THE DIGNIFIED RANT
FOREIGN AFFAIRS MARCH 2003 ARCHIVES
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"A Million Mogadishus" (Posted
That's what one
He apparently really hates
Iraqis.
Sorry prof.,
but we will take care to spare Iraqis as much as we can. You'll need to get
your body count elsewhere.
"Hurry Up!" (Posted
That's what the press,
standing in front of the microwave where they are awaiting their
We haven't won yet and it is
coming up on two weeks of war. Shocking.
I concede,
some aspects of the war have not turned out as I suspected. One, we have not
deployed a second heavy division in secret. The western front was meant to
secure western and southwestern
But grant me what I got
right. One, a significant western front that did take over
the region. Two, a main thrust west of the
Overall, my confidence has
been well placed. We are doing great. I have missed some details and gotten
some right.
Some assessments are yet to
come. How will the Republican Guards fight and how the Special RG will fight. I
don't remember if I blogged this but when asked about
the fighting qualities of the Iraqis, I have said 90% of the regulars will not
fight us. Maybe half of the RGs will not fight. The SRGs are a mystery. They could be die-hards or pampered
palace troops who will break when they become aware they are all by their
lonesome. We have yet to see how the Shias will react
when they know they are finally safe from Saddam's revenge. I have seen hints
that it will be pro-US. We still don't know how the
The battle against the
Republican Guards should begin soon. New moon tonight, I think. Marines seem to
have pulled level with 3rd ID. Third ID is battling at the
I'd like to hope that the
talk of delay is to mask our impending assault on the Republican Guards. My
track record on timing isn't so great, however. (I have consistently belived war was imminent since the end of December)
The war has gone remarkably
well, so far. We still need some speed to end this before bad things happen in
other parts of the world.
"Insurrection" (Posted March 30, 2003)
The Iraqi Shias have not revolted to pave the road to Baghdad. This failure has led to the need for more heavy ground power to defeat the Republican Guards. This requires precious time to accumulate.
From the beginning I've urged speed as the antidote to many potential problems. We achieved that goal in the first week but now we have abandoned that in order to gain power.
I'm not ready to predict disaster or even less than decisive victory since we have prevented many bad things that were possible before the invasion began. No oil field fires. No oil dumping into the Gulf. No chemical weapons launched at Kuwait bases, Israel, or our troops. No Turkish-Kurd clashes. No heavy civilian or American-allied casualties. There is no sign that the regulars are engaged in this war. We face the regime bully boys and the Republican Guard thus far. And we have the Iraqis compressed into a much smaller area.
But the main reason we are at this point is that the Shias have not revolted. Why?
Two main reasons are put forward. One, they are eager to defend their homeland against an American invasion. This theory holds that the Shias are reacting to a foreign invasion and rallying around the flag.
This does not seem likely. The Kurds have not reacted in a similar fashion. Sure, you can argue that the Kurds have been repressed and abused more, and so are less likely to turn on anybody coming to kill Saddam. But this is a matter of degree, really. By any measure, the Shias are pretty darned abused. Plus, the Kurds and Shias did revolt in 1991 despite the fact that American forces were advancing into Iraq. Foreign invasion did not prompt a nationalist revival then. Has the past 12-year period of Saddam rule been more enlightened for the Shias? No. Saddam drains the swamps in the south to kill Shia Marsh Arabs more effectively. And if the Shias are more reliable, where is the regular army, mostly composed of Shia conscripts? Why would Saddam entrust the defense of the south to the regime bully boys rather than organized army units? And what of reports coming out that say that Shias are worried that we will leave without destroying Saddam? Like we did in 1991? And what of the periodic American assaults since1991 that have struck Saddam without destroying him? What kind of effect has this record had? The people of Iraq see only a small corner of their war and have no idea of whether we will stay to win or cut and run.
What of the scattered reports of whispered hopes that we will win? What of the reports of Saddam terror units compelling resistance?
All these indicators say to me that the Shias want us to win. They may not want us to colonize them, but we will not and that is a problem for post-war strategies. Saddam's reign of terror and our record of not going all the way have bred caution in the Shias that is completely understandable. We know we are going in for the kill. They have no reason to believe us.
The Kurds, who have the means to protect themselves in their own enclave, are rejoicing at our invasion. The Sunnis will probably be motivated to some extent by the nationalist impulse to resist us since they have benefitted from the rule of Saddam. The Christian community, too, might resist for the same reason (funny "Crusade" when the Christians of Iraq oppose us and the Catholic Church in the west opposes the invasion).
But the Shias? When they see Saddam's head on a pike, they will support us.
Meanwhile. Speed, speed, speed. The world's problems will not wait for us to solve the Iraq problem at our leisure. If we really don't have the ground combat power close at hand, I want to know what the Hell we have been doing the last 12 years preparing to fight Saddam again. We supposedly prepared to send troops quickly and yet after a period of more than a year, we have less ground power than we did with six months of no-notice deployment in 1990-1991.
No plan survives contact with the enemy and we must keep in mind that now we are adapting to failure to achieve stunning, rapid, victory-NOT adapting to defeat.
We have an excellent start to this war. We must stand firm to reach victory.
"Pause" (Posted March 29, 2003)
I figured it would take a week to get outside of Baghdad. Once there, I didn't know whether it would go easy or hard. We made it within striking distance in less than a week and we have paused since then, Partly from the need to resupply, regroup, maintain vehicles, and rest. The dust storm that raged did provide cover for that. At first I thought that once it passed, we would strike the Republican Guards outside Baghdad.
We are still paused. This is getting me to think we really don't have at least a couple more heavy brigades under a divisional flag ready to roll through Ramadi or Karbala.. It may be that we are unwilling to risk a serious setback with only 3rd ID holding the line. If they are repulsed, they would also have to hold if the Iraqis manage a counter-attack. I guess we could just be bombing the crud out of the Republican Guards as long as they are willing to sit outside of Baghdad and take it. I just don't want them to pack up and pull into the city. On the bright side, under sustained attack, they will naturally start to disperse and dig in more. Although this will help them hide and avoid air strikes to some degree, it also pins them and makes them far less mobile. As long as we are destroying their armor and artillery and killing their soldiers, this is not a problem in the short run. I am not sure whether to conclude we are waiting for another heavy division, or just waiting for air power to pound the Iraqis a little more.
If we are waiting for the heavy division, I think we made an error. I have from the beginning of this blog, argued for two heavy divisions in the invasion force. And it isn't like we don't have the armor already in the Gulf. Nor is it like we don't have the troops. I thought we'd need 1+ Marine division and we have 2+. We could have deployed fewer Marines and added another heavy division without increasing the overall troop level. This would have resulted in a less aggressive drive past Nasiriyah but I didn't think that was the best route to Baghdad anyway. But we would have had the power to drive to the outskirts of Baghdad on a route west of the Euphrates as we did, pass through another heavy division to continue the attack with the 101st AB, and refitted the initial heavy division for a reserve force.
Let me say again, ground forces and heavy armor are not obsolete. We may want a light, small Objective Force that has the path paved by GPS bombs and missiles, but we are far from that day-if we ever do reach it.
I'm not doing an I told you so, really. We are early in the war and we have lots of stuff going on that we can't see. And what we can see really is good-just not amazingly good. We are winning, and the Iraqis could start to crumble tomorrow, or next week, or after we get an Army corps of 2 heavy divisions, 101st AB, and a cavalry regiment in place (3rd ACR has elements in the Gulf but apparently not enough to fight, as I thought might be possible).
As we wait to deliver the killing blow against Iraq's only capable field force before they are forced back into the cities, we must take care not to over-react to the Brownshirt tactics of the Iraqis who threaten the conscripts and people, violate the laws of war, and commit atrocities generally. We can't take it out on the civilians by being too trigger happy. This Iraqi tactic may be the price we are paying for delaying the invasion for so long. They can't beat us but they can make the post-war more difficult if they provoke us into unnecessary and excessive killing of civilians as we pursue our military objectives.
In the meantime, we bomb with our air power and hit the Iraqis with the CIA and special forces. We gather ground power in the north and west. We pursue Ansar al-Islam in the northeast. We seek to capture Basra without a major battle (that US air strike killing maybe 200 was quite a feat). And our Marines drive north slowly.
A major question is why the Iraqis haven't used chemicals yet. They seem to be preparing to use them. I guess I looked at this decision as a military one and assumed they'd use them fast and often. I think they are seeing this as a political decision. If they refrain from using them and delay our victory, they may yet get the French and Russians to save them by pressuring us with a ceasefire.
That would be a disaster.
If we had that second heavy division now, we wouldn't need to wait more than a few days to destroy the Republican Guards. We are giving our enemies time. Valuable time.
As I said, I am still confident. Very little time has actually gone by thus far and we have advanced very far with very few casualties. As I have written, once outside Baghdad it will be either hard or easy. Enemies will fight back. They just don't sit and take it according to our timetables, surrendering on cue. So, it won't be so easy as to be bloodless with a collapse of Saddam's government. It is way too soon to say it will be hard though.
Maybe it will be easy but just take a little longer.
"Air Power" (Posted
Our air power has been as
good as it is advertised in its precision and power. Way to go. It has not put
ground forces out of business yet, as air power purists have argued for seventy
years, but they are awesome and are playing a key role in this war.
The most amazing aspect is
that we have lost no planes.
I wonder how long it will be
before third world states stop wasting their money on air forces and air
defenses. I hope they don't, of course, since they just become expensive piles
of junk in the course of a fortnight when faced with our air power. The French
and Chinese and Russians spend a decade building up an integrated air defense
network for Iraq and the Iraqis can see their army and Baath
party infrastructure blowing up and no American planes have gone down to do
this amount of damage.
Take your lesson out there
(Hey! Kim Jong-Il! Pay attention here.), if you build an air force or air
defense network, take care to make sure you are on our side.
And if you think missiles are
the answer, think about another zero: the number of missiles that have breached
American defenses in
"Take a Deep
Breath" (Posted
V. D. Hanson has a great piece on
the hysterical cries of doom by many observers of the war. He is more at ease
with our having only one heavy division than I am, but basically I agree with
his optimistic assessment of the war's progress. Indeed, I still think we have
more than one heavy division, although I am growing less confident in that
assessment daily. We either have it hidden pretty well or it ain't there. On the other hand, I am gaining comfort from
knowing 3rd ID has four maneuver brigades and that the Medina
Division of the Republican Guards has reportedly lost half of its tanks. The
Republican Guards were only about 25% attrited before
we started the ground war in 1991, so all the bombing being done away from the
live feeds from Baghdad are having quite an effect.
I do hope we do not have to
wait for 4th ID to arrive in the theater to strike the Republican
Guard defenders around
And though we have the
firepower to carpet bomb our way through any resistance (as some who criticize
our lopsided war admit), we have not. Steyn's piece today is great. The Russians, who
criticize us, leveled
Yet we are evil in the view
of many around the world.
If they think we are evil
even in the face of our unprecedented care for civilians, I just don't care
what they think.
If they think we are eager to
kill Moslems after all the battles we have waged in defense of Moslems over the
past decades, I finally do not care if they think this war is a Crusade.
Nothing we do can convince
them that we are not out to get them. We need to win and let them get used to
that. They can then decide whether they wish to fight us and lose 500 thugs (in
organizations with really cool names that impress the babes before the war) for
the privilege of scuffing our Abrams a bit. If their religion gives them 72
virgins for that accomplishment, they have pretty darned low standards for
admission to paradise.
