Day One of "The Surge" 25 Dead US Soldiers...

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
It's not hard to figure out why so many bomb victims.
If you blow up an unsusprcting group of students outside their school, or a group of people leaving worship, dirty deed done. Mission accomplished.

But Mobius raves on.

Come on, Sloww. I hate and despise MOBIUS with every fiber of my being just as much as the next guy, but I don't let it affect my judgment of these events.

Violence in Iraq is getting worse. The problem is not being solved. This is noteworthy. You can only legitimately rationalize more and more deaths for so long.

[Pekka]

Yeah, it's not impossible, or unusual today. I still think death tolls like this requires skill, it is definitely not easy to kill so many people with one bomb. And they seem to be doing it outdoors at times too, so it's difficult to kill many people outside with a bomb. Nasty business. Nasty folks too.

I mean, they're killing their own people, that's the bottom line. I understand the logic behind scaring locals to gain control of the areas and have intel, but well, this is mostly just killing as much people as possible, not gathering intel or making it difficult for the enemy to have support. I bet they just want to kill them, period. Maybe they aren't radical enough, so they are fair game.

[Arrian]

I doubt the surge is going to work. We're still going to be below the # of troops theoretically required to secure the country, and furthermore it's just a bit late in coming.

I hope I'm wrong.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DanS
I'd love to see the Mehdi Army rolled up once and for all.

The Mehdi Army is a lot like the VC. They will be just as hard to root out as the VC.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
But then we'd all wonder what happened to MOBIUS.

Shouldn't you be wondering that now? You may judge Mobius to be gloating over those casualties based upon past perceptions but by all appearances in this thread he is not.

[DinoDoc]

Why should I view this thread in a vacuum rather than in the context of his entire history?

[DanS]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The Mehdi Army is a lot like the VC. They will be just as hard to root out as the VC.

Reading the tea leaves, it looks like the 5 Karbala deaths may be Mehdi Army assassinations of our officers as payback for our recent activities against them.

I can't imagine that we would allow this to go on indefinitely. As far as I know, our intelligence against them is still much better than clueless.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/21/AR2007012100227.html

[Lorizael]

Maybe the ****head had a change of heart.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by DanS
As far as I know, our intelligence against them is still much better than clueless.

Always good to have better than clueless intelligence

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Arrian
I doubt the surge is going to work. We're still going to be below the # of troops theoretically required to secure the country, and furthermore it's just a bit late in coming.

Exactly. The whole thrust of this surge is that it is a series of half-arsed compromises with regards to troop numbers, duration, objectives etc.

The only difference I see in this new 'magic bullet', is the idea that once they've cleared an area of insurgents, they are going to maintain a military presence - what ****ing genius came up with that amazingly brilliant idea after over three years of the obvious staring them in the face!!?

The problem is that it is too late, and while it may begin to show initial success as insurgents retreat to unoccupied sectors, they will run out of troops to hold their gains - because the amount being used is far too few!

Also there is the not insignificant aspect of bringing the Mahdi army to heel, just as Sadr has realigned himself with the Iraqi government...

These guys live here, they can wait it out till the surge is over and then go back to their business of waging their agenda of the Shi'itisation of Baghdad...

If the US isn't careful and really tries to crack down on the death squads I think they risk getting caught in the middle and uniting both the Shia and Sunnis against them, as it was on the verge of becoming the last time the US tried something like this in Falluja.

Otherwise the best the Americans can hope for is appearing to be doing something and hope that the various factions lay low while the surge is in effect with a commensurate reduction in violence against civilians.

Either way, nothing is going to stop the ultimate failure of Bush's disastrous policy in Iraq which will be a national government firmly in the back pocket of Teheran once coalition forces finally leave the country...

And that is what totally beggars belief: Imagine suffering tens of thousands killed and wounded, spending hundreds of billions of dollars - and all the while you are strengthening the hand of an enemy supposedly hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons AND professing to wanting to wipe out Israel...

[Elok]

"Firmly in the back pocket of Tehran," eh? If by that you mean "a total scrambled mess," then I agree. The Sunnis aren't so insignificant that they'll give up without overwhelming force against them, which Maliki can't project effectively when his regime is enforced by a patchwork of militias answering to petty warlords instead of him. The neighboring countries are mostly Sunni, except for Iran, and will likely funnel clandestine aid at the very least. And the Kurds aren't going to stay aligned with the resulting pile of crap for long, which means trouble with Turkey.

Even in the extremely unlikely event that Maliki (or someone else) takes control with no problems, it's still going to take several years to fix the mess we made--and it won't be cheap, either.

[Zkribbler]

Over the weekend, one of the talking heads made an interesting observation. He said that, while the neighboring countries (e.g. Iran and Syria) don't want to see the U.S. win, they also don't want to see us lose either. None of the neighbors wants chaos.

[Ramo]

The Mehdi Army is a lot like the VC. They will be just as hard to root out as the VC.

Yep. It's a social force, rather than a mere militia. That's why it was able to reconstitute itself after dissolving in the fall of 2004. And of course, that's one of the problems with the idea of a temporary surge.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
I'd love to see the Mehdi Army rolled up once and for all.

Yes, but they aren't the ones attacking our soldiers. They're just death squads massacring anyone who isn't Shi'ite.

[Zkribbler]

Al-Qaida's No. 2 Mocks Surge Strategy

CAIRO, Egypt -- Al-Qaida's deputy leader mocked President George W. Bush's plan to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq, challenging him to send "the entire army" and vowing insurgents will defeat them, according to a new videotape released Monday by a U.S. group that tracks al-Qaida messages.

The Washington-based SITE Institute said it had intercepted the video from Ayman al-Zawahri, which had not yet been posted on Islamic militant Web sites, where his messages are usually posted. SITE, which stands for Search for International Terrorist Entities, did not elaborate on how it received the message.

The speech included English-subtitles and called on Muslims to fight in theaters of war including Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, Somalia, and Algeria.

"So send your entire army to be annihilated at the hands of the mujahideen (holy warriors) to free the world from your evil because Iraq, land of the Caliphate and Jihad, is able to bury 10 armies like yours, with Allah's help and power," he said.

The video showed al-Zawahri in a full gray beard and wearing a white turban, in front of a black backdrop.

The message was the first reaction from al-Qaida's leadership to the new Iraq strategy. The U.S. has said the extra troops aim to crack down on al-Qaida fighters and other Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq, as well as Shiite militiamen blamed in the country's spiraling sectarian violence.

I think this is Arabic for: "Bring it on!"