Odds heavily against US counter-attack succeeding

[maddezmom]

There was something familiar in the muddy reports from Fallujah.

Just as during the invasion of Iraq last year, television pictures provided drama, but little hard information. Nobody was really sure how the American assault was going.

~snip~

But every indication is that the odds are heavily against this US counter-attack succeeding. There is no doubt the Americans have the military strength to take Fallujah, or raze it. But that is not their aim. They need to stem the insurgency, and the omens are not good.

Insurgents can simply slip away to another city, or lie low and live to fight another day. That is what happened when the Americans tried to pacify Samarra last month. At the weekend the militants were back in Samarra. At least 34 people died in a wave of car bombings.

Even as US troops were advancing into Fallujah, there were reports of insurgents arriving in the neighbouring city of Ramadi and taking up positions to secure the centre there. Fallujah may have become a symbol of the insurgency, but it has never been the only rebel stronghold.

more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3608990&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

[maxsolomon]

1. exactly how does an insurgent "slip out" of fallujah now?

has the occupation failed to set up a perimeter? given the track record, i wouldn't even be surprised.

[da_chimperor]

4. They've had over 7 months to prepare for this

that and it's not like this offensive has been a secret. Probably gave them plenty of time to dig escape tunnels out of the city. The Palestinians have a lot of experience doing to same to bypass the fortified border in gaze to bring weapons in from Egypt.

[agingdem]

19. And after the US bombs Fallujah...

and declares "mission accomplished" the insurgents will back into the rubble and start again...one step forward, ten steps back.

[LeftHander]

24. hide among refugees....

Insurgents don't wear uniforms...or big "I" painted on thier backs...

They pack up the wife and kids and drive out of town to escape the fighting...

Remeber the insurgents for the most part are Iraqi citizens. That is thier home we are blasting into rubble....

[chelaque liberal]

48. By American definition, any male over age 15 is an insurgent--they

were not allowed to leave. That's justification for killing them, right?

[KansDem]

32. Maybe they'll disguise themselves as "High Explosives"???

exactly how does an insurgent "slip out" of fallujah now?"

[lordwhorfin]

35. It's a city

roughly the size of Cincinnati. Not too hard to get out of, very hard to cordon off.

[Nordic]

38. oh right, the American assault was such a surprise. NOT.

n/t

Same thing happened in Samarra, and when we did come in there we just killed a lot of unarmed men.

The "insurgents" had vanished.

[radfringe]

47. they had plenty of warning and time

it wasn't exactly a "state secret" that bush* would start bombing/attacking after the election

why AFTER the election? Well, if the attack on Fallujah went badly -- this could effect his re-Selection chances, better to wait

meanwhile - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq -- is no where to be found... he skedaddled -- ummmm maybe if we hire some warlords to "hunt 'em down"?????

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041110-121747-5667r.htm
Zarqawi not likely in Fallujah
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The expected takeover of Fallujah by coalition forces will not include a top prize — the capture of terror mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi.

Military sources told The Washington Times that, although the American command once had indications that Zarqawi had set up shop within Fallujah's mosque-lined streets, he fled the city weeks before Sunday's major assault began.

--snip---

Asked specifically about Zarqawi, on whom the United States has placed a $25 million bounty, Gen. Metz said, "It's fair to assume that he's left," adding: "We would then continue our intel effort across the country looking for him."

[da_chimperor]

2. I got the same impression from reading the reports on the 'battle'

One army officer was saying they were running into much less resistance in some areas than expected. My guess is most of the Iraqi fighters left, and only some hard-core ones remain. Mission accomplished? :eyes:

[nickinSTL]

3. Insurgents can simply slip away to another city

This all sounds to me like the US has botched this whole thing abysmally.

They kill a few in Fallujah, the others retreat to...somewhere else.

Then we go there, and kill some more...as more Iraqis join the fight watching the US kill their countrymen.

How many will die as the US digs itself deeper into the Iraqi quagmire?

