Article

2005-01-04 Iraq-Jordan

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Posted by Paul Moloney 2005-01-04 2:54:20 AM|| || Front Page|| [11133 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 If killing the voters won't stop the elections....just kill the candidates.

I can hear'em now:

"I'm Allan Mugrump, and I'm outta here!"

Posted by Flans Glong2778 2005-01-04 6:14:39 AM|| 2005-01-04 6:14:39 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The soil of Iraqi liberty is being watered by the blood of her patriots. While tragic, the Iraqis will protect their freedom better if it comes at a cost to them, not just as a gift from the Coalition.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-01-04 7:01:23 AM|| 2005-01-04 7:01:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 This is very discouraging. I'm trying very hard to be optimistic about the future course of our Iraqi adventure, and every time I think we've turned a corner, something like this happens. I hope God gives the Iraqis the strength to carry on despite all these setbacks. Can we just get this election over with already?

Posted by Captain Pedantic 2005-01-04 8:00:30 AM|| 2005-01-04 8:00:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Damn.

Posted by Seafarious 2005-01-04 9:13:49 AM|| 2005-01-04 9:13:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 What choice do the Iraqi's have but to move forward?

Posted by 2b 2005-01-04 10:14:04 AM|| 2005-01-04 10:14:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 #1 Outlaw all guns except handguns. Allow some to carry with a permit for protection. Anyone caught with a rifle/rpg/ak47 goes to jail.
#2 If someone is caught working for the terrorists, arrest all males in the household above 15 and the neighbors to the right and left for not reporting it.
#3 All terrorists in jail get put on THE LIST. Any coalition soldier gets wounded, we kill the one at the top of the list with a ballpeen hammer. For every soldier killed we off 10. The only way off the list is to provide info.
#4 Any town, neighborhood that gets out of control will get the MOAB (which should be renamed the FATWA).
#5 All terrorist killed should be shown on National TV.
#6 Make it clear to IRAN and SYRIA that failure in IRAQ will mean a bombardment of all military bases and presidential residences.
#7 The CIA should start offing Al Jazeera workers.
Thats what I'd for starters.

Posted by JackassFestival 2005-01-04 10:22:02 AM|| 2005-01-04 10:22:02 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 incoming gun control debate....

Posted by 2b 2005-01-04 10:40:50 AM|| 2005-01-04 10:40:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 2b, Just in Iraq for the immediate short term future. For the record I have several.

Posted by JackassFestival 2005-01-04 11:40:08 AM|| 2005-01-04 11:40:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 It is obvious that the Jihadis have excellent "actionable" intelligence and have had it for a while. I am surprised the Iraqis aren't getting really nasty.

It is also obvious that the motivation is coming from the turbanistas and as soon as they are killed, things will get better.

Posted by Brett_the_Quarkian 2005-01-04 11:48:19 AM|| 2005-01-04 11:48:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 In 1951, three years into the Malayan (now Malaysia and Singapore) Emergency, General Gerald Templar, the British equivalent of Paul Bremer, was assassinated. British forces fought tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese communist guerrillas, finally breaking the movement's back in 1960, twelve years after the conflict began. Sporadic guerrilla warfare occurred until the late 1970's, when the Chinese government formally ended aid to various communist movements in Southeast Asia.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-04 3:58:29 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-04 3:58:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 ZF's excellent reference points to the root: funding. Follow the money is as close to universal truth as human behavior allows. The vast majority of the bad guyz, jihadis included, are mercs. Period. Take away the financial support, and the shit stops. If it's support from a government - disincent the hell out of that policy / stance, including direct confrontation, if necessary. If it's beneath state level, then disincent the states that harbor them - see above - and put them on the defensive.

We've been here before, but ZF's post serves as a real world reminder: either you believe in your cause or not. If you do, you don't quail and cower when missteps occur or the enemy gets in a good shot - you persevere. You grind them to dust.

Taking it to the next level - short-circuiting the process: You seek out the fundamental sources of funding for your adversaries and attack them. Cut them off by whatever means available - or kill them. The golden geese of every adversary are few in number, fixed - not mobile, and usually hiding behind a state. Make it so painful that it stops - or take out the state.

Posted by .com 2005-01-04 4:13:49 PM|| 2005-01-04 4:13:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Hear, Hear .com. Exactly. Tho I'm not certain about how few in number they are. Still taking their money is a good idea. There's a better one tho, this strategy is based on the liberation of a small strip of land in SA which is mainly Shia weirdly enough, 15 km deep and 50 or 60 kn in width.

