Insurgents target Strykers in Iraq (edited headline by AP)

[maddezmom]

AP has updated the headline:

Insurgents target Strykers in Iraq

the original:
Strykers lose 10 on 1st day in Diyala(Report says one dead, 12 wounded)

BAQOUBA, Iraq - Dozens of U.S. Stryker combat vehicles roared into Baqouba at sunrise. The enemy was ready. As the dawn call to prayer fell silent, the streets blazed with insurgent fire. Within minutes of the start of their first mission in Diyala province Wednesday a voice crackled across the radio: "Catastrophic kill, with casualties."

Inside the rear of one Stryker, soldiers shushed one another and leaned closer to the radio. They all knew what it meant. A U.S. vehicle had been lost to hostile fire.

Nearly 100 Strykers, armored troop carriers with 50-caliber machine guns, were called north from Baghdad into the province and its capital to try — yet again — to rout Sunni insurgents, many who recently fled the month-old Baghdad security operation.

The fighters have renewed their campaign of bombings and killings just 35 miles northeast of the capital as the war enters its fifth year. Diyala province is quickly becoming as dangerous as Anbar province, the Sunni insurgent bastion west of Baghdad.

Rocket-propelled grenades pounded buildings Wednesday where U.S. soldiers sought cover. Mortars soared overhead and crashed to earth spewing clouds of deadly shrapnel.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_under_fire

:(


mods please feel free to move if this isn't LBN.

[flamingyouth]

1. So sad.

:cry:

[FogerRox]

2. I think Stykers can carry up to 10.

[maddezmom]

4. I think it's one killed, 9 wounded

:cry: But yesterday when I went to bed I thought we had only lost 2 on Wednesday and it was 5.

[atreides1]

3. Report says one dead, 12 wounded.

By day's end, one soldier was dead, 12 wounded and two Strykers destroyed. The Americans said dozens of insurgents were killed but gave no specific number.

[maddezmom]

5. thank you... I added this to the subject line)

:)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. 10 vehicles?

I remember a couple of years ago the news (via the Pentagon is suspect) was reporting how Strykers were essential new wonder weapons in Iraq.

I suspected that meant they had critical design flaws- deathtraps like the Bradley, or the Sherman.

Can anyone chime in?

[leveymg]

7. A Stryker is faster than a Bradley, but less well armoured

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stryker_Vehicle_Controversy

Its armor is ineffective against Rocket Propelled Grenade attacks, a very common type of attack. A 5,000 lb improvised "slat" armor add-on, looking like a fence around the vehicle, was fielded for Iraq operations to explode an RPG before it hits the vehicle and give added protection. But a December, 2004 report showed that even with the added slat-armor, the Stryker has been only 50 percent effective overall against Rocket Propelled Grenades during combat in Iraq.<2> The slat armor add-on does not protect the rear or all of the large wheel wells and only defeats RPGs with High Explosive (HE) warheads. Binary warhead-tipped RPGs have been known to punch through the slat-armor.

[Paulie]

18. Wow, less armor than a Bradley, which uses ALUMINUM armor

That's just scary. Just read "The Pentagon Wars" by Burton. There was an HBO movie on the book as well.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

28. strykers are too heavy for the sand, though

and must stick to the roads, which they tear up.
fully weaponed, armored and filled with troops and gear, they weigh more the 14 tons.

[ellisonz]

25. Brilliant, just fucking brilliant.

:puke:

[Decruiter]

8. I continue to ask what would you do. I've been asking this question

since April of 2003 when our soldiers marched into Fallujah and fired into a protest crowd that just wanted the soldiers to move out of the school they occupied.

What would you do in your neighborhood if a multi-national force had occupied your town and set up camp in the elememtary school down the block?

"insurgents", "al-quaida", Sunni, Shia............. Whatever.

Go back and re-read the PNAC plan. What is happening now is just as desired.

I'm really sorry for all that are there for whatever confused reasons they give themselves for doing it. Personally, I'd rather have a spot underneath a bridge with a box to call home than be a soldier occupying a country and intimidating people over lies and for profit.