To those who voted for Bush (not DUers, of course) I hope you are ready to go serve in his war.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Exactly. They leave just enough to satisfy their honor, to not leave it

undefended, but the majority go away to fight another day. Did our military really think that the insurgents would stand and fight when both outnumbered and outgunned?

[hatrack]

5. Another poster said it first - we're nailing Jello to a tree

And we're not making a very good job of it.

[maddezmom]

7. Squeezing jello in Iraq, By Scott Ritter

The much-anticipated US-led offensive to seize the Iraqi city of Falluja from anti-American Iraqi fighters has begun. Meeting resistance that, while stiff at times, was much less than had been anticipated, US Marines and soldiers, accompanied by Iraqi forces loyal to the interim government of Iyad Allawi, have moved into the heart of Falluja.



Fighting is expected to continue for a few more days, but US commanders are confident that Falluja will soon be under US control, paving the way for the establishment of order necessary for nation-wide elections currently scheduled for January 2005.

But will it? American military planners expected to face thousands of Iraqi resistance fighters in the streets of Falluja, not the hundreds they are currently fighting. They expected to roll up the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his foreign Islamic militants, and yet to date have found no top-tier leaders from that organization. As American forces surge into Falluja, Iraqi fighters are mounting extensive attacks throughout the rest of Iraq.

Far from facing off in a decisive battle against the resistance fighters, it seems the more Americans squeeze Falluja, the more the violence explodes elsewhere. It is exercises in futility, akin to squeezing jello. The more you try to get a grasp on the problem, the more it slips through your fingers
more:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/718AE278-58EE-431F-8045-5A3F505021B8.htm

[Javaman]

37. The more you squeeze, the more slips through your fingers...

Princess Leia - Star Wars - episode 4 - A New Hope

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. Or hitting

mercury with a hammer. Myriad ittle globules shot off in all directions.

[Nordic]

40. Nice. I also thought of trying to crush a blob of mercury with a hammer

all you do is make more little balls of mercury. And it's intensely poisonous to boot.

[HuckleB]

6. This is the history of occupation in Iraq.

It's the history the White House ignored, and so it's the history that it will repeat ad nauseum. The British know very well the pattern of "taking a city" and then having to "retake it" again and again and again and again and again and again. It doesn't end. The pattern was set long before anyone in the current White House was even born. We simply decided to set ourselves into this ongoing history.

We are now officially an ahistorical nation, which, of course, means we're doomed, if we don't find a way to change this status.

[fishnfla]

8. does anyone really know whats going on in Iraq?

The military? Some did, they were ignored
The press? Sorry to make you laugh
The administration? Colin Powell but they used the "ignore" feature on him too.
Intelligence analysts? Riiiiiight, sure
The American public? can you say "4 more years" ?

this remains the biggest foreign policy blunder in modern history. from the very beginning it was a clusterf*ck. without an understanding of the situation any sort of planning or military action is futile.

[0007]

13. The folks that were born and raised in Iraq know what's going on

but the U.S. can't figure it out yet.

Here one moment gone the next.

[fishnfla]

15. exactly

Cheney relied on Chalabi and the Iraqi exiles for their interpretation, which was completely self-serving and totally off-the-mark. We started off blundering blindly right into a hornets nest.

I wonder if the admin has figured out yet that iraq is dominated by competing tribal factions, whose seperate leaders call the shots in various areas, or are they gonna continue to paint Zarqawi as the chief bogeyman?

[0007]

20. Aye mate, Zarqawi will fill the plate for the cnn viewers and the faux

glib talkers, and make Rumsfeld feel like he's got a pair of balls. But when the death count get around 5k and the troops get wise to the incompetence of the it's leaders, then I expect change.

Bring the troops home will be the cry! USA USA USA we're on our way!!

