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War in The Middle East

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  • Re: War in The Middle East

    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    First you claim you never said it, and now you make claims about me saying things which I have not! I never blamed the media for anything related to Fallujah. I always said it was policy and political pressures and decisions. When the Blackwater agents were killed, decisions were made that things in Fallujah had been allowed to go on for far too long and that something had to be done. The USMC planned to carry out small incursions to specifically target the people responsible based on intelligence they had been gathering. Washington decided that this was not the best way to deal with the problem, that the whole event with the private contractors was far too similar to what happened in Somalia and that the American response had to be strong and decisive, a show of force. A PR move, of sorts. The USMC's plan was too "soft" to fulfill these needs, it was claimed.
    The siege was started and then the subsequent "First battle of Fallujah" began. This was then called off because of pressure from the Iraqi interim government and calls to try a different approach, for example using Iraqi troops (the "Fallujah Brigade"). I believe the fact that the level of destruction inflicted on the city nullified and overshadowed the aim and goal of the operation that Washington wanted to achieve.
    The cease-fire and pull out of Fallujah as well as the use of the Fallujah Brigade proved to be yet another poor decision and ultimately a failure. Then came Operation Phantom Fury which as I have stated countless times put an end to the insurgency's reign over Fallujah.
    While you are correct in that the attack and siege on Fallujah was a failure and a bad decision as it did nothing, but only incurred more losses, you have attributed the entire result to a matter of policy and politics as opposed to battlefield tactics, in which you have underestimated, and in fact dimissed the role that the insurgency played in it. That is why I have claimed that the result of the U.S. taking and relinquishing of Fallujah is not policy, but the inherent conflict and nature of 4GW. By leveling the city and destroying everything, is not exactly defeating the insurgents. You do not root out the problem, but only sweep it under the rug:

    Fallujah: City Without a Future?

    By Michael Schwartz

    In November, after three weeks of "precision" bombing, 10,000 American soldiers and 2,000 Iraqi national guards marched into Fallujah. They had five goals:

    First and foremost, free Fallujah from the grip of the insurgents and allow its citizens to participate in the January 30 elections;

    Second, kill or capture the guerrilla leadership in its "safe haven," particularly Abdul Musab al-Zarqawi, the accused mastermind of the resistance;

    Third, "so damage the insurgency" that it would be reduced to "containable levels through 2005";

    Fourth, teach Fallujans (and the rest of Iraq) that "harboring" the mujaheddin resistance would provoke the full force of the American military. (On this point, an anonymous Pentagon official told New York Times reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt: "If there are civilians dying in connection with these attacks, and with the destruction, the locals at some point have to make a decision. Do they want to harbor the insurgents and suffer the consequences that come with that, or do they want to get rid of the insurgents and have the benefits of not having them there?");

    Fifth, rebuild Fallujah, now cleared of guerrillas, as a showcase for the rest of the country to admire and emulate. (As Colonel John R. Ballard, a military planner, told the New York Times "The best place to bring a model town into place is Fallujah.'')

    Did the attack on Fallujah accomplish these ambitious goals?
    You can read the rest here:
    The other day I posted a Dahr Jamail piece entitled, Iraq: The Devastation, but another word has recently come to mind that, I suspect, might apply no less aptly to Iraq and other areas where the Bush administration is exerting its muscle. That word is “desolation.” Let’s forget for a minute the recent Newsweek report that the Pentagon is considering funding 1980s El Salvador-style “death squads” in Iraq, an article which caused enough of a stir to be addressed both by the Secretary of Defense (“somebody has been reading too many spy novels and went off in flights of fancy, … Continue reading →



    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    If what we believe to be a fact concerning something that is happening right now is simply based on faith, how then can anything throughout history not be the same also?
    History is written by the victor, after all.
    It's good and interesting for you to argue with me about history since I actually studied it as it is intellectual stimulating, but by the above you yourself have only confirmed by my point: "History is written by the victors". If that is not an admission of interpretation and of officialdom transmitting and handing down the facts, then I don't know what is.


