Bush had better do something pretty damn fast about the solidier's being killed daily

[Sam_Stone]

*Originally posted by elucidator *
Sam
Which means what, exactly? Are you suggesting that a lack of central control can be taken as evidence as to the character and nature of the insurgents? Why? Indeed, wouldn’t one expect exactly that from a widespread popular movement?

I wasn’t drawing any conclusions. I’m just describing my understanding of the situation. Of course, the lack of obvious central control is irrelevant to understanding who is behind this.

It is? We know this? We have quartermasters reports, paystubs, spreadsheets? Your level of detail in this intelligence briefing is, well, incredible is the only word. They might very well attack in precisely the same way if they had no funds at all, using leftover and abandoned weaponry.

You know, you’re just displaying your own ignorance of the subject here. My sources aren’t some obscure intelligence reports - they are in the daily news.

For example:

But (Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division) said continuing attacks have become more sophisticated, utilizing remote-controlled explosive devices, for example…
…
One informant, he said, provided detailed information about a house with weapons and a container buried nearby. Among the items soldiers at the scene found were 10 AK-47s, 45,000 sticks of dynamite, 34 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 11 explosive devices and 28 submachine guns, he said.

Is it your contention that this is just ‘left over’ weaponry? Buried in a container at a residential house? The obvious conclusion to me is that these are official weapons caches, buried before the war with the explicit intention of arming a guerrilla war if the U.S. occupied the country. If you want to believe that some old farmers just collected this stuff from a battlefield, go right ahead.

But perhaps we should listen first to someone who knows what he’s talking about. Say, the General in charge of the war?

Here’s what General Abizaid has to say:

(General Abizaid) described the current resistance as coming from mid-level Baath party members and security forces and former soldiers from Iraq’s Republican Guard in addition to “significant terrorist groups”.

He said they appeared to be organised in cells of six to eight people and were receiving financial assistance from regional level leaders of the former Baathist regime.

Gee, that sounds suspiciously like what I said.

And if that’s not authoritative enough for you, here what Ambassador Bremer has to say:

Ambassador Bremer: Well, it’s possible. There has been some evidence of planning for the possibility of losing the war militarily and going into some kind of insurgency or organized resistance. We certainly are seeing now organized resistance at small level, squad level organized resistance by professional killers. These are guys who are trained soldiers. It’s not a massive uprising by disgruntled factory workers. These are professional killers – members of the Fedayeen Saddam, Baathists, former members of the Republican Guard.

That sounds even more similar to what I said.

I guess we can sure count ourselves lucky they didn’t break into any of those “massive stockpiles” of nuclear anthrax gas! Boy, we’d really be in trouble, huh, Sam? Lucky break there.

Oh, look! A strawman! What a surprise.

quote:

3. Some of the ‘hit men’ are young disaffected Iraqis who are very poor and can be bought. Give a young man a gun and a thousand dollars, and he’ll take his chances in being able to run up behind an American and shoot him in the head and get away.

---

Another astonishind detail! Clearly, you have some remarkable intelligence resources at your beck and call. Share them, we beg you. A cite would be a big step in that direction. Be that as it may, even as a pessimist I know that not that many men are willing to kill on a cash basis, even fewer are willing to die for it.

Yes, my ‘remarkable intelligence sources’ would be ‘the media’. You should try it sometime. It’s amazing what you can learn when you read something other than the Democratic Underground and Counterpunch.

As the Cheesmeister pointed out in a different context, a number of Iraqi men have some military training and experience as conscriptees. A basic sense of military organization and tactic and a familiarity with small arms would be, thererfore, entirely unremarkable and ordinary.

Yeah, and every Iraqi farmer has a plow, a house, and 2 tons of C-4 explosive.

Is it your contention that these are men trained before the fall of Saddam for precisely this end? After everybody is all shot to shit, Plan B goes into effect? Plan Z? Plan 9 from Outer Space? **

My contention is that at some point Saddam’s military advisors said, “If the U.S. invade, we cannot stop them. The regime will fall.” At that point, they sat down and came up with a contingency plan for the fall of the regime. They buried caches of weapons around the country, and trained the Fedayeen in guerrilla tactics and gave them marching orders for what to do if the Americans came. Throw the less reliable troops in the way to slow them down, while the hardcore Fedayeen and inner Republican guard spirit the core of the regime away, then after the Americans are in place begin a Guerrilla war.