Posted by Shipman 2005-01-04 5:26:15 PM|| 2005-01-04 5:26:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 finally breaking the movement's back in 1960, twelve years after the conflict began

are we ready for another 10 years of this?

Posted by Liberalhawk 2005-01-04 5:29:55 PM|| 2005-01-04 5:29:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 "The British also brought in soldiers from units like the Worcester regiment and Highlander Marines. One side effect was a re-creation of Special Air Service as a jungle commando unit in 1950. The Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya was Sir Robert Thompson who had served as an officer in the Chindits during World War II. This meant he had a lot of experience in jungle warfare and was sympathetic to the development of jungle commando units.

In 1951 some British army units begun a "hearts and minds campaign" by giving medical and food aid to Malays and indigenous Sakai tribes. At the same time, they put pressure on MRLA by patrolling the jungle. Units like the SAS, Royal Marines and Gurkha Brigade drove MRLA guerillas deeper into the jungle and denied them resources. MRLA had to extort food from Sakai and earned their enmity. Many of the captured guerillas changed sides. In turn, MRLA never released any Britons alive.

In the end there was about 35,000 British and 100,000 Malay troops against maybe up to 80,000 communist guerillas."

Posted by Liberalhawk 2005-01-04 5:32:47 PM|| 2005-01-04 5:32:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Many of the captured guerillas changed sides.

In the latter stages of the conflict it's said there were more turned Communists working for the British than there were guerillas. The last loyal few were bought off by one such agent in a single afternoon's work.

Posted by Bulldog 2005-01-04 5:38:56 PM|| 2005-01-04 5:38:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 LH: are we ready for another 10 years of this?

Uncle Sam soldiered through Korea and Vietnam - with far higher casualties and far lower stakes. The press isn't ready for more of this, but the American people probably are. And if the press isn't careful, it will destroy its reputation for a generation - its monopoly on news analysis is in tatters.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-04 5:59:20 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-04 5:59:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 "are we ready for another 10 years of this?"

Hence the short-circuiting approach makes sense... I look at the shift in public perceptions - in only the last year - and it warms my dark heart that the unthinkable, regime change in Iran (which will have a very salutory effect in SyrLeb) is almost a given - the US Congress certainly "gets it". And The House of Saud isn't far behind with increasingly strident calls for accountability and recognition of their bribery and unrelenting covert opposition. The UN's fall from grace is a bonus - solely due to their own ineptitude and avarice.

Posted by .com 2005-01-04 6:03:05 PM|| 2005-01-04 6:03:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 From Ralph Peters' new book, "When Devils Walk the Earth" Chapter III, Fighting Terror: Do's and Don'ts for a Superpower:

"http://heardman.blogspot.com/2004/12/from-when-devils-walk-earth.html>

Posted by SC88 2005-01-04 9:29:18 PM|| 2005-01-04 9:29:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 I do not believe a majority of the American people will support a ten-year counter-insurgency in Iraq. This goes beyond the MSM. I don't believe that a majority of Republican congressmen would support a ten-year counter-insurgency there. Isolationism runs deep in American veins. I think we've got another three years max in the eyes of the public. Not my preference, but I'm a realist looking with a cold eye upon my countrymen's native character.

Posted by lex 2005-01-04 11:43:43 PM|| 2005-01-04 11:43:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 I agree with you lex, maybe 3 years of patience from Americans left. When pople try to compare post-war Germany to Iraq, I think they forget that Americans felt a connection to Germany, to Europe generally. The vast majority of Americans had immigrated from Europe so it was like they were re-building a former home.

Most Americans feel zero connection to either Iraq or Afghanistan. There's no sense of rebuilding something that's familiar to them. So for them to be sinking in all this $ and American lives to a country that is unfamiliar whose people are ungrateful will be a stretch for most Americans in a couple of years. Actually I'd say Americans have been far more committed to helping Iraqis than the Muslim-Americans, who don't want us in the ME at all, rebuilding or not.

Also the connection of a War on Terror to rebuilding Iraq is getting old and I don't think GWB has ever explained it that well quite frankly.

Posted by joeblow 2005-01-05 12:02:19 AM|| 2005-01-05 12:02:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#21 JB: Also the connection of a War on Terror to rebuilding Iraq is getting old and I don't think GWB has ever explained it that well quite frankly.

