NationStates Jolt Archive

PLEASE READ FOR THE REAL STORY FROM IRAQ
Please pass this on.



A thought from Iraq - "Doom & Gloom about Iraq's future..I don't see it from where I'm sitting."
[For those of you who haven't gotten my "Thoughts" before, I'm a Major in the USMC on the Multi-National Corps staff in Baghdad. The analysts and pundits who don't see what I see on a daily basis, in my opinion, have very little credibility to talk about the situation - especially if they have yet to set foot in Iraq. Everything Americans believe about Iraq is simply perception filtered through one's latent prejudices until you are face-to-face with reality. If you haven't seen, or don't remember, the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets, you should watch it this weekend. Pay special attention to the character of the reporter, Mr. Beckwith. His experience is directly related to the situation here. You'll have a different perspective on Iraq after the movie is over.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The US media is abuzz today with the news of an intelligence report that is very negative about the prospects for Iraq's future. CNN's website says, "[The] National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting the best case for Iraq was 'tenuous stability' and the worst case was civil war." That report, along with the car bombings and kidnappings in Baghdad in the past couple days are being portrayed in the media as more proof of absolute chaos and the intransigence of the insurgency.
From where I sit, at the Operational Headquarters in Baghdad, that just isn't the case.
Let's lay out some background, first about the "National Intelligence Estimate." The most glaring issue with its relevance is the fact that it was delivered to the White House in July. That means that the information that was used to derive the intelligence was gathered in the Spring - in the immediate aftermath of the April battle for Fallujah, and other events. The report doesn't cover what has happened in July or August, let alone September.
The naysayers will point to the recent battles in Najaf and draw parallels between that and what happened in Fallujah in April. They aren't even close. The bad guys did us a HUGE favor by gathering together in one place and trying to make a stand. It allowed us to focus on them and defeat them. Make no mistake, Al Sadr's troops were thoroughly smashed. The estimated enemy killed in action is huge. Before the battles, the residents of the city were afraid to walk the streets. Al Sadr's enforcers would seize people and bring them to his Islamic court where sentence was passed for religious or other violations. Long before the battles people were looking for their lost loved ones who had been taken to "court" and never seen again. Now Najafians can and do walk their streets in safety. Commerce has returned and the city is being rebuilt. Iraqi security forces and US troops are welcomed and smiled upon. That city was liberated again. It was not like Fallujah - the bad guys lost and are in hiding or dead.
You may not have even heard about the city of Samarra. Two weeks ago, that Sunni Triangle city was a "No-go" area for US troops. But guess what? The locals got sick of living in fear from the insurgents and foreign fighters that were there and let them know they weren't welcome.
They stopped hosting them in their houses and the mayor of the town brokered a deal with the US commander to return Iraqi government sovereignty to the city without a fight. The people saw what was on the horizon and decided they didn't want their city looking like Fallujah in April or Najaf in August.
Boom, boom, just like that two major "hot spots" cool down in rapid succession. Does that mean that those towns are completely pacified? No. What it does mean is that we are learning how to do this the right way. The US commander in Samarra saw an opportunity and took it - probably the biggest victory of his military career and nary a shot was fired in anger. Things will still happen in those cities, and you can be sure that the bad guys really want to take them back. Those achievements, more than anything else in my opinion, account for the surge in violence in recent days - especially the violence directed at Iraqis by the insurgents. Both in Najaf and Samarra ordinary people stepped out and took sides with the Iraqi government against the insurgents, and the bad guys are hopping mad. They are trying to instill fear once again. The worst thing we could do now is pull back and let that scum back into people's homes and lives.
So, you may hear analysts and prognosticators on CNN, ABC and the like in the next few days talking about how bleak the situation is here in Iraq, but from where I sit, it's looking significantly better now than when I got here. The momentum is moving in our favor, and all Americans need to know that, so please, please, pass this on to those who care and will pass it on to others. It is very demoralizing for us here in uniform to read & hear such negativity in our press.
It is fodder for our enemies to use against us and against the vast majority of Iraqis who want their new government to succeed. It causes the American public to start thinking about the acceptability of "cutting our losses" and pulling out, which would be devastating for Iraq for generations to come, and Muslim militants would claim a huge victory, causing us to have to continue to fight them elsewhere (remember, in war "Away" games are always preferable to "Home" games). Reports like that also cause Iraqis begin to fear that we will pull out before we finish the job, and thus less willing to openly support their interim government and US/Coalition activities. We are realizing significant progress here - not propaganda progress, but real strides are being made.

