Iraq is a bloody no man's land. America has failed to win the war. But has

[UpInArms]

Iraq is a bloody no man's land. America has failed to win the war. But has it lost it?

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=638525&host=3&dir=75

excerpt:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the leader of one of the Kurdish parties, confidently told a meeting in Brasilia last week that there is war in only three or four out of 18 Iraqi provinces. Back in Baghdad Mr Talabani, an experienced guerrilla leader, has deployed no fewer than 3,000 Kurdish soldiers or peshmerga around his residence in case of attack. One visitor was amused to hear the newly elected President interrupt his own relentlessly upbeat account of government achievements to snap orders to his aides on the correct positioning of troops and heavy weapons around his house.

There is no doubt that the US has failed to win the war. Much of Iraq is a bloody no man's land. The army has not been able to secure the short highway to the airport, though it is the most important road in the country, linking the US civil headquarters in the Green Zone with its military HQ at Camp Victory.

<snip>

The US army was designed to fight a high-technology blitzkrieg, but not much else. It required large quantities of supplies and its supply lines were vulnerable to roadside bombs. Combat engineers, essentially sappers, lamented that they had received absolutely no training in doing this. Even conventional mine detectors did not work. Roadsides in Iraq are full of metal because Iraqi drivers normally dispose of soft drink cans out the window. Sappers were reduced to prodding the soil nervously with titanium rods like wizards' wands. Because of poor intelligence and excessive firepower, American operations all became exercises in collective punishment. At first the US did not realise that all Iraqi men have guns and they considered possession of a weapon a sign of hostile intention towards the occupation. They confiscated as suspicious large quantities of cash in farmers' houses, not realising that Iraqis often keep the family fortune at home in $100 bills ever since Saddam Hussein closed the banks before the Gulf war and, when they reopened, Iraqi dinar deposits were almost worthless.

The US army was also too thin on the ground. It has 145,000 men in Iraq, but reportedly only half of these are combat troops. During the heavily publicised assault on Fallujah the US forces drained the rest of Iraq of its soldiers. "We discovered the US troops had suddenly abandoned the main road between Kirkuk and Baghdad without telling anybody," said one indignant observer. "It promptly fell under the control of the insurgents."

...more...

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. Good article...

...which probably belongs in editorials rather than LBN.

[NNN0LHI]

13. A report from the front line belongs in editorials? Why would that be?

It read like a news story to me.

Don

[GoBlue]

2. The success of this catastrophe...

never ceases to amaze the cynic in me.

[hadrons]

3. "US did not realise that all Iraqi men have guns ...."

but the NRA says this is a good thing

[teryang]

4. We're losing the war

"There is no doubt that the US has failed to win the war."

It's goes further than that. Much further. We are incapable of winning.

[Disturbed]

5. It doesn't matter.

BushCo Iraq Successes

Saddam will no longer sell Iraqi oil via the Euro.

A military foothold in the ME.

No countries will be able to buy Iraqi oil that the U.S. disapproves of.

[Frederik]

7. A catastrophic success

Israel's biggest foe is removed too. Now if they can bomb Iran to smithereens then the mission will truly be accomplished.

[teryang]

27. The net cost of empire far exceeds the profits for the ruling class

...at some point, peter is going to stop lending money to pay paul. Manipulation of the financial markets is being used extensively in NY, to disguise the phoney valuations assigned to commodities which in turn disguise the the terminal condition of the dollar.

Is the cost of living going down? I hadn't noticed. I keep having to take more and more challenging positions just to earn half the money I earned fifteen years ago. Everyone in these increasingly challenging positions notes that 2-3x the productivity is demanded for the same wages.

Then the bean counters come and say you must be working 8:00 to 4:30 and don't be late. Many of the employed work all freaking nite without sleep to meet a deadline. The nominal hours are a joke. They aren't working a 40 hour week, they are working 60 plus hours. I regularly work on Sundays. I work till midnight before major efforts and then get up at 5:00 am to add finishing touches before breakfast.