I think most Americans can read between the lines. No one's going to join Uncle Sam in a punitive expedition. Burden-sharing is politically-palatable to those of our allies currently in Iraq only if it is portrayed as the liberation of Iraq. We are no more liberating Iraq than we were liberating Germany and Japan - but given the nature of plausibly deniable war that is terrorism, we are unlikely to ever get the kind of clear-cut casus belli that was Pearl Harbor from terrorist attacks.

The whole point of terrorism is to disperse responsibility so the Muslim world can effectively say: "You can't take all of us on at the same time". Iraq and Afghanistan were our way of saying that it would behoove each Muslim ruler to ensure that he stays low on Uncle Sam's list of priorities.

Does this mean that our position is that "might is right"? Not so. In a world of sovereign countries, our people do not have the authorization to personally go into foreign countries to conduct extensive anti-terrorist investigations and arrest those responsible. Lacking this authority, we must therefore act robustly to impress upon the local rulers that their failure to crack down on anti-American terrorists could lead to their defenestration if another major terror attack occurs on US soil.

A punitive expedition into the heart of Islam is merely our way of saying to Muslim countries that the Vietnam syndrome is at an end. Any conservative who thinks that we went into Iraq to liberate them needs to look at the geopolitical situation and try to figure out why we haven't invaded a laundry list of other countries that are similarly oppressed, such as North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Some things just can't be said out loud. You don't tell something you're about to fire that he's a bum and a loser, and that he's fired. You tell him that times are tough and that you're going to have to let him go.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-05 9:55:24 AM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-05 9:55:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#22 ZF, you might think about applying your cool realist analysis to the domestic US political scene as well. Americans by and large remain an idealistic and generous people. Counter-insurgency's not our thing. There's little appetite in this country, regardless of left-right divides, for massive and protracted foreign ground engagements.

The only way to sustain broad popular support in this country for the "long twilight struggle" is to link that protracted, wearying struggle to progressive aims, namely the success and the survival of liberty. Otherwise you're likely to see Hagelism and Buchananism spread rapidly in the red states as regards the Iraq engagement. Isolationism's as Americanism as apple pie.

Posted by lex 2005-01-05 10:06:01 AM|| 2005-01-05 10:06:01 AM|| Front Page Top

#23 not to nit pick, but I take some issue with the idea of "red states" v/s "blue states". Not everyone who is conservative likes NASCAR or muses over the Buchanan's jew bashing blame/hate speech. I see the divisions as being more along the line of individual responsibility v/s government as a mommy to care for us and especially for the little brown "special" people. I think it's because in less concentrated areas, it's easier to see "the government" or "the poor" as individuals who can impact their own lives, and in places like New York, "the government" and "the poor" are easier to classify as one big anonymous "they".

Posted by 2b 2005-01-05 10:42:36 AM|| 2005-01-05 10:42:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#24 It is a myth that counter insurgency is not our thing. The Indian Wars, the Philippines, and Latin America demonstrate to the contrary. Viet Nam only proved that we don't like to force our children as draftees to fight such wars. But we're more than ready and patient enough to pay other Americans' children to fight them.

The problem we now have is that the military learned the wrong lesson from Viet Nam. As a result, it developed a force structure that would compel a call up of reserves to fight a war. This was an error. The military should be structured so that it can conduct combat and occupation activities entirely with an all-volunteer force. Were this the case, the Hagels and Buchannans would not have an audience.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-01-05 10:43:24 AM|| 2005-01-05 10:43:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#25 good point - Mrs. D.

Posted by 2b 2005-01-05 10:48:33 AM|| 2005-01-05 10:48:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#26 MD: The problem we now have is that the military learned the wrong lesson from Viet Nam. As a result, it developed a force structure that would compel a call up of reserves to fight a war. This was an error. The military should be structured so that it can conduct combat and occupation activities entirely with an all-volunteer force. Were this the case, the Hagels and Buchannans would not have an audience.

I don't think the size of the current military has much to do with Vietnam. It has to do with the cost of fielding a large army and the associated logistical overhead (i.e. it does no good to have a big army for overseas engagements if you can't move it where it needs to go). Throughout the 90's, we spent about 3% of GDP on defense. Because of the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are now spending about 4%. This tells me that we might have to spend 5% to get a large enough army. That's over $100b per year in excess of current expenditures. Money is always an issue, because it contends with social spending and tax cuts. (Social spending is the third rail - touch it and you die - politically).