When we crush our foes and
win completely, as in 1945, 1983, and 1989, we turn the conquered into our
friends (I'll hold off on
We are winning decisively on
the battlefield thus far, and most criticisms are mere nitpicking at this
point.
It could get ugly, as the
story I read that stated the Iraqis may be getting ready to use chemical
weapons they do not have, indicate. If the Iraqis fire them at us, I hope that Kofi Anan will at least have a harsh word for the Iraqis.
Thus far, he treats them like Canadians.
"Casualties"
(Posted
I receive Defense Department
news updates. Some go to my inbox. Some go to my bulk mail box if the system
thinks it is spam. I have started receiving notices of the names and home towns
of our dead. It has been most sobering. It has also been disturbing to me that
some go to the spam box.
It seemed the least I could
do for them was to instruct my email to direct all those emails to my inbox.
They have my deepest thanks for what they have given up for me. I wish none of
them had to die to get rid of that madman Saddam. I hope their families have
the strength to cope with this.
The news of their deaths is
not spam.
"Third ID" (Posted
Strategypage.com says that 3rd
ID has four brigades. I knew it was over strength but knowing there is another
maneuver brigade gives me a little more security if there really is not another
heavy division in the theater already. I still don't know if the brigade is
rolling north through
Marines may be closer to
Last night, a reporter
actually complained that he could not evaluate American claims that the
invasion is on track since the Pentagon had not released the plan.
He was indignant.
I am amazed.
Oh, if I haven't commented on
Iraqi atrocities it is not because I am not aware. Just what did we expect them
to do? Fight with the care that we employ?
On to
"Destroy the Nest"
(Posted
Although the fervor and
numbers of the Iraqi die-hards is unexpected, their stands in the urban areas
where they can attack under cover of civilians who shield them from our
firepower is not. This is the main Iraqi effort to
stall us in the drive to
Saddam wants time. Time for the French to thwart us. With the report that
France and her lapdog Germany were behind Turkey's surprise refusal to let our
4th ID into Turkey (by threatening EU membership for a generation),
we see that these "allies" have not stopped at merely halting a UN
resolution we did not need. they actively aided our
enemy.
This is unforgivable. When
this is over,
But back in
When bees are stinging you,
go and crush the hive and kill the queen. Flailing about at individual bees is
folly.
Note that the 173rd
Airborne is deploying north. Nice to get the Iraqis looking
north now. Once a brigade-size force with some armor is on the ground,
the northern front will be able to extend the siege of
More public
attacks on Rumsfeld for refusing to have more armor
on the ground right now. I hope
these reports are untrue. I'm still counting on seeing another heavy division
come out of the Ramadi gap to hit the Iraqis. Much of
my confidence is based on thinking that we did not in fact go in with too
little armor. I'd be confident but nervous if I think we are cutting it as
close as critics say.
I wondered yesterday if 7th
Cavalry was fighting a lonely screening mission from
We have clear skies for
several days. Time to roll. That sandstorm may have
been a sign from the Gods as some Iraqis think, but it may have shielded our
movements and given 3rd ID some time to prepare for the destruction
of the Republican Guards.
The war is going extremely
well, people. On to
"Week of War"
(Posted
Not too much to add today.
Missile defenses are working.
Iraqi defenses are thus far
based on the Baath party paramilitary thugs of the
regime. Note that these thugs have faked surrenders to kill our troops—hoping
to dissuade us from accepting surrenders; and Iraqis dressed in American
uniforms are testing Iraqi troops to see if they surrender, killing those that
do—hoping to dissuade their folks from giving up. All three are signs that the
regulars really are not trusted to fight for Saddam.
The Iraqis haven't managed to
fight with anything larger than a battalion at a time. And then we rip them up.
Seventh Cavalry is reported
fighting at Najaf and
The Iraqis apparently are breaking
down their heavy RG divisions to avoid our bombing. This eliminates the major
reason for having heavy divisions—their mobility. Ralph Peters notes properly that
they are taking themselves out of the fight to be destroyed at our leisure. If
we really do only have 3rd ID for the main effort, this helps us
immensely. I still suspect—without any direct evidence—that another heavy
division is paired with 3rd ID for the blow through the Ramadi gap. I hope all those comments about our lack of
heavy armor is simply mistaken. We shall see.
RG units—a
thousand vehicles—heading south toward our Marines. We will kill many as they move. If they attack us, we
will have the advantage of being on the tactical defensive and will kill them
as they move in the open. If they dig in to block the Marines, they put
themselves away from
Overall, the war appears to
be going just fine. Why people are worried is beyond me. Things may yet go
wrong; but until they do, this is a cakewalk so far. And we are better at
overcoming setbacks than they are.
On to
"War's Progress: What
Don't We See?" (Posted
Note that we face most
resistance from the regime bully boys fighting in civilian clothes and black
uniforms. These are not the regulars. They may not be in POW camps but they
sure aren't fighting us when we go into contact with them.
Note also that we have only
faced regulars at Nasiriyah and
The Republican Guards are the
key. Break them and we are besieging
Why are the bridges over the
What about the phantom
western front I keep harping on? At least a brigade-sized force of Marines is
going through
Where is 3rd
Armored Cavalry Regiment? Elements are somewhere in the Gulf regions per
globalsecurity.org. But I haven't heard word one about it. Could it have swung
even wider than 3rd ID to cover that division's flank and then head
for the Ramadi gap to sweep up Iraqis there and pave
the way for another major combat force coming from that direction? Is the 3rd
ID advance toward
This article,
among many stories popping up in the last day, is now calling attention to our
lack of numbers on the ground.
"In
my judgment, there should have been a minimum of two heavy divisions and an
armored cavalry regiment on the ground -- that's how our doctrine reads,"
said retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Mechanized
Infantry Division during the 1991 Gulf War .
Well, we have the armored
sets in the Gulf for at least another division as far as I can tell. And at
least elements of an ACR are in the Gulf. Are these stories coming out now to
set the Iraqis up for more of a surprise? Remember, too, that all the talk of 4th
ID taking weeks to arrive in
Speaking of the Iraqis
looking south, the Brits are taking over all of southern
Ideally, the Marines won't
have to advance up that road until the battle of annihilation against the
Republican Guards outside
All just
speculation of course. Maybe Rumsfeld really is gambling the outcome and price of this
war to prove that airpower can win our wars with minimal ground forces. But I
doubt it. I think there is lots we cannot see away
from the all-seeing cameras on our news.
On to
"Closing the Ring" (Posted March 24, 2003)
Third ID is getting close to getting into jump-off points to hit the Republican Guards. Through Karbala or through Ramadi gap? I really hope that more heavy armor that the public does not know is there is getting ready to roll through the Ramadi gap after rolling in from Ar'ar and Jordan. If not, if 3rd ID really is all by its lonesome but for the 101st and air power, I really worry that the Iraqis will decide it is worth it to lob chemicals at us. If we had two heavy divisions plus the air assault division, the Iraqis might think chemicals will do them no good so what is the point. But if we really have but one (albeit reinforced) heavy division? That will be hairy.
That plane that accidentally hit a bus was sad--but it must mean we have A-10s based at H-2 roaming to close the northwest route out of Baghdad. Perhaps the Screaming Eagles are getting set to deploy that way to block the routes of retreat toward Syria.
The Marines at Nasiriyah are clearly trying to bust loose so that their mechanized units can drive north. I really worry that this route is too dangerous but at the very least, it keeps the Iraqis looking over their shoulder while the Army prepares to carry out a battle of annihilation with the Air Force. Hopefully, the Marines won't need to advance up the road to Baghdad until the Republican Guards are broken further north so that they can help in the battle for Baghdad.
The northern front seems to be slowwly emerging.
There are risks ahead, but we are winning. I think our rules of engagement are too restrictive at this point. We really need to gut the defenders. Especially if we really only have one heavy division as the main striking force, we need extreme violence to keep the enemy reeling and not thinking about what they can do to us.
I do believe our air power has been working over the Republican Guards away from the limelight of the cameras. Do your job, Air Force! We need you to show us your stuff.
"Cake Walk" (Posted
The article
is called "U.S. Losses Expose
Risks, Raise Doubts About Strategy." Bypassed
Iraqi soldiers and fighters continue to offer small-scale resistance; support
troops have been ambushed; and we've taken some casualties, including one in
which Iraqis pretended to surrender before opening fire. An Army officer in the
story worried the invasion force is a third of the size of the 1991 force and
was too small.
I noted earlier, before the
capture of some soldiers from a maintenance unit, that the pedal-to-the-metal
charge north was risky in this matter. On the other hand, a slow plodding
advance that established garrisons all the way to
The losses we have suffered
are—dare I say it—trivial. Not for the troops who have died or been captured,
of course, but in warfare this is chump change. I'm glad we have a military
that has capabilities that lead observers to wonder about such low losses. When
this is over, our casualties will all be tragedies and not mere statistics. But
let's take a reality check. Recall the German's 1939 Polish campaign. That was
the first example of armored blitzkrieg and it took down the large Polish army
in about a month. It remains one of two textbook examples (the other being
As for Iraqis violating rules
of war by pretending to surrender, shouldn't that tell us something? We are
going out of our way to avoid hurting anybody but the hard core supporters of
Saddam while they hide behind civilians, pretend to surrender, and abuse and
execute our prisoners. I won't wait up late for international outrage on our behalf
to begin.
I do retain a worry about the
size of our invasion force, although as I noted earlier, it is not apparent to
me that it is wise to go just by divisional flags to conclude our force is a
third the size of 1991. We have battalions of line troops enough for seven
divisions. And I still expect to see more divisions than just 3rd
Infantry and 101st Airborne show up for the
decisive battle west of
The real battle against the
regime is against the Republican Guards. We've been pummeling them away from
the cameras trained on
We have pretty much
everything west of the
Repeat after me: "We are
kicking ass and taking names." This is what a cake walk looks like.
And we are only on day 5 of
the ground war.
On to
"Steady, Lads" (Posted March 23, 2003)
Kasserine Pass was a bad day. Losing two regiment at the start of the Battle of the Bulge when they surrendered was a bad day. Today was the first real fighting. Period. As I noted, we advanced into a vacuum and now we are facing soldiers who are willing to fight.
This is not the start of the Iraqi counter-offensive.
It is sad that some lost soldiers were ambushed, killed, possibly executed, or taken prisoner. It is shameful that Iraqis feigned a surrender and killed ten Marines. Remember, though we are seeing the bombing of Baghdad, we are not seeing the bombing of Iraqi Republican Guard units away from the cameras. Remember we do not need to occupy Basra. Taking it is something to be done at our leisure and not something that must be done at the risk of heavy casualties.
The advance is going well. I'll be happier when I see evidence of another heavy division with 3rd ID, but overall--we are clearly winning. I did not expect the regime to collapse. Some will fight. Some will go home. Some will sit in their barracks. And some will defect to us. In the end we will win and Saddam's regime will die.
Oh, the first Stryker brigade will not be ready until May 2003. But maybe a battalion task force is ready.
No time to let up. Pound them until they break. Win.
"Prisoners" (Posted march 23, 2003)
The Iraqis have taken some prisoners. A handfull of support personnel. In the fluid situation of a fast advance, this is not surprising. It is unfortunate but those soldiers probably had no idea that friendlies were not protecting them to their front. Plus, Marine units may not be fully in charge as the Army pulls out to strike northwest on the west side of the Euphrates. It is bad that they are in the tender mercies of the Iraqis who may not follow the rules of war.
