Insurgents Have 'No Chance,' CENTCOM Chief Says (DOD Press Release)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2005 – Insurgents "don't have a chance" provided the United States stays the course in Iraq, Army Gen. John Abizaid said today on CBS's Face the Nation and CNN's Late Edition.

Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said good progress continues in Iraq. "The enemy can't win," he said. "The enemy can grab headlines, they can try to break our will. But there's no way the United States military in either Afghanistan or Iraq is going to be pushed into the sea."

But the war does not have a military solution, Abizaid said. Rather, all aspects of national power - economic, diplomatic and the military - must combine to fashion a political solution. "We're the shield behind which the politics will take place," he said. "And ultimately, if the government is legitimate, if the Iraqis are seen fighting and dying for their own country, the insurgents don't have a chance."

The insurgent strategy, Abizaid said, is to create the impression that the coalition is not winning. The attacks against innocent Iraqis, he added, are aimed at the U.S. will to stay the course.

More: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2005/20050626_1852.html

[Roland99]

1. So says Abizaid after he was taken to the woodshed.

[aquart]

2. Career over country.

Now there's patriotism.

[IndianaGreen]

9. He still did not say the magic words of "death throes".

I will nominate General Shinseki for the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest honor for a civilian, for telling the truth to Congress.

[pfitz59]

3. Gen. Westmoreland....

Gen. Abizaid. Different century, same shit!!!!!!!!

[buff2]

4. What was it today? 4 bombings by insurgents?

It's an every day occurance....nope....they don't stand a chance. :eyes:

[cliss]

5. Well, he's telling the truth there:

"But the war does not have a military solution". = meaning, we won't win this one.

"we're the shield behind which the politics will take place" = meaning, they still have not given up on their Precious Black Gold. They're hoping to somehow negotiate a truce so that they can keep their 14 bases in Iraq.

They've obviously resorted to Plan B.

General Abizaid forgets one thing: while we are doing this, the meter is ticking. We simply do not have the time it will take to train Iraqi troops. Time is money.

[indepat]

6. Fourteen permanent military bases would seem to lend credence to staying

the course.

[IndianaGreen]

7. The purpose of the insurgency is not to "win"

The purpose of the insurgency is to bleed the United States until there is no choice but to pack our bags and come home.

It is how one defines victory that has to be taken into consideration. We lost the war the moment we invaded a country that had not provoked us and had nothing to do with 9/11. The only issue that remains is how many marble panels is the Iraq War Memorial going to have, and how many names?

[teryang]

22. Right, there is the institution and then there are the soldiers

The military as an institution may not be physically removable by force. But it may be politically movable as the number of greasespots on the roads and desert increase.

The attacks on Iraqis are meant to discourage collaboration with the occupiers, impede the establishment of a domestic government with effective forces, and finally to deny the free commerce which is the barometer of order and political success in Iraq.

Any government which cannot provide an orderly environment for commerce to flourish cannot succeed in Iraq. American ingenuity in minimizing its casualties and forbearance in sustaining casualties means nothing if Iraqis cannot pursue their lives and the necessary activities of living in peace.

[zoeb]

8. Baghdad Bob working for the DOD now? n/t

[Webster Green]

10. He should watch the film of the fall of Saigon....

The last helicopters trying to get people off the roof of the US Embassy.

These people are delusional fuckwads.

[kikiek]

11. I think this kind of talk increases the number and fight of the insurgents

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

12. Every time one of the "morans" leading this fiasco opens their piehole

and spews stuff like this, more of our soldiers die.

[kikiek]

17. I agree. They are what is fueling the insurgency's fight. Makes you wonder

[Cocoa]

13. no military solution for the war?

if a dem said that, the RW would have a field day, with Rove leading the way.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. Translation: We can't lose, but we also can't win

Meaning it will just go on as it goes on, the bodies piled like cordwood, and piled and piled and piled...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

15. Whew. Feel much better now (eom).

[Disturbed]

18. Will negotiations with various parts of the Insurgency bear fruit?

If so, will the lives lost and those maimed, Amerikans and Iraqis, be for something?

I see that the only way that the Bush Regime can quell the resistance to the ongoing Occupation is to negotiate with the Insurgency and bring a majority of them into political power. Certain elements will never conceed but if the carnage can be brought down a level the Bush Regime may nuetaralize the ground swell of Amerikan lack of support for this ongoing war and colonization of Iraq.

[reprobate]

26. IN a word: No. The one thing they demand is not political sharing

What they want, and what most Iraqis want is us out of their country.

If there are negotiations going on, and I do have doubts about that, then they are just playing with time like the negotiations with the North Vietnamese did in Paris. Remember that? They negotiated and negotiated until we just got fucking tired or the war and left.

That's exactly what is going on now. IF, I say IF, there are negotiations going on. I think both sides are in an inflexible position. Them, because they want us out and nothing else. And us, because Mad George wants the resources, the OIL, and that's why we went there in the first place. Plus the fact the Mad George told his ghost writer in 1999 that he believed that a president had to be known as a WAR PRESIDENT in order to have enough political capital to get what he wanted done in his first term. Even then he was planning on attacking Iraq.

The man is constitutionally incapable of speaking the truth to the citizens of this country.

[chelsea0011]

16. No chance for what? I keep hearing this and I don't get it.

Are they saying the insurgents can overthrow this semi-sitting government with US troops still there? Probably not. Can they keep slaughtering thousands year in and year out with this semi-sitting government and US troops there? Probably. Our interests there are all about oil so look for thousands more deaths and years of occupation.

[unhappycamper]

19. Sure glad to hear that Johnnie. Westy said the same thing

35 years ago.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

20. This is so STUPID. Can the insurgent/rebel forces conquer the U.S.

forces and compel a surrender or retreat out of the country? Of course not.

Can they inflict enough attrition over a period of months and years (DECADES if necessary) so that the "will" of the American people to sustain the occupation is overcome by the "will" of the rebels to drive us out, and the U.S. public sickens of the war and forces a military retreat? YES. In fact we may be MUCH closer to such a point, years earlier than Vietnam, because despite having not enough sense and memory to have avoided this war, the historical "memory" of Vietnam in the country is not zero.

War is not about who has more bullets or JDAMs or tanks. It is a violent means of enforcing a political end. The equation of who wins has everything to do with the will of each side to achieve their objective versus the other side, and the blood shed each side is willing to tolerate is very much related to this.

Considering the Iraqi rebels are able to recruit many people to commit SUICIDE, certain death, in order to inflict damage upon U.S. forces, and the U.S. forces have ever declining enlistment and no political will within the country to conscript additional forces, the "will" side of the equation is becoming quite clear.

North Vietnamese forces suffered MILLIONS dead compared to our 50 thousand some odd, and we were the ones driven out. They clearly wanted us the hell out of their country WAY more than we wanted to "keep another domino from falling in SE Asia".

You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it.
Ho Chi Minh

[Patty Diana]

21. Abizaid original statement on insurgency

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3947933

[Endangered Specie]

23. In unrelated news: Generals predict Viet cong will "collapse" in weeks.

[CorwinB]

24. Great...

"The attacks against innocent Iraqis, he added, are aimed at the U.S. will to stay the course."

So you see ? If we stop banging our heads against the wall, the wall wins ! Stay the course !

[LynnTheDem]

25. Rumsfeld; "`We're not going to win against the insurgency..."

Ya'll make up your frigging minds and stick to one frigging line, arseholes.