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-05 10:59:15 AM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-05 10:59:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#27 Mrs D

It is a myth that counter insurgency is not our thing. The Indian Wars, the Philippines, and Latin America demonstrate to the contrary

Good point. Let me clarify: our military and foreign policy establishment can of course prosecute counter-insurgencies successfully, provided they are either close to (or within) our borders and/or require limited deployments of US manpower. Deploying 150,000 troops over ten years in a region that we poorly understand and where we have few intelligence assets is another matter. I support it without reservation, but my point is that in our day and age, the US public will support overseas engagements only so long as victory seems to be in sight. This applies to Iraq today no less than Bosnia or Somalia or Lebanon ca 1983.

Which is why support needs to be rallied through appeals to American idealism. Counter-insurgencies are long, nasty and with plenty of reverses. Despite the successful examples you mention, Mrs D, counter-insurgency campaigns don't generally lend themselves to the American-Spielbergian-Band o Brothers narrative.

The other problem is that the reserves are bearing far more than their usual share of the fight and the bloodletting in Iraq. I have no doubts about our professional military caste's stomach for the fight, but I fear that the families of reservists and those close to them will turn against this war and go fully or largely isolationist.

2b,

agree totally re the red-blue divide-- it's really more a matter of suburbs/exurbs/rural vs urban core/college towns-with-a-foreign-policy. Dallas has more strip clubs than Manhattan, and has just elected a lesbian mexican-american as sheriff. Merck's lawyers are desperate to get the Vioxx class-action venue moved from Houston, which is far more plaintiff-friendly, to that bastion of corporate capitalism, Maryland. So much for the hypercapitalist Bible Belt.

Posted by lex 2005-01-05 11:02:27 AM|| 2005-01-05 11:02:27 AM|| Front Page Top

#28 lex..true. It's interesting about Houston. I have family that lives there, and I noticed they were all over the WallMart issue - which was a big liberal PR push at the time. I found it interesting because they are super conservative. I can't help wonder how much of it is just the media coverage they are being bombarded with.

Posted by 2b 2005-01-05 11:09:35 AM|| 2005-01-05 11:09:35 AM|| Front Page Top

#29 I'd bet that New Jersey exurbs have more in common politically and socially with Plano, Texas, than Plano has with Dallas or the NJ exurbs have with New York City.

Posted by lex 2005-01-05 11:13:56 AM|| 2005-01-05 11:13:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#30 America supported the Cold War for over 45 years with over 250,000 troops in Germany with no prospect of victory. There is no reason why we cannot do the same in the Middle East. And it is easy to contend that victory is far more in sight in the ME than it ever was in the Cold War. Further the ME has attacked Conus, something the Soviets never did. You underestimate the willingness of the American people to support war. Bush was re-elected in the face of a horribly inaccurate and scurrilous anti-war propaganda effort by the M$M.

Your point about the reserves echos mine. The American-Spielbergian-Capra narrative is only necessary when civilian involvement is compelled, either by draft or reserves. It is clear that neither is necessary to achieve victory in the ME, if we properly structure and expand the AVF which we can easily do.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-01-05 11:39:48 AM|| 2005-01-05 11:39:48 AM|| Front Page Top

#31 America supported the Cold War for over 45 years with over 250,000 troops in Germany with no prospect of victory

My point exactly. The "long twilight struggle" was done in the name of our ideals, namely "the survival and success of liberty." Which is why the Iraq engagement, if it's to retain more than 51% (if that) popular support over the years, will have to be justified as more than merely a "punitive expedition" as ZF would have it, or a counter-insurgency.

Ideals matter. And in this case they matter at least as much as realpolitik goals. The realpolitikers wanted to do business with Saddam.

Agree totally re expanding the AVF. What's happening on that front?

Posted by lex 2005-01-05 11:47:10 AM|| 2005-01-05 11:47:10 AM|| Front Page Top

#32 Bush was re-elected in the face of a horribly inaccurate and scurrilous anti-war propaganda effort by the M$M.
Bush was re-elected because of a very poor Democrat candidate. Also, Bush won some of the states - specifically Ohio- because the gay marriage initiative were on the ballots and that brought out the religious GOP voters and family oriented Democrats who might have sat this election out(former) or voted for Kerry(latter).

I don't think anyone can realistically claim Bush won because the electorate supported what's happening in Iraq. The situation in Iraq was his Achilles heel throughout the election, even with Republicans. The majority of Americans gave the Bush administration 4 more years to settle matters in Iraq because even if they did not agree with the invasion, they wanted the US to get the Iraqi elections done with and a new Iraqi gov't in place and the political situation somewhat settled.

