Zeppistan
10-11-2004, 18:35
I'll call it for what I think it is: A show. A waste of ordinance and manpower. Another ember on the fire of Iraqi discontent with their "liberators" destroying a city. More rebuilding contracts for the US citizens to pick up the tab for someday, at danger-pay-inflated prices of course.
Why you ask? I mean - c'mon! Look at the success! A couple of days and the we rolled through the city with ease!
Exactly.
The same as the original invasion rolled through the country with ease. You remember that right? The mighty Iraqi Army that was supposed to fight to the death.... but didn't. Victory declared, only to discover that the fight hadn't even started?
Now you have the fanatical insurgents who were supposed to fight to the death... but seemingly haven't. The problem being that this is an attempt to engage a guerrila force with conventional tactics. Worse yet, the tactics are advertized in advance.
They've been talking about needing to go into Falluja for months. We watched the public debate to get the Brits to move forces up to Baghdad so the American's could free up troops to go to Falluja. Almost every detail of this has been public knowledge: fodder for an election campaign that needed to show some resolve, some plans, something that might result in a success. The idea that anyone honestly expected the insurgents to stick around to meet their fate is asinine. That is NOT how guerilla wars are fought.
So what have been the results? Reports that the resistance was lighter than expected. No reports of death or arrest of any senior members of Zarqawi's groups. A city baddly damaged, collateral damage, and a resistance that did what every guerilla group does when facing down the barrel: melted into the background to rise again.
As AP reports it (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20041110/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_11)
The speed of the U.S. drive in Fallujah may indicate that most Sunni fighters and their leaders abandoned the city before the offensive and moved elsewhere to carry on the fight, officers said. The most notorious kidnapper, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is believed to have fled the city.
...
Insurgent violence sharpened across central and northern Iraq (news - web sites) on Wednesday, with at least 19 people killed in fighting Wednesday, including two U.S. soldiers and a foreign contractor. Authorities clamped an immediate curfew on the northern city of Mosul as U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with gunmen there. Fierce fighting also took place in Baghdad, to the south and in Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold where explosions shook the city as U.S. troops and gunmen battled near the main government building.
Still, U.S. and Iraqi troops were pushing ahead in Fallujah...
It's been a lovely show, but how many new recruits to the insurgency will the views of a shattered city bring? What exactly has been the cost, and what exactly has been gained?
The administration keeps claiming that things are getting better - "hey! Elections are coming!" But it is just recently that Doctors without Borders and Care finally threw in the towel. The incidence of kidnappings have not slowed, and indeed now include members of Alawi's family. And a state of emergency has been declared in Iraq. What do you think it takes for Iraqis to go "well now THIS is bad" and declare such a thing after the past couple of years that they've endured?
As former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter notes in a recent article: (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/718AE278-58EE-431F-8045-5A3F505021B8.htm)
Far from facing off in a decisive battle against the resistance fighters, it seems the more Americans squeeze Falluja, the more the violence explodes elsewhere. It is exercises in futility, akin to squeezing jello. The more you try to get a grasp on the problem, the more it slips through your fingers
One of the arguments about why the Vietnam War was lost was that the US never really recognized at the time that they were fighting a war against communism while the Vietnamese were fighting a civil war. By not understanding the local political dynamic they never really were able to put effective strategies in place. And you have to ask yourself, is this what is happening here again? With Saddam gone, are the Shia and Kurds getting the US to do their own dirty work against the Sunni? Has this devolved into what everyone said it wasn't?
Certainly the US is trying to referee the resultant political outcome, but the question that goes with this is "but will the Iraqi's let you?"
Why you ask? I mean - c'mon! Look at the success! A couple of days and the we rolled through the city with ease!
Exactly.
The same as the original invasion rolled through the country with ease. You remember that right? The mighty Iraqi Army that was supposed to fight to the death.... but didn't. Victory declared, only to discover that the fight hadn't even started?
Now you have the fanatical insurgents who were supposed to fight to the death... but seemingly haven't. The problem being that this is an attempt to engage a guerrila force with conventional tactics. Worse yet, the tactics are advertized in advance.
They've been talking about needing to go into Falluja for months. We watched the public debate to get the Brits to move forces up to Baghdad so the American's could free up troops to go to Falluja. Almost every detail of this has been public knowledge: fodder for an election campaign that needed to show some resolve, some plans, something that might result in a success. The idea that anyone honestly expected the insurgents to stick around to meet their fate is asinine. That is NOT how guerilla wars are fought.
So what have been the results? Reports that the resistance was lighter than expected. No reports of death or arrest of any senior members of Zarqawi's groups. A city baddly damaged, collateral damage, and a resistance that did what every guerilla group does when facing down the barrel: melted into the background to rise again.
As AP reports it (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20041110/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_11)
The speed of the U.S. drive in Fallujah may indicate that most Sunni fighters and their leaders abandoned the city before the offensive and moved elsewhere to carry on the fight, officers said. The most notorious kidnapper, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is believed to have fled the city.
...
Insurgent violence sharpened across central and northern Iraq (news - web sites) on Wednesday, with at least 19 people killed in fighting Wednesday, including two U.S. soldiers and a foreign contractor. Authorities clamped an immediate curfew on the northern city of Mosul as U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with gunmen there. Fierce fighting also took place in Baghdad, to the south and in Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold where explosions shook the city as U.S. troops and gunmen battled near the main government building.
Still, U.S. and Iraqi troops were pushing ahead in Fallujah...
It's been a lovely show, but how many new recruits to the insurgency will the views of a shattered city bring? What exactly has been the cost, and what exactly has been gained?
The administration keeps claiming that things are getting better - "hey! Elections are coming!" But it is just recently that Doctors without Borders and Care finally threw in the towel. The incidence of kidnappings have not slowed, and indeed now include members of Alawi's family. And a state of emergency has been declared in Iraq. What do you think it takes for Iraqis to go "well now THIS is bad" and declare such a thing after the past couple of years that they've endured?
As former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter notes in a recent article: (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/718AE278-58EE-431F-8045-5A3F505021B8.htm)
Far from facing off in a decisive battle against the resistance fighters, it seems the more Americans squeeze Falluja, the more the violence explodes elsewhere. It is exercises in futility, akin to squeezing jello. The more you try to get a grasp on the problem, the more it slips through your fingers
One of the arguments about why the Vietnam War was lost was that the US never really recognized at the time that they were fighting a war against communism while the Vietnamese were fighting a civil war. By not understanding the local political dynamic they never really were able to put effective strategies in place. And you have to ask yourself, is this what is happening here again? With Saddam gone, are the Shia and Kurds getting the US to do their own dirty work against the Sunni? Has this devolved into what everyone said it wasn't?
Certainly the US is trying to referee the resultant political outcome, but the question that goes with this is "but will the Iraqi's let you?"