On our side, reports seem to be confused between "surrendering" and "capitulating." Surrendering means you give up to allied forces and become POWs. We then have responsibility for their safety. This burdens our advance. Capitulating means they stop fighing for good and go home. We don't have to feed them. Almost like that old 18th century concept of releasing prisoners on their oath not to fight again (although they could fight a different country). When we say Iraqis are capitulating, don't get confused that there aren't POW cages full of Iraqis.
A battalion of 1st Armored Division is fighting with 3rd ID. Rumor is that units are transitting through Jordan. Hooah. My western front seems to be coming together.
Given the effort the Iraqis take to grab a prisoner, couldn't we drop some GI Joe action figures and then bring in the AC-130s when the Iraqis beat the bushes for our pilot? Would deter Iraqis from looking for real pilots downed.
Also, looks like forces are being airlifted into Kurdish areas to go after the Ansar al Islam thugs and maybe a northern front to advance on Mosul and Kirkuk. The Turks seem to be behaving as well. A short advance into Iraq to block refugees is acceptable. Capturing Mosul is not.
Sadly, we shot down a British plane. Look out now, the Iraqis might launch an air strike now, thinking we are gun shy with our air defenses!
"Attacker" (Posted March 23, 2003)
An American soldier who is Moslem is apparently behind the grenade attack on a command post in the 101st Airborne Division. This is very sad and will draw more attention to Moslems in the military, placing them under added scrutiny. Hopefully, the comrades of these Moslem soldiers will know their friends well enough to get beyond this crime. Keep in mind this is not unique in our history. During the Mexican War, Catholic-American immigrants in the American Army had some difficulty fighting against Catholic Mexico. A number defected and fought the American Army as a unit (I can't remember how many). As a nation of immigrants, war tests the loyalties of unassimilated people. All the more reason to pursue the melting pot ideal rather than bolster Balkanism with our own policies. Certainly, the Wahhabi influence and money in our own country must be suppressed. This incident should not--but will--cast suspicion on Moslem-American soldiers. An attacker who thinks he fights for Islam just harmed fellow Moslems in America in their (and our) effort to end the oppression of Moslem Iraqis under Saddam's brutal rule.
What a great Moslem believer, eh?
"Third ID" (Posted March 23, 2003)
Third Infantry Division's recon elements reached a point 45 miles from Najaf. As U.S. and British forces push in, we appear to be leaving rear area security to the follow-up forces. That is, there is none. Even soft units must rely on the shock of the advance to keep the Iraqis still in the area off balance. That will end and in time forces will need to secure a supply line. Now, there are enough Marines and British to secure the route from Kuwait to Basra. I still don't see a major thrust by the Marines north even though it would be good to threaten an advance. I honestly don't think the Marines have the logistics to advance that far if they have to fight. Normally, Marines plug into Army logistics for any extensive campaign inland. Marine help at Baghdad will be needed, but I'm not sure how they get there. Going up the Tigris makes no sense. Too many Iraqis there. Marines may yet head to Nasiriyah to be prepared to march north from there in a more cautious advance through that difficult area. Again, they should have troops enough in 1 MEF and the British to secure the route to Nasiriyah from Basra. But north of there, in the populated area with broken terrain to hide in, it will be difficult to ignore rear area security in a drive north. Perplexing. Still, Marine mechanized units could drive north abandoning their supply line like the Army appears to be doing with 3rd ID and link up with the Army, sealing the southern and eastern approaches to Baghdad.
So what of the Army thrust? We can't secure the long route from Kuwait to Baghdad. So what do we do? Our units need lots of supplies to fight and move. Well, hopefully the main supply line is really going to come from Jordan through the sparsely populated desert of western Iraq. Third ID's drive north with this supply line in mind doesn't need to secure the rear. It just needs to haul ass north with 101st AB in tow. With American forces apparently heading east from Jordan, already securing H-3 and H-2, we'll be good to go for the final drive on Baghdad and then north to Tikrit. Again, I hope we have armor coming from Jordan and Ar'ar to reinforce 3rd ID. Why else do we have all those brigade sets of armor in the area? What would be the point? I can't believe we abandoned mass for a risky shot at Baghdad hoping for a general collapse. If we must fight it is better to do it with more troops to win faster and with fewer friendly casualties. With the ground assault only a little more than two days on, I don't assume we've seen everything. If armor is speeding toward Baghdad from Jordan and Ar'ar at a similar pace as 3rd ID, we should see evidence of them by tomorrow as they get closer to Baghdad. Or maybe there really is nothing else beside 3rd ID. I'll be shocked. I'll certainly keep my day job.
Plus, 173rd AB will go north as reported recently. I still expect 10th Mountain to go north too and I think a Stryker unit-a battalion task force up to a full brigade, will be airlifted to the north. Perhaps with 10th Mountain or perhaps to reinforce a 101st AB thrust north of Baghdad but south of Tikrit to cut off retreat routes from Baghdad.
I am nervous. We've advanced into a vacuum so far so it is no shock that it is fast and low casualty. We will soon reach the Republican Guards outside Baghdad. I expect most to fight. We will kill them whether we have just 3rd ID and 101st AB or more advancing without publicity, but having more would certainly lower our casualties. And end the war faster.
And why no chemical strikes? What is waiting for us? I don't think this is some Iraqi grand trap to suck us in and destroy us, but our invasion will hit more than speed bumps before we win.
Don't declare victory this soon. That's all I'm saying. The war has just begun.
"The Easy Part is Over" (Posted March 21, 2003)
We can bypass Basra. If we can take it easily, fine, but otherwise it just has to be neutralized as a position to threaten our flank as we drive north. If 3rd ID really is going to exploit the Nasiriyah bridgehead and drive north up the Tigris and Euphrates valley, it will be driving on the expected route and it could be delayed by resisting Iraqis or chemical strikes or simple minefields and physical obstacles. I still think it is a distraction and it will continue to drive north west of the Euphrates. I expect the pace of advance to slow down. That first bound to Nasiriyah was undefended by the Iraqis. I really hope the Third ID isn't the only heavy force we have. Sure, each brigade can take down a Republican Guard Division--especially with air support--but I'd rather have more troops. I really hope reinforcements are rolling north from Ar'ar and east from Jordan. Will 101st AB leap north of Baghdad or support the attack on Baghdad directly?
The Turks screwed up our plan to send 173rd to the north for now, I guess. We are apparently closing on the Ansar al-Islam thugs with special forces and Kurds. We also have a task force looking for Speicher!
As for the protesters--the ones in San Francisco especially are beneath contempt. They may make it easier for terrorists to strike as law enforcement keeps them from causing damage. Some of the "peace" protesters had molotov cocktails. Time to admit that Stalinists organized these things or accept that "ordinary" Americans are violent thugs. Why don't we airlift those valiant defenders of Saddam into Baghdad where they can really fight for Saddam? And let's give the Baathists sanctuary in San Francisco--let them take over city council and show the idiots how life under Saddam can be. If only.
I'll be shocked if the pace really keeps going this fast. Outside Baghdad in a couple days? Doubt it.
"War Continues" (Posted March 21, 2003)
The Iraqi mechanized division at Basra has surrendered to the Marines and British. Rumor has it that the infantry division as Nasiriyah has surrendered to the Army. Although some are worrying that more haven't surrendered, I always expected surrenders to take place when our troops get near and not before. Apparently, the first two divisions we reached have surrendered/gone home. Good sign. Granted, this is the distrusted regular army rabble; but it is still good.
A brigade at H-3 and H-2? TV speculating the 82nd AB combat brigade but why that unit? I still think units out of Jordan took these, possibly after special forces grabbed them. I am just speculating but it makes sense to me. Also, nothing about the Ar'ar force. It would be pretty cool if the 3rd ID (dang, that unit is moving--at least the lead recon element anyway) is all the Iraqis expect west of Baghdad and then they find two heavy divisions sweeping forward with 101st AB in support and precision air power pummeling the Iraqis as the Army plows through them.
Plus air strikes on the Ansar al Islam group.
I expect 3
Oh, and reports from months ago that the Iraqis bought GPS jammers were either wrong or the Air Force engineered counter-measures. This is a major relief. Shock and awe, indeed.
We haven't won yet--but so far so good.
"Iraqi Resistance"
(Posted
Please note,
southern
"Voices in Their
Heads" (Posted
From andrewsullivan.com,
these guys are hilarious.
Some of the human shields in
The
Bush administration has said little about the human shields. In February, a
State Department spokeswoman responded to a reporter's question about why they
were in
Silver Medal goes to one of
the actual human shields:
"But nobody can tell me that we haven't been an
outstanding success," said Eubanks, who has been living at the Dura Electrical Power Plant
The inability of these people
who went to
Bzzzttttt!!!
"EU Civil War"
(Posted
The French, Germans, and
Belgians (no, seriously,
We should be grateful. Now
the British and the other states that chafe under the Franco-German proto-yoke
will see they have no role in the EU of Chirac.
The French and Germans are
free to lead those who will not fight to defend their freedoms and way of life.
We will join with those who
see the threat to the West and who will fight.
"Liberation Time"
(Posted
Apparently, the people of
"Impressions of the
War" (Posted
Looks like the shock and awe
phase is starting. We tried to nail Saddam right off the bat, and when we took
our shot, we accelerated the ground assault to get the troops moving. We held
off on the big air attack to see if the Iraqis collapsed and to get the troops
across the border barriers in the DMZ. Now, the main air assault is beginning.
Third ID is deep in
Go 3rd ID—they set
the land-speed record in the
Casualties
mercifully light.
And I say again, it is bizarre to see the attacks on
"In Their Name"
(Posted
The invasion of Iraq and the
overthrow of Saddam's butcher regime may be going on without the approval of
Hollywood and the anti-war
nuts on the left and far right, but we are apparently going in
the name of the Iraqis.
Sadly, the Iraqis cannot
afford sequins to adorn their clothing to make this point.
It is clear, nonetheless,
that we will see very happy Iraqis when Saddam is gone and very unhappy
anti-war types when they see cheering Iraqis. Granted, in a couple years that
gratitude could be anger if we screw up the post-war phase, but it will be hard
for the protesters in the West to argue that they were right to prefer Saddam
to liberation. I have to hand it to the anti-war left—they stand by their
dictators to the bitter end.
The near future holds two
things: Saddamites dead or arrested; and anti-war
types shown to be immoral idiots. Couldn't happen to two
better groups.
"Damn, He Is So Sophisticated" (Posted
Chirac, after threatening a
veto to halt our war against Saddam, now promises to veto
American and British administration of
"Protesters" (Posted March 20, 2003)
Damned protesters in downtown Ann Arbor made me late for my son's school event. The protesters are increasing their protests. They are determined to defend Saddam and get that warm and fuzzy "Vietnam War Experience" that they lust for. And if they have to defend a bloodthirsty sadistic dictator, that is a small price to pay for the chance to sing Puff the Magic Dragon or whatever the Hell they are doing.
The protesters are proud that the anti-war movement has gathered steam very quickly and is quite large even as the war is just beginning. Well that is quite an accomplishment. Also note that we are starting this war with record public support. I wonder if there is a connection?
Ah yes, never have so many accomplished so little with so much noise,
On to Baghdad. I worry about whether this invasion is counting too much on the Iraqis just giving up. But it is way too early to worry seriously. Still, don't give the Iraqis too long to decide to surrender before unleashing shock and awe.