And of course, it’s possible that that isn’t the case, and this is an ad-hoc initiative by a bunch of ex-regime people who lost their regime, have no place to go where they won’t be arrested or killed, and are therefore just fighting to the end. But my scenario seems to me to be the most likely. It’s also the most frightening and dangerous to the occupation, because it means that there may be a LOT of them.

And, it might also explain why WMD have not been found - If Saddam was planning a guerrilla war, don’t you think he would have been wanting to keep his most deadly weapons with him? One of those hidden caches may just have a few thousands gallons of Vx, or Anthrax, or whatever. That’s also very worrying, because it may be that if the coalition starts to really crush these guys, the weapon of last resort might be a gas attack on a major troop concentration or even an Iraqi town or city. But if they have them, they won’t use them until there’s no other choice.

BTW, if you’re planning on leaving a really snotty message to someone about their facts, it’s a good idea to do a modicum of research yourself, lest you find that those facts are common knowledge, making yourself look stupid.

[chula]

*Originally posted by SimonX *
**We aren’t exactly sitting for this’n. We’re in a different position. **

It took me a second to get this. Needs a smilie. :eek:

[pantom]

Couple of quick observations:

elucidator, Sam Stone is correct here. I think it’s rather obvious that the fighting at the moment is being done by an organized underground resistance that more than likely was planned from before the war by the Saddam regime. It certainly looks that way to me.
Whether this resistance gains any traction among the populace will be decided by the success of the reconstruction effort, and for that we’re just going to have to cross our fingers and hope they get it right. We start out with the advantage of not being Saddam, but that’s also a disadvantage with those who lost everything to the looting and the crime.
They gotta make lemonade outta this lemon. There’s no other choice. The seriousness of this situation to our futures, all of our futures, can’t be underestimated, IMO.
Those of us who were against the war are now placed in the impossible position of having to support an occupation we didn’t want of a nation that was no threat to us, in order to prevent the occupation from turning into a breeding ground for hatred directed against us.
As to december’s cite, that’s a very interesting bit of historical information, but Germany was surrounded by a Europe that was not going to be in any mood to let any resistance effort to the occupying powers succeed. And then there is the fact that we were in Germany as just one country among many after WWII, whereas in Iraq we’re just about alone, and with our international reputation shot to hell, it looks like alone is how we’ll stay for quite a while.
That said, it is possible I suppose that the resistance could peter out in a couple of years or less. Doesn’t seem probable, but who knows? We’ll just have to wait and see.

[Sterra]

Right now the fighting is done mainly by an organized underground resistance. But, it does have popular support.

And that support is growing pretty quickly.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq.html

a third of all the combat deaths of the past three months have been sustained in the past nine days alone.

Once the Shias turn against us in numbers it will be a question of should we stay or should we leave.

[Sam_Stone]

Once the Shias turn against us in numbers it will be a question of should we stay or should we leave.

Shouldn’t that be, IF the Shias turn against us? Or do you consider that a fait accompli?

[pantom]

Well, Collounsbury’s second to last post on page 2 of his reconstruction thread has some choice tidbits from what he says is a UN official who was just in the Basra region. If that UN official is correct, then what we have in the South is analogous to a tropical depression. Not yet inevitably a hurricane, but atmospheric conditions appear favorable for development, according to that report.

[Sterra]

And in this case you would have to believe in Bush’s ability to turn things around. If you believe that Bush is going to do that instead of continuing to make things worse then you might believe that the Shias wont turn against us.

[Eolbo]

*Originally posted by astro *
**Thanks for the quote. This is new information for me. I never realized there was a substantive post WWII guerrilla war in Germany after the surrender. **

The reason you hadn’t realised is because there wasn’t one, the werewolves were insignificant after the German surrender and mainly propaganda before it. Some people are just stretching to make a bad analogy. The intent of the analogy is to say “See? Germany had a guerilla war as well but reconstruction there was still a success”. The problem with the analogy is that its simply untrue and requires a crass historical distortion.