    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    If the reported end result, that Fallujah was indeed successfully cleansed of it's insurgent population, was untrue the city would still be an insurgent stronghold. Who reported the facts concerning almost every other battle ever faught? A committee set up between the victor and the defeated so as to come to a fair conclusion about the event?
    Read the article that I linked above. The city is a desolate waste completely destroyed as it was brought down to rubble by the Americans. Who reports are those who are there, the army. Those one or two journalists daring enough to do so, are usually well behind the lines, and even they only report what they are told by the army staff.


    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    But America did suffer heavy casualties while trying to penetrate the city of Fallujah, during both operations. The Iraqi army did mutiny, desert and flee.
    Heavy and low is a matter of perceptions, whether attributing it to your side or the enemies. Throughout war, numbers are always distorted, inflated, deflated, manipulated, misrepresented, although rarely indirectly, but mostly directly.


    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    I am speaking in material terms and manpower terms. I think things are clear when you look at it from this perspective as to who is winning the war of attrition and who is suffering. You can taunt the enemy and chip away psychologically at them through continued IED attacks but it still does not change the fact that you are still taking blow after blow.
    You seem to miss the point entirely, and this is where I believe your unfamiliarity with military history comes into play. How many wars can you name where occupiers who tried to subdue host populations were successful? How many can you name in which the efforts to impose domination were eventually thwarted?

    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    "Insurgents/guerrillas/terrorists do not face conventional armies head on, but wear them down through time through limited engagements."

    This is something you said previously. Every time they carry out one of these limited engagements they are defeated. The damage IEDs are doing cannot outweigh the damage the insurgency is suffering itself.
    Really? And how do you know they are "defeated"? Have you talked to them? The U.S. military would certainly love to believe that the 'insurgency is defeated' everytime they carry out these attacks. The insurgents apparently don't think so since they are still at it, wearing down the U.S. troops.

    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    I would argue that civilian casualties are the result not of frustration but the way enemy constantly and continually disguises itself as and attacks from within the civilian population.
    Welcome to fourth generation warfare, where the enemy so amorphous and able to disappear into the host populations hides itself. Hence why historically state and conventional armies have had poor track records defeating guerrillas and insurgencies because these populations, as in Vietnam and now in Iraq, utilize their surroundings to their advantage. There is no clear line of who is or isn't the enemy as the enemy is not clearly defined to begin with. You are not fighting a state or a state army, you are fighting disorganized, decentralized, horizontal combatants who report not to a government but to an idea.

    By the above, you just highlighted the precise nature of fourth generation warfare, and which is why state armies' eventual frustration leads to the mentality of slaughtering civilians. As in Vietnam, it was similar where they had to "destroy the village in order to save it". Any sane person would see the twisted and idiotic nature of such policy, but that is what happens when you have no clearly defined enemy.


    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    While Saddam was in power things were hardly friendly between the various different groups in Iraq. I won't pretend to know I have the answers or a solution to the problems in Iraq, call it sectarian strife or civil war.
    While things were hardly friendly, can you seriously state that this is supposedly better off? Even the most hardcore neoconservative anti-Baathist anti-Saddamist will surely admit that compared to now, Saddam's regime was heaven.


    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    The two compare in that both armies occupy the country and a friendly government has been put in place by the occupier. Other than that there are many differences.
    Tactics and responses do matter. Even your William S. Lind with his 4GW concept would agree. How can you speak about any generation of warfare and say tactics and responses do not matter when it is these tactics themselves that define much of the concept itself!
    You are once again trying to rely on the arbitrary distinctions you create to advance your argument. In the end, it doesn't matter what you like to believe, or what you think is a matter of distinction, but the facts remain that the Chechens were a non-state army fighting a heavily conventional army and were able to wear down the big centralized state army.

