Guerrillas' strategy becomes clear: Isolate the U.S.

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=716&e=23&u=/usatoday/20031113/ts_usatoday/11950641

The attack on Italian forces Wednesday in southern Iraq is part of a guerrilla strategy to isolate the United States as it attempts to win international support for rebuilding the country, military analysts say. snip

"What we see is increasing evidence that we are facing an enemy that has a strategy," says Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a former Army colonel. "This is careful planning of the thoughtful, logical use of violence in order to achieve the enemy's objective." snip

"The center of gravity in this war is not the (U.S.) military force, to defeat it, but rather the people of Iraq and the people of the United States," says Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "There is no way the Iraqi insurgents can physically force the U.S. military to leave. What they've got to do is convince the American people it is not worth it to sustain the military presence." snip

The resistance started out small and ineffective after Baghdad fell April 9. Small groups attacked U.S. soldiers with rifles and grenades. Usually, the attackers were killed. Pentagon officials initially described the attacks as doomed efforts of "dead-enders" from the former regime.

more

[saigon68]

1. Its IRAQ-NAM

Its a political war to expell the invader and throw him out. History is repleat with this theme.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Minstrel Boy]

4. "want to destabilize Iraq for their own selfish ends"

Sounds to me like Cheney and Wolfowitz.

The bastards killing your boys sit in the White House. Doncha think?

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[NNN0LHI]

6. I can't figure out why the Iraqis...

...just won't let us steal all of their oil in peace. They know we are going to get it. Why don't they just get over it?

Don

[underpants]

9. You mean like "lay back in enjoy it"

Yeah about like that.

[underpants]

8. Well when the vault doors are opened lots of people will rush in

That is what this is just one big heist. W&Co. don't want to share the riches by letting more hands get in the moneybag that is why they won't let the UN have any power there. Hell the Brits aren't really getting a cut either. The French, German, and Russians weren't against this on some altruistic argument they wanted to at least maintain their action there if not increase it. Now they are frozen out.

I hate that American boys/girls are dying there too that was one of my main reasons for being against this war. The insurgents coming in was expressed often as an almost unavoidable event should we attack.

Welcome to DU :hi:

[Bridget Burke]

10. "Remnant Thugs" & "Imported Terrorists"

Are being joined by recruits from the Iraqi people. Our own government's actions have energized the recruitment effort considerably.

How can they "destablize" Iraq? The bombing & invasion hardly created a stable setting. The goal of the occupation has been to sieze Iraqi assets, not to help the country.

[EdGy]

11. I'm enraged at Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld too!!!

It is absolutely maddening that these extremists are willing to sacrifice the lives of our brothers and sisters and moms and dads and sons and daughters and friends for their own narrow selfish political goals!

I agree reredos, this crew in the White House will and should roast in hell!

[underpants]

3. ABC reported last night that the Iraqis are thinking they can flat out win

That was in their report on the leaked CIA memo. Not only do the rebels/"terrorists" think that but apparently many Iraqi civilians are starting to think that and may start joining forces amongst themselves or with already organized groups. Scary.

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

[Dhalgren]

7. How utterly stupid

the US is. Do these high-ranking generals and what-not have any honor? Are they not obligated to speak up when something this stupid is proposed? This is just making me sicker and sicker. There is no light at the end of this tunnel, because it isn't a tunnel, it is a grave.

[Gin]

12. Bush started this Isolation strategy....now it's being used against us...

His karma is catching us all in the net. Stand by for a rougher ride!

[bpilgrim]

13. i think they mean the neo-CON strategy

it is ALWAYS the enemy strategy to isolate you when at war, hello... the neo-CONS just make it all the easier.

The New York Times ' London correspondent Warren Hoge told Reuters: "America is now something of a rogue state, a pariah nation."

"People repeatedly say it isn't Americans we don't like, it is just Bush. He pushes hot buttons. Bush has so much to do with this rather stupendous fall-off in American popularity. It is quite amazing to think where we were the day after September 11 and how much of that goodwill has been squandered."

more...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/24by7panews/page.cfm?objectid=13619710&method=full&siteid=50143

peace

[0007]

17. The Seven Samurai won with their strategy......

And it appears when one is out numbered, this may be one of the best tactic to use.

[pfitz59]

14. Defeat in detail.....

Oldest strategy in warfare.

[leftchick]

16. a great example of just how old the strategy.....

from the article:

<The insurgents are attempting to use classic guerrilla tactics designed to give advantage to a force that is outnumbered and outgunned.


These tactics were first developed in the sixth century B.C. by Chinese general Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Sun Tzu wrote, "If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.">

........ The arrogant arses in this misadministration continue to igonre history and chimpass* never learned it!

[SOS]

15. Milt Bearden

wrote recently that the Iraqi resistance in using the same plan as the Afghans used against the USSR in the 1980s.
Bearden cites Sun Tzu's Art of War as the template.
First attack the US strategy then attack the alliances.
This book was written 2,500 years ago, but it is safe to assume that Shrub has never heard of it.

[Zero Gravitas]

21. von Rumsfeld

Maybe von Rumsfeld can read it and write up a half page summary that Condi or Unka Dick can read to the Monkey-King.

[markses]

18. Just when you think the guerilla's strategy is clear

They change it. That's the nature of guerilla warfare, after all...

[AP]

19. Why are they targetting Italy, Red Cross and UN before they target UK?

They seem to be leaving the UK alone. Is this temporary?

Before the war SH gave a speech in which he said, "Tony Blair, you are my last hope."

[Spentastic]

22. What?

Apart from killing our military police etc?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

24. Doesn't sound like you've been keeping up. UK troops are being...

...sniped at nearly every day.

[Zero Gravitas]

20. Same Strategy as the US

The * Regime appears to be bending over backward to achieve the same goal!

[9215]

23. Ho Chi Minh and Saddam Hussein

As US forces toppled the Iraqi regime Saddam was given a copy of Ho Chi Minh's treatise on fighting imperialism.

It appears it has been put to good use.

[MetaTrope]

25. "Isolate the U.S."? Sets the bar pretty low, doesn't it?

:nopity:

[9215]

26. Sun Tsu's "Art of War" (revised edition)

One thing Sun Tsu could not have foreseen was an era of global communication where images of war are flashed immediately around the world. He would have quickly integrated this element into his theories on psychological war. Ho Chi Minh incorporated the international Public Relations element into his strategy as the resistance in Iraq is now doing. The images of coalition forces being attacked and then running is a very powerful message irregardless of the substance of the military accomplishment.

Last night on Nightline it was pointed out that as the US forces toppled Saddam he was handed a copy of Ho Chi Minh's treatise on fighting imperialism.

The same medium that the Bush shitbrains use to convey a message of "everything is OK" can be reversed on them by the enemy to show that "things are bad" even though they may not be from a strictly military standpoint. The public, or more precisely the public with an attention span greater than that of a knat's, remembers that it was suppose to be a "cakewalk". With allies being slaughtered then pulling out the differance between what the public was sold and what is actually happening grows.