Estimated casualties of a war on Iraq: 1 million people!

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper

The bolding is mine, folks, because I just wanted to show you all how G*DD*MN DUMB Agathon proved himself to be with this general assertion in regards to how I view others in the world.

Get lost, you f*ck*ng newbie.

Unpleasantly yours,

Gatekeeper

Oooohhhh, I'm so intimidated by your great intellect and sharp grasp of logic - not.

Is that the best you can do? What a load of old rubbish. Ooooooohhhh, it's possible that this could happen. Let's all panic!!! Well it is possible that you might pull your head out of your backside - but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

And to quote William Blake, who might well have met Gatekeeper in one of his many visions:

"listen to the fool's reproach, it is a kingly title."

Anyway, you obviously didn't bother to read the article I linked to, which is what I consider to be a serious response to the question of deterrence.

peace be upon you.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by Agathon


Oooohhhh, I'm so intimidated by your great intellect and sharp grasp of logic - not.

PARDON ME, IS THIS 1993 AND ARE WE WEARING A NEON PINK WHITNEY HOUSTON CAP WHICH FAILS TO CONCEAL A ***-TAG MULLET???

I can't believe someone just used the old "NOT!"

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Worse, for the most part.

Thats unlikely, most of whom the soldiers went up against in Mogadishu were locals who were just looking for 'fun', and just picked up the AK-47 the man next to him dropped as he fell to US fire. Most of these locals were high on drugs, most notablely khat, some local hit they have there which does impair judgement, motor skills, and such.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Does anyone here think the Iraqis will be as ill-trained and ill-equipped as the Somalis? Both sides are gonna be better armed, better trained, and have more forces available to fight. I figure a ten or twenty to one casualty ration in Iraq is not out of the question. All I'm saying is it's gonna be bloodier than Afganistan, Gulf War 1 or even Lebanon. That doesn't mean we're gonna see tens of thousands of US casualties or that it's gonna be another Vietnam.

Che, before Gulf War I, we all thought the Iraqi's would fight effectively because they were veteran troops that had just come out of a near ten year war with Iran. But they fell apart at the seems and were overwhelmeed.

Why?

Airpower.

I have no idea whether this will be a repeat of Gulf War I. If we engage gound troops while the Iraqi troops are still fresh and their command and control has not be decimated, that army may just stand and fight - like the Chechans did in Grozny. It then could get bloody.

[Ramo]

You have valid points, Ramo. Of course, that's assuming that Saddam is still being rational about things; from what I've heard and read, he's a power-mad individual who's quite paranoid about threats to him ... which begs the question: Does he view al-Qaida as less of a threat to him *now* than the thousands of U.S. troops sitting near the Iraqi border? If so, and if he assumes he's going to lose no matter what, I'd bet he'd be willing to deal with the Devil, i.e. al-Qaida, just to spite the Americans.

If Saddam is such an irrational nutcase, why didn't he use chemical weapons on us during Gulf War I?

But let's assume for the moment that what you're saying is correct. That he's trigger-happy when his power is the least bit threatened. Then isn't war precisely the LAST thing we should be doing? I mean, wouldn't this trigger an orgy of death where Saddam uses chemical and biological weapons on us without restraint?

if the sanctions are lifted and no invasion takes place, Saddam and his ilk across the world can rightly say that the U.N. has no teeth, that all it takes is patience and perseverance to eventually win the sympathy of the world ...

I don't think anyone should die over a pissing contest.

This is how I view the whole thing; there's no clear-cut winning strategy. It sucks. And, unfortunately, it's REALITY. It must be a "fun" time to be a national leader with today's state of world affairs.

My view is fairly simple. We have no responsible plan after Gulf War II, so we have no business whatsoever threatening war. It's clear that the Turkish alliance is more important to Shrub et al. than the welfare of the Iraqi Kurds; that's been demonstrated by our attitude towards Iraqi Kurds over the past decade and Turkish Kurds over the past two decades. It's also clear that Shrub et al. don't want to upset the balance of power in favor of Iran what with Iraq being a primarily Shia country. All this means we'll have a situation after the war worse than the status quo, even if the impact on Iraqi lives and property will be minimal in this upcoming war. Thus war is not justified. Period. At least not until we make definite promises that spell out the obligations we have in post-war Iraq, and until these promises and obligations are adequate.

