Only a fool would deny the obvious- things are a bloody mess in Iraq. However, I think things are not as bad as they could be, and I never thought this would be easy, so I remain hopeful and keep praying for those men and women in harm’s way. Really- what else can I do?
Iraq
by John Cole| 16 Comments
This post is in: War
shark
This is a dangerous time….you can just see the media chomping at the bit to define this as being the Iraqi Tet Offensive, and we all know how that turned out once the press got their dishonest mitts all over that.
Bush talks leadership….he needs to speak to the country about this, and make sure HIS message is the one that gets out.
Things look bad in Iraq- but I also believe that it’s a good opportunity for us to sweep up a lot of bad guys and reassert our authority.
Tman
I disagree, I don’t think that Iraq is as bad as the media is making it out to be. Granted, Fallujah and Sadr are making some fine lead-stories for the quagmire hunters, but aside from this just about every predicted disaster of the Occupation has not come to pass. I’ll admit it’s still early to be making rosy predictions, but the majority of Iraqis agree that their lives are better off now than under Saddam, and with Saddam gone, a major terrorist sugar daddy is no more. I am not going to cry vietnam everytime a bunch of thugs and criminals knock over a police department for three hours…
Steyn says it better than I do….
http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=69
Justin O.
It’s getting worse…..and will only get worse……something big is going to happen……..and it’s not going to be something good if we keep up our current rate of ignorance of foreign policy
rick
Oh come ON! What did we expect? It was PREDICTED to be a disaster – and it was the closest thing to a cakewalk. Now, these bad guys see their small success in Spain and they’re back to the whole “we can inflict casualties and make the big, bad Satan leave!”
Well, fellas – wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We will find the perps, and they will be punished. We will decimate your scurvy ranks, and you WILL NOT plunge this place that has cost so much precious blood back into the slime-pit it was before we came and tried to fix your backwards asses.
And you will like it, because your lives will become a little more like ours. Safe. Warm, when we’re cold; cool when it’s hot. Fed. Working. Productive. Creating. Free to pitch a bitch about something we don’t like or agree with. Free to assemble, to dissent, to argue, to have real dialogue for the first time in your miserable existence. Free from tyranny.
How is this bad? It’s not.
van
I am reminded as to what Andrew Jackson would do: destroy them. It is time to deal with these Saddamites (say that ten times:)) and then sew salt into the ground.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Rick, there seems to be a typo in your post. We had over 300 dead since the end of major combat operations, and I thought the cakewalk claim had been abandoned some time ago. I haven’t see those promised flower petals either. THAT was the prediction from the Administration. Some day you’ll have to face up to the fact they fly blind.
CadillaqJaq
I haven’t seen the tens of thousands of body bags returning home from Iraq either, as was predicted early on by the same gloom and doomers that hang around here.
Iraq is in flux… we are at war and Iraq is the battleground. It appears that those that wail and gnash their teeth would rather it take place in the USA instead.
It must be difficult for them to come to grips with the simple fact that some out there that want to see ALL of us dead. Period.
Rather it be them than me, you, or ours… take it to ’em!
capt joe
Well, armchair generals usually get things wrong, especiallt on CNN.
The fact of the matter is we don’t know how much of this is a surprise and how much of it is part of US strategy.
The advantage in this is that we can remove several large threats at once. If that can be accomplished, then the possibility of sticking to the Jun 30th date becomes possible.
Many reports point to the fact that this insurrection is indeed limited to a smaller group. The general populace is not yet involved in any larger action. In fact new reports tell stories that Iraqi civilians have used their cars to transport US wounded out of battle area.
Also, there arte reports of many iranians and syrian fighters in the casualty lists.
As to the flower petals, no one promised you a rose garden (couldn’t resist). ;) Most polls show that the Iraqi people are in fact happier. That must gall elites in the west who are busy manufacturing consent on a “Ted” offensive.