[Squink]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
**Shouldn’t that be, IF the Shias turn against us? Or do you consider that a fait accompli? **

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, (commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq) whose troops usually blame the attacks on die-hard Saddam loyalists, said the sophistication of the raids had increased over the last 30 days. “This is what I would call a terrorist magnet where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity if you will,” Sanchez told CNN.

7/27/03
Instability from any source works to narrow our, already tight, window of opportunity for stabilizing the country.

[Dissonance]

*Originally posted by Eolbo *
**The reason you hadn’t realised is because there wasn’t one, the werewolves were insignificant after the German surrender and mainly propaganda before it. Some people are just stretching to make a bad analogy. The intent of the analogy is to say “See? Germany had a guerilla war as well but reconstruction there was still a success”. The problem with the analogy is that its simply untrue and requires a crass historical distortion. **

Crass historical distortion from december? Why I never heard of such a thing.

The werewolves were a non-factor in post war occupation of Germany. They were about as significant as the mythical National Redoubt in southern Germany.

[Gorsnak]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
And of course, it’s possible that that isn’t the case, and this is an ad-hoc initiative by a bunch of ex-regime people who lost their regime, have no place to go where they won’t be arrested or killed, and are therefore just fighting to the end. But my scenario seems to me to be the most likely. It’s also the most frightening and dangerous to the occupation, because it means that there may be a LOT of them.

I disagree. It’s not the most frightening scenario. You’ve left out the most frightening scenario - that this is a widespread popular movement fed by nationalism and unhappiness with the occupation. In your scenario, if the core leadership of the old regime is captured or killed, the movement will peter out. However, if it’s a general popular movement, it will be much, much harder to put an end to.

[system]

Well, indeed simplistic Vietnam analogies are indeed out of place, indeed this is a very different set of circumstances, more harkening to Algeria perhaps than Vietnam - in fact if you all are looking for proper analogies, I advise digging into colonial history of the 1940s-1960s rather than allusions to super power stand offs.

However to the comment

• Terrain. Vietnam was mountainous, with jungles and lots of places to hide. Attacks could come out of nowhere and fade away before the Americans could retaliate. Iraq is mostly flat and barren. That plays to the U.S.'s strengths.

That does not say much in regards to guerrilla warfare in the anti-colonial liberationist model, above all when it is operating on a urban model. Supplies seem to be in place - and smuggling from neighbors likely easier than one imagines. Well travelled and established smuggling routes already are around.

• Rules of engagement. Part of the problem of fighting the Vietnam war was that the U.S. tied its own hands for fear of drawing China or Russia deeper into the conflict. So known supply lines like the Ho Chi Minh trail remained open. Major centers of resistance were left untouched for large periods of time. Often, targets of opportunity were ignored for fear of political repercussions. In Iraq, the U.S. can target and hit anything it feels like, and is even willing to pursue fleeing fighters into neighboring countries. Basically, the U.S. writes the rules, and so far it’s not taking much off the table. Mosques, mostly.

Again, if we look the French efforts, Algeria or their Vietnam, they took almost nothing off the table, and the results were not substantially different. This hand tied behind the back issues strikes me as something of a red herring.

As for pursing fighters into neighboring countries, there will be limits – although certainly again the French habit of doing so (fought a major engagement well inside Tunisia as I recall) did not noticeably help their efforts.

No, when fighting a guerrilla action where the population is mixed in with the guerillas you have a dicey proposition over all.

• Technology. The intelligence gathering capability of the U.S. military today is orders of magnitude better than it was in the Vietnam era. They can target radio transmissions almost instantly. They can fill the skies with UAVs armed with hellfire missiles. Satellites with synthetic aperture radar and infra-red cameras can spot tunnels and the heat from car engines through buildings. That makes it very, very hard for a guerrilla force to stay concealed.

I spit on technology.

Pious rubbish. I recall very similar claims being made in regards to Afghanistan. How the super duper technology, along with lots of money would end the Taleban right there. The magic of TV……

Now some time on, we still see activity, and indeed lots of it, and the assurances I heard in re Osama seem to have fallen by the wayside.
Technology does not easily allow distinguishing between civilian and non-civilian movements, and guerilla warfare specializes in such confusion. The raid on sheep smugglers rather illustrates this. Kill enough tribe members, by accident of course, and you’ve increased your enemies exponentially.

