January 02, 2004
CHANGE NOTED
Brigadier General Martin E. Dempsey, commanding general of the1st Armored Division, has good news from Iraq:
The question is, what have we seen in the aftermath of the capture of Saddam Hussein; have attacks gone up or gone down? Absolutely gone down.
And it just keeps getting better:
The intelligence being provided for us by local Iraqis has gone up.
Strange. We were assured that Saddam’s capture wouldn’t change a thing.
Posted by Tim Blair at January 2, 2004 09:41 AMThe problem with Geoff Kitney's analysis is that freedom of speech is not the issue here. Sure, any citizen is entitled to sound off about any issue, no matter how deep his or her ignorance of the topic. The problem with the clerics is that by making their political statements as senior church people rather than as private citizens they promote the fraud that their office makes their view more valid than their frequently naďve analysis justifies, a form of intellectual bullying. Unfortunately, it is quite likely that because of their office, many will perceive wisdom where wisdom is absent.
Posted by: Geoff Kenney at January 2, 2004 at 11:05 AMThe problem with Geoff Kitney's analysis is that freedom of speech is not the issue here. Sure, any citizen is entitled to sound off about any issue, no matter how deep his or her ignorance of the topic. The problem with the clerics is that by making their political statements as senior church people rather than as private citizens they promote the fraud that their office makes their view more valid than their frequently naďve analysis justifies, a form of intellectual bullying. Unfortunately, it is quite likely that because of their office, many will perceive wisdom where wisdom is absent.
Posted by: Geoff Kenney at January 2, 2004 at 11:06 AMObviously Tim hasn't seen the most recent headlines:
CAPTURED SADDAM ACTUALLY MADE OF PLASTIC
Posted by: Jerry at January 2, 2004 at 12:52 PMAl Queda struck this week with a devastating Slow-News-Week attack targetting journalists from the Independent, Guardian, NY & LA Times, and The Age/SMH. Opinion writers lay scattered everywhere in editorial offices across the globe in what the usual unnamed experts state was an almost untraceable strike on western media.
The rustbelt industry of professional journalism contain a thousand tragedies. "Once there were hundreds of jobs in them-there Iraq, but now the only work is fer that Michael Jackson feller" remarked old Howell late of New York, "They don't even need us editors these days - heck - who needs someone to check fer accuracy when crap is the whole point?".
There are further suggestions that Al Queda has manipulated financial markets, heavily shorting media stocks to capitalise on this massive attack.
"Why do they hate us so?", exclaimed a Mr Pilger before falling into the consoling arms of his companion Robert, himself sobbing at the unendurable normality of it all. Flushed with its success, Al Queda is likely to mount more such attacks in forthcoming months.
A comic strip featuring Osama Bin Laden, Mr Curly and several ducks, was broadcast by Al Jazeera today, taking credit for this latest attack. CIA sources have verified his speech bubble as authentic.
Posted by: Craig Mc at January 2, 2004 at 02:39 PMThat's good news, but be aware that the US Army was able make recent successes against the insurgency by adopting IDF tactics, which involve collective punishments, assasinations etc
That counter-insurgency has be ongoing for ~30 years.
There is also a disturbing tendency to body-count success in recent US contacts with guerillas.
The best measure of US military success is rotation of US troops out of the Iraqi AO. So far there is little evidence that the US is pulling troops out of the theatre.
TO paraphrase PT Barnum, everyone who underestimates the difficulty of bringing civil order to a middle eastern nation will eventually go broke.
>The best measure of US military success is rotation of US troops out of the Iraqi AO.
So logically, we haven't pacified Germany or Japan yet, right?
Meanwhile, back in reality:
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — A dozen former leaders of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party have handed in weapons caches in northern Iraq to curry favor with the U.S. military and claim a role in a new Iraqi leadership, the commander of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division said.
“They’re coming to us, saying they want to be part of the new Iraq,” Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “It has slowly sunk in that Saddam isn’t coming back.”
On Monday, some of the men — whose names have not yet been made public — will publicly renounce their participation in the Baath Party at a regional headquarters of the 101st Airborne’s 1st Battalion in Talafar, south of Mosul.
Petraeus said he doubted the former leaders had taken a direct role in aiding the five to 10 anti-U.S. guerrilla cells operating in the region, and he characterized their decision to cooperate with the U.S. military as an opportunistic move to regain stature.
“They were on the fence. I’m not sure whether they were aiding and abetting,” Petraeus said. “They were opportunists before and they’re still opportunists. They’re chameleons.”
Obviously, Saddam's capture hasn't changed things a bit.
