Comments Posted By Drongo
Displaying 151 To 160 Of 246 Comments
BUSH VETOES CONGRESSIONAL INVITATION TO AL QAEDA TO SLAUGHTER IRAQIS
"We were also warned that destroying Saddam’s regime could take at least six months (it took only 21 days) and in the meantime this could result in several million Iraq refugees on the Syrian, Kuwaiti, and Iranian borders. It didn’t happen. And we were also told hundreds of thousands of Iraqis could die from starvation or dehydration, it didn’t happen."
I didn't make any predictions regarding the war beyond "It is going to be a bad day to be a Republican guard" and a rather childish memory of the reasons why we didn't invade Iraq after the Gulf War. They still held.
""And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?
And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.
All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques,
Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq.""
Dick Cheney 1992. He was right then...
However it is strange that you claim millions fo refugees and mass shortages of food and potable water as failed predictions.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 3.05.2007 @ 01:27
"In other words, am I convinced that a fight/war JUST between me and my Sunni brethren and the Shias is indeed winnable by
my side?"By this stage one atrocity generates another and nobody is really thinking long term I suspect.
In the past the Sunnis have been convinced that they could take down the Shias. Remember that when all this started they thought that they were actually a majority in Iraq.
I suspect that without the driving force of foreign occupation, most of the Sunni insurgents will retire to more locally based militias and a political accord between the tribes can be built. Remember that the Sunnis are primarily about not dividing Iraq up and not being under Shia dominance for ever more. With the prospect of all out war without any real support is on the table, it incentivises both sides to actually make meaningful concessions with each other. Most guerrila wars end because both sides are just fed up with them, all the real nutcases having long ago gone to their reward.
I may be being over optimistic, but the impression I get is that the Sunnis are tired of this. They won't give up until honour is satisfied and the occupier is gone, but I don't think they have much enthusiasm left in the populace.
As for the Shia, well, without the US forces (and US money), they have to fend for themselves and if they are going to reap the rewards of all that lovely black stuff they are going to have to come to an accord with the Sunnis.
The Iraqis are a pretty resourceful and nationalistic lot from past performance. The repair of the damage from the Gulf war, the fighting against Iran in the 80s. They'll pick themselves up again and come back as strong as ever given a chance.
The trouble is, nobody is going to do any of that while the US is still there. The Shiites don't have to, the Sunnis will never let it rest. As for the Kurds, well, who knows what they'll do. Hopefully nothing.
Though I have to admit the general regional war is a very possible scenario as well. We're all guessing here really.
One thing that I do know is that the Iraqis do not want us there, and they think that we have come there to steal their oil and permanently occupy their nation as a forward operating base. Until they are disabused of this notion they will fight us and each other as collaborators. The only way to show them that it is not true is to withdraw.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 11:25
"My further argument is this. U.S. and Iraqi troops take out the Al Q operatives BEFORE the funeral bombing…that equals 0 Shia deaths at the funeral and 0 Sunni deaths after the funeral."
Well, yes, but you can't do it. The Sunnis can do it in their region, the JAM can do it in Sadr city, the IP can do it in some of Bagdhad, the tribes can do it in other areas. The US can't. All down to intel really.
"It’s my contention as well that you can follow the pattern of deaths as Al Qaeda moves within the country. As Al Q shifts from Anbar east to Baghdad, deaths in Anbar decrease, Baghdad goes up…as Al Q shift into Diyala, deaths and attacks go up there."
I think that tracking Al-Q around the country is harder than it sounds. It sounds to me as if you are tracking violence and labeling it Al-Q. This has been the US official position for so long that who knows who really is and isn't Al-Q anymore? It is getting like the "Who is a real Christian" question. Who knows? Anyone who says they are I suppose.
"My final point. Al Q operations are all about chaos. Their chaos creates cover for Sunni insurgents and Shia militia. Remove the cover created by Al Q chaos and the will of the insurgents and militia dissipates."
I'll bounce one right back at you. Your first two points are correct. your conclusion is backwards;
1) Al Q operations are all about chaos.
2) Their chaos creates cover for Sunni insurgents and Shia militia.
3) Remove the need for the cover created by Al Q chaos and the insurgents and militias will soon get rid of Al-Q.