Smedley Butler knew

Ike Eisenhower warned us

John Kennedy was going to stop it

Now where are we?

[bahrbearian]

10. Money preempts peace.

[TheBaldyMan]

11. I think the stink about Fallujah took off when contractors were killed

then mutilated and strung up from the road bridge.

That triggered the first battle of Fallujah. The area has been brutally suppressed since then by both sides, Sunni militia and occupation forces.

The ordinary people are the ones who suffer the worst, fired on by all factions and either driven out or held hostage at the whim of those who are in control of their neighbourhood.

[PunkPop]

14. The 'stink about Fallujah'?

I have no idea what that means and whether you're agreeing or disagreeing but Decruiter is right. The "stink" began when we gunned down a bunch of unarmed residents who were justifiably protesting the fact that US forces had taken up residence in one of their schools.

The smell worsened when we attacked the city, raided the main hospital and positioned snipers who proceeded to shoot at ambulances and anything else that moved.

And it really got putrid around the time the makeshift graveyard was set up in the soccer stadium to hold all the dead bodies from our "liberation".

[TheBaldyMan]

15. not to mention the 'whee-ew' moment when insurgents killed an innocent

civilian, then booby trapped his body with explosives so his family couldn't recover it, it was left to rot in the street pour encourager les autres.

You seem to be taking exception to my phrasing but please don't ignore the fact that I am not defending the conduct of the fighting by any faction involved.

The fact remains that it is the residents of Fallujah that bear the brunt of the brutal oppression by armed bands.

I don't have the dates for the occupation of the school could you help me out by posting a link to the story please.

on edit: i've found the link and you're right the Blackwater incident was almost a year later.

[bahrbearian]

27. Who are these armed bands? and, who is the occupier?

[TheBaldyMan]

29. the occupiers are the 'coalition' troops, the armed bands are ...

in no particular order, local Sunni militias, multi-national jihadis (Saudi bankrolled and very fundy), mercenaries security consultants with a kill 'em all attitude, Iraqi Army, Iraqi police. I think I might be missing some groups. It could be worse.

It's a mess. That's just Fallujah. The ethnic mix and the most vulnerable change depending on where you are and the time of year. Most civilians carry two sets of ID, one Sunni & one Shia. I don't know what you do if you're turkoman, kurdish, etc.

Things are worse than they were under Saddam. Iraqi democracy means you have several groups that can kidnap, kill or rob you rather than the evil monolithic Ba'athists. The situation was let slide since 'Mission Accomplished'.

[Decruiter]

16. Go back to google and enter in Fallujah, April 2003. The battle of

Fallujah began then, 1 full year before the tragedy of the contractors.

I repeat, what would you do in your neighborhood?

Damn few can answer the question, it is rather uncomfortable.

I know I can't.

[TheBaldyMan]

21. I did already, thanks for the reminder

if you check my post above, the reason I thought the issue started over that was because the Blackwater contractors' murder was the trigger for the first battle of Fallujah. My mistake.

Re-reading the story on the gunning down of the protesters did bring back a few things, I remember at the time there was a lot of controversy as to what indeed happened.

Considering the unit involved it doesn't look very good for the US forces, the 82nd is a light infantry unit trained to be very aggressive. Similar problems have been observed with similar units, namely the Parachute Regiment in the British Army. Airborne infantry are very effective as combat troops but are a disaster waiting to happen when it comes to police actions and civil administration that accompanies occupation. A classic example of the lack of forward thinking from the Office of Special Plans. Not enough troops deployed in the first place and woefully undermanned by specialist security troops like MPs. We were meant to be welcomed as liberators, remember?

However I am still completely justified about the militias that infest Fallujah, they are brutal and ruthless. The lives of the residents of Fallujah are blighted by all armed factions, native and foreign.

[Decruiter]

30. If I had been born and raised in Fallujah, if I had family involved in

any episode that transpired after April of 2003 I honestly have to tell you I and my remaining family members would be "insurgents".

We would be freedom fighters.