I am currently watching the nine to fivers panic and fall apart as they don't really understand why the productivity thing makes their job impossible and choose to ignore it. There is a wisdom there of sorts but it is a losing wisdom, as those who ignore the productivity crisis will go the way of the dinosaur economically. Those who try to meet productivity demands will have shortened lives. Pick your poison.

[Gman]

6. One big cluster phuck

that's all it has been.

[wildwww2]

8. It`s a war crime not a war. And we lost it. Before usurper boy even

started it. Although filthy rich people like Bu$h and his ilk win. Even if the rest of the country lose their asses over his stupidity. So it is a win-win situation for them. Hell they own the media. And the media is only geared to blame Bill Clinton and what lies behind his fly. It is as simple as that.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

[Skypilot 18]

9. It's a fact

The war is a sham. We were lied to and the lap dog MSM went along with it to sell advertising space. Bush is a criminal and this is coming from a guy that didn't mind Nixon that much. Compared to Nixon, Bushit is a choir boy.

Lets sap away at his powers in 2006. PLEASE !

[dbt]

10. Welcome to DU, Skypilot 18!

Everyone please note the source of the original post. Once again, the Truth about Murka comes from overseas.

[newyawker99]

22. Hi Skypilot 18!!

welcome to DU!! :toast:

[roscoeroscoe]

11. from where i stand here in tikrit...

... iraq is a bloody mess, the war was a mistake, conduct of the occupation was poorly planned and mismanaged, it's a huge war-profiteer boondoggle... etc... agreed.
but, ya know, don't go too far. iraq is a bloody mess but believe me it's become remarkably clear to iraqis that it's not the u.s. killing them, it's the insurgents...
don't bet the house on the insurgents 'winning' this thing. the situation is fluid and there are smart people involved in the military side of operation iraqi freedom III. we're picking off insurgent leaders, bombers, etc. there is no love for the insurgents in the general population. a lot of the notes quoted here are really reaching back to oif I (two years ago) to try to make a point and bring it up to the present.
i drove through town a last week and the streets were full of people going about their business.
the insurgents can't win by attacking the iraqi people. killing crowds of people with bombs is lame.
and it's interesting to note these comments about the us not 'controlling the roads.' listen, the goal here is to prevent loss of american life and get the mission done and go home. so the force protection plan is very good. we're not out on the road, 'controlling the road,' because that's not the mission.
please don't go hog wild for this kind of we're losing the war stuff. keep a cool head here. don't romantacize the insurgents.
thank you,

[NNN0LHI]

14. I don't see anyone romanticizing anything so why do you say that?

The war is over roscoeroscoe. And we did not win. You just have not figured that out yet. The only question open to debate is how many names will be on the Iraq War Memorial in DC some day.

Don

[Bridget Burke]

15. Yeah, we're winning hearts & minds....

Where's that light at the end of the tunnel?

If you're in Tikrit, why does your profile say "El Paso"?

[Ezlivin]

16. Who's killing who?

If the so-called insurgents set off an IED and there is "collateral damage" and then the Americans have a bombing run or raid and there is "collateral damage", which is worse?

The insurgents have killed nowhere near as many innocent civilians as the Americans.

Riddle me this: If you were an Iraqi and Americans were killing hundreds of innocent civilians in their attempt to "make your country better" and you knew an insurgent who had accidentally killed a handful of civilians in an attempt to get rid of an occupying force, who would you likely side with?

[jayfish]

17. " goal here is to prevent loss of american life and get the mission done"

Ahhh.. sorry Charlie. As the occupying power, which make no mistake we are, it is our obligation to provide for the security of Iraq. That includes the roads. Maybe if we weren't so worried about saving our own asses we wouldn't need to worry about saving our assess so much. And BTW your safety and personal timetable for returning to America (if your even in Iraq) has not a thing to do with whether we are winning or losing the war.

Jay

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. The majority of the suicide bombs

and other attacks have been directed at US and Iraqi forces. There is little evidence that the resistance is targeting civilians. Besides US forces are targeting civilians in the name of force protection, so what's the difference?