"POWs" (Posted
I can only assume that all
those people who railed against our supposed horrible treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners in
Information Minister Mohammed Said Sahhaf declared Thursday that
This should force a proper
reevaluation of the anti-war side's views of who is evil and who is not, eh?
"
At least Castro may fear
that.
I can at least hope so.
"
The Iranians say they are staying
neutral. When the Great Satan fights a regular old Satan (from
"
The South Koreans put their
forces on
alert, just in case. I imagine that the North, knowing we would need to
respond with nukes to an invasion since so much of our conventional military
power is engaged in
You never know, though.
"
We are launching an attack in
Afghanistan,
too. The military says it is not timed to coincide with the
"Lunchtime in
Wow. Protesters
out at the
I counted to 3,000 about a
year and a half ago..
I don't want to count that
high again.
On to
"Nightfall in
Last night was just a drive
by on Saddam. Nice shot and it puts Saddam on notice that his game of legal
niceties and French interference are over. He knows he is a dead man. And more
important, his subordinates and people know he is a dead man.
Now firing is starting again
and ground troops of 3rd ID, 1st MEF, and British are in
action in some opening skirmishes as they roll into
Patriots apparently scored a
success today too. This highlights the advantage of our military as a whole.
Patriots could be overwhelmed in a volley attack that might overwhelm the
programming, but our surveillance capability allows us to spot them coming out
and our aircraft can strike them quickly. As a result, when they unveil them
they need to use them—fast—or lose them. The result is that we take them on in
ones and twos.
It is unreal to see
"Oh…" (Posted
I feel foolish I didn't think
of this.
The Iraqis expelled at our request from among the 60 countries we identified
were given a choice of going home on the eve of their regime's destruction or
telling us everything they know. Apparently
they have talked.
"It Has Begun" (Posted March 19, 2003)
The balloon just went up.
Go get them, guys. Just win. And come home safe. By God, you are going in my name.
Thank you. Just thank you.
"Speicher" (Posted March 19, 2003)
I hope a major special forces mission brings our pilot Speicher out of whatever Baghdad prison he may be in tonight. If he has truly been imprisoned by that bastard Saddam all these years, we owe it to all our troops to make every effort to free him from 12 years of imprisonment. He is to be forgiven if he thinks we forgot him. God help him.
"Invasion" (Posted
Well, this is it. I think my 'red
team' analysis from July of
The invasion—meaning the
overt crossing into
But our forces are going in. Up and at them, lads. You go with the prayers and support of
the people back home.
It is very sobering to be on
the verge of war. Only believing our safety depends on victory makes it even a
little tolerable to send our soldiers to fight, kill, and die.
On to
"Jerks" (Posted March 18, 2003)
Ok, it was annoying enough when various anti-war types dismissed pro-American nations as those one could buy on e-Bay. Such an attitude of superiority was amazingly elitist especially when one considers their worship of the approval of similar small states who happened to be on the Security Council this month. Why Cameroon's approval was worthy of respect while Albania's was banished to e-Bay status is beyond me.
And then, tonight, on CNBC, the host and the editor from The Chicago Tribune dismissed the thirty named allies (and 15 more will be named later) who back our war on Iraq. (Nicaragua's presence on the list must be particularly hard to take for the San Fransisco types who worshipped the Sandinistas in the 1980s!) Honest to God, they will bray about American so-called "unilateralism" regardless of the facts.
I don't think that word means what they think it means...
"War Near" (Posted March 18, 2003)
Well, with war kicking off in probably 24 hours, it is time for me to concede error. I have long thought it would be inconceivable that we would wait until mid-March to attack.
Well, Andre the Giant is tweaking me: "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
In my own defense, I never believed March was any different than December or January or February, but I did worry what would happen if we waited until March. Waiting has not undermined our will to fight. And the Brits are still with us. Delay has not affected this at least. Still, only war will tell us if delay allowed Saddam time to field nasty surprises for us. I hope not.
We surely have surprises of our own. And to be fair, Saddam's surprises are unlikely to defeat us even if they can cause additional casualties.
I hope our troops don't pay the price for delaying the war.
"Civilian Targets"
(Posted
The guys and gals that said
all along that nothing justifies violence and that we just needed to keep
debating rather than resort to war are planning their own non-peaceful response
to war against Saddam. The sight of the pseudo moralists resorting to violent
action and attacks against civilian targets is just too good not to note. Anti-war
protesters will
strike civilian targets in
"People
will step up their actions, there will be active civil disobedience," said
Simona Sharoni of United
for Peace in
Direct
Action, a San Francisco Bay-area group of anti-war veterans, has been drawing
up their own battle plan should there be a war.
They say
they will shut down 70 targets in
And their
hit list goes beyond economic targets.
Some
protesters are promising to chain themselves to fences at schools and day care
centers so working parents will have to stay home from their jobs. Organizers
say this will give others a chance to contemplate how war affects the children
of
"The
civilians in
They want to shut down water
and electricity? They will target child care centers? Naughty,
naughty. I thought they were horrified at the thought that civilian
targets might be destroyed in
Oh, just civilian targets in
enemy territory. But I guess for many of the protesters, being in
That said, and my disgust for
them made plain, they are not enemy agents or soldiers. No, they really
shouldn't be shot to defend those targets. Instead, they should be convinced to
go home. Whether by fences, or tear gas, or whatever. Just nothing lethal. They are citizens, after all. Misguided, yes. But also citizens. Arrest them if they seriously violate the
law, of course.
But remember, when you see
news of these lovelies trying to disrupt our society, that
it would not be in our interest to drum up sympathy for the protesters.
Uninjured wacko protesters thwarted in their antics will result in our
government receiving the support of the public when they see the protesters'
dangerous stunts. But if they are seriously hurt or killed, the public will
begin to wonder why such harsh measures are being applied to citizens.
Still, despite the flaming
hypocrisy of the anti-war crowd, in the war on terror this is one front where
the criminal justice system and our civilian courts must play the lead role.
Remember, tear gas builds
character. Lord knows I sucked up enough of it in my time…
"Ultimatum" (Posted
I imagine the 48-hour
ultimatum was mostly a signal to Iraqi Army officers that they have this much
time to overthrow Saddam before we invade. Note, too, that regardless of
whether the exile option is accepted, our troops will march into
It will be a race between our
people and French, Russian, and Chinese intelligence people to see who gets to
embarrassing Iraqi archives first.
Looks like Wednesday night
war starts, if it doesn't begin stealthily before then. Perhaps special forces
and airmobile forces slipping into western and southwestern Iraq to screen the
route of advance for heavy armor to race toward Baghdad at about 40 m.p.h.
Of course, some are saying
that this war will be "illegal." They say we will kill the UN's
legitimacy. What rubbish. In the history of the UN, two wars have been fought
with UN blessings and we led both of them. How many other wars have there been
since 1945 that had no official blessing? Scores. Yet
somehow the UN's legitimacy survived those only to be done in by our
destruction of Saddam's regime. The silliness of those who argue for a UN
mandate is truly amazing. Having lost the debate, they toss out weirder
arguments to stay our hand.
Silliness used to count in
these matters. But when we weigh listening to such rubbish against losing
Let's roll.
And I was thinking, on the
practical matter of invasion, do we really have three infantry battalions to
garrison three Patriot sites in
Yep, main
effort into western
"Clearing the
Decks" (Posted
I'd guess that we invade
tonight but for the need to let the inspectors get to a border. It all depends
on whether they've started driving for the border right at this moment; or if
they can get a plane this afternoon. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Quickly, though, before Saddam launches a
volley of chemical weapons he claims he does not have.
Over the weekend, articles on
why a three-division invasion is too small to smash Saddam came out.
That would be correct if we
only had three divisions. We have more.
Everybody's eyes are on
I still guess a strong effort
in the western
Paras and 10th Mountain go into Kurdish areas.
Special forces
all around. The Rangers remain poised to hit a strategic target (Saddam's
caravan or a weapon of mass destruction site). Maybe the 82nd
Airborne brigade drops on airfields in the west of
Whatever way we go, I bet the
Army goes in as the air strikes commence while the Marines and British, with
all eyes on them, stay in Kuwait for a couple days pretending to allow the air
strikes to soften up the Iraqis. Mainly, we want to hide the start of the
regime change as long as possible since only when Saddam feels the M-1s coming
after him will he push the buttons to launch bugs and chemicals and to blow the
oil fields.
We'll be outside
Then,
And we worry about the
Iranians, Turks, and Kurds behaving themselves reasonably well. But, hey,
resistance fighters took their revenge on Nazi collaborators in the wake of our
troops in World War II. Parts of this will be very ugly.
Our soldiers will die
fighting for us. This is sadly inevitable, but our casualties will be low
compared to historical benchmarks of war where the butcher's bill ran volumes.
We have some solace, however,
that it is necessary. We will be safer when we have won.
On to
"Northern Front" (Posted March 15, 2003)
On MSNBC this morning, the reporter mentioned that airfields in Kurdish areas are being prepared so they can land 'light armored vehicles.' Normally, reporters just repeat what they are told--sometimes imperfectly--because they really don't know the difference between an MBT and an APC. Here, this is probably a specific reference to the actual Light Armored Vehicle (LAV), which the Marines use and which the Army uses in a superficially similar Stryker LAV. Apparently, then, we probably plan to airlift such units into the north. The Army could put together at least a battalion task force and may be able to put together a brigade of 2 or 3 by now. If memory serves me, the first brigade is supposed to be operational this month.
That could be a real world test of the Army's transformation endeavor--seeing if they can rapidly airlift a light armored force into hostile territory and begin fighting, and winning, right away. This would provide armored, mobile support to light infantry backing the Kurds up there. I'd sure feel better if our Stryker units were tracked instead of wheeled, but perhaps demonstrated limitations of wheeled armor in that rough terrain will be a valuable lesson.
"March 17" (Posted
Perhaps March 17th
really is the day we go to war. After all the talk of going on a new moon,
maybe the Iraqis will think there is no way will we invade on the eve of a full
moon. Perhaps the plan calls for a rapid envelopment of
Consider also, from the
beginning of the latest diplomatic maneuverings, we established March 17 as the
date by which Saddam must disarm. Paths through the DMZ barriers are to be cut
by mid-March, units are moving to the field, ships are moving into the
But note also that we state
that we may do a variety of "pre-war" strikes to take out Iraqi
artillery and missiles that may harm our troops if Saddam pulls the trigger
first. And we may also try to deny
What rule says we must
announce our invasion anyway? Let the Iraqis figure it out the hard way—when 3rd
ID shows up at
I can't believe we have
waited this long. I feared we would be derailed if we waited this long. Apparently not.
I still worry Saddam has used
his French-purchased time to prepare deadly surprises for us.
With luck and a prayer—and
historical precedent—our troops may overcome the results of French resistance
with little loss of friendly life.
Now the battle for
On to
"Never Mind"
(Posted
We've already heard about
President Clinton, Senators Daschle and Byrd, and other assorted anti-war
politicians who breathed cordite and napalm in 1998 when the
But this is really
good. You see, the stars have largely come out against war against
Except when
their president was in power. No, not Bartlett.
Mike Farrell, whose
articulateness on television reflects both his acting experience and policy
ignorance, was all in favor of war over Kosovo:
In 1999, Mr. Farrell defended the
Yet
Sheryl Crow, too, has had a change
of heart:
The
You know, she could still go
to the Balkans to entertain our troops there, since they are grandfathered in
under the
Sure, I can understand Farrell
and Crow, and all the rest, having different opinions about the justification
of fighting one war and not another. There is nothing inconsistent about that.