[VegasWolf]

26. but, but, they're all dead! n/t

[kostya]

27. More likely they didn't give a fuck about planning,

because they simply wanted chaos to take them through at least one re-election. You have to look far and wide in this administration to find anyone who has heard a shot in anger, they could care less about the troops. Meanwhile, they are war profiteering like crazy, have pushed off the table all sorts of social issues and are crippling the federal government. Seems like indeed it has been a "catastrophic success" for BushCheneyRoveCo. - K

[Dhalgren]

9. This is a very good article.

Everyone should read it. It points up just how stupid this whole fiasco has been from its inception. The thing that keeps getting to me is how inept and "dumb" our military command is. With planners and officers like this, no country or group should fear the US military, apart from its nuclear arsenal...

[grumpy old fart]

30. Military not "Stupid"

The military is tasked with a mission from the the civilian administration that controls them. They do that mission to the best of their ability, and don't grouse. Officially. That's the kind of military any free country needs and should want. The problem is when the civilian leaders (read "Chimp cabal") don't listen to the advice they get before they launch into their misguided jihads. The military is being brutally and callously misused and they know it. As Moore put it, "will they ever trust us again"?

[tabasco]

45. That's right. The stupidity is at the top.

During my service I found the Army to be the most efficient organization I have ever seen. We have a lot of fine people in Iraq that didn't sign on for this crap and are doing their best under extremely tough circumstances.

The press likes to quote ignorant soldier blather which gets posted here a lot but the fact is most of our troops are decent people and hate being in Iraq.

It appears to me the guerillas are under some centralized control. They may be operating somewhat independently, but the bad news is - the guerillas are showing signs of centralized command & control. We will not be able to piecemeal destroy the resistance. They will retreat and regroup much like in Vietnam. Any honest military leaders will tell you this looks llike a quagmire.

I can scarcely believe that this criminal misadministration has been granted a second term. If it was truly religious people that helped install this cabal, I just wonder what religion they are. Killing and warmongering are not Christian values, so they must be something else.

[Sideways]

49. Remember The Republican Guard? They Had These Things Called Generals

And Commanders....Yep these "rag tag" guerrillas definitely have a centralized command and control. I wrote another DUer Tahiti Nut right after the "fall of Baghdad" that this was going to come to fruition and shit for once I wish I had been wrong. This doesn't look like a quagmire it is a quagmire.

[Dhalgren]

51. The "kind of military

any free country needs and should want" is one led by men and women of integrity and intelligence. Integrity does not mean blindly following whatever the civilian authority says. Integrity means refusing to senselessly get your men killed and maimed in stupid offensives and idiotic actions that any sane person can see is simply bone-headed. The chain of command has failed the troops on the ground. They have put their careers ahead of the safety and lives of their soldiers. Where is the list of generals and colonels who have resigned in protest? Not over the deployment in Iraq, that isn't their purview, but over the senseless slaughter of their own men? Perhaps "stupid" was not the correct word, perhaps "venal", "sycophantic", or "callous" would be better choices.

[leftchick]

52. "the enemy is Satan'???

so did the civilian leadership tell that officer to use those words in this crusade of aWol*S. They are all fucked up, everyone in command of this massacre.

[The_Casual_Observer]

10. The pentagon pretends that they are winning something

Islamic fundamentalists won on 9/11 and they are waging a successful war with the US in Iraq. It appears that the US has no workable strategy to "win", other than to try and kill anybody who points a gun at them. Rumsfeld is off the mark thinking that he will win this by attrition.

[maddezmom]

14. another article from this am: Iraq war little problem for Al Qaeda, expert

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=975845&mesg_id=975845

[aden_nak]

11. Waging conventional warfare against insurgency cell-based enemies FAILS.

Perhaps if anyone planning this war had served in Veitnam, they'd know that.

[Straight Shooter]

16. Nothing succeeds like not succeeding, in bushworld

It's got to get so bad, so very very bad in Iraq, that, "Sigh," says bush, "I really wanted an all volunteer army, but you see, things have changed, and we must change with them. For that reason, I am asking Congress to approve the draft. And I know all freedom-loving Murikans will understand."