In the end, it is human intelligence that counts, and without proper skills in that area, I confidently predict that the snazzy hi tech is not of such use as our starry eyed heavy breathers over techno porn predict. I grant readily mountains are harder than the plains of Iraq, but then the activity is based off of the populated areas, urban areas awash in weapons.

• Size of the conflict. Vietnam had MILLIONS of combatants. Money and weapons flowing into the north from China and Russia. In Iraq, you have maybe 10,000 ex-Fedayeen, with a few hundred million dollars of regime funds, maybe some imported fighters, and some disaffected people willing to roll a grenade into a group of Americans for a few hundred bucks.

Different stages of combat, Sam, different stages. Compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. Of course, we also have your assertion the events are happening because of Baathists and the disaffected who are paid. It fits the party line, however the party line has had a severe battering in the truth department.

I don’t personally know if anyone can truly characterize what is happening and I’ll hazard the opinion that if I can’t figure it out, then few people can. I will profer an obs from my contact I mention in the Reconstruction thread - he did not seem to think killing Sadaam would end the guerilla.

• Popular support of the population. In Vietnam, the Vietcong had widespread support among the population. It was a populist uprising. In Iraq, this is largely not the case. Most Iraqis think the U.S. is screwing up, and they’re annoyed about that, but there’s no sense that they’re willing to take up arms en masse and oppose the United States. Basically, they just want their standard of living improved. If the U.S. can get the electricity turned on, get the oil flowing and direct some of the money to the population, and get Saddam and break the back of the resistance, things will be fine. Granted, those are some big IFs, but it does illustrate the fundamental difference.

Again, Sam, nice assertions, but it is not at all clear in Iraq what is happening, and even granting your assertions (I myself am not sure, I believe it may be correct, what you are so confidently asserting, but then I can’t tell – perhaps you need to learn to write with a bit less assertion on such topics) we run into the problem of stages. Iraq now may not be comparable to Vietnam in 1967, but then they are not in the same stage of the conflict.

Regardless, I point to Algeria as a better set of lessons. Not perfectly the same, but similar in respects.

However, in regards to the weapons caches and the like - I do believe Sam is correct, these were clearly some pre-positioning.

That does not mean all who access them are Baath or are fighting for the Baath. Much of the Iraqi male populatoin has doen military service, a general knowledge of military affaires - probably poorish overall - obtains, I would hazard the opinion- in a wide segment of the population.

[capacitor]

Naah…it could be worse.

The uprising is done by al-Qaeda, who then manage to drive the Americans out of Iraq. Osama is considered a hero for all ages.

[system]

The official, and friend, who I do not id for the obvious reasons, is an area official responsible for certain efforts for all Iraq. The South is a concern in re rising criminal networks, and as mentioned in Iraq Reconstruction http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=179177&perpage=50&pagenumber=3
he’s deeply concerned about similar patterns as initial moves in the North-Center.

Of note, to triangulate against reported news, you all do note the rising stridency of the Sadr faction of the Shia.

While the depth of support for Sadr Fils is unclear, he obviously can motivate two categories, a certain hard core in Sadr City in Baghdad, his tribal affilliates.

In the end, that’s all he needs, should he decide to “go to war.”

The depth of “love” for the foreign occupiers is very shallow, the pre-disposition to hate the foreigner ingrained. Take away Sadaam and you may also see a psychological barrier to joining resistance removed, above all for the Shia.

None of this means that this will happen and I do believe there is a window of opportunity to redress. However, as you will note in the Reconstruction thread, the numbers to address this are non-trivial and the efforts have to be non-trivial.

In many ways I am deeply disappointed that the Bush Admin is not getting pressure (although I hope Lugar is the first sign) to do this Reconstruction right.

