New town to learn the name of in IRAQ -- BUHRUZ! Why you ask???

[frankly_fedup2]

Because I just saw on CNN that this town was 40 miles from Fallujah, and "insurgents" have been attacking our troops.

So they go in the front of Fallujah, work their way through. In the meantime, the terrorists move on to the next town, and start killing our troops there.

Are we going to have Deja Vu with Buhruz OR will someone figure out a way to just get our troops home?????

Whoever is planning these operations looks like an idiot. I do not know what General sitting in Florida making these decisions in between his comfortable office and nice home on the beach (probably . . . I'm being really sarcastic), or hers (don't want to be sexist, of course), use some damn common since. It made no point to go into Fallujah like that. Everyone could see it was a stupid approach. Yeah, they are going to run. Innocents are going to be maimed and killed. We are going to lose more of our troops, and you have accomplished what?????????

****(Pulls pillow up to face to scream)*****

[justinsb]

1. The House of Cards

The other thing that must be considered about Iraq is the house of cards it represents. Part of the reason that Bush Sr. didn't go in and part of the reason that other countries didn't think it was a good idea is Iraq's history and geographical significance.

The first thing to consider is it's history, Iraq has essentially been in a constant state of Civil war, to a greater or lesser extent, since the end of colonialism. Sadaam Hussein, though he was doubtless a brutal dictator and murderer, has come closer than anyone else to maintaining domestic peace in the country. (read: the US may be in for a very long haul, possibly a longer battle than Veitnam). Second, it's geography and makeup. The majority of Iraq is shia, and would like to see Iraq closer to and more like Iran, the minority are Sunni, these are the Baathists, and are tied to Syria (also Sunni and Baathist) these people would rather see Iraq back where it was under Hussein, then of course there are the Kurds in the North who would like (and at one point were promised by the UN their own state) both Turkey and the rest of Iraq are violently opposed to such a state.

So, the conflict in Iraq has the potential of turning into a broader conflict which could quickly involve and or all of Iran, Syria and Turkey - should any of these countries become directly involved it would quickly draw in other countries in the region and possibly beyond the immedite region. Thus the house of cards analogy. So, it was not so much that anyone in Europe or the rest of the industrialized world really objected to Hussein going, but because of the house of cards they felt that the situation had to be handled with delicacy and care whereas Bush's approach was more like whacking the base of the house of cards repeatedly with a hammer. It is clearly evident that no one in the Bush Administration did any homework what-so-ever about Iraqs history or internal politics.

It seems to me that the administration in it's 'leadership' has firmly and resolutely ignored all the warnings and placed the foot of U.S. on a landmine - a position from which there is no victory, only degrees of loss. If the US pulls out, it could trigger a broader regional war in the middle east, southern Europe and possibly beyond. If the US stays, it could be degades before any real stability returns.

[skylarmae]

2. We better figure out how to stop crying over this war. Fifty how many

percent of the fucking country voted georgie porgie for FOUR MORE YEARS. Nothing to do now but watch it all happen. Unless, of course, the real generals pull a coup, but then what? They asked for it and the weak among us let this horror come to be. Nothing to do now but wait until they call us to come pick the pieces.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. The US will tire of this soon enough and let it go and forget

about these cities. Their real goal is to steal the oil, and since the election is over they will drop the "democracy" pretense and simply circle the wagons around the oil fields.

[RunningFromCongress]

4. Same tactics every successful guerilla force has used in the past.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

6. Even tougher in Iraq

The VC and NVA forces in Vietnam had the benefit of a cornucopia of supplies and training from an openly supportive Soviet Union (and China to a lesser extent). The astonishing thing about the Iraqi guerrillas is that they have no powerful nation-state backing them up, nor even a unified political-military support unit like the North Vietnamese government and army-- just a loose rabble of insurgent fighters who stay out of contact but are somehow able to think with an ant-like sense of tacit comprehension. Plus they did their homework, stashing countless numbers of RPG's, AK-47's, plastic explosives (C-4, Semtex, RDX, and HMX), anti-aircraft missiles, and mortar tubes and shells throughout the countryside-- Saddam himself was apparently an instigator of this.

And this doesn't even include the river of new weapons that are flowing across the borders (along with fighters) from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey-- impossible for even a strong central government to control a lucrative arms bazaar, and Iraq is now probably the world's best bombmaking school and weapons black market. The Iraqi roadside bombs and car bombs are truly a battlefield innovation in the way they've been so effectively used. I have some trepidation that the Iraq campaign, 20 years later, is going to be taught as the quintessentially unbeatable guerrilla war, with of course us on the short end of the stick in this case. The price of faulty assumptions and poor planning by our POTUS and his neocon lackeys.

[Nicholas_J]

5. Of course

The insurgents are not going to have a "center" anywhere THey are simply going to run a campaign of attrition, forcing the U.S. to engage in a literal scorched earth policy in Iraq. They are all over Iraq in large quantities, probably far larger than any of the small numbers that the U.S. government is giving, and on top of this, they probably have the tacit support of a large percentage of the population as well with a good percentage of insiders in the Irari forces being trained by the U.S The last figure given by the U.S. government was that they thought there were a litle over 13,000 insurgents in Iraq, but with the discovery that most ofd the fighters in Fallujah not being foreigners, but Iraqi's this number probably must be revised upwards., probably an insuirgency around 150,000 or more. They seem to be in every city, and given the fact that the U.S. has cleimed to have kille around 2,500 of them each month, we would have killed all of the insurgents in a few months, l;eaving few if any to recruit new insurgents. This is sort of becoming a sandy vietman, and the warfare urban rather than in the jungle. At the current rate of deaths amomg American troops, we can expect to see the 2000 point reached by the inauguration. The monthly rate of dealth among American troops has reached nearly 1300, from the 1000 figure reached just a few months ago. It took 18 months to go from 0 to 1000, and just 4 months to go from 1000 to 1300. Bad sign.