U.S. struggling with fighting unfamiliar guerrilla war in Iraq

[cal04]

The U.S. military is fighting the most complex guerrilla war in its history, with 140,000 U.S. soldiers trained for conventional warfare flailing against insurgent groups with competing aims and no supreme leader. The 36 or so guerrilla bands agree on little beyond forcing the Americans out of Iraq.

In other U.S. wars, the enemy was clear. In Vietnam, a visible leader — Ho Chi Minh — led a single army fighting to unify the country under communism. But in Iraq, the disorganized insurgency has no single commander, no political wing and no dominant group.

U.S. troops can't settle on a single approach to fight groups whose goals and operations vary. And it's hard to sort combatants from civilians in a chaotic land where large parts of some communities support the insurgents and others are too afraid to risk their lives to help foreigners.

"It's more complex and challenging than any other insurgency the United States has fought," said Bruce Hoffman, a Rand Corp. counterinsurgency expert who served as an adviser to the U.S.-led occupation administration.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002054223_complex05.html

[RoyGBiv]

1. Guerrilla War

Wow. I'm having trouble believing my eyes. A journalist actually called the war what it is.

[saigon68]

24. "BRING EM ON" shouted the AWOL CHIMPANZEE

Who "Sat Out" the last "Gorilla (sic) War" LOL

[acmavm]

2. Seems to me they've given up the 'struggle' and just decided to bomb

every man, woman, and child that just happens to be in their sights.

[davhill]

3. You know what they say

"Kill them all and let God sort them out." A lot of Americans view the Middle East just that way.

[Disturbed]

4. Forgot about the Viet Cong?

No freakin' knowledge about history.

Now the Sunnis and Shi'ites have decided to stop fighting each other and join in fighting the Occupation.

The US Neo Fascsits think that they can bomb and kill enough people so that they will stop supporting the Resistance to US Colonization.

I feel that this Iraq invasion was illegal. The Occupation is illegal. The US will lose.

[reprobate]

18. The actual line was: Kill them all and let Gort sort them out.

It was a line from the classic movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

Not surprisingly nost people dont make the connection since in the move it was spoken in the alien language as "Gort, Klattu berrada nikto".

Funny how the religous right appropriates everything for thier ideology.

[Free2BMe]

5. coersion in the ranks to reenlist

One of the top stories on ABC this AM was that recruits from 4 different bases-having served there time...have been threatened with call up and being sent to Iraq if they did not "voluntarily reenlist."

[Jacobin]

6. But but, I thought Rumsfeld said he "didn't do quagmires"????

When is he resigning, because, he's "doing one" right now.

[T Bone]

7. Rummy bought the lie that no jungles meant no quagmires

A fatal misconception about middle east war has always been that a desert envirnment was an easier bet for warfare than a jungle environment, (think Vietnam) and no recognition that an insurgency will ALWAYS find a way and will always enjoy success as it utilizes ITS' OWN knowledge of its' own envirnment to utmost advantage against the invader.

[Go Eagles]

8. Rummy is a total fool

It's an easier bet if you are fighting an inferior army in open combat but when it comes to a guerrilla insurgency this type of advantage means nothing. If they understood the lessons of Beirut, Algiers, Mogadishu and the West Bank, they would know that guerrilla warfare in an urban environment is a jungle. Although the desert is open, it has it's own inhospitable qualities that favor an indigenous population.

[bemildred]

9. Yep, dumb as shit, and arrogant about it too. nt

[JohnyCanuck]

11. Remember the US General

who was canned from a war game because he kept winning a Mid East war game playing the "bad guy" by using pretty much the same guerilla war tactics as the Iraqi resistance is employing right now. I suppose the same brilliant strategic thinkers who shut down the war game and told the general to get lost because he would not play by the rules are the ones in charge right now.

[bemildred]

12. Hey, you don't know where to start with this.

There is 200 years of experience with guerilla wars and popular
resistance movements and they just wished it all away. They were
told over and over before this started by people who knew the
score, and the response was to retire the trouble makers. Rummy
and his buddies should all be shot for treason. I cannot think of a
comparable fuckup in the entire history of the USA, VietNam pales
in comparison. The mess in the Phillipines one hundred years ago
pales in comparison. Those were merely stupid and disasterous, this
is going to have permanent consequences, and there is no fixing it.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. As evil as bin Laden may be... he did predict what is going on right

now.... sad to report.

[bemildred]

26. No need to drag OBL into it.

Shinseki predicted this.
I predicted this.
We all here predicted this.
Everybody predicted this.
You have to be willfully stupid not to expect this.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

28. You have to be willfully stupid not to expect this.<<

And they would have to be exceedingly diabolical to want it. I don't put it past them not at all.

I saw it too... and have been railing against these perps for years.

[saigon68]

25. He kicked their ass pretty good in causing a stalemate

By making the game extend well beyond the "TIME LIMIT"

This apparently enraged the top brass who put on the whole little show to begin with.

The lesson was not learned very well

[bleedingheart]

10. What is that about being doomed to repeat history if you don't learn it?

This is Iraqnam...

[Englander]

13. Is the Iraq Quagmire the worst, most fucked-up war ever?

and we've not seen the worst yet,
I think.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

15. It may be just getting started. n/t

[gratuitous]

16. What's unfamiliar?

Looks almost exactly like Vietnam, just on a desert backdrop instead of in a jungle.

And why in the world would any of the military "brains" think that this would be a conventional war? I've never been to the War College, and am a dedicated pacifist, but even I know enough not to meet an overwhelming force strength to strength. If you're facing a well-funded, well-armed enemy, you have to fight that enemy at weaker points. Choose your battles. Realize that you're going to lose a lot of people, but work all the time at sapping the enemy's morale, and hurting the enemy's confidence.

That means sneak attacks, fire-and-fade tactics. Cover your tracks. Don't be exposed for too long. Work on the population with information and propaganda so that they turn against the enemy, too.

What manner of fools do we have running the military that they can't think along these lines as well as some guy sitting on his butt at a computer screen thousands of miles away?

[bleedingheart]

17. don't you just sometimes think we are living in some sort of satire

cuz this war looked like Vietnam to begin with ...and yet they are just discovering this????

[gratuitous]

19. Satire usually makes me laugh or at least smile wryly

Watching the butchery in Iraq of both military and civilian personnel is just sad.

[Go Eagles]

21. The War College knew this

but unfortunately the civilian neo-cons never attended. My mother's husband has a high civilian position at a military base and was selected to attend the Army War College in Carlisle, PA in 1998. They spent a great deal of time discussing the 91 Gulf War, why Hussein was not removed, the dynamics of Iraq and the problems we would face in destabilizing the country, region and the guerrilla resistance we would face.

[bemildred]

27. Yeah, don't dump on the war college.

They are sometimes "diplomatic", but they don't drink the KoolAid.
:thumbsup:

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

20. The Guard and Reserve--are they even trained for conventional war?

I always thought they were trained for national emergencies, such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

[saigon68]

22. They are trained to make coffee, put up tents

Fill sandbags etc. The average age is "over the hill"

Don't worry----- the DRAFT is COMING

[Bandit]

23. As Bush* would say ..."It's Hard"

They told everyone well before they invaded that they were trained and prepared for urban guerrilla warfare. I guess they were lying then as well.

[David__77]

29. Zarqawi is the fly in the ointment for resistance forces.

Zarqawi's sectarian violence hampers benign relations among the various resistance forces. His elimination would engender greater unity and coordination among domestic opposition.