Can't break their morale. Iraqis are prepared to take unlimited losses no matter how many are killed

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/dispatch/content/insight/stories/2007/05/13/Iraq_and_Vietnam.ART_ART_05-13-07_G1_7L6MPR7.html

Stanley A. Karnow, the veteran Time-Life journalist, covered U.S. combat in Vietnam from 1959 and wrote Vietnam: A History.The war in Iraq is "unwinnable," Karnow said, so the United States should orchestrate the partition of the country among rival Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis; set a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal; and begin phased withdrawals immediately.

U.S. forces cannot prevail because they face dogged adversaries in Iraq every bit as determined as enemies in Vietnam who were "prepared to take unlimited losses to the point that you could never break their morale no matter how many we killed," Karnow said. "In the end they broke our morale, and we got out."

Nor can the United States look to a negotiated U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, he said. The United States faces a divided, multifaceted enemy in Iraq -- a reality that undercuts any possibility for negotiations.

U.S. negotiators in Vietnam faced "an enemy that was cohesive -- all communists, all working for Hanoi, all working to unify Vietnam," Karnow said.

He added that America should provide a haven for frightened Iraqi refugees, comparable to the sanctuary provided some Vietnamese refugees who fled after U.S. withdrawal in 1975.

[Atman]

1. Sounds like Bush.

As long as the unlimited losses don't include the sons or daughters of any of his family, friends or contributors, or affect the tax cuts for the 1% Club.

.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. I'm not so sure about them being willing to take unlimited ...

casualties but they are ready to inflict them on each other.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Shock and Awe was designed to be the equivalent of a nuclear strike minus the radiation

Anyone who can live through Shock and Awe can survive anything. It didn't seem to break their will to fight much. And yes they appear to have no qualms about killing Iraqi collaborators.

Don