Shoot, I do it.
They just shouldn't pretend their
morality is superior for opposing this
war.
"Prisoners" (Posted
What is it about whackjob states that compel them to hold prisoners this
long?
Aren't these two Axis of Evil
charter members worried about setting a precedent? Just
wondering. I only say this because in our still ongoing war against al Qaeda and Taliban forces around the world and in
If thug regimes are supposed
to be motivated by our example in all things military and diplomacy, I dare say
we can pick up one of their examples.
But still, I shouldn't be rude
after a success like this. I guess all those marches and rallies held by the
compassionate masses of the West on behalf of Iranian and Iraqi POWs unjustly
imprisoned finally paid off!
There weren't any?
Oh.
Then the tender mercies of
Iraqi and Iranian prison guards must be far better than American
military police. How else to explain the blistering criticism of us
while this festering POW problem went un-noticed by the Axis of Concerned?
"Terror War and
Ah yes, al Qaeda will get
a dose of American power when we go after Saddam. I think this is tailor
made for 10th Mountain Division plus special
forces and a lot of Kurds, in a repeat of the
And as I've said before, and
as Krauthammer says
today, the resolution we are trying to get for Blair should simply state
that
"The Carter
Doctrine" (Posted
So what does the Carter
Doctrine say? No, not the one that says
The Carter Doctrine as stated
by President Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union address on
An attempt by an outside force to gain control of the
This article
has an interesting history of the doctrine.
But let's focus on the actual
words.
Clearly, Carter was worried
about a hostile "outside force" gaining control of the
Carter also stated that we
would repel such an assault "by any means necessary, including military
force." Usually, when an American president mentions "any means"
they are darkly hinting at nuclear weapons to demonstrate our deadly
seriousness. Or did Carter mean "any means" to mean only peaceful
means. Were we to introduce limitless UN resolutions in the hope that the
outside power would laugh itself to death? No, wait, Carter actually said those
means would include military force. But surely, this humble man of peace, duly
recognized as such by the Nobel Peace Prize, meant it should only be a last
resort, right? I mean, he'd never do it, right? But no, he did initiate the
creation of the Rapid Deployment Force to back up his doctrine. The RDF,
initially nothing more than a concept, evolved into the force, Central Command,
that drove the Iraqis back in 1991 and which will soon destroy Saddam's vile
regime. This is more in line with a doctrine that stated the security of a
friendly Gulf was a vital interest of
So today, enforcing a
doctrine that Carter set forth, with a force that Carter initiated, President
Bush goes to war in the teeth of the strident opposition of Jimmy Carter. As a
bonus, we will advance human rights in
I give my thanks to Jimmy
Carter for his former wisdom and foresight. We couldn't do this without you.
The French could make a fine post-ironic
film about this, I'm sure.
Finally, as a counter-point
to Carter's proudly displayed false compassion, read
this about the morality of containment that Carter thinks is a just
alternative to destroying Saddam's machinery of death. Unless of course, Carter
thinks we should walk away and let Saddam kill us or anyone else at his
leisure. That would be truly wretched morality for Carter. I don't rule that
out. Also, McCain
rips Carter's op ed without naming him. Good for him.
"They Will Believe What
They Will Believe" (Posted
It really gets tiresome
to hear Moslems assert we are new Crusaders. They really need to get a grip.
And if they don't, I don't care.
Our record of aiding Moslems
and Moslem states is ignored by some Moslems who see nothing but imagined plots
against them. Worse, they don't even see any circumstances under which we could
justifiably fight Moslems. No outrage, no mass murder, is too awful for these
Moslem legal theorists to say, "Well, we'll grant you that this time you
Americans are justified in attacking a Moslem state." This is nice:
Islamic scholars
at
The scholars,
members of the university's Islamic
How can we change our policy
to end that viewpoint? How is it even remotely reasonable to assert that after
9-11, that destroying the Taliban regime and their al Qaeda
puppet masters was unjustified? How on earth does our measured response justify
jihad? Why do we even care what they say under these circumstances?
And really, since the
Crusades tried to take back the
Inshallah, we will do what we
must do.
"Yet Another
Material Breach" (Posted
The Iraqis tried to intercept
one of our U-2 surveillance planes on an announced mission over
Delay will increase our
casualties. The only justifiable reason to continue to debate is to put into
place whatever last unit we think is necessary to crush Iraqi resistance.
Let's move.
"Fair
Fight?" (Posted
From NRO, via Andrew
Sullivan, who links to this. Check this out:
Quite
probably the worst thing about the inevitable and totally unjustifiable war
with
Don’t
get me wrong—I don’t want American soldiers killed. But I don’t want Iraqis killed,
either. I’m just not one of those people who believes
that American lives are more valuable than the lives of others.
So the worst thing is that we
can't lose? Amazing. While some say we should not
fight because too many of our soldiers may die, this guy Robbins
says that we shouldn't fight because not enough will.
Wow.
But then, this is like the
same silly argument made in the Cold War by some. They asked,
how can we be so cowardly to attack little
It's always the same story
regardless of the era: we can't pick on X because Y is stronger and therefore
it is cowardly or unfair to attack X first. But then, they argue Y is too
strong to fight. Why on earth is it the height of foreign policy genius to take
on the strongest foe first?
His playground analogy is
really screwed up, too. If little Billy had a vial of anthrax and was about to
pour it into the air conditioner intake, I hope little Tommy would hit Billy so
hard his head spins off. This is no school ground. And it is no place for a
fair fight. Our enemies know that, or is 9-11 forgotten?
The Iraqis need to be stunned
into submission by a violent and rapid attack that makes their head spin. No
mercy, boys.
For the record, I don't think
that there is anything wrong with Americans believing American lives are worth
more than the lives of foreigners—especially enemy lives. And don't the peace
activists really believe that anyway? After all, they don't think any Americans
should die to free an entire nation of prisoners who are shackled,
impoverished, tortured, and killed by one madman.
The measure of our success
will not be our kill ratio, but if it is obscenely high in order to win, I will
sleep just fine at night.
On to
"Nuclear
Nightmares" (Posted
But the idea that
Strangely, no linkage between
our enemies is solid enough to believe. Go figure.
"Our Arrogance"
(Posted
Just a
small note.
If we have failed to gain
allies for the war against Iraq because of our "arrogance" and our
supposed "unilateralism," why do we have more support now, on the eve
of war in 2003, than we did under a humble, multilateralist administration
beloved by the Europeans, in 1998, when we struck Iraq? Then, we had
Just
wondering. Because I thought that
type of sensitive foreign policy was supposed to do wonders for gaining allied support.
"Iraqi Nuclear Program" (Posted March 9, 2003)
The International Atomic Energy Agency does not think Iraq has a nuclear program.
The IAEA did not know that North Korea had a nuclear program and was surprised when Pyongyang admitted to the program when we confronted them.
The IAEA expressed surprise that Iran's nuclear program is so far advanced.
"Western Front" (Posted March 9, 2003)
Combined with the news of a base that could host a logistics point for an armored invasion of the western part of Iraq in a drive on Baghdad, the news that Jordan is playing a sizable role in the invasion adds up to a major effort here. Unnamed American soldier says Saddam is in for a surprise and heavy equipment has been unloaded in Jordan. Perhaps a multi-brigade strike force of Marines and Army troops will advance into the area out of Jordan to be met by 3rd ID advancing out of Saudi Arabia to approach Baghdad from the west. The 82nd AB brigade combat team could drop ahead of the heavy forces. Fifth Special Forces group and maybe allied special forces too have likely scouted and prepared the route. We again struck targets in far western Iraq (from the article linked below).
Although I am distressed at the time we are giving Saddam, I am at least pleased we are going in with overwhelming force in case Saddam's forces resist. I am also happy we will not be just driving north from Kuwait along predictable routes of advance. Saddam will have pre-planned chemical strikes plotted for the road north from Kuwait.
We are breaching the border barriers on the Kuwait-Iraq border, the UN is pulling in its troops in the DMZ, and Iraq is issuing demands of the UN! Said the article, "Glossing over the negative aspects of the latest report by the weapons inspectors, a government statement issued from a meeting presided over by Saddam Hussein and editorials in the government-controlled press all reached the same conclusion: that Iraq had been declared sufficiently free of weapons of mass destruction to warrant the cancellation of sanctions imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war." Amazingly enough, the Iraqis under Saddam seem to have a special talent for not knowing when they are going a bridge too far.
On to Baghdad. Let's go soon to gain tactical surprise.
"Worthless" (Posted March 9, 2003)
I see that once again, Jimmy Carter has shown himself to be as abysmal an analyst and historian as he was our president. The man who cherishes his Nobel Anti-American Prize speaks out, saying war against Iraq is unprecedented.
He says war must be the last resort. His conclusion that war after a 12-year cease fire in which we tried to disarm Saddam peacefully does not practically speaking exhaust peaceful means is ridiculous. First of all, the war is only suspended and Saddam has obligations to keep the cease fire going. He has failed on that count. Plus, by definition, there is always one more non-violent method to try if you have no ability to judge between the possible and the silly. Is there anything Carter would rule out as a peaceful means of trying "before" war? He has no credibility in judging whether we have reached the point of war since he clearly concedes no final step.
He says the war must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. His failure to see that our military is unmatched in its desire and ability to do just that says as much about his loathing of America as it does about his ignorance of American military power. Yes, some civilians will die in combat despite our best efforts to avoid them and even quite apart from Saddam's best efforts to use them as shields. Yet non-war kills too as so many point out.
He thinks it is not proportional to strike Iraq. He ties it to 9-11 and then says it is wrong to connect them. The government has not. It has said that in light of 9-11 it is wrong to let Saddam plot against us. I do find it curious that this man of "peace" appears to think we should take a nuclear first strike and then would bless a proportional nuclear strike in retaliation. It is our duty to defend our people-not to make sure our people die in proportional numbers to our enemy. That is just a sick concept of defending the American people. I am not surprised Carter views the world this way.
He says legitimate authority must authorize war. Again, and this is telling, he dismisses the overwhelming vote of Congress for war-the representatives of the American people-in favor of granting that authority to the rogue's gallery of the UN.
He also thinks the peace following the war must be better than the pre-war condition. Wow. He honestly thinks it is acceptable to leave the Iraqi people and our people's safety in the tender mercies of Saddam's nail-pulling psychopathic regime.
He finds that we will lose sympathy and prestige by attacking "unilaterally." Since, in recent memory, from Grenada to Panama to Haiti to Kosovo, we have struck other nations even though they did not attack us first and did so alone or virtually so, this is just Carter's ignorance speaking. Consider too the Persian Gulf War. The U.S. Army led the way and the most significant military force to assist us was the Marine Corps. For foreign states, only Britain and France had militarily significant forces in the war. The rest were just consuming supplies in the desert and were of no use to us once shooting started. This time, we are shy only the French. And we will likely get Turkish help too. And for all the whining about this too becoming another Vietnam, recall the South Koreans, and Australians, and Thais, and Filipinos, and New Zealanders, and (I think) Canadians who fought with us in that war. Not to mention the South Vietnamese. If allied help is the unit of measurement for just wars, a whole lot of protesters will need to rethink their views.
Carter sickens me. On to Baghdad.
