The Iraq War - Chapter 5

[glossyp]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Yes I know the history of Iran and it is ironic that we are now trying to get back into that country since we were the ones who first de-stablized it when we installed the puppet Shah who was then overthrown by the Ayatollah.

This is debatable as your statement merely reflects a specific point of view, there are others.

Look, the State Dept. has at its disposal millions of dollars to use to "spread democracy". If they really wanted to, they could be sending financial assistance to the Iranian underground.

Maybe they are and we don't know about it. My point was about the CIA, not the denizens of Foggy Bottom who think everything can be solved if we just talk about it enough.

He is playing a very dangerous game of chicken with the US and Israel, and I think he is counting on trigger happy George Bush to be the first one who flinches.

I disagree that he is playing a game of chicken. He has been crystal clear about the intentions of Iran to destroy Israel.

Israel has nuclear weapons (thanks to us)

And it is their responsibility to defend themselves.

We and Israel need Iran for its oil and its strategic location; Iran doesn't need us for anything but to be the butt of its jokes.

This is really a quite inane comment. Are you saying that Israel and the U.S. want to take over Iran for territory and oil? If we want oil and territory (strategic or otherwise) there are plenty of other places we could more easily occupy and contain. You still refuse to acknowledge that Iran's goal is to destroy Israel. Why is that?

[Miulang]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

This is really a quite inane comment. Are you saying that Israel and the U.S. want to take over Iran for territory and oil? If we want oil and territory (strategic or otherwise) there are plenty of other places we could more easily occupy and contain. You still refuse to acknowledge that Iran's goal is to destroy Israel. Why is that?

Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. Look at how we botched Iraq as an example. And I'm not saying Ahmedinejad wouldn't want to destory Israel, but I don't think he's stupid enough to fire the first salvo, either.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

The Battle for Haifa St. in Baghdad last week could be a portent of things to come when we bring in the additional 17,500 troops to support the Iraqi security forces. Maybe we need to withdraw our troops to the borders to keep the foreign fighters and Iran out and let the Sunni and Shia duke it out in Baghdad by themselves. After all, it's an enmity that's been around for 1,400 years. What makes us think we can eliminate it in 6 months?

The fight on Haifa Street started over 27 dead bodies. "Twenty male, seven female," says Lt. Col. Steve Duke, an American adviser to the Iraq Army. The bodies were dumped a week ago in a side alley off one of the main thoroughfares in Baghdad; they were apparently family members of an Iraqi police chief. The locals were too afraid to remove them, so Duke ordered his team to pick them up. That's about when the insurgents started to shoot from the high-rises at Duke's men, along with the Iraqi Army soldiers who were in the Haifa Street neighborhood. It was, says Duke gruffly, "a big s—t fight," a Saturday afternoon when the enemy decided not to run away. Says S/Sgt. Dennis Saxton, who was on the mission to retrieve the bodies: "As soon as the sun went down, it was boom, boom, boom, and the fireworks started."
...
If Maliki isn't sincere in his promise to stop militia violence, the problem could get worse once the Americans withdraw to the outskirts of Baghdad—something the Iraqi government is pushing hard to make happen. The tentative U.S. plan is to withdraw from the Iraqi capital by the end of the summer, after it has been stabilized by the additional U.S. troops. Duke wonders what the Iraqi government's motives are, if they just want the U.S. to get out of the city so they can "pull the little red curtain, and say, 'you guys don't need to see this,' and go on about their business." For many Iraqis, the prospect of the United States handing over total control to the Iraqi security forces with little oversight is "very scary," he says. Another U.S. officer, when asked if he believed Maliki would keep his promise to go after the militias, responded bluntly: "No. As my interpreter always says, the militias are the government. Literally, not figuratively. The militias are a wing of this government."

And their strength is growing. According to Maj. Mark Brady, an adviser to an Iraqi Army battalion, the Mahdi Army has been systematically pushing out across the river from eastern Baghdad and taking over Sunni neighborhoods. "They're slowly moving across the [Tigris] River," he says, using fear, intimidation and murder to get Sunnis to flee. The test, says Brady, will be when the “surge” troops butt heads with the Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army. "If you push, someone is going to push back," says Brady. "We're either going to jump over the hurdle with both feet, or hit the hurdle and be back at square one, with 20,000 more potential targets."

Miulang

[joshuatree]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

We and Israel need Iran for its oil and its strategic location; Iran doesn't need us for anything but to be the butt of its jokes.

