This is certainly welcome news:
In a succession of intelligence breaks, the US says it has killed two key members of Al Qaeda in Iraq in recent days, including the organization’s No. 2 man who is suspected of orchestrating a series of suicide bombings in Baghdad since April.
According to American military officials, the US has either made key arrests or developed informants who have led to a cascade of actionable intelligence over the past month. Since the middle of August, the US has reported killing or capturing at least 16 members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
How big a blow this is to the insurgency in Iraq remains unclear. While US human intelligence has clearly improved, no one has a clear understanding of the internal workings of Mr. Zarqawi’s network, which is thought to be only a small portion of Iraq’s decentralized and highly complex insurgency.
“By itself these events don’t do much to destroy Al Qaeda as much as undermine and undercut it. But this comes after some very successful operations in Tal Afar that wrapped up the Al Qaeda network there,” says Anthony Cordesman, a former senior intelligence analyst for the US and now an expert on the Iraq insurgency at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The US says it killed the insurgent leader of the town of Karabilah at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, and Abdullah Abu Azzam, said to be the Al Qaeda leader (or emir) of Anbar Province, in a raid in Baghdad on Sunday. Meanwhile Gen. Kevin Bergner told reporters that in northern Iraq, where the US recently fought a major engagement in Tal Afar and where major operations have also been carried out in Mosul, the US has made inroads against the organization.
“We are probably at the point of impacting about 80 percent of that network in terms of detaining, capturing, killing the leadership, and disrupting their resources, and disrupting their support bases and neutralizing their capability,” he said.
We shall see.
TallDave
Good news.
I still think the big show is the December elections tho. There are a lot of moderate Sunnis out there who want the madness to end. Get enough of them on our side through the political process, get them calling in airstrike info from their cellphones, and the situation will calm considerably.
skip
It IS welcome news, but I remind you of how many no. 2 people we seem to capture or kill.
Meanwhile, the Israelis have offed so many Hamas “leaders” that one wonders if there were ever any followers.
Gratefulcub
Great!! I am sure Ramadan will be quiet this year.
The undeclared civil war is underway. The sunnis may come out and vote, but they will be voting no on the constitution. if it passes anyway, how in the world is that supposed to bring them into the political process?
I realize there are positive developments, like the article in this post. But, every day there is a report of a dozen iraqis found executed. Neighborhoods are being ethnically cleansed. It seems apparent that the Shiite militias are in control of the south. The Iraqi Army seems to be separated into ethnic groups. The best divisions of the Iraqi army are just Kurdish Pesh Merga units in new unis.
Sending Kurdish Pesh Merga units with US backing into Tal Afar seems a bit short sighted. Kurds killing Turkmen and Sunni Arabs just inflame the sectarian tensions.
TallDave
The undeclared civil war is underway.
Has been for decades. Saddam killed 300,000 in them.
The sunnis may come out and vote, but they will be voting no on the constitution. if it passes anyway, how in the world is that supposed to bring them into the political process
The October referendum won’t bring them into the polittical process since no one’s running for office there anyway, but the December parliamentary elections may split the “fight democracy to the death” Sunnis from the “this insurgency sucks, let’s try consensual gov’t” Sunnis.
Oh, and Sunni leaders in Tal Afar asked for help.
KC
Good. Glad they got that guy. But, as you say John, we’ll see. How many so-called turning points have we seen already?
Cromagnon
Since 95% of the insurgency are Iraqi Sunnis that have little or nothing to do with Al Qaeda, this seems much ado about nothing other than another lame attempt to tie 9/11 to Iraq
Shygetz
skip has a good point–how many “#2 guys” and “top aides” have we killed? I’m pretty sure this is not the first.
circlethewagons
Every night I impact about 80 percent of my couch (when I stretch out to watch a little TV) and my couch is still standing there.
Inane analogy, I know.
But at this point in time I frankly don’t believe anything they say anymore.
rayabacus
And you know this, how? Care to back up the 95% figure with some links and cites. I don’t even think the brass on the ground in Iraq know this.
ppGaz
“We are winning the war on drugs.” – Richard Nixon
I think this topic is in the same general category.
“Number Two Cockroach Killed by Exterminator”
“Insects Everywhere Surrender, Give Up”
“We Are Winning the War on Vermin” — Spud Potatohead
Yeah, whatever.
John S.