"American Forces in Saudi Arabia" (Posted March 8, 2003)
This is seriously good. Reports of American forces in Arar and Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. I sure hope that 3rd ID is in Arar ready to drive into Iraq and head up that road toward Baghdad. Why we are at Tabuk I do not know. Unless it is a stepping stone for flights to points north.
With all due recognition of 'The Princess Bride,' it is inconceivable that we would wait until mid-March--when we are widely expected to go--to invade Iraq. Maybe the French veto threat to the ultimatum resolution will shoot that down on Tuesday and we will go Wednesday. Lordy, Lord, just don't give Saddam a chance to shout I surrender, haul out some VX for a month, and then say 'That's all I have, UN get out.' Then we are into the summer months. Just go, people.
"War Versus Civil Liberties" (Posted March 8, 2003)
Ah yes, there was a "woman's march for peace" today. That makes sense-stand up for a movement that would veil them and stone them if they have sex outside of marriage (or if they are raped) and otherwise provide them with a firmly enforced second-class status. And given that many opponents of war are warning that al Qaeda will strike if we invade Iraq, I guess it should be time for them to concede a link between Iraq and the Islamofascists.
These are the most extreme, of course, those who defend our enemies and wish them victory even as they go home at night comforted by the notion that we will not lose. Others decry our pending war against Iraq (it better be pending, I think we have made a terrible-though hopefully not grave-mistake in giving Iraq another deadline. Hopefully the French veto will save us from this mistake), unable to see the link between an anti-American despot with weapons of mass destruction and anti-American terrorists who dream of having weapons of mass destruction. Some of the "toughest" of these opponents say we should take the money we will spend destroying Saddam and plow it into homeland defense. We should, they say, pull back into fortress America.
Yet at the same time, these same people decry any effort to increase security at home, crying out that civil rights are being eroded. And they have a point. As long as we fight our enemies our civil liberties will be reduced. That is what happens in war. One of the mundane aspect of this threat level hit me yesterday. I received a rejection letter from a defense journal for an article I submitted (oh well, I'm one for two for the submissions I made in the fall). What really struck me were the two copies of my paper that they returned. They were yellowed. Then I remembered, oh yeah, as a government outfit they would have to zap every mail package with whatever device they use to neutralize Anthrax. This process yellows the paper.
This is just one of the prices we pay for defending against terrorists. And if we are to pull back into fortress America, how many police and soldiers will be needed on our streets? How many questions will we need to answer as government security people question us wherever we move? How many public places will be closed off to the public to keep terrorists from destroying our monuments and buildings?
Loss of privacy and freedom are the prices we will pay for letting our enemies live to plot against us. And every time they strike, we will crack down more. By sitting on the defensive, we guarantee that our enemies will eventually strike us successfully. Defense can only slow the pace, not end the attacks against us. Would these opponents of war say that we should do nothing to prevent attacks? Will they say that exploding malls and occasional plagues are the price we should pay to arrive at the airport five minutes before our flight?
If we want our liberties back fully, if we want the luxury of not having our mail irradiated because nutballs would kill us by mail, we must take the offensive and go after our enemies. Al Qaeda and the states that support them because of their common hatred of America must be destroyed.
Then we can debate our civil liberties and go on with our lives.
On to Baghdad. Our lives and freedom really do count on it.
"The French Better Not
Join Us" (Posted
The French have very recently
shipped parts
to get Saddam's Mirage fighter planes air worthy.
Note to American and allied
pilots. Shoot down any French-manufactured plane you see.
And that worm de Villepin said he is against war because he is worried about
American boys dying in war.
Truly, the French government
disgusts me. Defeating
"Bingo" (Posted
I feel a little better. (I'll
cut back on italicized emphasis after this) This from CNN online: "The
Special
operations? Search
and rescue? Oil fields? Man, we will own western and southern
"ARRGGGHHH" (Posted
I just cannot believe we are going to drag this out
some more. Another freaking resolution? This better be a big old
deception to mask war soon—like tonight. Who will we convince with a deadline
for Iraqi disarmament? What good can possibly be accomplished? Weigh that
against the North Koreans looming over us and ratcheting up their crazy factor
daily. Balance this against the weather. Balance this against the possibility
that one of our allies will face a no-confidence vote and fall from power.
Weigh how much we will tire our pilots and crews with the aerial deception
going on if we let this drag for weeks more. Balance this against the bloody time we are giving the Iraqis.
"Flying Pigs"
(Posted
If professors had a clue,
they wouldn't have tenure. This guy's alternative to
invading
He wants "a little
war" to stop Saddam.
It doesn't even make a little
bit of sense.
But this is what he says:
·
Of course, he has a caveat: "If an American
proposal along these lines received strong international support, if there was
a real commitment to sustain the little war for as long as necessary, there
would be no good reason for the big war. The march [to our big war] could
safely be stopped." (Well there's that little detail that gums it all up,
eh? If we received strong international
support. Why in blazes does this gentleman think we are at this point in
the first place? Are we on the verge of war because the international community
stood with us to contain
I don't think we should wait
until pigs have wings and try out his solution.
On to
"We Really Try"
(Posted
You know, we really try to
keep this from becoming a war between Western civilization and Islam, we really
do. Shoot, even the Pope is against the war. But Islamic religious leaders just
don't
cooperate with the script. This is
what one "respected" cleric in
During his sermon,
Qaradawi urged Iraqis to resist any U.S.-led invasion
and "if they can't drive them back, all their Muslim neighbors should.
This is a religious duty."
You know, if western
Europeans had closed ranks behind Nazi Germany, urging solidarity against
Slavs, we might say that the rest of the Europeans were a little whacked. Just
a tad, don't you think?
What really amazes me—since
the ability of Islamic religious leaders to spew hate isn't really shocking
anymore (and let me say, I will grant that the ones who rant get the publicity,
so I do not actually think they reflect the majority—I hope not, anyway)—is
their willingness to pick a fight with the West when I believe Spain alone has
a GDP greater than the Arab world (I'm not sure if you toss in Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Iran what western state would fit that tag, probably
France would cover the bill). If they really do work themselves up in a killing
frenzy, I do believe even the French would respond with force. And if it ever
came to a pure killing contest, the Moslem world would lose hands down.
Honestly, just how freaking
stupid are those clerics? How twisted are they that they would defend the likes
of Saddam and his evil regime? How is it possible to
think his continued rule is superior to siding with the
Come on people,
give us a reason to avoid thinking this is a clash of civilizations. Display that great tolerance for other faiths that Said claims
Islam has.
Don't turn this into a
religious war. We won't lose it.
"The President's News Conference" (Posted March 6, 2003)
We will have a vote on our resolution no matter what. I'm surprised. Nine votes plus a veto is fine. But would four votes, if just ourselves, Bulgaria, Spain, and Britain vote yes look better than no vote at all with a denunciation of the Security Council's blindness? There is some satisfaction in making them vote.
The President said he is unwilling to risk Saddam with weapons of mass destruction. I don't understand why opponents of war don't think Saddam with chemicals, or bio weapons, or nukes is too risky. They see war and tremendous uncertainty, and fear what could happen if we fight. They think the results of war are too risky.
In part, I think this stems from the difference between action and inaction. That is, as we have prepared for war, the fact that there will be unknowns unleashed stares you in the face. You know action is coming. And with action comes the reaction of others. Consequences flow from action. Inaction, in contrast, has no suspense. You go on with your life without any reminder that action is coming. Prior to 9-11, perhaps two years prior, that day was coming as al Qaeda trained and prepared for that day. We were simply unaware that action was coming. We did not have time to contemplate the consequences of our inaction. We waited in ignorance. Yet consequences happened despite our time spent in the happy land of the end of history. It may be easier to wait, unaware that others plan our destruction; rather than plan to destroy our enemies, with full awareness that we will fight; but it does not erase the fact that consequences will arrive regardless of whether you take action against your enemies or wait in ignorance for action to be taken against you.
The risk of doing nothing is truly too risky. I would not wait in happy ignorance until the day that my workday is interrupted with the news that we just lost Savannah in a nuclear flash.
On to Baghdad.
"Jackboots on Their Necks" (Posted March 6, 2003)
So, before the President's press conference tonight, MSNBC has a rapper on who has put out a CD featuring a picture of a low-flying passenger jet flying toward the White House. He put it out, he says, because he believes that opponents of the war are being suppressed and that people don't question the war. He thinks Bush is doing this for his popularity. He thinks the patriotism people show is false.
His CD was not confiscated.
He was on MSNBC stating his case.
He would probably say the public is against this coming war without reconciling how that increases the President's popularity.
He will be free to rap as he will and speak out wherever he is invited. He doesn't even need to make sense.
Yep, that is some repression he bravely defies.
"Oh Yeah, Soon"
(Posted
General Franks briefed the
President. We are cracking down on Iraqi agents prior to invasion so they can't
trigger terrorist attacks—and just before the attack I would guess, so they
can't be replaced. The President is speaking tonight
to the nation—although the White House says it is not the war speech. Powell
said yesterday that Saddam already had his last chance—and failed. Powell will
try to persuade the UNSC tomorrow after Blix's
report. We are dropping more leaflets warning the Iraqis not to carry out
scorched earth orders.
On top of the air surge, war
is imminent.
My question is, do we go tomorrow night? Does the President lay out the
case tonight and then let Powell give the last-chance speech
tomorrow—followed by a snap vote on our resolution if we have the nine votes
(and veto be damned), or a speech explaining we won't push for a vote because Russia, China, and France
cannot be convinced to see what is right in front of them?
I've called war dates before
and seen them slide into the past so I won't be shocked if we really do wait
another week or more; but never before have the signs been so many that our war
machine is actually gearing up to high speed.
My second question is, are we really making the main effort out of
Main effort
under XVIII Airborne Corps from
On to
"Surge" (Posted March 5, 2003)
The number of air sorties in the Gulf has surged. We are very close to war. We would not tire the crews with this level of flying unless it was to get them to peak performance and to dull Iraqi reaction to hundreds of planes airborne. I've consistently (but wrongly) believed we would go to war soon. My basic thought still holds-we will go to war before people think we will. Now people say the end of next week at the earliest. I'm honestly tensed for it to begin at any time. I would not be shocked at a Friday start.
"So Just Where Is Maureen Dowd's Imperial America?" (Posted March 5, 2003)
Maureen Dowd says disparagingly that we seek to impose democracy on Iraq yet find the democracy of our allies inconvenient when they decide not to cooperate with us.
I'd say that pretty much sums up American imperialism. We live with and respect decisions that go against us. We continue to pursue such democratic governments even though we know they may freely decide not to cooperate with us. And when Iraq tells our troops to go home, we will go home.
Yeah, Maureen, we are quite the quirky imperialists.
On a lighter note, hee hee, a story from the borders of our "empire": The guy with the busses for the human shields is stuck in Lebanon. He was leaving Iraq, shocked that he couldn't guard bunny farms and kitten ranches. I guess the bake sales for bringing the human shields home aren't exactly churning up scads of money. Yep, when you have scarce resources to spend on peace, paying for the big skedaddle isn't high on your priority list. Because, after all, as generous as Western European welfare payments are, there is only so much to go around after you pay for cable TV, Mig Macs, that trip to EuroDisney, and cheap table wine.
On to Baghdad, people. More deadlines are insulting and dangerous. We have waited 12 long years for disarmament. Let's do it the right way now-by stringing up Saddam by his heels in the public square. Or rather, let the Iraqis do it.