It's terrible to see our national morale, and support for what we're doing here, jeopardized by sensationalized stories hyped by media giants whose #1 priority is advertising income followed closely by their political agenda; getting the story straight falls much further down on their priority scale, as Dan Rather and CBS News have so aptly demonstrated in the last week.

Posted by Captain Ed at September 17, 2004 01:36 PM

Propaganda. Please Disregard.



- Faithfully yours,

United States Ministry of Fear and Propaganda

Propaganda. Please Disregard.



- Faithfully yours,

United States Ministry of Fear and Propaganda
Yep, anything that is against what you believe is pure propaganda and shouel be ignored.

:rolleyes:

We need another whole thread on this? Sigh...

Why We Cannot Win

by Al Lorentz

09/20/04-- Before I begin, let me state that I am a soldier currently deployed in Iraq, I am not an armchair quarterback. Nor am I some politically idealistic and naïve young soldier, I am an old and seasoned Non-Commissioned Officer with nearly 20 years under my belt. Additionally, I am not just a soldier with a muds-eye view of the war, I am in Civil Affairs and as such, it is my job to be aware of all the events occurring in this country and specifically in my region.

I have come to the conclusion that we cannot win here for a number of reasons. Ideology and idealism will never trump history and reality.

When we were preparing to deploy, I told my young soldiers to beware of the "political solution." Just when you think you have the situation on the ground in hand, someone will come along with a political directive that throws you off the tracks.

I believe that we could have won this un-Constitutional invasion of Iraq and possibly pulled off the even more un-Constitutional occupation and subjugation of this sovereign nation. It might have even been possible to foist democracy on these people who seem to have no desire, understanding or respect for such an institution. True the possibility of pulling all this off was a long shot and would have required several hundred billion dollars and even more casualties than we’ve seen to date but again it would have been possible, not realistic or necessary but possible.

Here are the specific reasons why we cannot win in Iraq.

First, we refuse to deal in reality. We are in a guerilla war, but because of politics, we are not allowed to declare it a guerilla war and must label the increasingly effective guerilla forces arrayed against us as "terrorists, criminals and dead-enders."

This implies that there is a zero sum game at work, i.e. we can simply kill X number of the enemy and then the fight is over, mission accomplished, everybody wins. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We have few tools at our disposal and those are proving to be wholly ineffective at fighting the guerillas.

The idea behind fighting a guerilla army is not to destroy its every man (an impossibility since he hides himself by day amongst the populace). Rather the idea in guerilla warfare is to erode or destroy his base of support.

So long as there is support for the guerilla, for every one you kill two more rise up to take his place. More importantly, when your tools for killing him are precision guided munitions, raids and other acts that create casualties among the innocent populace, you raise the support for the guerillas and undermine the support for yourself. (A 500-pound precision bomb has a casualty-producing radius of 400 meters minimum; do the math.)

Second, our assessment of what motivates the average Iraqi was skewed, again by politically motivated "experts." We came here with some fantasy idea that the natives were all ignorant, mud-hut dwelling camel riders who would line the streets and pelt us with rose petals, lay palm fronds in the street and be eternally grateful. While at one time there may have actually been support and respect from the locals, months of occupation by our regular military forces have turned the formerly friendly into the recently hostile.

Attempts to correct the thinking in this regard are in vain; it is not politically correct to point out the fact that the locals are not only disliking us more and more, they are growing increasingly upset and often overtly hostile. Instead of addressing the reasons why the locals are becoming angry and discontented, we allow politicians in Washington DC to give us pat and convenient reasons that are devoid of any semblance of reality.

We are told that the locals are not upset because we have a hostile, aggressive and angry Army occupying their nation. We are told that they are not upset at the police state we have created, or at the manner of picking their representatives for them. Rather we are told, they are upset because of a handful of terrorists, criminals and dead enders in their midst have made them upset, that and of course the ever convenient straw man of "left wing media bias."

Third, the guerillas are filling their losses faster than we can create them. This is almost always the case in guerilla warfare, especially when your tactics for battling the guerillas are aimed at killing guerillas instead of eroding their support. For every guerilla we kill with a "smart bomb" we kill many more innocent civilians and create rage and anger in the Iraqi community. This rage and anger translates into more recruits for the terrorists and less support for us.

