Originally Posted by playwrite

Things going swimmingly well around Baghdad, but what about the South -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

That's a sneak preview of our retreat into Kuwait.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I once read a pretty persuasive argument that 'Nam bought time for the Asian Tigers (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore) to develop towards the capitalist model rather than the communist one. The world might have look very different if we had not gone into Viet Nam or had folded our tents a decade earlier that we did. I'm not necessarily buying into it, but it is an interesting notion.

I think our soft power has always been our stronger card. While significantly damaged in the last six years, I believe it is recoverable.

And I'm sure you know where I come down on the question of the sword or pen.

I have heard that line of reasoning, too, but consider myself woefully inadequate (and hopefully too humble) to be able to judge it conclusively.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Things going swimmingly well around Baghdad, but what about the South -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

Time to release the Giant Man-Eating Badgers?

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/crevald1.html

Nice article. The following bit from the NY Times reminded me of it... For discussion purposes....

SANGIN, Afghanistan — A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people.

Other British officers here in Helmand Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area. They also expressed concerns that the Americans’ extensive use of air power was turning the people against the foreign presence as British forces were trying to solidify recent gains against the Taliban.

Again, the notion of winning hearts and minds when one is throwing around lots of ordinance while not having the intelligence to hit only the correct targets is quite problematic...

Originally Posted by scott 63

Time to release the Giant Man-Eating Badgers?

No... Not that! Mercy! Not the Grey... ARRRRRGHHHHH!

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

No... Not that! Mercy! Not the Grey... ARRRRRGHHHHH!

I'm on a diet.

http://d-n-i.net/lind/lind_8_08_07.htm

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

That strategic step backwards is accompanied by a large and dangerous operational step backwards, namely moving toward a war with Iraq's Shiites. The August 6 Plain Dealer, in a story by AP's Kim Gamel reported that -

Attacks against U.S. forces were down sharply last month nationwide, and military officials have expressed cautious optimism that a security crackdown is working. At the same time, the number of attacks launched by breakaway factions of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia has increased, said Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, second-in-command.

He did not provide a total number of militia attacks. But he said 73 percent of the attacks that wounded or killed U.S. troops last month in Baghdad were launched by Shiite militiamen, nearly double that figure six months earlier.

This is a danger sign that should engage the urgent attention of senior American commanders. If we replace a war against Iraqis Sunnis with a war against the Shiites, we will not only have suffered a serious, self-inflicted operational defeat, we will endanger our whole position in Iraq, since our supply lines mostly run through Shiite country.

I say such a defeat would be self-inflicted because Shiite attacks on Americans in Baghdad seem to be responses to American actions. In dealing with the Shiites, we appear to be doing what spurred the growth of the Sunni insurgency, i.e., raids, air strikes and a "kill or capture" policy directed against local Shiite leaders. Not only does this lead to retaliation, it also fractures Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army as he tries to avoid fighting us. Such fracturing works against, not for, the potential re-creation of an Iraqi state.

A return to practices we know are counter-productive in dealing with Iraq's Shiites raises the question of motive. Are we so bloody stupid that at the same time we seem to have learned something about counter-insurgency against the Sunnis we are making the same old mistakes with the Shiites? Perhaps.

But perhaps something else is going on here. According to the story by Miss Gamel, General Odierno blamed not his own actions but Iran for the rise in Shiite attacks on Americans. Is a war with Iraq's Shiites a prelude to war with Iran? For the sake of the army we have in Iraq and our strategic position in the region, let us hope not. Sometimes, sheer stupidity is the most reassuring explanation for our actions.

I support President Bush's "surge" policy. I'll wait until September to make any future judgements.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Err . . . that's a ripoff of:



which I posted here over a year ago.

Originally Posted by Earl and Mooch

Err . . . that's a ripoff of:



which I posted here over a year ago.

Maybe Sean '90 could tell us which is the authentic one -- apparently he's in the herd.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Maybe Sean '90 could tell us which is the authentic one -- apparently he's in the herd.

I don't really care which is authentic, both of them suck.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/09/cordesman-iraq/

O’Hanlon/Pollack Rebuffed By Travel Companion Cordesman: ‘I Did Not See Any Dramatic Change’

excerpt -

In their infamous New York Times editorial, Brookings analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack alleged that “significant changes [are] taking place” in President Bush’s escalation, potentially ushering in a “sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with” in the future.

Center for Strategic and International Studies military analyst Anthony Cordesman, who accompanied O’Hanlon and Pollack on the trip to Iraq, recently published a report expressing a difference of opinion.

In a briefing today, Cordesman further elaborated on his disagreements with the Brookings analysts and asserted that there has been little change in Iraq:

I did not see any dramatic change in our position in Iraq during this trip. Many of the points, the problems which exist there are problems which have existed really since late 2004, if not earlier. I didn’t see a dramatic shift in the ability of the Iraqi’s to reach the kind of compromise that is almost the foundation of moving forward. […]

But I also want to stress another thing. I did not see success for the strategy that President Bush announced in January.