Seeing as how al-Quaeda is a decentralized organization that resembles a hydra, there are MANY.
Also, don’t forget that with Bush’s approval ratings so low, they need to get out there and pimp his War President tough on terror street cred.
CaseyL
More from that article:
(Emphases mine.)
Blue Neponset
That is real progress. We managed to lure two top Al Quaeda leaders to Iraq so we could kill them in Iraq and not in Yemen or Pakistan. That flypaper strategy thingy is working like a charm.
stickler
We don’t need to wait and see how this turns out. We already know. We’re two years into the Iraq mission, and the insurgency is not getting smaller, no matter what pablum is dished up by the Pentagon.
As the Cordesman quote above puts it, we don’t have the foggiest idea who we’re fighting, how strong they are, or who their leaders are. Baghdad is still not pacified — indeed, Sadr City just erupted again.
Let’s review: we (the US and Britain) don’t control the capital city. We can’t secure the oil pipelines. The previously-calm South is violent again, and local gov’t and police are riddled with Shia militia and Iranian agents. Only the North is still quiet, but that’s because the Kurds haven’t started Operation De-Arabize Mosul yet. The Sunnis and Shia are already in a low-grade civil war of assassination and kidnapping.
But we got Zarqawi’s #2 man! Again!
Rick
Gosh, seems the poster above is among those believing the Ba’athists and Caliphatemongers are 10′-tall Immortals.
OTOH, I see the “insurgency” as a bleeding-out of the would-be gauleiters’ and caliphs’ cannon-fodder. But then, I would believe that, since I don’t tune in to BBC World Service.
Cordially…
Ray
Ah, somebody better put in another request out for new personnel as this “new” and “improved” Iraqi insurgency led by the best Al-Q has to offer is having a high burn rate.
All of this talk by some who only see just “another #2” going down and the success of that operation by the MNF’s in Iraq expose your own failings coming out.
You can talk all you want about how the “whole” country not being secure(all at the same time) and the south becoming “violent” again(only because Iranian interference makes it so)but what other force or people on the face of the earth can do this much with economy of force, be some damn succesfull all at the same time.
John S.
I love Rick’s posts. Especially the format of:
Maybe he thinks ‘cordially’ means something else…
Tim F
Compare the number of American infantry killed daily with the number of top Al Qaeda aides killed daily. Considering that one of ours costs orders of magnitude more than one of theirs, the last thing you want to be crowing about is ‘economy of force.’
Tim F
I ordered those glasses too, but when they came they turned out to be cardboard with little pinhholes punched in them.
cordially,
Lines
Good thing we’re fighting the #2’s over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.
“Proudly turning the #2 corner!”
Cordially,
Ray
Tim F
Nuts. As in: kiss, you assertion of comparing the two in your post, your response is, etc
What are you talking about:
Your trying to talk numbers of regualar infantry, a very noble profession right now, to jihadis who manufacture car bombs to slaughter innocents? as a way to compare the success?
And this brainless diddy:
Are you talking a US general/Col/Major to Al-Q LT(of which I dont the term being used for) to make a cost analysis in dollars or psych value here?
And last but not least:
Who’s side are you on? and don’t say your own because that’ll be a weak response to the lit fuse you’ve already lit under yourself.
DougJ
Looks like we’ve turned the corner.
srv
One theory. Possible, as the Arabs (AQ) can probably only sustain so much. But we don’t get Arab, Baathist, Sunni-Fodder, Shi’a-Fodder counts for captured insurgents (the foreign media use to beg for those numbers when the Administration said there was no insurgency).
How many Sunni/Baathist Republican Guardsmen were there? What are they all doing now? Waiting to vote, fighting us, or …?
Since we don’t know, it would probably be best to assume the worst: the smart ones are just waiting us out.
Tim F
Yes. Wipe the tears off your chin and think about replacement cost. How much does it cost for them to replace one of theirs? How much does it cost for us to replace one of ours? How long is the delay between recruitment and front-line activity? How big is the recruiting pool?
This is known as situational awareness. In a prolonged engagement it serves as a good predictor of success. That is to say, if we want to win then we need to understand the effectiveness of what we’re doing. Getting teary-eyed like Kruschev when faced with the truth won’t help anybody.
Tim F
OK to be fair I’m using the term ‘situational awareness’ fairly liberally. Sue me.