We have fallen victim to the body count mentality all over again. We have shown a willingness to inflict civilian casualties as a necessity of war without realizing that these same casualties create waves of hatred against us. These angry Iraqi citizens translate not only into more recruits for the guerilla army but also into more support of the guerilla army.

Fourth, their lines of supply and communication are much shorter than ours and much less vulnerable. We must import everything we need into this place; this costs money and is dangerous. Whether we fly the supplies in or bring them by truck, they are vulnerable to attack, most especially those brought by truck. This not only increases the likelihood of the supplies being interrupted. Every bean, every bullet and every bandage becomes infinitely more expensive.

Conversely, the guerillas live on top of their supplies and are showing every indication of developing a very sophisticated network for obtaining them. Further, they have the advantage of the close support of family and friends and traditional religious networks.

Fifth, we consistently underestimate the enemy and his capabilities. Many military commanders have prepared to fight exactly the wrong war here.

Our tactics have not adjusted to the battlefield and we are falling behind.

Meanwhile the enemy updates his tactics and has shown a remarkable resiliency and adaptability.

Because the current administration is more concerned with its image than it is with reality, it prefers symbolism to substance: soldiers are dying here and being maimed and crippled for life. It is tragic, indeed criminal that our elected public servants would so willingly sacrifice our nation's prestige and honor as well as the blood and treasure to pursue an agenda that is ahistoric and un-Constitutional.

It is all the more ironic that this un-Constitutional mission is being performed by citizen soldiers such as myself who swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, the same oath that the commander in chief himself has sworn.

So which one is telling the truth?

We need another whole thread on this? Sigh...



So which one is telling the truth?

The 2nd one sounds much more reasonable and backed-up.

isnt the headquarters in baghdad the thing behind concrete blockade with heavily militarized check point entries?

Propaganda. Please Disregard.



- Faithfully yours,

United States Ministry of Fear and Propaganda
Do you remember the Iraqian Minister of Information who was denying Bagdad was being attacked while US tank were driving in the background, same thing ... LOL

Posted by Captain Ed at September 17, 2004 01:36 PM

Captian Ed...A Major in the USMC? Perhaps captain Ed was the original poster of this annonymous "major"'s blog.

Well, I've got a little time to burn so I'm gonna sit down and go through this little piece of work and SHOW you guys why military grunts and military tacticians have different jobs. I've repeated this before, and given my line of work, I'll be repeating it for the rest of my life; but the foot soldier and the commander serve different jobs in the military! They have different priorities and look for different things in the enemy forces! They MUST have a different outlook on a battle, if your commander thinks like a foot soldier you're in deep trouble! If you're a foot soldier and you think like a commander, you'll second-guess orders and muddle your unit's actions!

Our "major" here makes many assumptions that simply need to be addressed.

[For those of you who haven't gotten my "Thoughts" before, I'm a Major in the USMC on the Multi-National Corps staff in Baghdad. The analysts and pundits who don't see what I see on a daily basis, in my opinion, have very little credibility to talk about the situation - especially if they have yet to set foot in Iraq. Everything Americans believe about Iraq is simply perception filtered through one's latent prejudices until you are face-to-face with reality. If you haven't seen, or don't remember, the John Wayne movie, The Green Berets, you should watch it this weekend. Pay special attention to the character of the reporter, Mr. Beckwith. His experience is directly related to the situation here. You'll have a different perspective on Iraq after the movie is over.]

Remember kids, those we pay good money to for the express purpose of giving us our facts and news are incorrect; listen instead to my hearsay. Do you remember that John Wayne movie? You know that fictional portayal of a military officer? Its a lot like that over here. All our problems will be solved in two hours, don't you worry, and don't let that nasty Mr. Beckwith talk you down.

[The US media is abuzz today with the news of an intelligence report that is very negative about the prospects for Iraq's future. CNN's website says, "[The] National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting the best case for Iraq was 'tenuous stability' and the worst case was civil war." That report, along with the car bombings and kidnappings in Baghdad in the past couple days are being portrayed in the media as more proof of absolute chaos and the intransigence of the insurgency.
From where I sit, at the Operational Headquarters in Baghdad, that just isn't the case.]

Remember, "No-go" zones, high casualty rates and news reports aren't a good picture of what's happening. Sitting in the Green Zone in my comfy chair, things look a bit more rosy. Never you mind that most agencies predicted the events that are transpiring now; those estimates will be proven wrong by the power of blind optimism.

