# Iraq: Two news stories; opposite views **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-two-news-stories-opposite-views/275557 "2004-11-18T22:34:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2004, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-two-news-stories-opposite-views/275557/41 "2004-11-20T05:37:27Z")
> [@Rashak Mani](#): > > Supplies. This one I haven’t thought about as much. In your comparison you talk about the amount… and I guess you are refering to the Ho Chi Minh (sp?) trail. Why did the Vietnamese need so much supply ? How much of it was simple survival stuff ? Food, medicine and clothing ? I guess most insurgents can just buy these as “common” civilians. So they need mostly military stuff… ammo and explosives. Ammo is abundant… ? Insurgencies burn through a lot of expendables in a hot insurgency. It takes quite a bit to keep one going from a supplies perspective when fighting a super power. Certainly there are plenty of toys lying about from Saddams time, and will continue to be for some time to come. But remember that cache’s of stuff are constantly being found and destroyed or otherwise eliminated. And vast stores were captured in Fallujah from what I’ve seen. There isn’t an endless supply of stores in Iraq…and eventually they will run out through expenditure, through destruction and through capture. When that happens either the insurgency will stall or it will have to find a way to resupply and to cache effectively. Basically my thoughts are that its going to be tough to resupply with no superpower support and with the various neighbors being a bit shy in coming right out and supporting things (for fear of being the next on the US’s list). As to the exact needs I’m not really sure to be honest…logistics isn’t my specialty. I know that in Afghanistan when the insurgents there were fighting the Soviets they needed a hell of a lot of resupply to keep things going because they were fighting a superpower. I don’t have a cite but I remember figures in the billions being kicked around as to what the US alone ponied up to keep things rolling along in the long term and eventually force the Soviets out. Whether it would take the same thing in Iraq is anyone’s guess…my guess is it would take a similar level of effort and supply to keep things going in the long term. No idea if I’m right or wrong…just my guess. > [@RM](#): > > Momentum. When I mentioned the momentum… I was comparing to the beginning and half a year ago. For the first months there was very little… and even if this is media thing… the insurgency seems to have become more widespread, daring and creative. Certainly US casualties per day seem to be bigger than many months ago. We have just finished the Ramadan… so things might quieten. The US election is over… but things still are hot. Some seemed to think the insurgency wouldn’t be as active once the election was over… but that hasn’t happen. Well, I agree the insurgency has become more active, and while I have my own guesses as to WHY that is, they are just guesses. A lot of that though is that the US has also become more active…taking on things like fallujah are going to drive up the level of activity, casualties, etc…and make the insurgents attempt to become more active in other areas too due to the US attention being elsewhere. > [@RM](#): > > Popular Support. Its hard to measure… especially since that support might have been forced or coerced lately. I think its impossible to have these levels of insurgency without solid support or widespread apathy. Not so sure Iraqis are as tired as we would make them appear. Lack of trust in the US helps the insurgency. BTW Foreign fighters it seems were very few of those killed in Fallujah… and so that “meme” about the insurgency being foreign fueled isn’t true. I think the problem is how the population spreads the blame… and I bet americans get the worse even when they aren’t the nastiest. Naturally they won’t accept the insurgency forever… but will the US stay long enough for that ? Will these insurgent groups become more organized and become civil war factions ? Will the US have the will to stay? Gods know. However, my own take on the level of insurgency is that its pretty low as far as these things go. I think the majority of Iraqi’s are sitting on the fence waiting to see what happens or waiting for the winner to tell them what to do. Not an optimal situation for Democracy or for the US, but not a disaster either. As to the ‘meme’ of the foreign fighting in Fallujah, its hard to say RM. Certainly the majority of the leadership bolted before the US attack it seems to me anyway. Its not that much of a stretch to figure they got most of the cream of their forces out too…and that many of them were the foreign fighters, leaving the Iraqi’s to hold the bag. Pure speculation on my part of course…no one really knows as far as I know anyway. I actually think that the majority of the spear carriers ARE Iraqi’s (mostly old Saddam loyalist and other disgruntled Sunni who are in fear of losing complete control and ending up posing for gun fire if the Shi’ite gain the whip hand)…but I think a large part of the leadership are non-Iraqi’s, though I admit to not having any proof for that. Certainly I’ve heard of no Iraqi leader gaining prominence in the conflict…or anything about Iraqi leaders of the insurgency at all. > [@RM](#): > > Elections. Do you think they will manage to pull off a fair election without excluding too many areas ? I’m pessimistic on this. Sunnis especially will want to disrupt things. Even if things are done well and fair… extremists would spin stories otherwise and would easily be believed. The label of “US puppet” is hard to remove from any government during a military occupation. Even an elected president that goes dictatorial isn’t a “victory” either… Do I think they will manage to pull off (relatively) fair elections? Certainly they will. Will everyone be represented in this initial election? Certainly not. The Sunni’s in particular will probably be under-represented…if they don’t outright boycott things. That would be a shame but won’t invalidate the election IMO. Will the extremists and insurgents attempt to disrupt the election process? Its a pretty sure bet. However, IMO any election will be a ‘victory’ as it will be the first steps on the road to tieing the new Iraqi government to the people. I know you and others hate WWII analogies but I’m going to toss one out anyway. Both Germany and Japan were ‘US puppet’ governments for decades following WWII. They aren’t today. Eventually Iraq will be able to make their own choices completely free of US control…as Germany and Japan do today. THIS election will be the first step, as it will be the first time they get to make any choices at all…and IMO a bad choice is better than no choice at all. If the Sunni don’t get onboard the train will basically leave them behind and they will be playing catch-up for some time to come. Long term I actually think Iraq WILL have a democracy…of sorts. Or I should say they will have a government that is tied back to the people or gets its mandate from the people. I seriously doubt Iraq’s democracy will resemble any type of western democracy…certainly not US style democracy. It won’t be a ‘liberal’ democracy at all IMO. > [@RM](#): > > ( I mentioned the pandering to the Shia… only because the US seems to be hitting the Sunni much more these weeks… ) Well, you know…the Sunni are also the ones who are mainly rebelling. Makes sense too if you think about it. None of the folks there have ever had a democracy so they are unsure whets going to happen. The Sunni only know that the Shi’a are likely to gain power in Iraq (certainly more power than they had when the Sunni held the whip hand)…and in the past that could and probably would mean posing for gunfire for the losing side. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-two-news-stories-opposite-views/275557/42 "2004-11-22T00:40:58Z")
I don’t remember the figures for Afghanistan… but my understanding was that US help not only didn’t run much higher than a billion or two. It wasn’t so much the money and funds… but those Stinger Missiles that helped. Probably some training and support. I haven’t seen speculations on logistics for terrorism… but I do have the impression that the only thing hard to come by is enough explosives. Don’t agree much with your idea of them needing loads of stuff. The caches for sure won’t last forever… or they will be harder to use. ``` As for the Democracy or not... its just speculation by us. Even if they do become a sort of flimsy democracy... I hardly think other Arabs will be flocking to join. So the end result is irrelevant to US security. ``` [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-two-news-stories-opposite-views/275557.md?page=2)