    Your initial qualm was that somehow tactics are different, or the same amount of casualties have not been caused, therefore the two are incomparible. What reason is there to suggest that somehow this is a valid distinction and not anything arbitrary that you made up in order to make a point? The casualties inflicted by the Chechens focused on Russian soldiers, the primary focus of insurgencies in Iraq are civilians. So because the focus is different they are incomparible? You are being to ideological about this particular point. This is what led me to state that because the internal delicacies are different and have always been different as nothing historically is uniform, we are still dealing with the same concept and system of warfare, where we pit a non-state army against a state army. Now, you do not have to like this because to admit to this perhaps makes your point irrelevant, but that is not a point of dispute. By your logic we can always find some marginal differences in every war and use that as a driving wedge to somehow disqualify this and that and every other war as an exception to fourth generation war and pretty soon nothing qualifies. In reality, fourth generation war is not defined, ironically you and state armies and governments are obsessed with definitions and these clearly set and cut rules, which do not exist in fourth generation warfare, other than the fighting shifts from conventional armies to one of a non-state army against that of a state army.



    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    It is the state of mind of people like you, not the army. It's not the coalition forces in Iraq who think they are losing.
    Oh so now we are moving in the chain of the blame game. First you blame the media, then policy and politics, and now me. This sort of childish inanity is so often the pastime of myopic central planners and those who believe in the omnipotence of conventional armies and cannot come to grips that conventional armies are very limited when confronted with the right style of fighting. Everything that has a strength, also has a weakness and history is our guide in this. In boxing and mixed martial arts, there is a concept that is known among fighters of "styles make fights". That is, if you pit certain fighters together, no matter how good they both may be against every other person they have fought, certain styles determine certain fights, i.e. someone who is a trained southpaw fighter will always defeat someone not trained in fighting southpaws. Someone who is a well versed grappler or wrestler can easily defeat a striker if he can take the fight to the ground.

    Originally posted by D3ADSY
    This argument is now getting beyond a waste of time. I have, since my first post, explained and tried to back up every point I have made whilst also accepting that in places I have been either mistaken or unable to rebut, while I have to endure absurd statements that basically tell me I cannot possibly know the truth because I was not present. I have also had to repeat things many times with no proper refuting on your half only to receive a reply to which I have to spell the same things out again. I am also still waiting for you to back up certain claims made pages ago.
    If you think this is a waste of time, then why are you responding? Will you respond again if this is a waste of time? Please practice what you preach. Your childishness and naivity and your blind belief in the unhallowed glory of state armies is about as blind as Steve Wonder's vision.

    All you have done in this discussion is create strawmans and have inserted things in my argument I have not made, you have never made any mention of "what claims" you want me to back up, when it has been you that has engaged in circular reasoning and begging the question, and several times in your own words only proving my point. I can sit here like you and whine and say "Oh I stated many things that have not gotten proper refuting". It sounds this is more about your ego than an actual discussion. When you are mature enough and ready to actually engage in a discussion as opposed to making it more personal as you go along and eventually making me the subject and the reason for the failure of state armies, you can come back and try at a discussion, until then, all your efforts are juvenile at best.
    Achkerov kute.

    Comment


    • Re: War in The Middle East

      Originally posted by D3ADSY
      I'm interested as to how you have come to this conclusion. This is based on some research or you did you just make the figure of "five times the number" up? You can tell me off the top of your head the number of troops there are currently? You can tell me the number of troops Britain had "a long time ago"? That it wasn't actually the use of the RAF and tactics that basically including widespread bombing that the british employed to occupy Iraq?
      Actually this is based on a variety of things, one being the British present in Iraq in the early part of the 20th century when the British encountered the similar situation with an Iraqi insurgency and quelled it in a brutal fashion but with three to four times the amount of American troops. Second, this has been the criticism by many of the retired military generals, who complained of the poor planning such as not having the sufficient amount of troops needed at the beginning. And this excerpt from the U.S. News is illuminating:

      The continued insistence by Pentagon brass that they have the troops they need to restore security and basic infrastructure and services in Iraq has been greeted with more than a bit of skepticism. A Rand report on counterinsurgency strategy posits a formula that 20 troops are needed for every 1,000 people in the general population. In Iraq, that would suggest that a force as large as 500,000 troops could be required to restore security. In an interview with U.S. News , William Perry, the former defense secretary in the Clinton administration, said that while a larger U.S. troop presence could well have deterred the insurgency from ever taking root, "putting more troops in now would create more anti-Americanism." In estimating that some 300,000 American troops would be needed for Iraq at the outset of the war, then Army chief Gen. Eric Shinseki was using the same counterinsurgency formula that the Pentagon had relied on since the end of World War II and that Perry had himself applied in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.
      Achkerov kute.