[Let's lay out some background, first about the "National Intelligence Estimate." The most glaring issue with its relevance is the fact that it was delivered to the White House in July. That means that the information that was used to derive the intelligence was gathered in the Spring - in the immediate aftermath of the April battle for Fallujah, and other events. The report doesn't cover what has happened in July or August, let alone September.]

Remember, intelligence based on historical precedence and collection of data isn't valid. Instead, focus on looking at one tiny portion of the Iraqi map at headquarters the day after a big battle; notice how nothing bad is happening? Yeah, things are looking pretty good now; and when something bad happens tomorrow, its totally unrealated to the bad thing that happened yesterday, or the bad thing that will almost certainly happen the day after. All incidents are unrelated actions of a few desperate ciminals; there is no organized resistance to our multinational US-liberation forces.

[The naysayers will point to the recent battles in Najaf and draw parallels between that and what happened in Fallujah in April. They aren't even close. The bad guys did us a HUGE favor by gathering together in one place and trying to make a stand. It allowed us to focus on them and defeat them. Make no mistake, Al Sadr's troops were thoroughly smashed. The estimated enemy killed in action is huge. Before the battles, the residents of the city were afraid to walk the streets. Al Sadr's enforcers would seize people and bring them to his Islamic court where sentence was passed for religious or other violations. Long before the battles people were looking for their lost loved ones who had been taken to "court" and never seen again. Now Najafians can and do walk their streets in safety. Commerce has returned and the city is being rebuilt. Iraqi security forces and US troops are welcomed and smiled upon. That city was liberated again. It was not like Fallujah - the bad guys lost and are in hiding or dead.]

Remember high body counts of enemy dead are all that we need to look at to assure victory. Just like in Vietnam! Remember those all-so-favorable body counts we saw in Vietnam? We were doing so well there, the V.C. were practically wiped out in the Tet Offensive, and the North Koreans sustained possibly a million casualties. We lost what, less than 40,000 men? We MUST'VE won that war!

Here, take some examples at face value of how much better things are under our control. Never you mind just how long such facades will last, or just how much or little has actually improved. Simply reduce your world vision to black and white and declare, once again, that "burning a village to save it" is a noble idea.

[You may not have even heard about the city of Samarra. Two weeks ago, that Sunni Triangle city was a "No-go" area for US troops. But guess what? The locals got sick of living in fear from the insurgents and foreign fighters that were there and let them know they weren't welcome.
They stopped hosting them in their houses and the mayor of the town brokered a deal with the US commander to return Iraqi government sovereignty to the city without a fight. The people saw what was on the horizon and decided they didn't want their city looking like Fallujah in April or Najaf in August.]

Hey we managed to wrest back control of one of our towns without serious fighting! Well done...you other people; scared of the US bombing and occupying their town...I guess...How does this support his claim again?

[Boom, boom, just like that two major "hot spots" cool down in rapid succession. Does that mean that those towns are completely pacified? No. What it does mean is that we are learning how to do this the right way. The US commander in Samarra saw an opportunity and took it - probably the biggest victory of his military career and nary a shot was fired in anger. Things will still happen in those cities, and you can be sure that the bad guys really want to take them back. Those achievements, more than anything else in my opinion, account for the surge in violence in recent days - especially the violence directed at Iraqis by the insurgents. Both in Najaf and Samarra ordinary people stepped out and took sides with the Iraqi government against the insurgents, and the bad guys are hopping mad. They are trying to instill fear once again. The worst thing we could do now is pull back and let that scum back into people's homes and lives.]

Blam! Blam! Just like that two major sources of enemy activity dry up for a few weeks! We'll see them again soon, but we might get them next time! The US commander said that taking a town without losses is good; especially when the enemy didn't concede but simply went to ground and started targeting civilians. That means the escalation in violence is actually a good thing. We wouldn't want those civies safe or anything, if they fear the enemy reprisals they'll come running to us.

[So, you may hear analysts and prognosticators on CNN, ABC and the like in the next few days talking about how bleak the situation is here in Iraq, but from where I sit, it's looking significantly better now than when I got here. The momentum is moving in our favor, and all Americans need to know that, so please, please, pass this on to those who care and will pass it on to others. It is very demoralizing for us here in uniform to read & hear such negativity in our press.]

So remember kids, listen to one unnamed major, rumored to be from the Marines, a unit long known for its accurate apprasials of how not to get its own men killed in action. Don't listen to those people who tells us how wrong-minded it is to go about warfare in the WRONG WAY. That makes us rumored majors sad. Stay optimistic about body counts and civilians being targeted; never you mind that we've lost control of cities and violence is growing more prevelant.