Look into June of 2003 and read about the young family killed as they tried to return into Fallujah with a load of chickens one night. They were outside of the curfew by a few minutes and our troops opened fire. Another family wiped out.

When April of 2003 happened in Fallujah, I looked to my husband and told him that Fallujah would be wiped off the map.

I also looked to my husband in December of 2000, when Bush, Jr., surrounded himself with his cabinent and new administration and promised to bring back integrity and honesty to the White House. I told my husband we were going to war. Silly me, I thought we were headed for South America.

Peace

I'm tired and give up.

[rcdean]

12. It is stupid, immoral and self-defeating to conduct offensive operations in cities.

You can't win wars like this one by conquering people. Times have changed.

When indigenous peoples in large percentages are pissed off at an occupier, there is no way to overwhelm their deep-rooted instincts to fight back.

When we go in and destroy people's homes and violate their human rights and arrest their fathers and brothers and husbands without charge, jail and torture them for years, kill and maim their neighbors, it is a formula not for victory but for utter disaster.

Most astute military people learned this in the aftermath of Nam. But that crowd has all been rooted out, replaced by bootlicking bullies who match the stupidity and recklessness of George W. Bush.

[xchrom]

9. get your surge on, baby!

[w4rma]

13. We can't expect the AP to report on reality too clearly and accurately, can we? (nt)

[Decruiter]

17. How, just how I beg pray tell did the people of the Mid-East do without

us all for some 4,000/5,000 odd years and our democracy? Most of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish people I know are nice and want all this BS war to end.

I must be around the wrong people.

[MGD]

19. Those RPGs are a real bitch, especially in an urban environment where vehicles are most vulnerable

Armor is supposed to maneuver and mass. That isn't really possible within the confines of urban terrain. Light infantry doesn't stand much of a chance against armored vehicles in open terrain but, in a city, even the mighty tank becomes quite vulnerable.

[leveymg]

20. That's exactly the difference between Desert Storm and this catastrophe.

Why do you think they didn't try to occupy Iraq's cities in 1991? They knew. They knew.

Even M1A2 main battle tanks are vulnerable to RPGs. And then there are the IEDs.

In this setting, we've essentially lost our techological advantage. yes, the overall kill ratio is 100/1, but the cost ratio has to be 10,000/1 against us. By those odds, we're likely to lose in a war of attrition -- we just simply can't afford to keep losing $5 million tanks to $500 RPGs.

[MGD]

22. Truth be told, it is the information age that prevents us from winning wars these days.

If this were 1945, we would have burned Baghdad and Fallujah to the ground by now and the death toll would be too numerous to count. Information technology has proven to be a very powerful force.

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. Very interesting take

I tend to agree.

The way to combat that (from the perspective of people who continue to want to win wars by destroying cities) is getting people to abandon some basic form of morality, to abandon the compulsion of something like a categorical imperative and drift toward some absolute relativism (haha) that would allow the destruction of an entire city in order to preserve the capacity to shop vigorously...

Full information requires that fascists destroy ethical systems. In that way, the information doesn't register negatively. The torture celebration today regarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - even on NBC Nightly news - is merely one prong in this general tendency.

[MGD]

24. Indifference is evil's right hand.

"Full information requires that fascists destroy ethical systems. In that way, the information doesn't register negatively."
The decay of western ethics can not be separated from the decay of western morals and, as far as that goes, the blame can not fall singularly on fascism. That being said, the information revolution is not limited to the United States. It is not America's access to information that impedes the war machine but, rather, it is the world's access to information that impedes the war machine.

"abandon the compulsion of something like a categorical imperative and drift toward some absolute relativism (haha) that would allow the destruction of an entire city in order to preserve the capacity to shop vigorously..."
Monkey man isn't concerned with good and evil, he is only concerned with survival and the fullfillment of his needs.

[ellisonz]

26. No one wins wars. You just make more wars.

But yes, you've got a point...I think this is also somewhat the nature of insurgencies/civil conflicts. You don't know which part of the city to blow up.

The New Fog of War