*Originally posted by pantom *
**Well, Collounsbury’s second to last post on page 2 of his reconstruction thread has some choice tidbits from what he says is a UN official who was just in the Basra region. If that UN official is correct, then what we have in the South is analogous to a tropical depression. Not yet inevitably a hurricane, but atmospheric conditions appear favorable for development, according to that report. **

[Sam_Stone]

Collounsbury: Your point about positive assertions is well taken. I’m aware that there are a lot of uncertainties over what’s going on (and I alluded to that when I said that possibly what we’re seeing is not a pre-planned Guerilla war but something quite different).

My tone was more a result of elucidator’s condescending little message where he tried to make me look like some conspiracy wacko, while making it abundantly clear that he’s not even remotely familiar with the facts, since many of the things I asserted that got his rolleyes comments are in fact coming from widespread reporting in the press.

As for my Vietnam analogy debunking - sure, there are lots of things about the Iraq situation that could be more difficult than Vietnam - urban guerrilla warfare, for example. The outside chance of WMD being used. The inability to secure major operations areas and landing zones.

But more importantly, there is a huge disadvantage the U.S. is operating under - the modern media and its effect on the psyche of the population. Look at the level of handwringing going on over the casualties in Iraq, and the extremely low level of tolerance the public and media are showing for what is historically an unbelievably low number of casualties.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. With our 24 hour news cycle, guerrilla war is very difficult for modern nations to deal with. Remember Stalin’s old saying - “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” Well, in a guerrilla war, when the deaths come in in groups of one to ten, each one is a tragedy.

Think of it this way - if a thousand Americans had been killed in direct combat during the liberation, it would have been horrible, but acceptable. Lots of analysts on both sides predicted that casualties could go that high. But now that the major fighting is over, if another 700 Americans are killed one or two at a time, there will be near rioting in the streets over it.

And I have a sinking feeling that we haven’t seen the worst of it. If this was pre-prepared, there may be some more tricks up their sleeves. I hope those soldiers aren’t getting too complacent.

[system]

*Originally posted by Dissonance *
**Crass historical distortion from december? Why I never heard of such a thing.

The werewolves were a non-factor in post war occupation of Germany. They were about as significant as the mythical National Redoubt in southern Germany. **

I’m sure it is not original to him, there is a Blog or Op Ed trying this argument in all its dishonesty.

[Boo_Boo_Foo]

Sam Stone: - indeed.

And something else to consider as well… even though President Bush announced the war was won in early May 2003, the reality is that when you look things from an official “nation state vs nation state” level - basically there has been NO official surrender by the Iraqi Government. Arguably, the US Administration would prefer us to accept that they offered the surrender “on behalf” of the Iraqi Goverment, but in the strictest terms of traditional warfare, the US has led an invasion force, and no surrender has been tendered thus far, and the geurilla actions (in that context) are entirely valid.

It’s very messy. Lots of fine points can be manipuated one way or the other - depending on which side of the fence you sit on.

I’ve said it countless times, but the single most effective solution (it seems to me) is to cut a deal with the UN and get another 250,000 troops (minimum) into the country asap. Simply far too few are there at the moment to play the policing role which is being asked of them.

My greatest fear, however, is that certain key influential players on the seat of the Security Council might actually choose to let the USA “hang out to dry” on this one - with a view to teaching her a lesson or something.

[system]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
Collounsbury: Your point about positive assertions is well taken. I’m aware that there are a lot of uncertainties over what’s going on (and I alluded to that when I said that possibly what we’re seeing is not a pre-planned Guerilla war but something quite different).

My tone was more a result of elucidator’s condescending little message where he tried to make me look like some conspiracy wacko, while making it abundantly clear that he’s not even remotely familiar with the facts, since many of the things I asserted that got his rolleyes comments are in fact coming from widespread reporting in the press.

Very fair. I understand charging in…

But more importantly, there is a huge disadvantage the U.S. is operating under - the modern media and its effect on the psyche of the population. Look at the level of handwringing going on over the casualties in Iraq, and the extremely low level of tolerance the public and media are showing for what is historically an unbelievably low number of casualties.

Well, I think this is as much an issue of the manner in which the victory delcaration was rushed in and the extent to which the Bush Admin, however understandably has been reluctant to stand up and say, oops, not over yet, buckle in.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. With our 24 hour news cycle, guerrilla war is very difficult for modern nations to deal with. Remember Stalin’s old saying - “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” Well, in a guerrilla war, when the deaths come in in groups of one to ten, each one is a tragedy.