[It is fodder for our enemies to use against us and against the vast majority of Iraqis who want their new government to succeed. It causes the American public to start thinking about the acceptability of "cutting our losses" and pulling out, which would be devastating for Iraq for generations to come, and Muslim militants would claim a huge victory, causing us to have to continue to fight them elsewhere (remember, in war "Away" games are always preferable to "Home" games). Reports like that also cause Iraqis begin to fear that we will pull out before we finish the job, and thus less willing to openly support their interim government and US/Coalition activities. We are realizing significant progress here - not propaganda progress, but real strides are being made.]

Its true; pulling out of a war would be devestating. But arguing against bad tactics and strategy hardly seems like a bad way to conduct oneself. Realizing that we've DONE this before and it DIDN'T work when we did it back then would be a good start. Besides, arguing that leaving Iraq will mean that suddenly the US will get invaded by the thousands of militants currently in Iraq seems a little silly to me, anyone else share that view?

[It's terrible to see our national morale, and support for what we're doing here, jeopardized by sensationalized stories hyped by media giants whose #1 priority is advertising income followed closely by their political agenda; getting the story straight falls much further down on their priority scale, as Dan Rather and CBS News have so aptly demonstrated in the last week.]

Its just plain bad to dissent. You need patriotic fervor and blind, unquestioning loyalty to our cause. Never mind that we could very easily be doing a lot better with just a few minor changes. Pay no attention to those nasty reports that could jeopardize my rosy view of obviously horrific problems. After all, success in the war is unquestionable, because dissent is political agenda without concern for men's lives.

**laughs** I rant.

Its hard to read, so no one stoops so low as to reply. I guess I should learn from this.

**laughs** I rant.

Its hard to read, so no one stoops so low as to reply. I guess I should learn from this.

Not so,
I have just finished reading your "rant".
A well thought out and well constructed rebuttal of a dubious origin "blog". The most basic thing that people don't seem to grasp is that there is no identity checking or source validation for anyone writing a "blog".
I could equally well write a blog as a British SAS Major, an al-Qaeda operative, or a supposed Iraqi civilian supporting any of the various competing factions.
There is no way to validate my authenticity.
Blogs are beginning to give the web an even worse name.

Why don`t we just set up concentration camps for muslims already ? surely someone in israel must remember what they looked like from the inside , all we need is ask germans about the outside and we`re off !

sounds like a plan , can we put turks and pakistani`s in there as well as arabs ?

Why don`t we just set up concentration camps for muslims already ? surely someone in israel must remember what they looked like from the inside , all we need is ask germans about the outside and we`re off !
Duh! That's what the Wall is! A test-run! [/sarcasm]

Seriously, I wouldn't troll if I were you.

The concentration camp comments are unacceptable. There is no humor in that, not even irony

As for the Major and the Senior NCO: They bith give good points. They do diffrent jobs, have diffrent immediate aims and say thing s as they see it. I attempt to have a positive outlook on the situation in Iraq, even though it looks like ass. Most people who are reading/posting on this thread will never go there and see just how god-awful it is. I am all but guarenteed(sp) a trip there and hopefully back. I am in Army ROTC, and most of my friends who graduated in the past three years are there, and many of my good friends that just graduated in June are going there in just a few months. I am proud to do this, although I disagree with the war. I will serve to the best of my ability. Just keep in mind, this is to both Americans and Europeans: Many of us do not agree with the premise of the war, but we are there and it does not matter who gets in office in November, we will still be in that country fighting, killing and being killed. No election will magicaly solve this quandrry.

Enough of MY rant. I will assume the Major and the NCO are the real deal: Good luck to both of you.

I prefer listening to this guy who has respectability out the wazoo. Scott Taylor: a former Canadian soldier and head writer for the military magazine L'Esprit de Corps and writes a column called 'On Target'. He was also a recent prisoner by Ansar al-Islam and was recently released rather than having his head cut off after being a prisoner for 4-5 days. He was just on CNN last night telling his story of survival and it made the front page in Canada.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deliso95.html

http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=3606

Although I can't vouch for the antiwar site I can vouch for Scott Taylor. A totaly trustworthy journalist. And the antiwar site shows an actual conversation so...

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2004/09/18/f241.raw.html

Here's his article from the newspaper about his ordeal. Just in case no one trusts antiwar. It's the first article in a two part series (I need to find that second part).