Start of Civil War? Attacks Across Iraq!

[Defiant]

Originally posted by GePap


Resistance in the Sunni triangle is a result of the political uncertainty and loss of priviladge this area sees. Opposition would always be hgiher here than elsewhere, BUT even here, without building partnerships with Iraqis we ensure that even if we stamp one set of gunmen today, another set of gunmen, maybe more gunmen, will be here tommorrow.

As for your statement that we are in iraqi for Americans and not Iraqis-then we failed, because thet real implication of your statement is that we will be forced to stay in Iraq indefinitelly.

Don't get me wrong GePap, we are there for America, but we have to make Iraq(Middle East) better off in order for America to be safer. We are still in Germany and Japan, agreed, not need now but we will be in Iraq for 50 years or more.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by GePap


So? Are you saying the British did not hard fighting during the war? The point made was about friendly fire-are you then admitting the Brits, by their actions, have a lower iincidence of it?

"hard fighting" can happen whether you intend it or not - the enemy has a bit of a say too, old chap. The fact is that the British commanders in WW2 were as a rule excessively cautious, failed to achieve key objectives in a timely manner, frequently found reasons to dig in or wait for more supplies, and yes, in the short run, they probably had a lower relative incidence of fratricidal casualties - while offsetting that by higher overall casualties due to failure to rapidly and decisively break enemy resistance. Warfighting involves risks.

The porblem was not "softness"-the problem was lack of good policing-a big difference. But US forces don;t police-they either shoot things up, or stay out of it. And that is the point. The US forces built up nothing but an adverserial relation with most of the pop. in this city-fine, after doing so, sure they would have to go in shooting-but as we saw, that approach was condemned by our own appointed Iraqis, which is why they demanded a truce.

Fallujah was an expected area of significant opposition before the war even started, but our brilliant political leadership had no plans for dealing with that issue, and insufficient forces at any time to really assert total control of any area. Before you get to the "policing" and pussyfooting around stage, you have to reduce enemy capacity for unconventional resistance to a point where "policing" is a viable option. That means disrupting leadership and communications, and depriving them of significant heavy weapons and explosives.

Fallujah was a key point in the line occupied (at least in theory) by two IRG divisions, a key HQ and supply point, and an active center for ISSS, SRG and Saddam Fedayeen as well as Baath party leadership. What happened to all those people? They sure as hell had to be handled, and most slipped through the cracks. Our political leadership had a fetish for WMD's and wanted to prove how small a force we could use to knock off the Hussein government, so they ignored the density problem for occupation.

Instead of patrolling with armored vehicles, in full combat gear, with guns pointed at the locals, like the GI's do, maybe if we patrolled on foot, without full combat gear and the gns pointed down, like the Brits do, then things would be a little better. Yes, we are occupying Iraq, but according to our political leaders, for their won beenfit, NOT ours. Any time for exaqmple we accidentaly shoot up some passing motorists we undermine that notion-that we are there for Iraqis.

You have a short memory - we used to patrol on foot and by Humvee in a lot more areas, (and still do), but that let the cockroaches scurry out of the way and organize, as well as exposed our troops to a lot of IED attacks.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'm not sure we can switch now, though. First impressions are pretty powerful, and I think at this point the "trigger happy American" stereotype is firmly entrenched in the Iraqi conciousness.

-Arrian

Why "first impressions?"

The Iraqi Air Force never flew a single sortie - IRG units and SRG units disappeared from the map without a fight. Most of the Iraqi Army, even the non-conscript units, melted away out of sight. Standing against US firepower was a swift and certain one way ticket to hell.

So why wouldn't the committed defenders of the Iraqi regime simply plan to lay low, organize, observe, and then escalate and attempt to counterattack before the American election? The June handoff date to an Iraqi government kind of forced the pace, but why assume that people who started out hostile to us and committed to oppose us just went away? And then, like magic, a year later a spontaneous popular uprising just materializes at a politically opportune time?

[GePap]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
- while offsetting that by higher overall casualties due to failure to rapidly and decisively break enemy resistance. Warfighting involves risks.

And the Soviets were all for crushing the enemy and breaking resistance, and they suffered even bigger casualties in their operations. Perhaps the level of aggressiveness is not the most important factor to casualty levels.

Our political leadership had a fetish for WMD's and wanted to prove how small a force we could use to knock off the Hussein government, so they ignored the density problem for occupation.

I agree with this.

You have a short memory - we used to patrol on foot and by Humvee in a lot more areas, (and still do), but that let the cockroaches scurry out of the way and organize, as well as exposed our troops to a lot of IED attacks.

As Arrian said, first impressions matter-we started doing this after it was clear we were too isolated from Iraqis. You say it gives the cockaroaches time to leave-well, you know something, we will never have the time, manpower, and knowledge of the place to root all the roaches out without Iraqi support. It would have been very nice to have more Iraqi informants, and a good partner in an Iraqi police force, but we have neither really.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Defiant


Don't get me wrong GePap, we are there for America, but we have to make Iraq(Middle East) better off in order for America to be safer. We are still in Germany and Japan, agreed, not need now but we will be in Iraq for 50 years or more.

We stayed in germany for 50 years and in japan still becuase of the communist threat-nothing more.

We don;t even really know what making iraq better means-if given a chance Iraqis elected a bunch of theocrats and nationalist with a hand-off we are OK with the US but don;t like them sort of guys, would be be OK with it? or would be revert to horrid Cold War tactics and get rid of democratic leaders we dislike?