DougJ
At some point they’ve got run out of #2’s. The question is will media here stop buying the administration’s #2 before Al Qaeda runs out of #2’s.
stickler
Situational awareness? That’s so old-fashioned, paleo-conservative, cynical and hidebound. Nowadays we’re all about the transformative power of hope! Look on the bright side! Quit talking like a defeatist! Don’t you remember all the purple fingers back in January, when we turned the last corner?
Oh, all right, I’ll give in to my inner grouch and remind us all of some not-so-distant history:
But I’m sure this time everything is different. There’s no jungle, for one thing. And we have fewer soldiers in theater.
pmm
Tim F, you’re right in that it costs us more per unit than the enemy, but if you want to count the number of insurgents killed (or otherwise incapacitated) versus the number of U.S. forces killed, then you’ve got to include more than just those who are considered key leaders.
Even when we do that, what really matters is what opposing forces can sustain, not simply what they lose. What we can sustain also changes over time–for example, the U.S. has the ability to physically keep up operations for years at this point, but what we can sustain is what we’re willing to sustain.
pmm
I am impressed by the glee exhibited by some commenters here as they work to dismiss positive information as insufficient. The chortling comparisons to Vietnam are also really inspiring.
Incidentally, in any hierarchical organization, you can eliminate multiple second-in-commands at different times, if only because everybody moves up a notch when one guy is incapacitated. I’m not as confident in our ability to identify exactly who is whom in an Al Qaeda organizational chart, though.
Tim F
I don’t include foot soldiers because in a guerilla war, foot soldiers are practically free. I could buy an AK-47 at the Syrian or Irani border for less than it costs me to change the oil in my Honda. Sure the USD/Dinar exchange rate has something to do with it, but still. How do you train a guerilla? You don’t have to do much since we’re fighting in their neighborhood.
How many insurgents are we killing? I noticed early in the war that every Iraqi killed by any sort of American munition ended up in the daily insurgent body count. Take the official tally with a chunk of rock salt big enough to load into a shotgun.
The key question is their recruiting pool. If we’re fighting former Saddam regulars then they should have dried up by now. If we’re fighting kids pissed off at pictures from abu Ghraib, we could keep dancing this dance until allah runs out of virgins and starts giving them Lutherans, which everyone knows is just as good. Iraq has plenty of kids willing to die for something. And if we do manage to deplete Iraq’s eligible male population to the point where there aren’t any more to fight, what does that say about us?
stickler
pmm is correct. The US is a democratic republic and will keep its professional military in harm’s way in Iraq just as long as the people and their representatives believe it is in their interests to do so. And not one minute longer.
So the correct measure isn’t body-counts, or Zarqawi #2 counts, or even the number of times our forces take Fallujah. It’s public opinion. Note some of the most recent poll results on that site. (65% think we’re spending too much on the war; 67% disapprove of W’s handling of the war; 59% think invading Iraq was a mistake).
Unfortunately quite a few American citizens are now of the opinion that they were lied into the war (can’t imagine how they got that idea), so their patience for happy talk from Mesopotamia is probably a terminally-dwindling commodity.
DougJ
What’s that, Karl?
Knock it off with the “glee” stuff. It’s the right-wing equivalent of the “Dear Leader” stuff.
Rick
John S. must be reading with Tim F.’s carboard “Kerry ’04” pinhole “glasses.”
Cordially…
Cromagnon
The situation in Iraq will never change until 2 major problems are resolved, one political, the other military:
1) The Sunnis, the former ruling class and not loved by either Kurds or Shia, are screwed no matter what. The Sunni lands have very little in economic power, the Kurds and Shia have all the oil, so the Sunnis have a choice between being 2nd-class citizens in a united Iraq at the mercy of Kurdish and Shia charity, or self-rulers of worthless land (for all intents and purposes). Their only political clout at this point is the threat of continued insurgency.
2) Arab armies tend to lose almost every battle they fight. At best, the Iraqies might be able to field 30-50,000 troops that are worth a damn (and most of those will be no comparison to US troops). The rest will be basically canon foder for the insurgency (if they even bother to show up). I don’t see this ever changing. It seems US forces will be stuck in Iraq for a very long time
All this talk about Al Qaeda is just BS and has very little to do with the real problems in Iraq.
Steve
And you know this, how? Care to back up the 95% figure with some links and cites. I don’t even think the brass on the ground in Iraq know this.