      Comment


      • Re: War in The Middle East

        We are going around in circles and getting nowhere. Everything we have discussed concerning Fallujah highlights this. I have spent enough time on this point alone, I will not waste any more.

        EDIT: ffs

        Originally posted by Anonymouse
        Actually this is based on a variety of things, one being the British present in Iraq in the early part of the 20th century when the British encountered the similar situation with an Iraqi insurgency and quelled it in a brutal fashion but with three to four times the amount of American troops.
        So the british had around 500,000 men in Iraq?
        Did they not use the RAF to bomb the hell out of the country, with no way near half a million men?
        Last edited by D3ADSY; 07-23-2006, 11:39 PM.

        Comment


        • Re: War in The Middle East

          Originally posted by D3ADSY
          We are going around in circles and getting nowhere. Everything we have discussed concerning Fallujah highlights this. I have spent enough time on this point alone, I will not waste any more.

          EDIT: ffs



          So the british had around 500,000 men in Iraq?
          Did they not use the RAF to bomb the hell out of the country, with no way near half a million men?
          I thought this was a waste of time? You apparently cannot even practice what you breach.
          Achkerov kute.

          Comment


          • Re: War in The Middle East

            You replied while I myself was in the process of replying and therefore I did not see that particular post until later.

            Comment


            • Re: War in The Middle East

              Another IAF Apache has crashed. Officials say it was a malfunction/accident. They seem to be having a lot of malfunctions/accidents!

              Comment


              • Re: War in The Middle East

                Israel faces fierce battles with Hezbolah:

                By KATHY GANNON

                SIDON, Lebanon Jul 23, 2006 (AP)— Mideast diplomats were pressing Syria to stop backing Hezbollah as the guerrillas fired more deadly rockets onto Israel's third-largest city Sunday. Israel faced tougher-than-expected ground battles and bombarded targets in southern Lebanon, hitting a convoy of refugees.

                Israel's defense minister said his country would accept an international force, preferably NATO, on its border after it drives back or weakens Hezbollah. But his troops described the militants they encountered as a smart, well-organized and ruthless guerrilla force whose fighters do not seem afraid to die.

                With Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arriving in Israel on Monday, both the Arabs and Israelis appeared to be trying to set out positions ahead of Washington's first diplomatic mission to the region since the fighting began. The United States backs Israel's refusal to talk about a cease-fire until it completes the military campaign against Hezbollah, but is under increasing pressure to foster a plan to end the growing suffering and destruction in Lebanon.

                .......... read the rest of the article

                Comment


                • Re: War in The Middle East

                  Lebanese national resistance kills an Israeli soldier and destroys 5 tanks in Maroun al-Ras

                  The Lebanese national resistance destroyed on Monday five Israeli tanks on the suburbs of Maroun al-Ras city South Lebanon. In a statement, the national resistance said that it confronted an Israeli ground forces trying to push further into Maroun al-Ras towards Bint Jbail . The statement added that the national resistance destroyed five Israeli tanks and injured or killed a number of Israeli soldiers.

                  Al-Manar TV and al-Nour Radio announced that the Lebanese resistants killed an Israeli soldier and injured 14 others in the attacks near Maroun al-Ras city, South Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Israeli aggression on Lebanon continued for the 13th day. One Lebanese person killed and five others injured in the Israeli shelling on al-Halosiya city in Tyre .

                  Lebanese al-Nour Radio said that Israeli warplanes carried out two air raids on Nabatiya and injured 10 Lebanese persons. The Israeli warplanes shelled an ambulance near Birg Rahal city and injured five peoples. Two Lebanese persons killed and seven others injured in the shelling of Israeli warplanes on al-Ma'liya city in Tyre South Lebanon,.