The insurgenst need that cover because they are battling against the hated occupier. Remove the hated occupier and the need for the cover is gone.
I despise Al-Q as much as the next man, honestly. The old "Get 'em together in a field and bomb them" approach appeals to me, but it isn't how things work. I have a lot more sympathy for the Iraqi nationalist insurgents. Al-Q are killing for some lunatic vision, Iraqi nationalist insurgents are at least fighting for their hearth and home, for revenge, or for honest to goodness power. The latter can be reasoned with, bargained with, co-opted into a state. The former just need to be exterminated.
The best exterminators in the region are the locals, not us.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 10:40
"Sorry, no link but Centcom pegs the percentage of casualties caused by AQ at 70-30. That’s because AQ’s attacks are bigger and bloodier than the death squads and the odd mortar dropping unnannounced into a Sunni neighborhood."
Yes, it is the old story, go on a mass murder spree in a shopping mall and you get a bigger body count than you do on a military base. In terms of sheer numbers though the graph that I saw (no link either, sorry) showed clearly that more attacks occured agains US forces than against anyone else.
"I read it often because it gives an idea of where the violence is flaring up."
It is good though the comments section can sometimes descend into 9/11 conspiracies (Like Bush et al could pull that off without messing it up)
"Note that as the Brits stand down, the militias in the South are standing up."
Not a huge surprise really, though it does give concern for the supply lines of the US forces. We're just going to have to get used to a fundamentalist Islamic government in the South of Iraq. They'll probably squabble amongst themselves for the next 50 years or so.
If you think public and political support for the Iraq war is bad in the US, you should see it over here. Gordon Brown, if he wants to have a chance at winning the next election, has to start getting UK forces out of Iraq within the next 6 months or so. If there is a single UK soldier in Iraq when the next election comes he is out.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 10:28
"Why do you feel the need to exaggerate? "
Because people keep forgetting the driving forces behind the parties that are in power over there. The Dawa party are as much of an islamist party as you would like, they just aren't foaming at the mouth nutcases like Al-Q. Check out their Wiki entry if you like (obviously Wiki is just a quick reference guide);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Dawa_Party
There's plenty there to justify murderous, and Islamist and if you don't think they are anti-American then, well, just wait until you aren't playing the part of free foot soldiers for them. As for corrupt, well, again, the sort of endemic corruption going on in Iraq doesn't happen without the guys at the top helping themselves. And I'm not just talking about Al Malaki (though his recent actions against people who were doing what he said they should be doing and rooting out militias is somewhat indicitive that this leopard hasn't changed his spots). I am talking about the whole structure behind him. There are indeed some people who seem to be genuinely working for the good of the nation but they are few and far between. And they aren't achieving anything.
Of course, I may be wrong. The man in charge of the Jihad office in the 90s might become America's friend...
"And maybe you missed it but the insurgents (tribal militias) and AQ have been at odds for about a year and rarely coordinate strategy or attacks any more. The Baathists still use AQ infrastructure but keep an arms length arrangement with them (according to the latest intel I’ve read)."
As far as I am aware this has been going on a bit longer than that. The problem for everyone is that all these groups are so decentralised, so today's ally is tomorrow's enemy. I'm not sure how often they ever ran genuine co-ordinated attacks. My guess would be that people planting IEDs in the night are mostly Iraqi nationalist insurgents (the heroes who took on convoys would all be dead by now) and the guys driving VBIEDs are mostly Al-Q wannabes with a bit of logistical support from the Baathists.
In many ways the Sunni insurgents are tolerating the chaos brought by Al-Q because it undermines the government, demonstrates that they cannot bring stability (as if the insurgents can) and kicks off the sectarian strife which in turn drives hatred of the occupier (guerrila war really isn't very fair in that way). I maintain that once this usefulness is gone we will see how a down and dirty counter-insurgency operation run by people with good local intelligence, no moral qualms, popular support and ethnic markers goes. I suspect very badly for Al-Q. Since they started trying the Maoist tactics of intimidating the public into supporting them rather than the Sunni insurgents, they made a big mistake.