Ah, Stalin… In some ways he was wise, in a terribly evil sort of way.

Your other observations are also well taken.

And I have a sinking feeling that we haven’t seen the worst of it. If this was pre-prepared, there may be some more tricks up their sleeves. I hope those soldiers aren’t getting too complacent.

I don’t believe the people on the ground are, per my discussions with my friends. However, there is a lot of anger, as far as I can tell – and obv. there is a selection bias here in terms of who speaks to me but they’re not grunts – as to Rumsfeld. On the other other hand, Rumsfeld et al were not, as I am led to understand, ever very popular with regular military.

[David_Simmons]

*Originally posted by astro *
**Thanks for the quote. This is new information for me. I never realized there was a substantive post WWII guerrilla war in Germany after the surrender. **

I obviously didn’t have personal experience in all of the US occupied zone in Germany after WWII.

However I was at Schleissheim, just north of Munich, from Sept. 1945 to about March of 1946 and then at Kitzingen, a little east of Nurenburg until June of 1946. And I have to say, based on that experience, stories about so-called “werewolf” activities in the cite are overblown.

We went everywhere freely. I walked into Munich alone many times, day or night and never had any fear of any attacks. A friend of mine and I took a jeep down to Salzburg and then up to Berchtesgaden and back to Schleissheim with no problems at all. I had a week at Garmisch-Partenkirchen where an elderly German woman took me in charge and showed me around the area.

Others in the Bomb Group were doing the same sorts of things at the same time. It is my opinion that any attempt to claim that the Iraq situation is akin to the occupation of Germany after WWII is just blowing smoke.

There was no particular love lost between many Germans and us as occupiers. However, the same thing was true of the French when I was at Pontoise, just north of Paris during the war. The civilians of both those countries have had occupying armies around for periods of varying length for a long time and they were tired of it, of the war and of us.

However, incidents of sabotage were rare. We never had any at Schleissheim. Our headquarters got us news all of the time and we would have been briefed about any danger to us in our wanderings around Bavaria like a bunch of tourists on vacation.

[Eolbo]

I’m glad you posted David its good to hear a first hand account.

Similar to your experience here are extracts from 12th Corps intelligence reports for Jun 1945 indicating the degree of the German “resistance” to allied occupation

“. . 1 June. A single SS soldier was shot vic Maxhutte when he attempted attack on a guard who was searching his coat for identification papers. . 7 June. There were three cases of wire cutting in Regensburg yesterday. . . 11 June. In Rottenburg typewritten notices have been appearing on buildings, stating. “Long live the Fuhrer! Heil Hitler! Long Live the Great Germany! Young Nazi Awakening.” Investigation pending . . . 18 June. Single report of communications wire being cut vic Neustadt on 18 June being investigated. Cub pilot discovered bullet hole in plane after hearing shot as he flew over Hurschau area last week. . …”

Same site also states that after this period:

As the summer wore on, incidents decreased and so did any evidences of formal organization for guerrilla activities. There were, it seemed, no more “Werewolves.”

Also stated that despite much looking for the ‘werewolves’ that no subversive organisations were ever discovered.

XII Corps History (Occupation Period: 9 May 1945 - 27 October 1945)

I also note that the broader US AREUR history on the same site makes no mention of post-war resistance at all which it wuld surely do if it was significant.

Or this:

It is perhaps significant that as soon as the High Command ordered capitulation, the orders were obeyed; there were very few instances of units and individuals attempting to fight on. The werewolf organisation did not materialise and the attitude of German civilians towards the Allied military was characterised by a docility that had also been evident in the occupied areas of Germany before the capitulation

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2584/n1_v18/20576700/print.jhtml

In this regard I will also point out that the werewolves were uniformed members of the German armed forces and they were ordered to cease operations by Admiral Donitz as part of the German surrender.

In short its a gross distortion to equate the situation in post-war Germany with Iraq where some 13 armed attacks are occurring on US forces every day and where 10 US soldiers have been killed in action in just the last few days alone.