"Now watch this drive."

[Nordic]

41. Hm, ain't that the truth. He's been rewarded for failure his whole life

and continues to.

Maybe he is the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ is the only guy who could pull this off!

[daleo]

17. Very sobering conclusion to the article, too

"Or the Americans may have another aim in mind: To respond to the nightmare videos of Westerners being beheaded in kind. They may feel "putting Fallujah to the torch", as it has been described in the American press, will put the insurgents on notice that they can expect horror in exchange for horror.

It is a familiar tactic from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and all it ever led to there was an endless cycle of killing."

[Nordic]

18. Nobody has ever "won" against insurgents on their home turf

You can raze the towns, commit genocide, but you'll never "win".

History proves this.

GO TEAM!!!

[natrat]

21. are these military officials really this stupid?

what a joke,,,,i honestly think kids playing capture the flag at summer camp have more smarts than these fools.

[Nordic]

28. their ego is at stake

and when a guy's ego is at stake, he'll do all kinds of stupid things

[Catfight]

36. Unless the American people are provoked to turn against the war

thereby letting Bush off the hook to withdraw because his 'base' said it wasn't winnable. How clever. Therefore, allow the dead bodies to be viewed, show the coffins and get Americans all worked up and tearful of the loss.

[foo_bar]

43. historically speaking: met any Aztecs lately?

Excluding genocide, your statement is mostly correct. Including it, there's lots of historical precedent from the Canaanites to the Warsaw Ghetto.

[denverbill]

22. Does the word 'duh' mean anything to these people?

And after evacuating the city, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses, killing some innocent along with some guilty, do they really think more Fallujah residents are going to love us?

No, more likely, the evacuees will simply spread their stories of American misconduct to their friends and relatives in whatever city they are forced to evacuate to and get them hating us too.

It's going to be a wonderful occupation.

[sendero]

25. I'm never surprised...

... at the current administration's inability to grasp the situation at hand, but what about the military?

Surely the men in charge know this is a pointless effort. Do none of them ever pass the word on?

[DinahMoeHum]

29. Doesn't surprise me. Bush has already lost Iraq. . .

even if he flattens Fallujah.

Win the battle, lose the war.

"...but every battle won is just another grain of sand,
when you're white boots marching in a yellow land..."

- Phil Ochs



:nuke:

[Chimpanzee]

31. Vietnam

[donkeyotay]

33. the beginning and the end, and all the dead in the middle

from the link:

The mistakes that led to yesterday's fighting were made long ago, in the invasion of Iraq and the woeful failure to administer the country that followed.

...

Or the Americans may have another aim in mind: To respond to the nightmare videos of Westerners being beheaded in kind. They may feel "putting Fallujah to the torch", as it has been described in the American press, will put the insurgents on notice that they can expect horror in exchange for horror.

It is a familiar tactic from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and all it ever led to there was an endless cycle of killing.

end:

That seems to sum it up. I just don't see how we can kill enough people to make up for our false excuses for war and its failed execution.

[against all enemies]

34. What is the difference between the French "resistance" during WWII

and the Iraqi "insurgent" now? Both were trying to get an occupying army out of their homeland.

[Nihil]

46. The only significant difference is that ...

... the Iraqi Resistance doesn't have the willing support of the media.

The majority of the world's media have been bought out by the Nazis
and so will gleefully use whatever labels and bullshit lies that their
owners provide.

Otherwise, people - even stupid people - would be able to recognise
that the rest of the free world should be fighting alongside the Iraqi
resistance, against the imperialist invaders and their recently
purchased Vichy troops.

[Javaman]

39. The guerrilla wins by not losing. The army loses by not winning...

Henry Kissinger - war criminal.

[Karna]

42. no sh__ sherlock!

duh!

[fbahrami]

44. let's stop calling them "insurgents"

at this point, I would think a lot of young people - in any country - who had lived under military occupation for a year, would be ready to risk their lives to fight it.

[Sideways]

50. KICK

:kick: