and doing things to inspire terror (another one of those obvious things that gets overlooked). Still bombing next spring? Try ten years from now. These people fought the crusaders for two hundred years, and they remember.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 4:23:31 PM|| 2003-10-27 4:23:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Not to mention that like in 'Nam, we're fighting an enemy with an open border. I think some of you boys are in for a very rude awakening.

The border situation might be similar to the Vietnam War, but that's where the similarity ends. Infiltration of Iraq via Syria isn't likely to be tolerated for the length of time that infiltration of Vietnam from Laos and Cambodia were.

Unlike Johnson, this president so far appears to be very willing to use a blunt instrument in the proper manner if the situation calls for it.

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-27 4:27:54 PM|| 2003-10-27 4:27:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 So throw up your arms and give up. Oh wait, you already have. You're so well informed and yet so, uh, helpless and distraught. Such insight. Such empathy. So concerned. I think you're Diane Sawyer.

Posted by .com 2003-10-27 4:31:57 PM|| 2003-10-27 4:31:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 To .com: Helpless? Distraught? I don't think so. I just like to know what I'm walking into before I get there. Surprises in war are always unpleasant. If you can't deal with every possibility, you can at least plan for them. I don't come here to comment often. When I have, I've been generally impressed that even people who disagree with me rather sharply avoid the snotty personal attacks. Not you. Is it just possible you haven't anything more intelligent to say? It isn't a question of whether or not infiltration will be tolerated or not. There are hundreds of miles of open border not just from Syria but Iran and Saudi Arabia as well. Patrolling it all will be virtually impossible. Once again, this isn't due to any fault of the military. It reflects a lack of proper grand strategic thinking. No one could have predicted this sort of outcome??? Please. This sort of thing is exactly what should have been thought of by high level planners with all the contingency plans in place. If there were no acceptable alternatives, the strategic plan itself should have been re-worked to cover the borders from the outset.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-10-27 4:54:57 PM|| 2003-10-27 4:54:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 Cyber Sarge: If I hear one more person rant 'Poor post-war planning' I am going to track them down and BITCH-SLAP them!

Save a cheek for me... a question I'd like to insert into the next debate, when they start this line of comments:

"As candidates, you had all plans for winning the Presidency. But, with the possible exception of Mr. Dean, it appears that President Bush's plan for Iraq has done much, much better than your Presidency plan. Would you care to comment?"

Posted by snellenr 2003-10-27 5:00:18 PM|| 2003-10-27 5:00:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 You offer nothing. You just whine. I responded, at length, to your post above - and you ignored it and went on whining and moaning and playing the NaziMedia dupe - then denying it.

Woulda shoulda coulda...
Offer suggestions. Quote your magic book, if needed, but cut the whining and contribute something other than endless rejection of everything posted. Geez, what waste of time.

Posted by .com 2003-10-27 5:10:40 PM|| 2003-10-27 5:10:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 To .com: I believe you just proved my point. Your last comment is nothing but more character attacks. You really don't like it when soomeone disagrees with you, do you? Just like preaching to the choir?

Since you feel I ignored you: yes there is a lot of problems in the Sunni triangle. Unfortunately, even if we subdue the area, we still have islamic extremeists crossing over to gain entrance to heaven by killing the infidel swine.Yes, it would have been a lot better if we had had Turkish support. But we didn't. Since we would have had better information about the threat level if our intelligence agencies had done their job, we could have waited until the Turks came around, and had a far better base to interdict raiders coming from Syria, and better logistical support for the north. Now we're stuck in the hated Vietnam quandry: how to win the hearts and minds of the people short of killing them. Cordoning off the Sunni triangle would require about twice the unumber of troops we have now, unless your enigmatic last comment was a suggestion to nuke the whole area.

As far as my "Magic" book, it isn't really just mine. Patton once said he kept his copy under his pillow so he could read it when he had trouble sleeping. Rommell had a copy as well.

