I Can't Wait To Go To Iraq

[GePap]

But - you assume the only chance of death is from US action. Quite a few Iraqis know that they have a chance of death of if the Baath takeover whether they cooperate or not. So they have more incentive to cooperate. Granted though, not too many of those people in Baiji, Tikrit or Fallujah.

Nice annalysis, for the areas of the country, such a the Kurdish north and Shi'a south, places were the fighting has been minimal. But the fact is that a return to Baathist power is NOT guaranteed if this rebellion succeeds, since other groups have been arming and there is no, or would not be sans the coolition, a state apparatus- So if the US left, fundamentalist fundie clergy would have as good a chance as any.

Even more people who have cooperated with the coalition since April. They also are goners if the Baathists return. And we have such people almost everywhere.

Look above.

Also, they have to evaluate the odds of the Baathists being able to carry out their threats. As a a guerrilla organization its far from foolproof - every attack on a collaborator exposes them, to yet other informants. If they can come back into complete control they can kill every informant - at least every informant they KNOW about.

Even if not foolproof, they still outknowledge us in the areas of the rebellion, which is what matters at this point. The question, as always, is the accurate application of power, not how much power there is.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
The Brits must be doing something right, as we almost never hear about them getting killed

Total British forces in Iraq now number less then 8,500 and they are totally with in the pacified Shi-ite south. To compare the US currently has 125,000 (though this will drop to 100,000 in the coming months) most of which is in the "Sunni Triangle" where most of Saddam's supporters are.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap

But - you assume the only chance of death is from US action. Quite a few Iraqis know that they have a chance of death of if the Baath takeover whether they cooperate or not. So they have more incentive to cooperate. Granted though, not too many of those people in Baiji, Tikrit or Fallujah.

Nice annalysis, for the areas of the country, such a the Kurdish north and Shi'a south, places were the fighting has been minimal. But the fact is that a return to Baathist power is NOT guaranteed if this rebellion succeeds, since other groups have been arming and there is no, or would not be sans the coolition, a state apparatus- So if the US left, fundamentalist fundie clergy would have as good a chance as any.

Even more people who have cooperated with the coalition since April. They also are goners if the Baathists return. And we have such people almost everywhere.

Look above.

Also, they have to evaluate the odds of the Baathists being able to carry out their threats. As a a guerrilla organization its far from foolproof - every attack on a collaborator exposes them, to yet other informants. If they can come back into complete control they can kill every informant - at least every informant they KNOW about.

Even if not foolproof, they still outknowledge us in the areas of the rebellion, which is what matters at this point. The question, as always, is the accurate application of power, not how much power there is.

IIUC, the only places where Sunni fundamentalists (fundi fundamentalists?) dominate the counterrevolution is in Falujah, and maybe Baji. In Bagdah, in Baquba, in Mosul and certainly in Tikrit the resistance is Baathist. I think the odds of the Clerics taking over the triangle are minimal - they dont have the training, the weapons caches, the moneys, the intel tradecraft, etc that the Baathist (mainly Fedayeen Saddam) have.

If we left tomorrow the Baathists would take over the Sunni Triangle from Baaji to Samarra and Baquba, and west to Falujah and Ramadi. The clerics in Falujah would go along with the Baathists, and would not be able to protect anyone from Baathist revenge (kinda like Mensheviks in Bolshevik held cities during the Russian Rev or like Cadets in white cities, if you prefer). The IGC forces backed up by the Shiite militias would keep the Baathist from taking over Baghdad, and the Kurdish Peshmergas would seize Mosul and the rest of the North. anti-colloborator atrocities would be carried out accross the triangle, while anti-baathist atrocities, perhaps degenerating into anti sunni arab atroticities, would take place in Baghdad and Mosul. The civil war would then begin - the Shiites and Kurds would win, until such point as the Sunni Arabs appeal to the region - to Saudi, Jordan, Turkey, even Syria. At that point, assuming the Americans wont come back in, the Kurds and Shia would have no choice but to call on Iran.

[Ned]

Sprayber, Oerdin, et al., is the Army providing any training to teach you how to speak Arabic?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Directional signals with the barrel of an automatic weapon are the universal language.

[Ned]

MtG, I wonder who language skills would better win the war of hearts and minds.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Here's the last checkpoint f*ckup, fresh from BBC today. If you shoot someone in this way, Oerdin, his ghost will come back to haunt you in your nightmares.

And your alternative is...? It is all very easy to say just don't shoot any body but what if the idiot running the check point is a suicide bomber? There have been so many suicide bombers and Arabs are well know for using this proticular war crime (I say war crime because according to the Geneva & Hague Conventions they are illegal). You seem to want me to risk my own life and the lives of every single man on my team just in case this fool isn't a suicide bomber.

This game is for keeps and real people die if I let the wrong people get to close so I will warn them and I will give them a chance to come to their senses but in the end if he tries to run the check point I will shoot him.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


IIUC, the only places where Sunni fundamentalists (fundi fundamentalists?) dominate the counterrevolution is in Falujah, and maybe Baji. In Bagdah, in Baquba, in Mosul and certainly in Tikrit the resistance is Baathist. I think the odds of the Clerics taking over the triangle are minimal - they dont have the training, the weapons caches, the moneys, the intel tradecraft, etc that the Baathist (mainly Fedayeen Saddam) have.

If we left tomorrow the Baathists would take over the Sunni Triangle from Baaji to Samarra and Baquba, and west to Falujah and Ramadi. The clerics in Falujah would go along with the Baathists, and would not be able to protect anyone from Baathist revenge (kinda like Mensheviks in Bolshevik held cities during the Russian Rev or like Cadets in white cities, if you prefer). The IGC forces backed up by the Shiite militias would keep the Baathist from taking over Baghdad, and the Kurdish Peshmergas would seize Mosul and the rest of the North. anti-colloborator atrocities would be carried out accross the triangle, while anti-baathist atrocities, perhaps degenerating into anti sunni arab atroticities, would take place in Baghdad and Mosul. The civil war would then begin - the Shiites and Kurds would win, until such point as the Sunni Arabs appeal to the region - to Saudi, Jordan, Turkey, even Syria. At that point, assuming the Americans wont come back in, the Kurds and Shia would have no choice but to call on Iran.

While a civil war is a likely outcome of an sudden withdrawl (and might be int he cards for the future anyway), I don;t agree with how it would develop. First of all, the Turks would intervene early , to stop the Kurds from creating an independent homeland, which is what they would do, instead of fighting to be part of an Iraq if the whole thing is falling apart, and in doing this Turkey would have the support of Syria and Iran. While Sunni fundamentalist might surge into Iraq to fight against the Shia, Saudi Arabia would be very reticent to get involved directly, for that would bring in Iran on the other side. Syria has not Sunni solidarity, so they would stay out, and given their relations with Iran and Hizbullah, they are more likely to back the iranian position.

So either the foreign power come in to creat single Iraq, probably under Shia control, or you get a truncated Iraq with Shia control and a Kurdish state (less like since all the neighbors would hate this outcome most). BUt that is one issue: the Shia basically know their time has come in Iraq, and if the coolition tries to set up a gov. with "too many" rights for the Sunni minority (and perhaps even the Kurds) the Shia might think the coolition no longer worthwhile.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ned
MtG, I wonder who language skills would better win the war of hearts and minds.

We're not going to win hearts and minds any more then we won hearts and minds in Japan in WW2. We can try to discredit their propoganda and we can keep spreading our message but in the end Arab rebels can only be defeated using the tactics which every Arab dictator has always used. I.E. mass punishment and brutal repression.

The US won't do this there for we should set up a local government who is willing to do what is necissary while we cut our own forces back to support roles.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
MtG, I wonder who language skills would better win the war of hearts and minds.

The "war of hearts and minds" is mostly bull****, and always has been. You can piss off more of the population by being stupid and heavy-handed, but there is a limited ability and limited time to train up people en masse for whatever language is spoken (and local dialects and idioms) wherever you happen to invade. There are more important focuses for training, and there's no way you're going to get your average troop reasonably proficient in the language in any short timeframe. They'll pick up a bit on the job, but it's the overall mission that makes or breaks it for the Iraqis, not that fact that "that nice infidel foreign invader speaks to us in our language."

[Dinner]

The best possible situation is a recreation of Britain's 1932 Iraq policy where pro-western leaders are selected and then put in place. These leaders would then write a western style constitution with a western style sepporation of religion and state while we would continue to supply them with economic and military aid so they can defeat the Ba'athists and fundimentalists.

[Ned]

So, the frantic arab runs towards you babbling in Arabic that the bad guys are about to attack, and you gun him down because you do not understand what he is saying?

Intel would pick up nicely if communications were easier.

[Dinner]

I know that my team will have a translater assigned to it and that most companies have at least one translater.

[MichaeltheGreat]

There are interpreters there. Just no reason, nor time, to train everyone - and if someone's frantically babbling, you're going to need a lot of practice before you can understand more than every tenth word he's saying.

[Chemical Ollie]

Is there a connection between checkpoint speeding and suicide bombings? How many of the successful bombers have been driving in at high speed and how many have just acted cool and pretended that everything was in order until they suddenly pushed the button? What percentage of the people killed for speeding at checkpoints have been found to have a car bomb in the trunk and how many had nothing illegal? Perhaps there is a connection, I don't know, but I don't take it for granted.

The Hungarian guy surely qualifies for a Darwin Award at first glance, but there are numerous reasons why an innocent person would be speeding. None of us know the details of this event, but we can speculate what might have happened. Did he understand that he was on his way to a checkpoint? What was the approach area like? Were there clearly visible roadsigns in both English and Arabic, declaring "Checkpoint ahead" and giving clear instructions how to behave? Were there speed bumps and stop lights?

Warning shots might be easy to identify and understand for a pedestrian, but not necessarily for someone driving a car at 50 km/h or faster. If a driver even understands that someone is shooting at HIM, he might interpret that as a guerilla attack and speed up to get away. Especially so if he belongs to the coalition, as this guy did.

Have the occupation forces used Iraqi TV radio and newspapers to give instructions on how to behave at such situations to avoid accidents from confusion?