I guess they weren’t expecting the other people on the same trip to say they were full of shit.

Comment by bobh — August 9, 2007 @ 5:01 pm

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...ers/index.html

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...ers/index.html

...1,000 special immigration visas..

This is so F---ing FUBAR and dishonorable.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...ers/index.html

Saigon '75, the helicopters on the rooftops is coming to Baghdad. It's only a matter of time.

Originally Posted by playwrite

This is so F---ing FUBAR and dishonorable.

Another Vietnam parallel. They're piling up so fast now, commenting on them seems almost redundant. Ask HC why this a good thing. He always has an anwswer ... of sorts.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Another Vietnam parallel. They're piling up so fast now, commenting on them seems almost redundant. Ask HC why this a good thing. He always has an anwswer ... of sorts.

Notice how loudly Zilch/DA, HC, Chris Seamens, the Rani and thier ilk have defended themselves on this. They've refused to take the witness stand to defend thier words and actions, and those of the Administration they support.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Another Vietnam parallel. They're piling up so fast now, commenting on them seems almost redundant. Ask HC why this a good thing. He always has an anwswer ... of sorts.

More parallels -

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world...147052,00.html

Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq

excerpt -

Where once the war in Iraq was defined in conversations with these men by untenable ideas - bringing democracy or defeating al-Qaeda - these days the war in Iraq is defined by different ways of expressing the idea of being weary. It is a theme that is endlessly reiterated as you travel around Iraq. 'The army is worn out. We are just keeping people in theatre who are exhausted,' says a soldier working for the US army public affairs office who is supposed to be telling me how well things have been going since the 'surge' in Baghdad began.

They are not supposed to talk like this. We are driving and another of the public affairs team adds bitterly: 'We should just be allowed to tell the media what is happening here. Let them know that people are worn out. So that their families know back home. But it's like we've become no more than numbers now.'

WTF?! - Three battalions? Corporate armies?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081101378.html

U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq

By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 12, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military has paid $548 million over the past three years to two British security firms that protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction projects, more than $200 million over the original budget, according to previously undisclosed data that show how the cost of private security in Iraq has mushroomed.

The two companies, Aegis Defence Services and Erinys Iraq, signed their original Defense Department contracts in May 2004. By July of this year, the contracts supported a private force that had grown to about 2,000 employees serving the Corps of Engineers. The force is about the size of three military battalions.
....

Pink, is this SNAFU, FUBAR or CF?

A group of corrupt businessmen with ties to the Italian Cosa Nostra was discovered to have arranged for the shipping of 100,000 sophisticated machine guns to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, allegedly to be supplied to the police in al-Anbar Province. The MoI was supposed to inform the US military about any such purchases, in accordance with America's colonial role in Iraq. It did not. The deal was worth $40 millon. Since the US has heavily armed the al-Anbar police, it is not plausible that they would need massive numbers of machine guns. The special police commandos of the Ministry of the Interior were largely recruited from the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. It is likely that the weapons were for them and their friends on the outside in Badr. Since a intra-Shiite civil war is building between Badr and its rival, the Mahdi Army, and since Badr corps are targeted by Sunni Arab guerrillas as "Iranian" agents, Interior may have felt it needed to give its special commandos and the Badr an advantage in fire power. Since the Iraqi government was essentially bolstering a militia, and the US wants to repress the militias, it could not let the Americans know about the deal. Italian investigators accidentally turned it up while trying to catch Mafia drug smugglers. They forestalled the deal from going through. This time.

I was going with one of the first two until I saw this CF connection -

http://www.reuters.com/article/world...38615220070812

The assassination of the governor and police chief threaten to throw Diwaniya into a Shiite civil war between the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its Badr Corps paramilitary [aka the Diwaniya police) on the one hand, and the Mahdi Army on the other. Reuters says there are fears that if such a struggle broke out, it would not remain confined to Diwaniya.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Pink, is this SNAFU, FUBAR or CF?

We may need an all of the above option on that...

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

We may need an all of the above option on that...

,,,,,,

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Notice how loudly Zilch/DA, HC, Chris Seamens, the Rani and thier ilk have defended themselves on this. They've refused to take the witness stand to defend thier words and actions, and those of the Administration they support.

M&L/Pink, did Nam start with five fanactical groups of VC flying planes filled with innocent passengers including babies into two American buildings loaded with civialians located in the heart of NYC? The political climate is similiar, the political faces are similiar, the influential generation involved in both is also similiar to Nam However, the underlying reason or justification why we're in Iraq makes Iraq very, very different from Nam in my opinion.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

M&L/Pink, did Nam start with five fanactical groups of VC flying planes filled with innocent passengers including babies into two American buildings loaded with civialians located in the heart of NYC? The political climate is similiar, the political faces are similiar, the influential generation involved in both is also similiar to Nam However, the underlying reason or justification why we're in Iraq makes Iraq very, very different from Nam in my opinion.

1) The Viet Cong were LOTS smarter than that. Saved themselves tons on airfare.
2) It's the pattern of US fuckups that make the war similar, not the kickoff event.