Get on over there and fight to spread democracy! You're in the right age range, and you know it!!!
Jonah, you must go to Iraq and fight the Iraqi snipers THERE so we don't have to fight them HERE!
"The sheer helplessness of a supposedly omnipotent U.S. military trapped in a losing war against guerrillas in Iraq is captured in a New York Times story this morning:
In recent months, military officers and enlisted marines say, the insurgents have been using snipers more frequently and with greater effect, disrupting the military’s operations and fueling a climate of frustration and quiet rage.
Across Iraq, the threat has become serious enough that in late October the military held an internal conference about it, sharing the experiences of combat troops and discussing tactics to counter it. There has been no ready fix.
. . . Marines in two infantry companies recounted more cases, telling of lone shots that zipped in as if from nowhere, striking turrets and walls within inches of marines. They typically occur when the marines are not engaged in combat. It is as if, they say, they are being watched.
. . . “In the beginning of the war, sniping wasn’t something that the Iraqis did,” said Capt. Glen Taylor, the executive officer of the battalion’s Company G, who is on his third combat tour. “It was like, ‘If Allah wants that bullet to hit its target, it will.’ But they are starting to realize how effective it is.”
The insurgents are recruiting snipers and centralizing their instruction, the captain said, meaning that the phenomenon is likely to grow.
. . . The marines also express their belief that the sniper teams have a network of spotters, and that each time the marines leave their outpost, spotters hidden among the Iraqi population call the snipers and tell them where the marines are and what they are doing. The snipers then arrive.
Just as with the buried IEDs that make U.S. troops refer to routine road patrols as Operation Get Blown Up, the nightmare of sniper attacks is that a soldier can be going about a humdrum task one moment, and dead the next.
As Letter from Here incisively notes, the article depicts our troops as being in Iraq "for nothing. Except to be targets." And the soldiers are aware of it as anyone."
http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3535
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