MUST READ -"Saddam's New War"

[jayfish]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/986713.asp?0cv=CB10

-SNIP-
There is growing evidence that the devastating series of terrorist attacks bedeviling U.S. troops in Iraq may have been planned by Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants as part of a well-coordinated guerilla war strategy that was hatched well before the U.S. invasion of Iraq last March, U.S. intelligence sources tell Newsweek.
-SNIP-

-SNIP-
The most intriguing clues to support this view, officials say, are reports that dozens-and possibly even hundreds-of “suicide vests” rigged with explosives and detonators were discovered in caches by U.S. forces sweeping through Iraq as Saddam’s military and security apparatus crumbled and then melted away.
-SNIP-

If the story turns out to be true, then right off the bat it tells me a couple of things. One, in ShrubCo.'s rush to war, It vastly underestimated both the ability of Hussein to fight US forces on his terms and the difficulty in occupying a sovereign nation. Two, Saddam has us right were he wants us. Yesterday’s destruction of an Abrams MBT by insurgent forces does not bode well for continued occupation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3322826,00.html

This month of Ramadan may be some of the worst times in the US military's recent history.

Jay

[Maple]

1. Saddam himself, on the eve of invasion, said

that they would fight an 'unconventional war,' and win, and that the Iraqi people were not to believe anything they heard from the Americans about what was going on.

And 'Baghdad Bob' said 'Americans have not taken either Baghdad or Iraq and won't'

But nobody listened.

People even laughed.

Guess who was right?

[jayfish]

3. Was That Before Of After He...

was killed by a cruise missile? ;-)

Jay

[Maple]

4. Well his new video came out

after that. :D

[ComerPerro]

2. Apparently you thought the same thing I did

If this was indeed Saddam's plan, then BushCo really fucked up. They should pay for their rush to war.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Obviously NeoCons Never Read American History

We could go into the comparisons of Vietnam or Afghanistan, but the real "father" of this war is our own George Washington.

We gained our independence waging a long war of attrition against a far superior force that was over-stretched far from home. Washington avoided direct confrontation just as others have done and will do...and now with far more devestating effects.

The "military intelligence" that rushed into this war head their heads so far up their dogmatic asses that they failed to grasp the concept that no matter how evil Saddam was, he still was an Iraqi and only Iraqis will ultimately settle his fate...not us or anyone else.

What's really troubling is the ignorance and arrogance goes on with little to no clue. How many more will have to die? And WE'RE UnAmerican by calling it as it was or is?

To all who saw this coming...and I, also knew Saddam would melt and fight underground (what else could he do???), this means we'll be in for a long and extremely painful chapter of our history. We'll prevail, just like in Vietnam, it's going to take a lot of lives and blood to get the rest of the country finally to join us.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Good overall analogy with George Washington...

...but I bet the Freepers would be frothing at all orifices if they ever read it.

One point on how we got out of Vietnam...we finally just bit the bullet and got the heck out. Of course that was almost totally obscured by the so-called media blitz about "Peace with Honor".

[KharmaTrain]

8. Eerie Replays

Mind you, I was a mere "sprout" when Vietnam really got going, but I was watching TV & reading newspapers and remember the constant patriotic spin like we are witnessing today in the early years. The snapshot is the weekly death toll counts on Huntley/Brinkley...we always had waaay less then the bad guys.

The one thing I am seeing so much is the double-speak of Vietnam taken to a whole new level...and it didn't work then and it won't now. Again, this regime is too smart by half and will only desert this policy when they can find a scapegoat to palm it off on.

I'm certain there's some think-tank deep inside the Pentagon or Enterprise Institute coming up with some "exit" strategy that will look identical to "Peace With Honor" or the even more disasterous "Vietnmazation".

This regime knows they're stuck deep, thus trying to spin the message...and something even more telling, the embargo of coverage of returning bodies to Dover. They wouldn't do that if it wasn't getting "in the way of an on-going operation". I feel so frustrated.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. While I doubt that too many of the "suicide vests" were found,...

...primarily because the facts have not supported any of the claims reported in the media, I do believe the rest of it.

Here's a curious parallel in history: In 1812, Napoleon invaded Tsarist Russia with about 600,000 French and other allied soldiers, one of the largest armies ever assembled to that date. The French "coalition" was technically superior in every aspect, and won every battle. Within a realtively short period of time the "coalition" also captured Moscow.

But Moscow had been stripped of supplies and left burning by the ever-retreating Russians. Within a short period of time, Napoleon's aides convinced Napolen that they could not expect to survive the winter in Moscow, and so the retreat was ordered. Fighting the constantly growing Russian resistance on the flanks of the retreating "coalition" column, as well as the feared Russian winter, Napoleon and about 20,000 survivors were able to eventually reach France.

129 years later, an Austrian fellow by the name of Hitler made an attempt to destroy the old Soviet Union. His results were much worse than Napoleon's because the Germans never captured Moscow and Hitler committed suicide right before Berlin was captured and the Germans surrendered, thus ending WWII in Europe.

So, here we are, having won every battle in Iraq and having occupied every city. And the combat pressure is building and the casualties are climbing. The only difference between us and the nightmare faced by Napoleon and Hitler is that Napoleon and Hitler also had to deal with blizzard conditions.

[bpilgrim]

9. Operation Iraqi Liberation

i'm sure it looked good on the white board and powerpoints...

At the opening of Barbarossa, the war seemed a long ways off, and of little immediate concern to the citizens of Stalingrad. Although most young men were away serving with the military, life continued as it always had. But by the middle of August,1942, the Stalingrad City Soviet began giving consideration to evacuating children and non-essential civilians.

However, the bulk of the population was still in the city in late August when the battle got underway. The Luftwaffe sent Luftflotte 4 to commence air raids on the city, and the first of these set downtown Stalingrad aflame, reducing much of it to rubble. With central Stalingrad in flames, the editors of the local paper put together an improvised edition of Stalingrad Pravda. On a hand-cranked press, without power, they printed out a one page edition with a banner headline proclaiming, "We Will Smash the Enemy at the Gates of Stalingrad!" Over 40,000 civilians were killed in these first raids, and an evacuation began in earnest. The Luftwaffe commanders recognized that the boat traffic taking civilians across the Volga was also shuttling reinforcements into the city. German pilots strafed and bombed the landing in a concerted effort to panic the civilians flocked on the shore.

Thousands more died under the bombs and guns, but the ferry traffic continued unabated.

The first elements of the 6th Army breached the city in the northern residential suburb of Rynok. Gen. Hans Hube's 16th Panzer division was the first to reach the banks of the Volga, and Stalingrad was boxed in from the north. The Luftwaffe continued to pound the city into rubble, and Stalingrad would continue to burn for the next few months. The first of many bizarre, grotesque sights emerged as the inmates of the insane asylum came out of the ruins, wandering dazed and naked through the streets.

more...
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/stalingrad/death.aspx

peace

[Sworn Enemy]

10. Very Much Like Afghanistan.

The Soviet Union controlled up to 95% of Afghanistan before they were slowly bled to death. I remember a TV documentary with footage of the Mujahadeen attacking a Soviet installation with a small artillery tube. They had to be about a 1/2 to 1 mile away. What did the old Ruskies do? They ordered in a Hind. You could see it take off from the base. At that point the film ended. I'm sure that by the time the Hind arrived at the point of attack the Mujahadeen were long gone. About a week before Baghdad capitulated I told my wife, "you watch, we are going to lose this war."