This is where we can do so much to change the balance of power but we're too weak minded to do so. And we don't even have to fire a single shot. Get off the oil addiction folks. If we can send a man to the moon in a time frame of 9 years since Kennedy made his speech and direction, why can't we drastically reduce our oil dependence? Even if our cars still used oil but much more efficiently, if power plants can all be switched to renewable or nuclear, how much do you want to bet the power associated with oil will drop? How much do you want to bet economies like Iran's will tank? Sure, other countries will still buy oil but if the US's consumption is gone, how much excess will there be? I'm sure the price of a barrel will be a joke then. I know, oil companies will fight this. What people need to do is to fight dirty with oil companies. Accuse every single oil company as unpatriotic. I bet you they will change gears and spearhead other forms of energy quickly. There's no reason why Exxon-Mobil needs to represent oil. It can easily represent sun, wind, whatever, if they choose to be.

[Miulang]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Is Gen. David Petraeus, the author of the US Army and Marines Manual of Counterinsurgency the best and LAST hope for us in Iraq? If he fails, will we finally declare a "moral victory" and pull out?

An interesting analysis of the man, and his very formidable task:

And so it is important to be clear about what Petraeus is about to attempt in Baghdad: the "surge" is marketing spin for a last effort to apply counterinsurgency tactics to the civil war in Iraq. There are several ironies here. This escalation is favored by the Pentagon faction most closely aligned with the Democratic Party's national-security sensibility, the most sophisticated and cerebral officers: generals like Jack Keane and Petraeus; colonels like H.R. McMaster and Pete Mansoor, who served in the semisecret "Colonels Group" advising Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace last autumn. The counterinsurgency doctrine--drafted by a group led by Petraeus and published by the Army in 2006--is a remarkable document. It has a Zen tinge, posing nine paradoxes of counterinsurgency warfare like "the more force used, the less effective it is" and "the more you protect your force, the less secure you are." It proposes radical new tactics, which resemble nothing so much as the community policing that transformed New York and other U.S. cities in the 1990s. This requires a revolution in military training, an emphasis on creative decision making rather than on merely following orders.

But by the very standards that Petraeus helped develop, it probably won't work in Baghdad. First of all, there aren't enough troops to do it. The counterinsurgency manual suggests a ratio of 20 troops per 1,000 residents, or 120,000 troops to secure Baghdad alone, but the largest "surge" being contemplated would increase the number of troops in the capital by 20,000, to about 35,000. Second, the troops we do have aren't trained to the task: they're tired and overextended, and it will take time to retrain them to knock on doors rather than kick them down. Third, this is no longer an insurgency; it's a civil war. Counterinsurgency tactics are designed to help a credible indigenous government fight a guerrilla opponent. The idea that Nouri al-Maliki's government is responsible is laughable: it's little more than a fig leaf for Shi'ite militias. Finally, as Mosul shows, these tactics require lots of time. I asked a leading active-duty Army counterinsurgency expert how long it would take before we knew if the surge had succeeded. "Ten years," he said. That's not a surge. It's a glacier.

I hope Petraeus succeeds, for the sake of the terrorized citizens of Baghdad. Most military experts fear that he won't. "If this is Plan B, we'd better start working on Plan C," says Andrew Krepinevich, a leading military thinker. Plan C has to be a smart, detailed withdrawal from Iraq that doesn't leave chaos and regional war in its wake. I wish Petraeus were working on that rather than on Bush's futile pipe dream.

I seriously doubt the American public and Congress are going to wait 10 more years for a miracle. I'd give the good General about 6 months to accomplish something before "Plan C" kicks in. And if the Pres. has his way, the troops wouldn't be coming home...they'd be headed for our mortal enemy, Iran.

Miulang

[Miulang]

"Practicing for the surge"

If what happened today on Haifa St. in Baghdad is any indication of the way the new "surge" of our troops is going to have to operate when they get to Baghdad, then I think we're wasting our time and money and the lives of our troops! I saw a live feed of some of the soldiers from the 3rd Stryker Brigade (based out of Ft. Lewis) this afternoon as they were pinned down in a building, shooting out of windows, not wearing much protective gear (no helmets or vests). There was no sound in the video, but I can imagine what the soldiers were yelling to each other.

In a miniature version of the troop increase that the United States hopes will secure the city, American soldiers and armored vehicles raced onto Haifa Street before dawn to dislodge Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias who have been battling for a stretch of ragged slums and mostly abandoned high rises. But as the sun rose, many of the Iraqi Army units who were supposed to do the actual searches of the buildings did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own.

When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.

Why are our troops being put in the middle of a conflict where they don't know who's firing at them, or why?

Miulang

[speedtek]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

They need to declare marshall law. move everyone out of the city, clean it out and then start over. Almost like tenting your house for termites.