[Kramerman]

Ramo,
you a UT student? Or are you just a resident of austin?

[Ramo]

Yep, UT student. Undergrad.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Ramo
Yep, UT student. Undergrad.

cool. i might be going there next fall. not quite sure yet, just depends on stuff.

[Ramo]

Do you know what you want to major in?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kramerman


Thats unlikely, most of whom the soldiers went up against in Mogadishu were locals who were just looking for 'fun', and just picked up the AK-47 the man next to him dropped as he fell to US fire. Most of these locals were high on drugs, most notablely khat, some local hit they have there which does impair judgement, motor skills, and such.

Sorry, but it ain't so. Khat is a moderate stimulent which heightens aggression and happens to reduce fear, sensation of pain, and fatigue - all nice things to have for expendible urban fighters.

Aidid's headquarters were located where they were for a reason - in the middle of the largest arms and other smuggled goods bazaar in the whole country, where a lot of Habr Gidr and allied fighters (including mercenaries) were there continuously to provide "security" for all the cash and merchandise, when they weren't out there stealing aid from the UN convoys, massacring members of enemy clans, or other such stuff. These were the people who greased 20-odd Pakistanis, who intermittently but repeatedly closed down the port of Mogadishu with mortar and recoilless rifle fire (really makes merchant ships decide to stay away).

For weaponry, they had what they needed for the job at hand, and except for the US weapons (a good number of M2 HB's, at least one Mark 19 AGL, and a few other things), their armament is pretty much standard to what the average Iraqi infantryman has.

As far as their fighting abilities go, these bastards downed five US helos, not the two commonly remembered. Two (Super61 and Super64) went down catastrophically in enemy held areas, three limped out and went down in safe areas out of the fight, but they downed five - that's pretty good for fighters without AA weapons at all.

The bit about locals picking up weapons from the man that dropped is a bunch of crap, as well - Kalashnikovs could be bought for the equivalent of $20 US, almost everybody (at least the teen males on up) had access to weaponry in the areas where the fight occured (along Hawalwadig down to K4 was all badass Indian country - very few "normal" residents there at all, because if you didn't belong to a favored clan or have the protection of one of the groups of technicals, they'd steal everything you had, and kill you without hesitation if you had anything to say. So the "normal" folk pretty much left, and those there were fighters, their families, and their allied clans.

When weapons did get picked up from casualties, it was a consistent part of Somali warrior style - a man would use his wives and kids as human sandbags, and if he got popped, one of them would assume the firing position. Same thing with multiple fighters - if you were low on ammo, rather than change clips, just grab up another weapon if more convenient - but the Somalis did a very efficient job of policing the field and recovering usable weapons, so it wasn't ad hoc fun and games by untrained locals.

In terms of combat experience, fearlessness, aggression, willingness to incur casualties to inflict casualties, and willingness to move under fire to get superior firing positions, the skinnies are fifty times the fighters compared to the Iraqi conscript army. The IRG is a more disciplined nut to crack, but even then, their conventional training doesn't suit them for determined, aggressive defense in urban terrain - they're pretty dependent on top down C&C, and if you look at what happened with Medina and Hammurabi the first time around, put massive pressure on them, and they squeal like *****es in short order.

The skinnies just back off, circle around, and try to hit you back from somewhere else - the sort of individual and small unit initiative that the Iraqis will only very rarely display, because they're conscripts with very limited rote training, they're not warriors.


For an example of aggression and willingness to incur casualties, at intersections, the skinnies would fire from all sides of all four streets at American vehicles, even though by definition, their own fighters were downrange. They just figured that they'd get more firepower on target more quickly from more angles, and they were stoked on khat, so screw any sense of caution or any concern about tactical deployment - just get in, and get it on. That sort of approach is far more effective for urban combat with low rent expendible forces than anything the Iraqis do.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Ramo
Do you know what you want to major in?

Probably aerospace engineering, but maybe electrical engineering or physics.

[Ramo]

Interesting. I'm actually in physics myself (and math).

[Kramerman]

Sorry, but it ain't so. Khat is a moderate stimulent which heightens aggression and happens to reduce fear, sensation of pain, and fatigue - all nice things to have for expendible urban fighters.