The claim can be nitpicked, because not all insurgents are Sunnis (Sadr and his followers, for example, are Shi’a), but what is clear is that the infamous “foreign fighters” make up a very, very small percentage of the insurgency.
Major General Joseph Taluto, head of the 42nd Infantry Division, said that “99.9 per cent” of captured insurgents are Iraqi. In an analysis of over 1,000 insurgents captured in Fallujah, U.S. Ground Commander General George Casey found only 15 non-Iraqis. Foreign al-Qaeda fighters are clearly only a small piece of the puzzle.
Some things are for certain in this war: Everyone we kill will turn out to be a high-placed al-Qaeda deputy; at any given moment, we have eliminated some very high percentage of the al-Qaeda leadership, although no one will be able to tell you how that percentage is derived; and above all, WE ARE WINNING. Just look at all the good news!
Ray
Tim F
You wouldn’t know “situational awareness” if it came up and bit you when you stumbled over dead reckoning to get there.
Do I need to A.N.S.W.E.R this? Nice mis-direction and slight of hand but yours truely does not have a hard on for Kruschev like you do.
stickler
Good post
pmm
Good post also
Ray
Tim F
I’d like to see that tried in action. Or in bulk for that matter.
Ray
Tim F
Nice try at drumming up support for the Nationalist Iraq’s, if there are any of them, good moral support. Nice thought. Way to go. Are you here all night?
Ray
Tim F
Dang Tim. Sorry I missed this gem in there. This was the NYT offensive that was carried out if I’m not mistaken. This is where media responsiblity(oxy of course) comes into play. I wonder how many American lives were lost because of the non stop coverage during an election year because their moral obligation, at that moment in time, was higher than keeping men/women out in the field alive? Take a long drag on that one.
John S.
Rick must be reading with Mr. Magoo’s “glasses” (if you can call coke bottles that) and examining reality in one of those distorted funhouse mirrors.
Cordially…
pmm
DougJ, of all the people who post here, I’m amazed that you’re the one to accuse me of misrepresenting my opponent’s arguments.
Here’s an example of a liberal argument that’s not gleeful:
Contrast that with the sarcasm evidenced by multiple posters such as Blue Nepo, Lines, and you. What are the “turning a corner” references, other than a cheerily bitchy way to dismiss any good news reported? Even KC makes the same mistake of the rest of you in going after the strawman that merely reporting good news is the equivalent of ‘turning a corner’. But at least KC has the decency to recognize good news when it’s reported.
Tim F
Stickler and pmm,
The question of will we stay and the question of can we win deserve to be treated separately.
Ray,
If you want to play who-hate-America-and-wants-the-terrorists-to-win, sure we can play that game. Just as easily as you argue that I root for the terrorists, I could argue that the terrorists are rooting for you. What do they, when ‘they’ is al Qaeda, want most? It looks a lot like what Bush did.
I bet that pisses you off. Sort of like an emotional ‘hand grenade,’ one could say. Then you throw your hand grenads back and – voila – we have a flame war. Chum, you’re not worth it. Shout away.
DougJ
Don’t mistake sarcasm for glee, pms.
pRick
I have nothing to say.
Cordially,
pRick
DougJ
Look, Ray bin Laden, I know you want our soldiers to be stuck in Iraq where they can be easy targets for your Al Qaeda cohorts, but that’s because you hate America. Those of us who love america know it is the patriotic thing to bring them home.
See, that kind of rhetoric can go the other way too.
BTW, I don’t support immediate withdrawl. Just showing how name calling is a two-way street.
ppGaz
I still have nothing to say.
Cordially,
P. Rick
pmm
TimF, I get what you’re saying and you’re making a valid point, but foot soldiers aren’t free. At a minimum, shouldn’t you compare the costs and recruitment of insurgency ‘foot soldiers’ with the costs and recruitment of Iraqi military and/or police, especially given that they are relying on the same general population for support?
Ray
Tim F
We haven’t even started yet so get used to current affairs. Can your mental stability handle another 3-5 years? Is Canada still taking political refugees from the US?
You can dish it out but than can’t take it back? Turn around and attack my post than and not the writer as most of the belligerents on here do. You say a lot of nothing as far as I’m concerned. Did the NYT bit cause me to be issued a silent fatwah(did I rag your on hero there) or do you agree with the point?
It is a question of staying and winning no matter what the end result looks like. The commie/insrugent sympathizers who wish to “relate” to the terrorist mind to try and better understand themselves and the enemy at the “cost” of morale here in the US and than the men/women on the field greatly out weighs ultimate victory in your mind maybe.
Or better known as: “Let’s just all try and understand one another”. Ya, I can see you asking that on a video tape in an orange jumpsuit right before…
Nice passive agressive booby trap sunshine but it doesn’t wash.
Ray
DougJ
DougJ Doug Dougj, I thought “we” were kewl my brother. And if ever put by name next to Binny’s like that again I’ll have to issue fatwah on your shorts.
pmm
TimF,
You’re 100% right, regarding the separate questions before us.
DougJ,
You’re awfully thin-skinned for a commenter who routinely misrepresents, exaggerates, and distorts his opponents’ arguments in the name of sarcasm. You think I’m stealing bases by terming your earlier contribution as gleeful, I’d submit that your minimalist style in this case lends itself to multiple interpretations.
However, because it bothered you so much, I will gladly retract my use of the adjective ‘gleeful’. I see now that your argument was not simply a way to minimize and disregard any information that contradicts your preferred narrative, but rather was a heartfelt employment of sarcasm to put the information posted by Mr. Cole in proper perspective.
Bob
Great news! Can we go home now?
Ray
This is all that matters:
http://bamapachyderm.com/archives/2005/09/27/email-from-iraq/
What they think. Not a day sooner until the job is done.
stickler
In a dictatorship, this might be accurate:
But in a democratic republic, they are intertwined. If the cost of “winning” is higher than the people are willing to pay, then our troops will leave. Period. You can spin that, you can shout about all of our successes, you can denigrate the 60% of the population that is losing confidence. None of it matters.
If the leadership cannot convince the citizenry that the ongoing bloodshed is necessary for the vital interests of the United States, then it’s not the citizenry’s fault. It’s the fault of the leadership.
The buck stops at the CEO’s desk.
ppGaz
Good lord.
pmm
Stickler, I think Tim’s point is that whether we can win–meaning whether we can create the conditions necessary to count as a win is separate from whether we will stay there long enough to reach those conditions.
If you believe that there is no possible way we can achieve victory by any rational definition of the word, then you’re pretty much right–how long we stay is really a matter of how long we last before surrender. It’s still possible to argue whether we can win regardless of whether the populace will stick it out long enough to win.
As for this comment:
That goes both ways. Not only do we get the leadership we deserve, but I can’t see how you can absolve the populace of culpability when it’s their decision-making that influences a situation. Leadership is comprised of both the responsibility for something and the authority to enact it. Popular will impacts authority outside of a given election.
I may be mistaken, but as I read this, if the populace was 99% against a policy and the President & Congress pressed on, he would be right to do so as a legitimate exercise of ‘leadership’.
Rick
(if you can call coke bottles that) and examining reality in one of those distorted funhouse mirrors.
John S,
Well, space-age polymer glasses are much lighter these days. Otherwise, you’d be pretty close.
And the Balloon Juice commentariat *is* a distorted reality (say, like imputing great indominability and feats of arms to the “insurgents”). Many Kosbots here strain mightily to that end.
Cordially…
ppGaz
Still with nothing to say,
Cordially,
(p)Rick
DougJ
I agree completely. In a democracy, the public gets the government it deserves.
Aaron
Heard about any action in Mosul lately? Nope. One of the Stryker units actually could re-deploy to Anbar.
The only worry I have is if the Brits drop the ball in Basra.
rayabacus
rayabacus
Look at the preview.. *sigh*
stickler
So, it’s quiet in Mosul now? Great! Chalk one up for us (or, maybe, the Peshmerga). And Basra … oh. Well, it’s not like Basra is the major seaport or anything. I’m sure we can fly all of our fuel in through Baghdad International. What? The road from there to the Green Zone is dicey? Oh.
I have no idea what this statement means. If the President “pressed on” even though 99% of the population was against him, and the Congress didn’t impeach him, well, then the 2nd Amendment would probably be getting some serious exercise.
Look. The Pentagon in 2005 has about as much credibility as it did in 1969 with the “Five O’Clock Follies.” They could say that the sun rises in the East and I’d peek out the window just to verify it. Maybe they did actually strike a serious blow against Zarqawi with this arrest. Who knows?
All I know is that American soldiers keep getting killed, oil pipelines keep getting bombed, and the Iraqi Constitutional Assembly keeps punting. If the Pentagon, or Josh Trevino, or Donald Rumsfeld wants to convince me that things are getting better for real in Iraq, then I have to see hard data. Fewer Americans coming home in boxes — not just one month, but for six months in a row. Fewer car bombs going off in major cities. Month-on-month increases in oil production, electricity production, what have you.
And I’m an atavistic paleocon. I’d like to see Zarqawi’s head on an actual, oaken pike. Paraded around the Green Zone, or up and down the Syrian border. I don’t care. But stop with this “2nd in command” crap that is unverifiable and objectively serves no purpose whatsoever in keeping American soldiers alive.
Defense Guy
stickler
It is unlikely that the enemy we fight is just going to give up. Their goal is the destruction of the West, and Iraq and to a lesser extent Afghanistan are excellent places for them to make us hurt. They will do so both by killing our soldiers, and killing innocents to show their ‘power’. They have no decency and believe with all their hearts that this is a war sanctioned by the god of their choosing.
The average Iraqi does not want them to win, as what we are offering is better. It was never going to be easy, despite what some of the leadership might have said, is not easy now, and is unlikely to get easy in the forseable future. There are good signs, but compared to the mayhem, which ‘sells’ in the press and with the public, it is seemingly not enough.
If we just leave, then we will be the paper tiger our enemy thought was coming to fight. Iraq will then NOT become a place where the spread of freedom can eminate in the region, and lastly, our enemy will continue to hit us wherever he can. The real bitch is that even if we say enough, they will not. We are in it to the end, there is no other viable solution.
Simply put, this is a fight to the end, theirs or ours. If I get a vote, I say our way of life is far better and deserves to be fought for and to be spread to the areas that have only known tyranny.
kate
I don’t know if any of you have reread “The Best and The Brightest” by David Halberstam lately.. but you might want to take a second look.. vietnam.. iraq .. eh not looking so different.. LBJ-Bush.. both stuck
ppGaz
The feedback loop is rendered impotent when the leadership manipulates the populace.
The first result is a collossal fuckup such as the war in Iraq.
The second result is a breakdown in the bond of trust between the people and the government. The collapse of support you see now is a measurement of that breakdown.
Now you have a government that isn’t really trusted by the people, finding itself without support to do a difficult job (attempt to get a stable outcome in Iraq), and really unable to get more support because it steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the mistakes it has made. Instead of facing the realities squarely, the government, over and over again, beats the same drums it has been beating for 3 years now, as if nothing had happened during that time.
There is absolutely nothing happening in Iraq that is about fighting for “our way of life” despite the maudlin and ridiculous assertion of it here by a poster who has no clue in the world. Our “way of life” sans the gross waste of energy resources is not going to be really threatened in the long run. What is at stake immediately in Iraq is the Iraqis’ way of life, more than anything else. If we pull out and let Iraq collapse into civil war, their way of life will be in the toilet. We owe it to them to be bigger than our mistakes and not let that happen if we can prevent it.
Some might say that this flies in the face of statements I’ve made to the effect that Iraq is not worth American lives. In terms of starting a war there in 2003, I haven’t changed my mind about that. America does not exist to supply bodies to save other countries from themselves. However, the situation there now … is ours. We created it, we’re responsible. We should try to fix it.
Unfortunately, the same potatoheads who got us here will be in charge of doing that, so I am not very optimistic.
stickler
Well, ppGAZ hat’s schon gesagt, but I’ll add this much then go the hell to bed.
Regarding Mr. Defense Guy’s utterance above:
No shit, Sherlock.
Where the hell do you start with this kind of muddled thinking?
No, their goal is not the “destruction of the West,” or if it is they’re delusional.
Iraq and Afghanistan are “excellent places to make us hurt” because we have soldiers in those places.
Killing innocents does indeed show “their power,” or more accurately, shows our impotence to stop them. This has been an insurgent tactic since at least 1807 when Napoleon invaded Spain and deposed the Bourbon monarchy (ever wonder where the term guerrilla came from?) This is so absolutely basic to counterinsurgency warfare that I can’t believe anyone here buys the bullshit spun by Hannity & Rumsfeld. Attacking the innocent “shows their weakness?” No, it shows our weakness. That’s why they do it. Sheeee-it, people, pay attention to the last 200 years.