Dean Esmay
I am really rather astounded. The Tet offensive, which was universlly acknowledged by military men to be a complete victory for the U.S. and a complete disaster for the Viet Cong, did far more damage and inflicted far more casualties than this latest blowup. But the media’s treating it the same way–and those who supported this war are flipping out?
People are going to die. That’s war. We took a regime by force that did not surrender but chose guerilla insurgency under teh assumption that we woudn’t have the stomach to stand up for that. Now we’re flipping over a handful of casualties and uprisings in one small part of the country?
I expected far worse than this, didn’t you?
Chris
True, freeing Iraqis from Saddam’s tyranny and attemtping to bring democracy to the region is not a bad thing. What is bad is the fact that more U.S. soldiers and civilians have died since May 1, 2003 than during the invasion and subsequent occupation leading up to that date. This thing is FAR from a cakewalk; it IS a disaster. Each American life lost since Bush’s declaration of the end of major combat operations in Iraq is an unacceptable loss and something needs to be done.
As far as I can tell, this whole operation of transitioning to democracy was severely underestimated. Granted, the tragedy at Fallujah was an extreme case, but does anyone honestly think that the citizens of Iraq will be able to be autonomous in a fully functioning democracy by June 30th? Iraqi people may indeed be happier, but it doesn’t mean they’re ready to take the reins when we hand them the proverbial keys to self-government. If we bail out on June 30th, we’re setting the stage for the insurrectionists to retake power and install another dictator in Saddam’s place. I have a feeling we’re in for the long haul and many more U.S soldiers will die unnecessarily as a result.
Stuck In Oregon
As an Ex-Military person I find it so stupid that you would believe the major news services to report what is actually happening over there in Iraq truthfully. It seems that the lead story on the local eveing news is how many of our forces died. They are not talking about the good things that our people are doing over there to help the civilians. The so called uprising Iraq Freedom Fighters are not even from Iraq, they are from every other Muslim Nation come to help kick the Great Satan out of Iraq so the Religious Muslim Nation like Iran can be formed. Get you head out of the clouds not operation is bloodless. Even training missions has casualities you just don’t hear about them.
Chris
Stuck in Oregon,
Thanks for the information. I appreciate your input. Your assumptions about my intelligence are unwarranted, however. I try to get my news from a variety of sources (newspapers, TV, talk radio, etc.), look at things from both sides, then form my own conclusions from the information I get. I don’t just blindly believe whatever the major news networks throw at me. In that regard, I think I’m being a responsible and informed citizen. And I never implied that the operation was going to be bloodless, so don’t go putting words in my mouth.
I fully expected casualties, both military and civilian, when we occupied Iraq and I considered them justified given the situation. But when the President declares an end to major combat operations on national television, as far as I’m concerned, that means that U.S. military and civilian casualties should decrease, not increase.
And I am aware of all the good things our military are doing for the Iraqi citizens. I have a buddy serving in Iraq. I just prefer not to see him come home in a body bag because the administration has IT’S head in the clouds thinking everything is going to turn itself around by June 30th.
In the future, if you have constructive criticism for me…fine…I’ll admit I don’t have all the answers. But if you’re going to resort to namecalling and unwarranted assumptions, you can stay stuck in Oregon for all I care.
Franck
Stuck in Oregon makes some good points. And the fact that Syrians and Iranians are among the enemy casualties tells us a lot about who the troops are facing–Hezbollah and Al Qaida, along with some leftover Baath socialist/fascists.
It is the nature of casualties to be cumulative, so that in a long aftermath following a very short and successful invasion, casualties will accumulate to eventually surmount the original war totals.
The important thing is to deal with the al Sadrs and the Sunni militants, and then help Iraq learn to defend its own borders.
There are several forms of Islam, and innumerable tribes to deal with in Iraq. It takes a while to learn the ropes.
But for now, the military has to show no mercy to al Sadr and his Iranian friends, and to the Sunni garbage in Fallujah.