"The Kevorkian Trio" (Posted March 5, 2003)
Germany, France, and Russia will not allow a second UN Security Council resolution to pass. We should put the resolution up the day we plan on going to war. If we get nine votes and they vote against it, we invade. If we can't get nine votes, we do not put it up for a vote, blast the Russians and French for threatening veto against this terrible threat from Saddam, and then invade. Let those boobs, those "sophisticated" old countries wise in the ways of the world, destroy their influence by killing off the UN Security Council. Even now, they are hooking up the suicide machine to the Security Council.
The UN will not be dead. It will still do valuable health work amidst its vast silliness. It will still be a place for the nations of the world to vent and to talk. It just won't have any pretensions to stopping us any more.
"Stalin" (Posted March 5, 2003)
This is how evil flourishes. Elderly Russians getting all misty eyed over Stalin's death 50 years ago. They are not unique. Occasionally, there will be stories here about some aging "feisty" communists who still dream of happier times and hope that gulags and firing squads and bread lines will finally come to America. How can they honor that monster's memory after all we know today. It was clear even during his time that he was evil yet many looked away. Now, how can they? Just the same way human shields speak so fondly of Saddam as a victim. Even when the Iraqis can finally openly weep about their ordeal and show us what Saddam and his minions did to them, the whack jobs in our country with tears tattooed on their cheeks will still think we are the evil party.
Freaking, mossy-rocked idiocy.
"So What Can We Really Do About North Korea?" (Posted March 5, 2003)
This article says nations, including the U.S., are coming around to accepting North Korea as a nuclear power.
This has been the heart of my worries about what to do about North Korea. Although I don't take seriously those who say we must do something about North Korea before we deal with Iraq-they want action against nobody; others who say we might need to use force against North Korea must answer this question: how do we do it alone?
The total red line is the sale of nuclear weapons material," said Rep. Mark S. Kirk (R-Ill.), who follows the North Korea issue closely. "Nuclear weapons transferred to the Iraqis would be tantamount to nuking Jerusalem."
The Senate source said the administration was playing "a very dangerous game" in not acting to stop reprocessing before it starts, because the resulting materials could be hidden in the country's network of caves awaiting export.
But administration officials argue they have no good military options for eliminating North Korea's nuclear capability. A surgical strike might neutralize the plutonium plant, but the country's effort to enrich uranium is proceeding at another, unknown site.
Now, I'm obviously not a pacifist. I am certainly no war monger, but war is a tool to protect us. The question of how we do this alone is critical. For Iraq, we do have the power to carry all of the burden of war if we chose to do that. Having allies, even if they only contribute 10%, is tremendously worthwhile as far as I am concerned.
But we would need the South Koreans for the mass of troops and for their bases. We would need Japan for their bases and hopefully their navy and air force. We would need China and Russia to cut off all shipments to North Korea to starve them of oil and other resources to prosecute war.
Clearly, we aren't going to get that kind of support. Shoot, we couldn't get a declaration of war out of our own Congress. The costs are so high and so virtually guaranteed that the idea that we would be forestalling an even greater toll would not be heeded. And such skeptics could be right.
Even if we decided that enduring a million American and South Korean casualties was worth keeping North Korea from going nuclear-and it may be-we cannot do that. At best we could take aerial shots at North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities and then gird to take the hit from the North. We would then rely on South Korean troops resolutely fighting even though the Seoul government did not want war. The South's morale might crack under those circumstances.
War might still come from miscalculation on Kim Jong Il's part. He may invade, thinking in his paranoia that he is preempting us. Like many tyrants before him, the North Korean psychopath may very well strike before he is really ready to defeat us. Should he strike us in the next couple months, we will likely absorb the first blow successfully, mobilize the reserves like they have never been called up since 1945, ship in 750,000 personnel to the region, bomb the North around the clock, and then advance on Pyongyang. A North Korean invasion would take the decision out of our hands.
But short of that, what do we do?
Well, we'd need to build up anti-missile defenses. We'd need to get 2nd ID off the firing line. We'd need to build up air power in the region. We'd need to halt North Korean exports of plutonium by any means necessary. If regime survival is truly the goal of the North, this might not push them over the edge. But we would really have to get the Chinese and Russians to seal their borders with North Korea and we would need to intercept North Korean ships. Perhaps sink them with our subs. We'd need to be prepared to destroy any North Korean plane that lands anywhere in the world if it refuses to be searched when it lands by our people.
And with all that, even if we have the cooperation of most of the world, eventually we will fail. The North will get plutonium to a state or group that will use it.
Which is all the more reason to destroy rogue customer regimes now, before they can buy their nuclear nightmare from Pyongyang.
And then welcome a nuclear South Korea and Japan.
If we are lucky, North Korea will collapse before the worst comes to pass. If we are unlucky, somebody loses a city.
Welcome to our future.
"Turkish Front" (Posted March 4, 2003)
The Turks will reconsider their decision to deny us a Turkish front. Some say this will delay our war because we must wait to redeploy 4th ID. Others that it will hasten it since we won't wait for 4th ID to deploy elsewhere.
I just don't think we planned to send the division in as the northern front. Sure, if the Iraqis collapsed, it could have been thrust into the Mosul region to mop up, but I don't see why we would have forced our way in.
What do we want from a Turkish front anyway? We want the Iraqis up there, especially the Republican Guards, frozen in place. We want to protect the Mosul region oil fields. We want to support the Kurds. We want to nail Ansar al Islam. We want to stifle refugees flowing into Turkey. We want to keep the Kurds from declaring independence. We want to block the route north as a bolt hole for Saddam and his cronies trying to escape in a retreat from Baghdad. We want their air space and we want to launch air attacks from the north to complicate Iraqi air defenses.
Do we need 4th ID for these objectives?
The talk of a northern front worked to keep the Iraqis pinned for a while; but with one Republican Guard division moving south, we've lost that.
If we secure southern oil fields, getting the northern ones isn't as important in the short run since Iraq isn't about to pump at OPEC-busting levels anyway. We have time to put out fires and fix the fields.
Tenth Mountain Division, special forces, and air power will protect the Kurds. Ditto regarding the al Qaeda thugs holing up in Kurdish regions. Our troops should also have a good effect on persuading the Kurds they owe us for sending troops to help them and so therefore stay within Iraq.
Turkish troops will likely push across the border a small way to forestall refugees. They don't need aid to do that.
A thrust from the west that approaches Baghdad from the west could also swing north to cut off Iraqi retreat routes. Precision air power should also be very good at stomping fleeing Iraqis.
All we need the Turks to do is let us use their air space and hopefully their air bases. Even the latter is something we can probably replicate from the Mediterranean Sea since Jordan has opened her air space to American aircraft flying from carriers.
So, Turkish cooperation in a northern front is not really needed. In case of a quick Iraqi collapse, it could have been a nice bonus, but a war stopper? Nope. I'll be real curious to find out how much of this negotiation was farce pure and simply a modern-day Patton feint across from Calais.
On to Baghdad.
"Still, We Wait?"
(Posted
We wait for the Blix report this
Friday? And then we wait some more to see if France and her allies will
side with us?
Enough troops are flowing to start right now. Hopefully, we are just rounding up some more cells based on the KS Mohammed arrest to forestall terror attacks in defense of Saddam's regime.
Enough Blix reports already. And enough French whining. The North Koreans will not wait patiently forever, as their interception of our recon plane shows.
I know not why we wait any longer. I concede such decisions and the information to make them are well above my pay grade. Still, let's go!
"Iraqi Nuclear Program" (Posted March 9, 2003)
The International Atomic Energy Agency does not think Iraq has a nuclear program.
The IAEA did not know that North Korea had a nuclear program and was surprised when Pyongyang admitted to the program when we confronted them.
The IAEA expressed surprise that Iran's nuclear program is so far advanced.
"Western Front" (Posted March 9, 2003)
Combined with the news of a base that could host a logistics point for an armored invasion of the western part of Iraq in a drive on Baghdad, the news that Jordan is playing a sizable role in the invasion adds up to a major effort here. Unnamed American soldier says Saddam is in for a surprise and heavy equipment has been unloaded in Jordan. Perhaps a multi-brigade strike force of Marines and Army troops will advance into the area out of Jordan to be met by 3rd ID advancing out of Saudi Arabia to approach Baghdad from the west. The 82nd AB brigade combat team could drop ahead of the heavy forces. Fifth Special Forces group and maybe allied special forces too have likely scouted and prepared the route. We again struck targets in far western Iraq (from the article linked below).
Although I am distressed at the time we are giving Saddam, I am at least pleased we are going in with overwhelming force in case Saddam's forces resist. I am also happy we will not be just driving north from Kuwait along predictable routes of advance. Saddam will have pre-planned chemical strikes plotted for the road north from Kuwait.
We are breaching the border barriers on the Kuwait-Iraq border, the UN is pulling in its troops in the DMZ, and Iraq is issuing demands of the UN! Said the article, "Glossing over the negative aspects of the latest report by the weapons inspectors, a government statement issued from a meeting presided over by Saddam Hussein and editorials in the government-controlled press all reached the same conclusion: that Iraq had been declared sufficiently free of weapons of mass destruction to warrant the cancellation of sanctions imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war." Amazingly enough, the Iraqis under Saddam seem to have a special talent for not knowing when they are going a bridge too far.
On to Baghdad. Let's go soon to gain tactical surprise.
"Worthless" (Posted March 9, 2003)
I see that once again, Jimmy Carter has shown himself to be as abysmal an analyst and historian as he was our president. The man who cherishes his Nobel Anti-American Prize speaks out, saying war against Iraq is unprecedented.
He says war must be the last resort. His conclusion that war after a 12-year cease fire in which we tried to disarm Saddam peacefully does not practically speaking exhaust peaceful means is ridiculous. First of all, the war is only suspended and Saddam has obligations to keep the cease fire going. He has failed on that count. Plus, by definition, there is always one more non-violent method to try if you have no ability to judge between the possible and the silly. Is there anything Carter would rule out as a peaceful means of trying "before" war? He has no credibility in judging whether we have reached the point of war since he clearly concedes no final step.
He says the war must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. His failure to see that our military is unmatched in its desire and ability to do just that says as much about his loathing of America as it does about his ignorance of American military power. Yes, some civilians will die in combat despite our best efforts to avoid them and even quite apart from Saddam's best efforts to use them as shields. Yet non-war kills too as so many point out.
He thinks it is not proportional to strike Iraq. He ties it to 9-11 and then says it is wrong to connect them. The government has not. It has said that in light of 9-11 it is wrong to let Saddam plot against us. I do find it curious that this man of "peace" appears to think we should take a nuclear first strike and then would bless a proportional nuclear strike in retaliation. It is our duty to defend our people-not to make sure our people die in proportional numbers to our enemy. That is just a sick concept of defending the American people. I am not surprised Carter views the world this way.
He says legitimate authority must authorize war. Again, and this is telling, he dismisses the overwhelming vote of Congress for war-the representatives of the American people-in favor of granting that authority to the rogue's gallery of the UN.
He also thinks the peace following the war must be better than the pre-war condition. Wow. He honestly thinks it is acceptable to leave the Iraqi people and our people's safety in the tender mercies of Saddam's nail-pulling psychopathic regime.