                  Al-Rashidiya camp for Palestinian refugees is also exposed to Israeli bombardment today dawn. One Palestinain martyred and 6 others injured in the Israeli attack. The Israeli war plane launched air raids on southern Dahiyah Suburb of Beirut targeting Haret Hureik area.

                  Link: http://www.sana.org/eng/22/2006/07/24/50604.htm

                  Israel advances as Rice arrives in Beirut

                  Monday 24 July 2006, 16:05 Makka Time, 13:05 GMT

                  The Israeli army has pushed deeper into Lebanon towards the town of Bint Jbail as Condoleezza Rice arrives in Beirut to meet Lebanese leaders.

                  Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in fierce fighting near the village and at least 17 others have been injured, Aljazeera television reported on Monday. An Israeli Apache attack helicopter has also crashed 4km inside Israel causing unknown casualties. Hezbollah claimed to have shot it down but this was not confirmed by Israel.

                  Almost constant gunfire and explosions could be heard in southern Lebanon from the Israeli side of the border, and large plumes of grey smoke rose over the area. Bint Jbail, a major town, is about 2km north of the hilltop village of Maroun al-Ras which was captured by Israel on Sunday after three days of heavy fighting.

                  The army said on Monday that it was expanding its ground operation in Lebanon, which had been limited during the two-week offensive, to pinpoint operations near the border. Brigadier General Alon Friedman told Israel Army Radio that: "The scope continues to grow in recent days … We are advancing."

                  He said the operation would continue for up to 10 days "in order to achieve the basic goals we set down," including trying to stop Hezbollah rocket fire. Hezbollah says that it has destroyed five Israeli tanks in the area surrounding Maroun Al-Ras since fighting began, Aljazeera television reported.

                  Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...029DF8D6EC.htm

                  Nasrallah: Israeli ground invasion will not achieve its goals

                  Hizbullah Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said Monday that an Israeli ground invasion would not prevent Hezbollah from firing rockets at northern Israeli settlements.

                  "Any Israeli incursion will not have political results unless it achieves any of the announced goals, most importantly to stop the bombardment of Zionist settlements in northern occupied Palestine and I assure you that this goal didn't and will not be achieved in the future," Nasrallah said, in a statement to Beirut-based As-Safir daily newspaper. Nasrallah indicated to the enemy incapability to achieve any of its goals at the eve of end of the aggression's second week… " The enemy is searching for any thing to overstate and invest it on political and media level as a military achievement,"

                  "The Israeli media speaks about Maroun al-Ras as if Israel had conquered Stalingrad…The fierce confrontations and number of the resistance martyrs from one side and remarking volume of the enemy human and financial loses from the second side unveils again the Israeli army incapability in facing the resistance men." He emphasized. "The top priority is now for ending the Israeli atrocious attacks on Lebanon," Nasrallah said, hailing the Arab popular solidarity with the national resistance.

                  Link: http://www.sana.org/eng/22/2006/07/24/50594.htm
                  Մեր ժողովուրդն արանց հայրենասիրութեան այն է, ինչ որ մի մարմին' առանց հոգու:

                  Նժդեհ


                  Please visit me at my Heralding the Rise of Russia blog: http://theriseofrussia.blogspot.com/

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                  • Re: War in The Middle East

                    A few days ago:


                    "Rice claims ceasefire is a false promise"

                    "Israel reject offer for peace keeping force in southern Lebanon"


                    Today:


                    "Israel 'would accept' peace force"

                    "Rice urges ceasefire but Lebanon war rages on"

                    "Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned Israel that it has "pushed the button of its own destruction" because of its actions in Lebanon."








                    Oy vai, what to do now...
                    Last edited by Armenian; 07-24-2006, 06:04 AM.
                    Մեր ժողովուրդն արանց հայրենասիրութեան այն է, ինչ որ մի մարմին' առանց հոգու:

                    Նժդեհ


                    Please visit me at my Heralding the Rise of Russia blog: http://theriseofrussia.blogspot.com/

                    Comment


                    • Re: War in The Middle East

                      I don't know about destroying five tanks but they are certainly disabling and/or causing shrapnel wounds to Merkava crews from the pictures I have seen.

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