Chris
Thanks Franck,
It’s nice to get a constructive viewpoint rather than a blistering rant. I agree with both you and Stuck in Oregon as far as our troops having to deal with several dangerous militant factions. You also make a good point when you say:
“It is the nature of casualties to be cumulative, so that in a long aftermath following a very short and successful invasion, casualties will accumulate to eventually surmount the original war totals.”
I guess my point of contention is that the way this occupation was presented to Americans was that there wasn’t going to be a long aftermath; it was going to be a quick successful invasion followed by a short occupation to ensure that things were under control before granting Iraq complete governmental autonomy. I, for one, was under the impression that there was a Plan A in place, and if Plan A didn’t work, then we would switch to Plan B. Now it appears that Plan A didn’t work out and there is no Plan B to fall back on. Meanwhile U.S. soldiers are needlessly dying by the dozens while the administration tries to get its act together. It’s unacceptable.
frontinus
Pardon a small rant but I’d suggest a change of reading habits if you gathered from your current crop occupation would be short. Paperboy.com is always a good start.
I think you are looking at things backwards. The increase in casualties isn’t a commentary on occupation. It’s a testiment to how efficient the invasion part was. Military technology gives us a huge advantage in any set-piece battle but it doesn’t help to such an extent in urban pacification or occupatiion or whatever you want to call it. So, I don’t think it’s that big of a shock that deaths during the guerilla(little war) phase are more than the big war phase. It was no different for the Soviets in Afghanistan.
And I don’t think we’re going to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians purposely like the Soviets did by poisoning wells and using starvation as a weapon. So the Afghan comparison has its limits.
Tongue Boy
I think the CPA and the Coalition forces bave played out the situations in Fallujah and with Al-Sadr almost to perfection. After taking out the first of the many layers of violence and intimidation dominating Iraqi society, Saddam Hussein and the Baathist party, the Coalition has bided its time and waited for the inner layers to make a mistake. And so they have and the Coalition will make them pay.
First, it would make no sense to directly confront the various militant Sunni and Shia factions as long as they confined their actions to words and not deeds. Indeed, the CPA tolerated a lot of “free speech” from various factional newspapers that would be considered an incitement to riot or civil insurrection in the U.S. This was necessary to reassure the many fence-sitters that the U.S. and its Coalition partners would put into action their preaching of democracy, free speech and tolerance.
Now that some factions have stepped over the line, the Coalition’s measured response throws into high relief the consequences of free speech (nothing) vs. the consequences of violence (boot up the ass). Also, after the initial press oh-woe-is-me-it’s-Tet-all-over-again wailing and gnashing of teeth, the fog of war will clear and the limited popular support these factions have will be exposed, thus giving the Coalition a propaganda victory.
Additionally, the Coalition provoked a first strike by these groups by imposing a strict June 30 deadline for handing sovereignty back to the Iraqis. The Saddam/Sunni diehards and Al-Sadr Mahti Militia could no longer afford to sit on their hands. When they moved to open violence, the Coalition was provided the perfect excuse to *really* crack down on those factions. The factions were forced to act from a position of weakness and not at a “time of their own choosing”, as Rumsfeld likes to say.
The Sunni factions in Fallujah made a grievous strategic mistake by abandoning asymmetrical guerilla tactics and attempting to defend set urban positions. Sure, some elements of the Coalition forces will be neutralized by the urban conditions, especially for fear of civilian casualties, but alternating north/south or east/west forays will force the limited Sunni forces to whipsaw back and forth within the city’s perimeter to defend ever-shrinking territory and to deplete their energy. Events may have already overtaken this analysis, however.
Al-Sadr is bringing a knife to a gun fight and he knows it, as evidenced by his abandonment of the Golden Mosque and flight to Najaf. He is a minor player trying to even the playing field with more senior clerics through violence and intimidation. I don’t think he will be able to count on a general insurrection as other clerics will not, for the most part, endorse his actions.
In the broader strategic plan of establishing a beachhead of democracy in the Arab world, I suspect there will greater perils ahead. It’s hard to see how the current situation is more than a sideshow, a pinprick to the elephant’s foot.