I know it is easier said than done and it will never happen.

Other than that it reminds me of trying to rid my house of roaches.

[joshuatree]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

They need to declare marshall law. move everyone out of the city, clean it out and then start over. Almost like tenting your house for termites.

I know it is easier said than done and it will never happen.

Other than that it reminds me of trying to rid my house of roaches.

I think they do declare martial law as they impose curfews, traffic restrictions during certain events, etc. The problem is, insurgents don't respect the law.

[Miulang]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Hot off the presses: a summary of the National Intelligence Estimate for the future stability of Iraq that was ordered by the Congress last year. If it looks like a civil war, and feels like a civil war, why can't the White House call the hostilities that are causing Sunnis to kill Shia, Shia to kill Shia, Sunni to kill Sunni and Shia and Sunnis both killing innocent civilians and US troops, a civil war?

The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

Miulang

[alohabear]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Hot off the presses: a summary of the National Intelligence Estimate for the future stability of Iraq that was ordered by the Congress last year. If it looks like a civil war, and feels like a civil war, why can't the White House call the hostilities that are causing Sunnis to kill Shia, Shia to kill Shia, Sunni to kill Sunni and Shia and Sunnis both killing innocent civilians and US troops, a civil war?



Miulang

Could it be a race war?

[Miulang]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Could it be a race war?

Wiki's definition of a "civil war":

A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight against each other for the control of political power. Political scientists use two criteria: the warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a separatist state or to force a major change in policy. The second criterion is that at least 1,000 people must have been killed in total, with at least 100 from each side.[1]

It might also be called a "religious conflict", since the Shia and Sunni are both Muslim sects who have different interpretations of the Quran and Islam, but the differences have been described as not so much religious as political.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Troops ill-prepared for battles

I find it morally reprehensible and criminally negligent for the US government to send more of our young people into combat with insufficient training and equipment. We should not be sending more troops to Iraq until and unless they are prepared adequately to fight for their lives. To do otherwise makes ALL OF US complicit in the mass homicide of our own citizens.

Some had only a few days to learn how to fire their new rifles before they deployed to Iraq -- for the third time -- last month. They had no access to the heavily armored vehicles they will be using in Iraq, so they trained on a handful of old military trucks instead. And some soldiers were assigned to the brigade so late that they had no time to train in the United States at all. Instead of the yearlong training recommended prior to deployment, they prepared for war during the two weeks they spent in Kuwait, en route to Anbar, Iraq's deadliest province.

As the Pentagon prepares to boost troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 people, such logistical and training hurdles are emblematic of the struggles besieging a military strained by unexpectedly long and grueling commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It's happening just about to all the units now," said Lawrence Korb, who oversaw military manpower and logistics as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "No unit is completely combat ready."

Miulang

P.S. That 21,500 number that Pres. Bush so blithely uttered in his SOTU speech? If he really meant having 21,500 actual soldiers fighting, then he conveniently neglected to mention that each one of those soldiers requires 2-3 support people. So that number will escalate to at least double what most Americans believed unless the escalation is stopped in its tracks by Congress and the American voters.

[PoiBoy]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Muilang-If there is a solution...what is it?

[Miulang]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Muilang-If there is a solution...what is it?

Start redeploying the troops we currently have stationed in Iraq to the borders, to keep the Iranians and the Syrians from causing more pilikia. Leave Baghdad to the Sunnis and Shia to figure out how they're going to share power there. They've been fighting each other in one form or other for more than 1,400 years and I seriously doubt anyone in this country thinks we should keep our troops there for another 1,400 years to try to keep the peace!

Over and over, what foreign policy experts and generals are saying is that we need to tell the Iraqi government that we did the hard job (getting rid of Saddam). Now it's up to them to figure out how to make their democracy work, in whatever form it evolves into. And our government and our people should respect the Iraqis enough to let them decide how best to run their country. We haven't had the best track record ourselves, so I really don't think we should be the ones to tell them how to keep their house clean.

There's already a civil war in Baghdad and Anbar province. It's not our job to pick sides, because in the end, BOTH sides will pick on us (they already are...our troops don't really know who the "enemy" might be in any neighborhood they're patrolling).

Then we should apologize to the innocent Iraqi citizens for the heartache they have endured for the last 4 years and really do a good job of spending our tax dollars wisely there (instead of just handing it over to war profiteers like Halliburton and Blackwater) and put more Iraqis to work. If they're busy rebuilding their country, they won't have time to take potshots at our troops. We should tell the Iraqi government that we will NOT have permanent bases in their country. We will let them decide how to manage their oil resources without having foreign oil companies coming in and taking over.

You know, when Iraq went to war with Iran (and we were helping Saddam), once that conflict was over, the Iraqis didn't ask for financial or technical assistance from us; they rebuilt their critical infrastructure in 9 months, using their own people. This time, most of the professional class has fled Baghdad and the people who remain are the ones who didn't have the resources to leave. How much longer can the approximately 6 million Baghdadi citizens endure having over 100 of their family and friends killed daily by suicide bombers and snipers?

Put yourself in their shoes...5 years ago, even though some of them were being oppressed, they had a wonderful culture: the site of ancient Babylon is in Iraq, but it's been thoroughly trashed, as have other relics of Islam. This time, rather than only taking months, it will take DECADES for them to rebuild.

They went from a country that at least had constant sources of electricity and water to one today where such things are considered luxuries.

And what about our troops? Because of better equipment, many soldiers who would have been killed in earlier conflicts are surviving...but what is their future quality of life going to be? How many additional billions of dollars will we have to shell out to help support these brave veterans? Vietnam was bad...even today you see lots of homeless Vietnam vets on the street...victims of PTSD, and even though the Pentagon and VA hospitals are trying to identify more potential victims of PTSD in this conflict, how many are slipping through the cracks to become alcoholics, drug addicts or murderers because of the things they saw and had to do while in combat?

Report after report says that many of the soldiers and Marines don't know why they're over there fighting. They're obeying orders, but their chain of command hasn't really told them what they're fighting FOR (and in some cases, maybe their leaders don't know why they're over there). One poll taken a few months back indicated that the majority of Iraqis (I think it was like 60%) said that it was OK for the insurgents to shoot at our soldiers. HELLO? When Dick Cheney said things were going to be a "slam dunk" and that our men and women would be welcomed to Iraq by people handing them flowers, I really don't know what he was smoking at the time.

Now if the US had been attacked and was under seige by the Iraqis or al Qaeda on US soil, I know the Marines and soldiers (and all of us civilians) would have no problem figuring out why we were fighting. But it's very hard to fight against an enemy who looks like the general civilian population and is in a country thousands of miles away from home.

The billions of dollars that are being diverted to Iraq and that has been frittered away by poor management and corruption could have been put to better use in this country: look at the people of New Orleans. Many people who had to flee New Orleans still can't return home. The lower 9th ward, which was the scene of so much death and misery, still hasn't been reclaimed. The levee system still is inadequate and will probably fail again if there's another hurricane the intensity of Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

The No Child Left Behind Act had honorable intentions, but the feds didn't give the states any funding to hire more teachers to help raise test scores. Instead, each state is responsible for finding the money to comply. So that means you and I have to pay additional state tax dollars to fund a law that Congress approved with no plans to help the states.

There are at least 45 MILLION uninsured people in this country and the number grows daily. These are not low lifes who don't want to get a job that has health care benefits: the majority are people like the workers at WalMart who can't earn enough to pay for health insurance. The rate of inflation for healthcare costs has been much higher than the general rate of inflation. Everyone has to contribute a little more out of their pockets every year. When a good portion of your citizens are one bad choice or paycheck away from bankruptcy, you gotta wonder who will be healthy enough to keep the country going. The healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed in order for this country to continue to be strong.

So to recap: we need to redeploy our troops to the borders. We need to figure out a way to withdraw completely within 2 years. We should not have permanent military bases anywhere in Iraq. We should let the Iraqis figure out how to manage their oil resources (i.e., nationalize it like Venezuela has). We should not ship any more troops over to Iraq unless and until they are adequately trained and equipped. Congress needs to exercise its duty of oversight and make sure any additional funding for the occupation is justified and can be accounted for.

We need to pay more attention to the critical issues facing people in this country before we go off trying to help anyone else. If we don't first have a strong population that is well educated and healthy, how can we help anyone else?

Miulang

[joshuatree]

Re: The Iraq War - Chapter 5

Redeploying troops to the borders of Iran and Syria may sound good on paper but in reality, would be a different story. We can't even keep our border with Mexico secured much less in someone else's country. Besides, our military in general may not have proper training as border agents. It's one thing to be trained to lay waste to the enemy, another to act as civilian gatekeepers.

Problem is, an American military presence there is as much a liability as it is an asset to the stability of Iraq. I would push on with training Iraqi troops. And I would suggest looking into funding a UN force out there. I'm not talking about a mickey mouse, show of flag UN force, but something more serious. A UN force will help diffuse some of the politics going on, it would seem less of western imperialism.

And another move should be for the American gov't to get into talks with Iran and Syria. You need to get them on board to stabilize the place.