Posted by: Bill Peschel at January 3, 2004 at 11:12 AMJack,
Collective punishment is sending entire villages to Siberia. This ain't collective punishment.
That counter-insurgency has be ongoing for ~30 years.
Some blame that on the Israeli tactic of negotiating with terrorists.
Posted by: Andjam at January 3, 2004 at 11:51 AMJohn Nowak
Johhny boy tries to be a smart-arse but winds up with egg on his face.
So logically, we haven't pacified Germany or Japan yet, right?
JN, maybe you have been asleep for the past few decades, but you havent heard of a little thing called the Cold War.
US troops were based in Japan and Germany between 1950-1990 were there to keep the Soviets out, not to keep the Nazis and Nipps down.
The large post WWII US/UK armies of occupation which were rotated out of Europe and Asia by the early fifties, once these aress had been cleared of Axis forces and symapthisers.
Since the cold war ended, the US/UK forces have been, and are being, rotated out of the Cold War Theatre of Operations, viz Okinawa and the Rhineland.
Got it? Posted by: Jack Strocchi at January 3, 2004 at 04:31 PM
And furthermore:
The war is not over yet. The US Army expects to have 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2006.
That's 100,000 GI's not fighting globalised anti-Western terrorists.
maintaining a force of that size in Iraq beyond then would cause the army to "really start to feel the pain" from stresses on overtaxed active-duty, Reserve and National Guard troops.
I would be interested to know what forces commentators think the US is going to use against terrorists in the 120 or so, mainly failing, states that the US has military installations, or vital interests, in.
What are we supposed to use man, harsh language?
Posted by: Jack Strocchi at January 3, 2004 at 08:39 PM
Since the cold war ended, the US/UK forces have been, and are being, rotated out of the Cold War Theatre of Operations, viz Okinawa and the Rhineland.
They seem to be taking their time.
I would be interested to know what forces commentators think the US is going to use against terrorists in the 120 or so, mainly failing, states that the US has military installations, or vital interests, in.
Well, even the most ambitious neoconservative would not suggest going to war with 120 countries at once. Smaller number of troops would be needed in countries not undergoing mandatory regime change.
Posted by: Andjam at January 3, 2004 at 10:57 PM"The war is not over yet. The US Army expects to have 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2006.
That's 100,000 GI's not fighting globalised anti-Western terrorists. I would be interested to know what forces commentators think the US is going to use against terrorists in the 120 or so, mainly failing, states that the US has military installations, or vital interests, in."
The 100,000 GI's based in Iraq of course. By complete co-incidence, Iraq just happens to border the three main sponsors of Islamic terrorism. A lucky fluke indeed, given that the Americans are dumb, fat cowboys completely lacking in European sophistication.
>Johhny boy tries to be a smart-arse but winds up with egg on his face.
Jack, seriously, are you a kid, or in a special institution?
If "the best" way to tell a place is not pacified is to count the number of foreign troops, then neither Japan nor Germany were pacified after World War II.
Understand?
Posted by: John Nowak at January 4, 2004 at 04:30 AM"The best measure of US military success is rotation of US troops out of the Iraqi AO."
I think the best measure is that Saddam and Uday and Qusay aren't paying the Palestinians to murder jews anymore, and that SUQ aren't murdering people by the thousands just for fun, and that Syria is scared to death of a US invasion, and that Khaddafi is begging to be inspected.
Posted by: Bruce at January 4, 2004 at 09:54 AMJohn Nowak dig himself in deeper as he tries to throw some of the egg dripping off his face back in my direction.
He thinks that following proposition is self-evidently false:
If "the best" way to tell a place is not pacified is to count the number of foreign troops, then neither Japan nor Germany were pacified after World War II.
But, to paraphrase an unfortunate usage, significant "combat operations in [WW II regions]had not ended" in the decade following VE day. Thoes areas were under threat from external forces and internal fifth columinsts so were heavily militarised by Allied forces. Specifically, the Oceanic littorals of the North European Atlantic and North Asian Pacific were under direct threat from Soviet invasion through the Fulda Gap or by way of the Kurile Islands. Large communist parties and spie networks also threatened those nations security.
Hence there were US/UK troops stationed in un-pacified Japan and Germany after World War II.
And those armies took a very long time to successfully secure their AO - fifty years or so.
Makes you think about the career prospects of their buddies in Iraq, doesn't it?
I suggest Johhny bone up on common usage as some part of the phrase "Cold War" appears too hard for him to understand.
But perhaps it would be best if he quit whilst he is behind. Posted by: Jack Strocchi at January 5, 2004 at 12:11 AM