IIRC, this is true. but from what remember I read somethn that said that around noon time they started coming down off the ruch into a very drowsy and depressed state of slower reaction times and stuff. Regardless, being more agressive and having a reductioin of fear only made them extremely reckless, as illustrated by the somali fighters who would pop out from an alley way, comletely exposing himself, fire off very poorly aimed bursts, and then get taken down by the US soldiers....

The bit about locals picking up weapons from the man that dropped is a bunch of crap, as well - Kalashnikovs could be bought for the equivalent of $20 US, almost everybody (at least the teen males on up) had access to weaponry in the areas where the fight occured (along Hawalwadig down to K4 was all badass Indian country - very few "normal" residents there at all, because if you didn't belong to a favored clan or have the protection of one of the groups of technicals, they'd steal everything you had, and kill you without hesitation if you had anything to say. So the "normal" folk pretty much left, and those there were fighters, their families, and their allied clans.

Yes most everyone could easily obtain AKs, this is not disputed. However, men did pick up weapons to use to fight the americans, and women and children picked them up as well in order to collect them adn redistribute them (as well as ammo). This is not crap at all, unles you are saying Mark Bowden is full of crap.

When weapons did get picked up from casualties, it was a consistent part of Somali warrior style - a man would use his wives and kids as human sandbags, and if he got popped, one of them would assume the firing position. Same thing with multiple fighters - if you were low on ammo, rather than change clips, just grab up another weapon if more convenient - but the Somalis did a very efficient job of policing the field and recovering usable weapons, so it wasn't ad hoc fun and games by untrained locals.

First part is very sad and true. The second part is very disputable. The only 'efficient' fighters were the trained militiamen (they were the ones trained by Al Quieda to take down helicopters using RPGs). The rest were just people who had little idea of what they were doing. They used very rudimentary tactics at best, if not adverse tactics.

In terms of combat experience, fearlessness, aggression, willingness to incur casualties to inflict casualties, and willingness to move under fire to get superior firing positions, the skinnies are fifty times the fighters compared to the Iraqi conscript army. The IRG is a more disciplined nut to crack, but even then, their conventional training doesn't suit them for determined, aggressive defense in urban terrain - they're pretty dependent on top down C&C, and if you look at what happened with Medina and Hammurabi the first time around, put massive pressure on them, and they squeal like *****es in short order.

hmm... i think this is why we differ. You see better fighters as those willing to take hits in order to inflict them. I dont entirely agree. The iraqi conscripts, if able to be kept to fight for saddam in urban combat, would be much more organized than the mob that the US forces encountered in Somalia, and therefore more likely to be able to inflict damage on us without taking a rediculous amount against themselves, like the Somali fighters did.

Kman

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Agathon


This is just plain wrong. Most people I know felt sorry for the victims at the WTC and their families. Most op-eds were the same.

Most of the op-eds I read were along the lines of "why are you surprised?" and "don't you understand why they hate you?" this is different from saying that it was justified. From what I've seen most Americans just don't understand why their country is so unpopular (breaking treaties, riding roughshod over others, etc.).

Which treaties have we broken?

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Agathon
Oooohhhh, I'm so intimidated by your great intellect and sharp grasp of logic - not.

May I ask what you're talking about? I was reacting to your one-dimensional stereotyping of me — wait, I suppose I wasn't supposed to get angry with stuff like this:

"But I guess you just think a towel head is a towel head, right?"

So therefore I must not be smart, in your book because, God forbid, I got upset with your gross mischaracterization of my worldview, huh? I bet that a majority of people, regardless of their intelligence level, would react rather negatively to such one-liners as the one you posted about me above.

And I did respond in a civil fashion to your points *preceding* your one-liner regarding my world view. You, OTOH, have yet to address my points, other than to write *another* short snarky post (the one in the quote box above).

Well it is possible that you might pull your head out of your backside - but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

There you go again with the insults. That's two for two now in this thread alone.

And to quote William Blake, who might well have met Gatekeeper in one of his many visions:

"listen to the fool's reproach, it is a kingly title."

Anyway, you obviously didn't bother to read the article I linked to, which is what I consider to be a serious response to the question of deterrence.

Stand on your own two feet when making arguments, instead of relying on a link and someone else's eloquent words to stand in your place. I have more respect for a person who may argue ineffectively (or effectively) in the end using their own words and thoughts than for a person who merely links to something else or quotes something all the time and rarely adds anything else of substance to the argument.

Gatekeeper