[Arrian]

MtG - by first impressions I meant first impressions of the occupation, by Iraqis *not* so loyal to Saddam (or rather their status under Saddam) that they were gonna fight us no matter what.

It might be that Fallujah was essentially a lost cause from the "hearts and minds" perspective. Sounds like that might be so. But that can't be the case all over, and as GePap said, combatting the hardcore Saddamites would be easier if we had some Iraqi help. We'd be more likely to have that help, IMO, if we had done some things differently, including more of a "walk softly" approach to the occupation in general.

I'm sure you know a lot more about combat that I do. That's a given. But this operation goes way beyond being just a combat operation, or a combination of many little combat ops. It's the peace we need to win - and that's political. I know soldiers hate it when politicos impose what they think are ridiculous "rules of engagement" on them, and I think that's a tough thing to get right, but the fact is that the political angle is the most difficult thing to get right in Iraq, and it trumps everything else.

-Arrian

[Chemical Ollie]

I'm glad to find some Americans who share my point of view, like Arrian and GePap.

I'm sure most of the people in this forum have an academic degree or are on their way to get one, and along with it might come some knowledge of project management. Those management methods are generic to any type of activity, like private life, business, military or any other area. When you plan a project of any kind, you set a strategic, long-term goal. The accomplishment of that goal should then be the aim of every single policy, tactic and action.

In the case of this war, the long-term goal is "Iraqi Freedom", if you believe in the official politics. But many policies, tactics and actions of the US military are directly opposing the strategic goal. That may be things already pointed out by GePap and Arrian, facts reported by Oerdin (like soldiers mounting heavy plates on their vehicles to do more damage on civilian cars that are in their way in traffic jams), calling airstrikes on mosques (guerillas using it as an ambush hideout does not matter in the eyes of the Iraqis).

There are several patriotic American war movies where the message is that the mission objective is more important than the life of individual soldiers. The most obvious I can think of is U571 where a sailor drowns himself to achive the goals.

While I can't blame soldiers who don't want to die (who would want to?), their urge to save their own asses is not working towards the strategic goal. Trigger happiness in convoys, road blocks and airstrikes could sometimes save the life of the individuals who pull the trigger, but the colateral damage from those actions might upset enough civilians to make US lose the war. If the first goal was to save American lifes, the troops should stay home.

And disarm those civilians! There is no legal reason whatsoever for a civilian to own an AK-47.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


We take the brunt of the fighting and deliver results.

Oh pig's arse.

It's the very results you sometimes deliver which is the problem - escalation, civilian casualties, friendly fire incidents.

Why take out a sniper with a sniper when you can have a hundred guys blasting away at an area full of civvies eh? What does that achieve?

The intoxication with fire power and technological superiority is really quite blinding. Nothing has changed.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


Oh pig's arse.

I prefer ribs myself, but a little bacon or ham isn't bad on occasion.

Why take out a sniper with a sniper when you can have a hundred guys blasting away at an area full of civvies eh? What does that achieve?

Why **** around waiting for a sniper team for countersniper work and get your people plinked in the meantime, while the "sniper" may be nothing more than a screen or diversion for other enemy activities?

The intoxication with fire power and technological superiority is really quite blinding. Nothing has changed.

Yeah - we win, the rest of the world *****es and moans impotently on the sidelines.

[Alexander's Horse]

Agathon produced a nice little chronology of you not winning

Btw, Agagthon you left off Beirut and Somalia. More disasters.

[Kuciwalker]

Agathon produced a nice little chronology of you not winning

And the first time we used what is essentially our current doctrine (including training and equipment) we won, in what is remembered as one of the most lopsided victories ever.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


You mean like when Julian Bond forced a river crossing (at over 50% casualties) to take the bridge over Nijmegen so Brit tankers could cross and then find a nice place to brew their afternoon tea while the Red Devils and Polish Airborne Brigade were being overrun just 18 km up the road?

Don't change the subject.

And I'll have you know that tea drinking is a secret weapon - calms you down, makes you cool.

Whereas coffee hypes you up.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The equation is simple: Rapid movement + continuous operation + massive firepower + aggressive doctrine = ****'s bound to happen on occasion.

I always thought the stereotype came from WW2 wherein the US doctrine of the day relied on heavier usage of artillery vs. counterparts/enemies.

This coupled with the abysmal initial performances at Kasserine led to the assumption that US troups were cowards (akin to Italians). Obviously this is refuted if one consideres Guadacanal and other Pacific Theatre battles that highlight personal initiative and heroism, but then again the European theatre combatants didn't really care about that to a great extent.

As the war progressed the generally better supplied and outfitted US forces were liberal with use of arty and air and ground fire softening up positions significantly before offesnive. In doing so the massive use of firepower equalized in the enemies minds the lack of fortitude of the US soldier.

I obviously don't buy this but thought this was the general perception.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


I always thought the stereotype came from WW2 wherein the US doctrine of the day relied on heavier usage of artillery vs. counterparts/enemies.

.

It actually goes back to the American civil war and Sherman's drive to the sea.

[Agathon]

Did I mention that Kiwi veterans considered US soldiers to be, on the average, gutless cowards.

One guy said that as soon as the North Koreans turned up, your lot would pack it in and hightail it.