Says you. What we are offering is foreign, Christian, and so far, incompetent at delivering basic law and order. Oh, and reliable power and sewage treatment. As an American, I know that our system is better (for me, anyhow) than anything that’s yet appeared on the Tigris. But I don’t need convincing. The population on the Tigris does. All our collective bloviation here doesn’t treat one cubic yard of tainted water in Baghdad, nor does it employ one single fired Iraqi Army sergeant.
I could go on. But I will close. By congratulating our boys on capturing Zarqawi’s #2 man in Iraq. Huzzah.
anon
ppGaz,
Just out of interest. Did you support what Clinton/Blair did in Kosovo?
You post here a lot, so you may have already stated your position on that event, and I’ve missed it.
BTW:
I tend to disagree with your point of view on some matters, but this is not some setup question for a snark response.
Honest:)
srv
I for one am glad we went in and found all these anti-American Nihilists in Fallujah, Baghdad, Ramadi, Tikrit, Samarra, Balad, Baqubah, Al Tafar, etc, etc.
If we hadn’t invaded, we would have never known they were all there. It was only a matter of time before they got to Cleveland and precious… bodily… fluids…
Blue Neponset
The Cunning Realist has a pretty good perspective on this. Check out his Trusted Lieutenant Watch.
Defense Guy
The ‘muddled thinking’ comes from the declaration of war against the United States. It’s the reality as they see it, and it’s hardly stupid as long as they have people in the west to carry their water for them. I’d make a prediction about someone now claiming that not everyone fighting us in Iraq is al Queada, as if that means they are not there.
You talk about history but seem ignorant of it.
No, says the duly elected Iraqi government. Says the polls run by Iraqi newspapers and says many of the Iraqi blogs. The incompetence, as you call it, is a separate issue from what their desires are. They desire to be free and they desire to have a say in their government, which is hardly surprising.
ppGaz
I thought it was well intentioned, certainly more clearly so than either our Iraq 1 or Iraq 2 initiatives.
However, had the American people found the wisdom to elect me president ….. I doubt that I would have gone in there. I am a very hard sell when it comes to any military action that is not prompted by immediate threat to the US, and with no other good alternatives on the table.
stickler
I seem ignorant of history? Hmmm.
Remind me of just when, exactly, Iraq declared war on the United States.
Defense Guy
al Quaeda, stickler, you know the oranization that Zarqawi belongs to. Iraq declared war during the first gulf war and then did not live up to the terms of the cease fire.
Play these games all you want, but you really didn’t refute very much of what I wrote anyway.
ppGaz
Cite, please. Or any historical reference with a date and some specifics on it.
Rick
John S, pRick and PPgaz still have stupid things to say.
Being conservative, I honor tradition.
Cordially…
Defense Guy
Source
and
CNN – where they are kind enough to point out the meaning of jihad being holy war.
skip
One of our fundamental problems in Iraq (as in Vietnam) is that we cannot tell friends from enemies. Indeed, we are probably training a fair number of insurgents when we train army and the police. This is just one of a number of reasons that we cannot win this war. Another other reason is simply that we cannot AFFFORD to run around spreading freedom like a $5b-per-regime Johnny Appleseed.
So I suggest Defense Guy get a head start in drafting the “stab in the back” speech that has been the staple of war losers since MEIN KAMPF. To wit, we didn’t “lose” in the Phillipines, Vietnam or Somalia. Rather the media and attendent softies failed to “stay the course.”
If Defense Guy had his way, we’d still be fighting the Barbary Pirates
ppGaz
That’s your “declaration of war?”
Jesus. I should have known.
Defense Guy
skip
No facts and personal attacks plus the extra added benefit of being compared to a Nazi. You are indeed a deep and critical thinker.
ppGaz
I suppose you expected something all nice and legal under international law from a dictator who makes it up as he goes. You asked, I answered, it’s your problem that you don’t like the answer. Cry to someone else about it.
stickler
Good grief, this stuff just writes itself.
Are you saying that “making it up as he goes”, in regard to international law, is bad?
Would that be an impeachable offense?
Defense Guy
Apparently, stickler, only for those who are actually elected for limited terms. Those whom are actually murderous dictators get a pass from you. So noted.
Your outrage would work better if it wasn’t so slanted towards lunacy. Get a clue you moron.
Kimmitt
Guys, guys, that’s unfair. Nobody has to write a “stab in the back” speech; they get emails with them fully written from Mehlman. I should know, I’m on the mailing list.