"al-Sadr or Akim are who are the true anti American Islamists and whose influence on the government has waxed and waned over time (currently waning)."
You know, that is the best thing about this surge. Sistani seems to have popped up again and Sadr seems to have gotten it into his head that since he is the coming man he just needs to sit quietly and he will be at the top of the tree. I think that he's playing a bad hand here. The more he sits on his hands, the more his radical supporters will drift away from him and the more people will forget the Najaf uprising. If he doesn't pull his finger out soon and sacrifice a few hundred of his troops, he might as well not have any and the popular picture of him will be of cowed bully rather than glorious Islamic fighter.
A better outcome would be hard to imagine in respect of him. Maybe a heart attack would be a bit of icing on the cake. Just please, not death by an American bullet.
That's one of my big bits of good news at the moment. The other has been noted here and there but not at the forefront. US forces keep turning up stocks of nitric acid. This means that the insurgency has managed to burn through most of its pre-war stockpiles of explosives and is having to concoct their own. It also means that they don't have much in the way of external logistic support. I think they're a long way from having to really rely on it, but they are getting there.
That, along with the demonstration (theory is always good, but evidence is better) that the Sunni insurgents really will clear house when the time comes, gives some hope. But it isn't hope that this government has a chance, just that whatever comes after it may do because if it is run by Sadr it will be a disaster.
See, I can be optimistic :)
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 10:16
"My suggestion is you quit being lazy, read up on the real facts of this War (and no, i don’t mean Right blogs or Administration briefings) – look up all of the latest daily reports and find out for yourself who is behind the attacks on Iraqis AND U.S. Troops."
Read up on reports you say. OK. Have a gander at reports for today;
http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/
and tell me which ones were Al-Q, which ones were Sunni insurgents and which ones were Shiite militias (in and out of government).
What's that you say? You can't?
And that's a small cross section of what is happening in Iraq today, not a total picture. No-one knows the total picture. What we do know is that the vast majority of attacks in Iraq are on military targets. It is just that the ones against civilian targets produce bigger body counts.
"Shia militia murders and death squads have become almost non-existent and Sunni insurgents have turned their attention to hunting Al Qaeda who betrayed them."
Almost non-existent? You are living in a bit of a fantasyland there, aren't you? The fact that the JAM has gone into civvy mode doesn't mean that they aren't there, and the bodies continue to turn up all around the county with the ubiquitous drill holes, 15 in Bagdhad, 10 in Baquba, who knows how many around the country.
I don't say this because I like it (I don't) but too many people have been going around with the heads in the sand pretending that things are not as they are over there and it is time to wake up.
(And, on a related note, as ethnic cleansing progresses in an area of course you will see less sectarian violence, as there are less people to cleanse. Hell, if you wanted to make it quiet and could put up with a really bloody month, you could reduce sectarian violence to 0 by just killing every Sunni in Bagdhad)
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 09:43
"The recalcitrant Iraqi government seems perfectly content to expend American lives to increase their own legitimacy with the Iraqi people as the violence begins to subside while not doing what is necessary to validate our men’s sacrifices by bringing the warring factions together in order to form a viable state."
Well, yes. You're being used. By a bunch of murderous, corrupt, Anti-American Islamists. Your troops are being killed in order to support those same Islamists. Your billions are being squandered in supporting these Islamists. They don't want peace with the Sunnis, they want dominion over the Sunnis and, with any luck, the destruction of the Sunnis as a political or military force. They don't have to compromise because they've got you to enforce their position.
They aren't your friends you know...
"They have made no secret of the fact that once we leave, they wish to turn Iraq into the Somalia of the Middle East, giving them a safe haven from which to strike western interests."
And the Sunni Insurgent groups will slaughter them in their hundreds in ways much too direct for a democracy to stomach.
Like all loose guerrila coalitions, once the central focus of the occupation forces have gone they will fall to fighting amongst themselves and when they do Al-Q will be the decided underdog. The marriage between Sunni insurgents and Wahhabi Nutcases is one of convinience only, not of ideology.
After all, it is pretty clear that Al-Q (the actual Al-Q, not the brand awareness imports in Iraq) is happily sitting in Pakistan training up young radicalised idiots and dreaming of their coming glory.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 09:17
"Oh well! This could go on and on, but the idea is to Dominate, and only then show the velvet glove."