The "long twilight struggle" in post war II was supported by Americans because they had a connection to the EU countries. Some American immigrants actually fled communism in the 1930's, so also there was a personal stake in maintaining an American presence in post war Europe. As I said earlier, there is no personal connection to the ME countries. Even the majority of Muslim Americans and Jewish Americans want us out of Iraq. You'd think there's be committment from those 2 groupos who actually have a stake in the ME. While the invasion of Iraq got support from Americans of both political stripes due to the threat of Saddam having WMD, after the WMD were not found, I think there was a collective sigh of relief in the US, so now it's just get Iraq stabilized enough to run their own country and let's move on. RB is a highly selective blog re: support of the Iraq occupation. I don't think you can say it's a reflection of Americans' sentiments at large.

Seeing our nation as standing for freedom and liberty is an image that has been watered down considerably not only by the educators and the media but also by our elite politicians' and behind the scenes political movers and shakers' drive to have "diversity and multi-culturalism" prevail in the country as opposed to "melting pot and nationalism." Therefore, today a growing population segment in this country are hyphenated Americans who could care less about the founders' values. They want cheap mortgages and cheap gasoline and cheap education blah, blah.

That's why I agree with lex - 3 years is about it for Americans' committment to sinking in $ and troops' lives into the ME. I don't think it's a matter of conservatives vs democrats on this lack of patience issue - a good number of Democrats voted for Bush in 2004. I think it's lack of personal connection to the region and to the WOT dogma, which was weirdly explained to our people -a war on communism, a war on facism yes,that worked with the populis, where nation states are clearly defined as the enemy. But a WOT? Huh? what's that??? JQCitizen needs things simplified but some pointy head wonk in the WH went overboard with that simplification so in a short period of time it means nothing.

By 2008 if Iraq is not stabilized to where JQCitizen sees cheaper gas prices( that's what's important after all)and deficit reduction, the GOP may pay a price at the polls.

Posted by joeblow 2005-01-05 12:28:16 PM|| 2005-01-05 12:28:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 The Cold War had nothing to do with ideals or immigrants, it had everything to do with national survival. Having fought WWII, we were not about to leave it to the next generation of wacko euro dictators to threaten us and have to rescue the Euros a third time in one century. So we sat down to outwait them.

The Soviets never attacked us, they never killed thousands of innocent civilians. The Islamofascists have. The Americans won't quit till they're beat.

JB, by your slander of the hyphenated Americans I presume you mean the German-Americans and the Irish-Americans. I never understood why our ancestors let them in either. Just caused dilution of our precious bodily fluids.

If this war isn't over in four years, and it won't be, the Americans will not elect they candidate who offers a strategy of cut and run. They will elect the candidate they believe most likely to advance the cause. They will continue to do so until the Islamofascists are defeated.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-01-05 12:55:32 PM|| 2005-01-05 12:55:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 don't think anyone can realistically claim Bush won because the electorate supported what's happening in Iraq.

That's funny, cause Kerry himself said, "The war vote beat me".

Posted by 2b 2005-01-05 1:00:59 PM|| 2005-01-05 1:00:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 The Soviets never attacked us, they never killed thousands of innocent civilians. The Islamofascists have
Roosevelt and Churchill mistrusted Stalin from the get go. It was an alliance of convenience not trust. Patton wanted to take out the Russians after the war, but the best we could do at that time was Cold War detente to stop the spread of Russia's imperialistic dreams beyond the Eastern bloc nations.

Are you serious? Islamofascists attacked us? No dear, there is no nation called Islmofacism, sorry to report this to you. And we're not in Iraq because Iraq attacked us. We're in Iraq for more complicated reasons and Islamofacism is not one of them.

JB, by your slander of the hyphenated Americans I presume you mean the German-Americans and the Irish-Americans. I never understood why our ancestors let them in either.
Oh poor Mrs. Davis. I guess I hit a nerve - you know darn well I don't mean the Irish or German immigrants. But you have revealed yourself as a liberal who supports the liberals panacea to the ills of this nation and the world- why it's "multiculturalism and diversity." Ha, ha, ha.

the Americans will not elect they candidate who offers a strategy of cut and run. They will elect the candidate they believe most likely to advance the cause
Americans will support whichever candidate offers them cheap gas, no gay marriage, low tax rates, and no more body bags coming home from a country they can't find on a world map if you offered them $1000 to do so. Sorry, but that's mainstream America.

Posted by joeblow 2005-01-05 1:30:40 PM|| 2005-01-05 1:30:40 PM|| Front Page Top

00:02 joeblow
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