Another day, another "new operation" in Iraq with another phallic codename

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

U.S., Iraqi Forces Launch Operation Sword

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160879,00.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq — More than 1,000 U.S. troops and Iraqi forces on Tuesday launched Operation Sword (search) in an effort to defeat terrorists and foreign fighters in western Iraq (search).

Operation Sword marks the third major offensive in the area in recent weeks as coalition and Iraqi forces attempt to quash an insurgency that's aiming to derail the democratic progress of the fledgling government.

The insurgency has killed more than 1,350 people — mostly civilians and Iraqi security forces — since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari (search) formed his Shiite-dominated government on April 28.

Meanwhile, a homicide car bomb killed a Shiite legislator and three others near Baghdad (search) on Tuesday, an attack likely to further fuel ethnic tensions on the one-year anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqi authorities.

[tanyev]

1. I think this will be next..

Operation Holywater Sprinkler

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. And the sad part is that Bush would probably LOVE it.

:evilgrin:

:toast:

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. Actually, he wouldn't do holy water. (and not because he's the Antichrist)

Chimpy may cozy up to Catholics in public so he can try to keep them on his side, but privately he hates them. He used to have arguments with the Bar-Beast that Catholics were going to Hell for following a false religion. Weird thing is that Bar and Poppy (and probably Junior himself at the time) were Episcopalian, which is often called "Catholic lite"

[meow2u3]

4. Sprinkle some holy water on a Repunk

and watch'em sizzle and fry! :evilgrin:

[elextech]

3. analogous to police work

It's kinda like normal police work in some ways.

For instance, here in Orlando, the police / sherrif's deputies / highway patrol officers set up speed traps and stop-light running traps in several places each day. After one day, they move to another place. They'll never completely surpress traffic violators, but they can abate the problem somewhat. That, in my humble opinion, is what they're doing in Iraq these days. They lance a boil in location A today, they raid bomb-making factory in location B tomorrow, do a night-raid on a safe house in location C on the following night, etc. They do what they can to keep the guerrillas in the guerrilla mode. Insurgencies actually have a formalized series of steps to be followed, starting with low-level terrorists attacks, increasing to small-unit guerrilla actions when the insurgents become stronger and the government less able to counter them, followed by larger-unit military actions until the insurgency becomes strong enough to defeat the police and standing army. On the other hand, formal anti-insurgency doctrine calls for continuously developing informers and other intel sources to know where to strike small insurgency operations before they can become stronger. Nobody expects the insurgents to quit, but, if they don't enjoy any real success, they might become less attractive to young recruits and eventually die out when the insurgents get old and gray.

This is similar to what happened in the Philippines. After ww2, the Russian-backed, Stalinist Hukbalahat (sp?) were the communist insurgency in the Philippines. The federal government fought them just as we're trying to train the Iraqi government to do now. Over the years the "Huks" just got old and retired to the rocking chairs on their front porches; young blood didn't come in to replace them. In the 1960s and '70s, the Chinese-backed, Maoist New Peoples' Army (NPA) came to life in the vacuum left by the Huks. The Philippine government is still fighting them today, just as they're fighting the muslim insurgency in the southern Philippines. The insurgents haven't "won," because they haven't reached their goal of toppling the existing government. On the other hand, the government can be said to be "winning," because they haven't been toppled, but they haven't "won" yet, because the insurgency is still active.

That's just about the same model that our guys are hoping for in Iraq (in my humble opinion): Train the Iraqis to effectively fight the insurgents well enough to prevent the insurgents' toppling the government, so we can say "goodbye" and leave. The Philippines have been fighting communists insurgents for decades and muslim insurgents for centuries. It's a low-level conflict which can almost be ignored as a nomal part of life, like deaths due to urban criminal conduct or deaths in auto accidents, regretable, but something which can never be stopped entirely. Most importantly, it's something which would not require that our troops be present.

Believe it or not, our guys are getting a better feel for the best ways to train the Iraqis, and the Iraqis are gaining experience and confidence in the fight against the insurgents. It's still possible that the infant Iraqi government and its police and army may grow stonger and be able to do its own fighting someday. There's also a very good chance that it will fail. I'd guess we'll be able to pull out significant numbers of our troops within one year, but we'll never be able to pull out all of them; we'll probably leave a token force just as we have token forces in South Korea today fifty years after the Korean war went into a "ceasefire."