So what do I offer? It's a little late, isn't it? But I would suggest doing a Nixon. Stablize the rest of the country, arm our guys to the teeth, declare victory, and get the hell out. If the good guys really have the support of the people, they should be able to get rid of the evil-does themselves.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-10-27 5:28:21 PM|| 2003-10-27 5:28:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 Sorry. That last comment was from me.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 5:29:01 PM|| 2003-10-27 5:29:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 "I believe you just proved my point. Your last comment is nothing but more character attacks."
Geez - more whining. I didn't attack your character - I stated the truth:
you offered nothing but observations regarding obvious problems - and declared them insoluble.

Well, your conclusion fits your view:
"declare victory, and get the hell out"

Yup. That'll do it alright. Okay. Thanx.

Posted by .com 2003-10-27 5:59:38 PM|| 2003-10-27 5:59:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 Just was watching Lou Dobbs interviewing a man named Kirek, who was responsible for helping the Iraqi interior ministry set up police and security until a month ago. He said much the same thing. Arm the Iraqis, train 30,000 Iraqi police, and turn it over to them. They can root out the bad guys, we can't. Since he was running the program, maybe he knows what he's talking about. I didn't say declare victory and get the hell out. I said arm the Iraqis to the teeth, turn the job over to them, declare victory, and get the hell out. Same thing. I think if Bush would say much the same thing in public, he would be a lot better off, like: we got rid of the bad guys, we'll train and equip the good guys, we're not going to watch over them forever. Or are you really looking at this like we have a permanent colony now in the mideast? I haven't declared problems insoluable, nor have I been whining all that much. I have pointed out at some length the various trails of poor reasoning and thought that got us to this point. On the other hand, I didn't get us into this mess in the first place. "NaziMedia dupe" isn't a character attack? On the other hand, you feel that this site belongs strictly to people who believe only what you do, just say so. I mean, god forbid you should have to have a real arguement with someone if you don't think that's reasonable.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 6:33:11 PM|| 2003-10-27 6:33:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 To: .com Checked around to some of your posts on other questions. You really do go in for the personal attack, don't you? Must be because you don't have much else to say. I'll keep it in mind and not bother with you in the future.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 7:05:59 PM|| 2003-10-27 7:05:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 Slumming, I think .com means be patient. Americans have a tendancy for proactivity, that is a very admirable quality. As a country, we also have the failing of not being able to step back and look at the big picture. Nixon cut and ran; but we did a lot better in the end by staying the course in Korea - which at many points looked an awful lot worse than Vietnam ever got.
Irans nuclear program and the Syria/Lebanon instability will require us to be in Iraq for the time being anyway. Let's not be so quick to slap together the Iraqi police force and army that we reinstall the very same bozos that we just had to fight.
When I was a kid, my great uncle taught me how to feed chickadees out of my hand. Patience and perserverence is what this is going to take.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-10-27 8:02:25 PM|| 2003-10-27 8:02:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 The fellow Kirek that Lou Dobbs was interviewing said it would take about 18 months to train the police. I don't think that's cutting and running, and I think people would stand for it. Someone in top level authority needs to say that's what we're going to do. Build them so they can take care of themselves, turn it over to them, and leave. Or not. I can be patient as long as I have the idea that someone has put together a cogent exit strategy, and that they understand what we're in, and that these bad people aren't just going to fade away because we wish they would. Nixon didn't just cut and run. We spent years building up the ARVN. The trouble there was that the government was corrupt and didn't have the backing of their own people.

Posted by slumming 2003-10-27 9:23:02 PM|| 2003-10-27 9:23:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 I think .com means be patient

That doesn't mean we can't say that Bush is doing a shit job if in fact he is doing a shit job (or whoever the brains behind post-war Iraq happens to be).

Posted by Rafael 2003-10-27 9:32:52 PM|| 2003-10-27 9:32:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 slumming--Congrats--you've just joined the League of dissenters who get personlly whacked by .com's insane character assassination--disagree with him--and it becomes personal--instantly!

Posted by NotMikeMoore 2003-10-27 11:32:16 PM|| 2003-10-27 11:32:16 PM|| Front Page Top

05:20 Sock Puppet of Doom
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23:58 Cyber Sarge
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