The Straw Men
With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain
--If I Only Had A Brain, Wizard of Oz
____________
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain
--If I Only Had A Brain, Wizard of Oz
____________
As the U.S. death toll passed 3,500 last week, we were told that newly minted War Czar Lt. General Douglas Lute is concerned over the Iraqi's ''capacity'' to produce an outcome--any directed outcome--regardless of how little or much finesse the U.S. shows in its coercion techniques.
''The question in my mind is. . .to what degree do they actually have the capacity themselves to produce [a given] outcome,'' said Lute in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
''The Bush administration has warned that the current troop buildup in and around Baghdad will result in more U.S. casualties as American troops increasingly come into contact with enemy forces (U.S. Tolls Top 3,500 in Iraq.)''
Ranger fears the enemy forces are actually the people of Iraq. If the people of Iraq are the enemy forces, then why are we there?
Foreign Affairs last Fall (Sept./Oct. 06, p. 73) stated, ''Around 92% of the votes in the December 2005 election [in Iraq] were cast for sectarian parties.'' Further, ''Events in Iraq suggest what is unfolding is not a clash between West and Islam but, increasingly, a clash within Islamic civilization itself.'' In other words, who or what are U.S. soldiers dying for?
Ranger sure hopes somebody knows, because the U.S. casualties will be dead for a long time.
Labels: iraqis are the enemies
posted by rangeragainstwar at 8:17 PM
5 Comments:
i think that the single most glaring mistake our planners have been making all along is that they never factor in what the enemy response might entail beyond their desired and expected result. hell, if i played chess and could dictate the moves of my opponent i would be a grandmaster. these guys never seem to factor in that there is an enemy out there who doesn't subscribe to our goals and desires, but holds a substantial vote in the outcome. i have been worried about this since well before the invasion when they were gaming the plan. there was a lt. colonel on the red team (and i loved red team duty i was a born red teamer) who figured "they are going to hose down my command and control structure from the air, so i will have my messages sent by messenger on motorbike. i can't meet them force on force without being crushed, so my guys will split up and work an independant harrasing action on their supply lines and campsites, then we'll go urban." he completely stymied and frustrated tommy franks. by the second day of the exercise franks was reduced to a sputtering mass of profanity while he watched his force get chopped up piecemeal. franks complained to the joint chiefs, the lt. col was cashiered, the rules were changed to "behave like we tell you to behave," franks won a resounding victory on the replay and the plan was approved.
no wonder they have failed. they think this is like the games at fort irwin where the rules say that they are brilliant and will win in a walk.
minstrel boy,
It is a consistent position of Ranger that all of our planning is pie-in-the-sky, and ignores any realistic threat analysis.
For all of our lip service to Special Operations Forces, Iraq and Afghanistan are the ideal theatres for SOF employment on a large scale. In fact, I would say they should be the only commands in theatre. Bear in mind, this is if one accepts the premise of the war, which I do not.
In fact, in RVN, it was my position that there should have been one SFGrp in each of the four MR's, and no other combat power would have been necessary.
These ideas are based on the presumption that we actually want to win the hearts and minds of the people, which as you know, has no truth to it. We have the heart of the Cowardly Lion. The only hearts and minds we want to win are those that suck up to us.
I find it very strange, as a history major, that no one seems to realize the Iraqis are taking a page straight out of the playbook of the Philipinos in 1899-1913.
This is a wonderful quote from Wikipedia: The Filipino general Francisco Makabulos described the Filipinos' war aim as, “not to vanquish the U.S. Army but to inflict on them constant losses.”
It took us fourteen years to squash the resistance, and thousands of dead.
But the saddest part is that the next U.S. President, whoever he or she may be, will be in exactly the same boat. The CIA or the NSA or whoever, will feed questionable intelligence information to the president and since no president wants to be sitting on his hands when another 9/11 happens, he will err on the side of a preemptive strike. We will unfortunately have to keep this "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude until Al-Queda and their ilk are too weak to be an effective terrorist force, which could take decades. But with every attack we will make, we serve as the best recruiting tool that they could ever want. So what's the answer? Who knows? I sure don't.
jim,
Well-said. We have set up a national policy which now operates like a perpetual motion machine (Why am I brought to mind of the old Mazda Wankel rotary engine ads right about now?)
No need of forethought when you have big equipment that blows troubling things to smithereens. (Remember the Smithereens?)
I will get further commentary from the other Jim later or tomorrow.
Thanks for joining in,
Lisa
jim,
FRom Ranger: It's not the next president that is getting screwed, it's the American taxpayer. We are the ones sitting in the boat, and it looks like our oar (votes) doesn't get us very far.
I do agree that the preemptive strikes are the best recruitment tools al Qaida could hope for. Thomas Friedman (b/f he wimped out) and Juan Cole, pointed this out years ago.
It shouldn't be a cult of personality around our czar decider, it's about America.
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