The biggest problem for us is that there are 25 million of them and about 150,000 of us. Just like in Vietnam, there is an endless supply of people who are willing to die for their country.

Besides what most Americans don't realize is that Bush & CO don't want to win. They don't give a shit about you or anyone else. You are just another item in their inventory to feed into their death and destruction machine.

Good luck, I hope you survive. You sound like a decent person.

[bemildred]

20. And we do hope you get home safe.

And it's not that we disapprove of "force protection", we just think
you'd be even safer here at home, and so would the Iraqis without you.

[bixente]

24. Maybe I am wrong...

but I find it foolish to blame the insurgents on everything going on in Iraq. All of this chaos has started since the US invaded Iraq.

[Frederik]

25. Iraq is occupied by the United States and Britain

and their minions. It is their duty to secure the country and provide basic services, which they are failing at.

The United States have killed many, many more Iraqi citizens than the "insurgents" have, so your claim that the Iraqis "know that it's the insurgents killing them, not the Americans" makes no sense.

Force protection is not good for the thousands of Iraqi civilians who become "collateral damage" to it.

You're welcome, by the way.

[Botany]

12. The #s are so against us in Iraq it is not even funny.

From an Editorial on the site One Thousand Reasons, called "Dynamics of
Death."

< Iraq has a population of 26 million (CIA Factbook) 20 million of which want to see us dead and or gone. Right now in country we have about 130,000 troops, and of that number not all are combat troops. How in the world will 130,000 troops make 20,000,000 people who see us as invaders and murders do what they want them to do? That does not include the thousands of Islamic fighters who cross the border in order to fight a "holy war" against the "American devils." So not unless our troops behave like the Nazis did in occupied Europe in WW II, we are in a no-win situation. (By the way the Germans maintained some order by shooting 200 people for every German troop killed.) Do you remember what Don Rumsfeld said looking over the top of his glasses and saying in response to a question that dealt with our troop strength in Iraq as the war was starting? "Well, what would you do with all the extra troops?">


This is a nightmare.

[ckramer]

19. The purpose of insurgents, I guess, is to create chaos

pain, suffering, and death so that Iraqis would blame the foreign occupier for all these miseries. They do kill lots of Iraqis, the ones probably they wanted to kill.

The cost of insurgency is cheap comparing to the US military operation there, so in the long run, it's a matter of who can be lasting longer financially.

The Iraqi security force has no legitimacy in the eyes of nationalistic insurgents. And all of them will be killed once the US force's support is gone.

It's another Vietnam, imo.

[Az_lefty]

21. We won the battle for Baghdad but lost the War...

or are at least in the process of losing the War. I'm still just
amazed at how the idiot chimp and his advisor's could screw this up so badly.
:hide:

[tabasco]

28. Look at it as an oil grab and everything starts making sense.

The multinational corporations, led by GW Bush, invaded Iraq to secure profitable oil contracts and other lucrative contracts paid for by the
US taxpayer.

After creating a nominal excuse for war, it is now the phase of the operation to begin working on profits (of course Halliburton has already scored). The US has now abandoned any effort to establish law and order, and is redeploying troops to secure oil facilities.

The sham elections were an excuse for the US to prematurely transfer responsibility to the Iraqis for law and order. Despite the dictates of international law, we have foregone providing security to the country we invaded and occupied.

We will see a continued breakdown of civil order in the Iraqi cities, but increased security of oil facilities. The administration will allow Iraq to suffer as long as the oil flows.

As a Nation, we must reconize what has happened and be prepared for a fight on our own soil to retake power from the corporatocracy. If our Nation survives, we must punish those responsible for this illegal war in Iraq, and establish measures to prevent war profiteering industries from controlling our country ever again.

[killbotfactory]

23. The lack of preperation in this stupid war is mind boggling

The Bush administration really screwed the pooch

[Hobarticus]

26. Probably 90% of the population lives in those four provinces...

But a happy stat is a happy stat!