Every one of these tactics was used by the Soviets in Afghanistan. They exhibited bloodshed, terror, arbitary detention and overwhelming force for years there.
And what happened?
It went on and on and on until eventually they gave up a bad hand.
You honestly want to fight like the Soviets? What the hell has happened to your country?
Look, some realities here;
1) Unless you wanted to occupy the country for ever the locals will keep fighting you or backstabbing you or fighting amongst themselves in recognition that there will be a time when you are gone.
2) You want to go home, they already are at home. It costs you money and political capital to fight the war. It costs them nothing.
3) The harder you hit them the more they come back at you.
4) As the occupier and overwhelming military powerhouse you are the weaker party in the war because you are already behind on points on the moral level.
5) You are Americans. You are not and never were going to support another long bloody, poorly conceived insurgency war. It is no good pretending that you are a different people with cold hard imperial will. As an example;
"Today, this means a Supersurge within some months from now, or perhaps a year. It also means a draft, and a number of years of deployments."
You might as well say that you will be deploying your mental control machines to turn the Iraqis into peaceloving satraps for all the good it does. Or that you'll deploy a troop of super heroes from America's finest.
No-one will get a draft introduced for this war because you live in a democracy and people don't want to be drafted to fight what they largely consider a pointless war.
Try to see it from the other side for a moment, please. Your country has been invaded by a foreign force. That force is clearly running things with a puppet government in place. You have suspicion that they are there to steal your country permanently. They shot up your son at a checkpoint because he was driving too fast. They virtually flattened Detroit. New York is now a gangland of violence between the various communities.
What are you, as a patriot, going to do? Welcome the occupiers with open arms? Or would you fight to your last breath?
Don't you get this? You literally cannot win. You don't have the forces for the full colonial occupation that you speak of and you're never going to get them. You are never going to get the Sunni tribes to co-operate with you (the talk of them killing Al-Q is just waht we've been saying all along. The moment the occupation leaves the Sunnis will be clearing house of those hated Wahhabists). The Shiites are always going to prefer Iran to you. The government will fall, as do all Quisling governments.
Your choices are to get out now or wait for some more death and then get out later. Later could be 2 years, it could be 50 years, the results will be the same.
"You want to fold, then fold, and take what comes after. I, for one, will feel far less secure about Islamofascists in America if we do fold."
What, that vast army of Islamofacists that will soon be taking over the country?
How is staying in Iraq helping you in that respect? Surely not the flypaper theory? The Islamofacists are in Pakistan living comfortably in their own little -stan waiting for the day when they might be able to grab the reins of a nuclear power. The ones in Iraq are idiot footsoldiers with a death wish. While Bin Laden and his buddies are sitting pretty, you are wasting all your moral and military might on an irrelevant distraction.
More brain and a lot less brawn is what's needed here.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 05:40
"War is not a penny pinching enterprise, as we are now discovering, you go in with everything and get it over. If that is asking too much then don’t go to war."
There's an idea that doesn't get enough consideration. "Don't go to war".
A radical consideration to be sure, but maybe next time the flags are waving and the blood is up we might remember it.
The fact is that wars rarely work out as you wanted them to. Avoiding them is the best strategy, only engaging in defensive wars is forced to.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 2.05.2007 @ 05:06
"All of this would take perhaps a total of 500 thousand troops and support people, with a similar Iraqi force sharing the load."
And you'd still be there in 20 years, still fighting the same old insurgency in the same old way, with a crippled economy, rapidly losing ground to rival superpowers until eventually you pulled out to find that you climb back to the top.
Sounds vaguely familiar to another superpower's attempt to fight Islamic insurgents.
People who regard withdrawl from Iraq, bloodshed and humiliation as the worst outcomes are thinking too short sightedly. While Islamic hordes taking over America (and Europe to be honest) is just an absurd fantasy, crippling your country in the long term is a very real possibility.
And for what? To prop up (sign with me) a regime of murderous corrupt fanatical Islamist Anti-Americans.
The smart move, when you've lost the pot, is to fold your hand and play the next one.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 1.05.2007 @ 16:41