He finds that we will lose sympathy and prestige by attacking "unilaterally." Since, in recent memory, from Grenada to Panama to Haiti to Kosovo, we have struck other nations even though they did not attack us first and did so alone or virtually so, this is just Carter's ignorance speaking. Consider too the Persian Gulf War. The U.S. Army led the way and the most significant military force to assist us was the Marine Corps. For foreign states, only Britain and France had militarily significant forces in the war. The rest were just consuming supplies in the desert and were of no use to us once shooting started. This time, we are shy only the French. And we will likely get Turkish help too. And for all the whining about this too becoming another Vietnam, recall the South Koreans, and Australians, and Thais, and Filipinos, and New Zealanders, and (I think) Canadians who fought with us in that war. Not to mention the South Vietnamese. If allied help is the unit of measurement for just wars, a whole lot of protesters will need to rethink their views.
Carter sickens me. On to Baghdad.
"American Forces in Saudi Arabia" (Posted March 8, 2003)
This is seriously good. Reports of American forces in Arar and Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. I sure hope that 3rd ID is in Arar ready to drive into Iraq and head up that road toward Baghdad. Why we are at Tabuk I do not know. Unless it is a stepping stone for flights to points north.
With all due recognition of 'The Princess Bride,' it is inconceivable that we would wait until mid-March--when we are widely expected to go--to invade Iraq. Maybe the French veto threat to the ultimatum resolution will shoot that down on Tuesday and we will go Wednesday. Lordy, Lord, just don't give Saddam a chance to shout I surrender, haul out some VX for a month, and then say 'That's all I have, UN get out.' Then we are into the summer months. Just go, people.
"War Versus Civil Liberties" (Posted March 8, 2003)
Ah yes, there was a "woman's march for peace" today. That makes sense-stand up for a movement that would veil them and stone them if they have sex outside of marriage (or if they are raped) and otherwise provide them with a firmly enforced second-class status. And given that many opponents of war are warning that al Qaeda will strike if we invade Iraq, I guess it should be time for them to concede a link between Iraq and the Islamofascists.
These are the most extreme, of course, those who defend our enemies and wish them victory even as they go home at night comforted by the notion that we will not lose. Others decry our pending war against Iraq (it better be pending, I think we have made a terrible-though hopefully not grave-mistake in giving Iraq another deadline. Hopefully the French veto will save us from this mistake), unable to see the link between an anti-American despot with weapons of mass destruction and anti-American terrorists who dream of having weapons of mass destruction. Some of the "toughest" of these opponents say we should take the money we will spend destroying Saddam and plow it into homeland defense. We should, they say, pull back into fortress America.
Yet at the same time, these same people decry any effort to increase security at home, crying out that civil rights are being eroded. And they have a point. As long as we fight our enemies our civil liberties will be reduced. That is what happens in war. One of the mundane aspect of this threat level hit me yesterday. I received a rejection letter from a defense journal for an article I submitted (oh well, I'm one for two for the submissions I made in the fall). What really struck me were the two copies of my paper that they returned. They were yellowed. Then I remembered, oh yeah, as a government outfit they would have to zap every mail package with whatever device they use to neutralize Anthrax. This process yellows the paper.
This is just one of the prices we pay for defending against terrorists. And if we are to pull back into fortress America, how many police and soldiers will be needed on our streets? How many questions will we need to answer as government security people question us wherever we move? How many public places will be closed off to the public to keep terrorists from destroying our monuments and buildings?
Loss of privacy and freedom are the prices we will pay for letting our enemies live to plot against us. And every time they strike, we will crack down more. By sitting on the defensive, we guarantee that our enemies will eventually strike us successfully. Defense can only slow the pace, not end the attacks against us. Would these opponents of war say that we should do nothing to prevent attacks? Will they say that exploding malls and occasional plagues are the price we should pay to arrive at the airport five minutes before our flight?
If we want our liberties back fully, if we want the luxury of not having our mail irradiated because nutballs would kill us by mail, we must take the offensive and go after our enemies. Al Qaeda and the states that support them because of their common hatred of America must be destroyed.
Then we can debate our civil liberties and go on with our lives.
On to Baghdad. Our lives and freedom really do count on it.
"The French Better Not
Join Us" (Posted
The French have very recently
shipped parts
to get Saddam's Mirage fighter planes air worthy.
Note to American and allied
pilots. Shoot down any French-manufactured plane you see.
And that worm de Villepin said he is against war because he is worried about
American boys dying in war.
Truly, the French government
disgusts me. Defeating
"Bingo" (Posted
I feel a little better. (I'll
cut back on italicized emphasis after this) This from CNN online: "The
Special
operations? Search
and rescue? Oil fields? Man, we will own western and southern
"ARRGGGHHH" (Posted
I just cannot believe we are going to drag this out
some more. Another freaking resolution? This better be a big old
deception to mask war soon—like tonight. Who will we convince with a deadline
for Iraqi disarmament? What good can possibly be accomplished? Weigh that
against the North Koreans looming over us and ratcheting up their crazy factor
daily. Balance this against the weather. Balance this against the possibility
that one of our allies will face a no-confidence vote and fall from power.
Weigh how much we will tire our pilots and crews with the aerial deception
going on if we let this drag for weeks more. Balance this against the bloody time we are giving the Iraqis.
"Flying Pigs"
(Posted
If professors had a clue,
they wouldn't have tenure. This guy's alternative to
invading
He wants "a little
war" to stop Saddam.
It doesn't even make a little
bit of sense.
But this is what he says:
·
Of course, he has a caveat: "If an American
proposal along these lines received strong international support, if there was
a real commitment to sustain the little war for as long as necessary, there
would be no good reason for the big war. The march [to our big war] could
safely be stopped." (Well there's that little detail that gums it all up,
eh? If we received strong international
support. Why in blazes does this gentleman think we are at this point in
the first place? Are we on the verge of war because the international community
stood with us to contain
I don't think we should wait
until pigs have wings and try out his solution.
On to
"We Really Try"
(Posted
You know, we really try to
keep this from becoming a war between Western civilization and Islam, we really
do. Shoot, even the Pope is against the war. But Islamic religious leaders just
don't
cooperate with the script. This is
what one "respected" cleric in
During his sermon,
Qaradawi urged Iraqis to resist any U.S.-led invasion
and "if they can't drive them back, all their Muslim neighbors should.
This is a religious duty."
You know, if western
Europeans had closed ranks behind Nazi Germany, urging solidarity against
Slavs, we might say that the rest of the Europeans were a little whacked. Just
a tad, don't you think?
What really amazes me—since
the ability of Islamic religious leaders to spew hate isn't really shocking
anymore (and let me say, I will grant that the ones who rant get the publicity,
so I do not actually think they reflect the majority—I hope not, anyway)—is
their willingness to pick a fight with the West when I believe Spain alone has
a GDP greater than the Arab world (I'm not sure if you toss in Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Iran what western state would fit that tag, probably
France would cover the bill). If they really do work themselves up in a killing
frenzy, I do believe even the French would respond with force. And if it ever
came to a pure killing contest, the Moslem world would lose hands down.
Honestly, just how freaking
stupid are those clerics? How twisted are they that they would defend the likes
of Saddam and his evil regime? How is it possible to
think his continued rule is superior to siding with the
Come on people,
give us a reason to avoid thinking this is a clash of civilizations. Display that great tolerance for other faiths that Said claims
Islam has.
Don't turn this into a
religious war. We won't lose it.
"The President's News Conference" (Posted March 6, 2003)
We will have a vote on our resolution no matter what. I'm surprised. Nine votes plus a veto is fine. But would four votes, if just ourselves, Bulgaria, Spain, and Britain vote yes look better than no vote at all with a denunciation of the Security Council's blindness? There is some satisfaction in making them vote.
The President said he is unwilling to risk Saddam with weapons of mass destruction. I don't understand why opponents of war don't think Saddam with chemicals, or bio weapons, or nukes is too risky. They see war and tremendous uncertainty, and fear what could happen if we fight. They think the results of war are too risky.
In part, I think this stems from the difference between action and inaction. That is, as we have prepared for war, the fact that there will be unknowns unleashed stares you in the face. You know action is coming. And with action comes the reaction of others. Consequences flow from action. Inaction, in contrast, has no suspense. You go on with your life without any reminder that action is coming. Prior to 9-11, perhaps two years prior, that day was coming as al Qaeda trained and prepared for that day. We were simply unaware that action was coming. We did not have time to contemplate the consequences of our inaction. We waited in ignorance. Yet consequences happened despite our time spent in the happy land of the end of history. It may be easier to wait, unaware that others plan our destruction; rather than plan to destroy our enemies, with full awareness that we will fight; but it does not erase the fact that consequences will arrive regardless of whether you take action against your enemies or wait in ignorance for action to be taken against you.
The risk of doing nothing is truly too risky. I would not wait in happy ignorance until the day that my workday is interrupted with the news that we just lost Savannah in a nuclear flash.
On to Baghdad.
"Jackboots on Their Necks" (Posted March 6, 2003)
So, before the President's press conference tonight, MSNBC has a rapper on who has put out a CD featuring a picture of a low-flying passenger jet flying toward the White House. He put it out, he says, because he believes that opponents of the war are being suppressed and that people don't question the war. He thinks Bush is doing this for his popularity. He thinks the patriotism people show is false.
His CD was not confiscated.
He was on MSNBC stating his case.
He would probably say the public is against this coming war without reconciling how that increases the President's popularity.
He will be free to rap as he will and speak out wherever he is invited. He doesn't even need to make sense.
Yep, that is some repression he bravely defies.
"Oh Yeah, Soon"
(Posted
General Franks briefed the
President. We are cracking down on Iraqi agents prior to invasion so they can't
trigger terrorist attacks—and just before the attack I would guess, so they
can't be replaced. The President is speaking tonight
to the nation—although the White House says it is not the war speech. Powell
said yesterday that Saddam already had his last chance—and failed. Powell will
try to persuade the UNSC tomorrow after Blix's
report. We are dropping more leaflets warning the Iraqis not to carry out
scorched earth orders.
On top of the air surge, war
is imminent.
My question is, do we go tomorrow night? Does the President lay out the
case tonight and then let Powell give the last-chance speech
tomorrow—followed by a snap vote on our resolution if we have the nine votes
(and veto be damned), or a speech explaining we won't push for a vote because Russia, China, and France
cannot be convinced to see what is right in front of them?
I've called war dates before
and seen them slide into the past so I won't be shocked if we really do wait
another week or more; but never before have the signs been so many that our war
machine is actually gearing up to high speed.
My second question is, are we really making the main effort out of
Main effort
under XVIII Airborne Corps from
On to
"Surge" (Posted March 5, 2003)
The number of air sorties in the Gulf has surged. We are very close to war. We would not tire the crews with this level of flying unless it was to get them to peak performance and to dull Iraqi reaction to hundreds of planes airborne. I've consistently (but wrongly) believed we would go to war soon. My basic thought still holds-we will go to war before people think we will. Now people say the end of next week at the earliest. I'm honestly tensed for it to begin at any time. I would not be shocked at a Friday start.
"So Just Where Is Maureen Dowd's Imperial America?" (Posted March 5, 2003)
Maureen Dowd says disparagingly that we seek to impose democracy on Iraq yet find the democracy of our allies inconvenient when they decide not to cooperate with us.
I'd say that pretty much sums up American imperialism. We live with and respect decisions that go against us. We continue to pursue such democratic governments even though we know they may freely decide not to cooperate with us. And when Iraq tells our troops to go home, we will go home.
Yeah, Maureen, we are quite the quirky imperialists.
On a lighter note, hee hee, a story from the borders of our "empire": The guy with the busses for the human shields is stuck in Lebanon. He was leaving Iraq, shocked that he couldn't guard bunny farms and kitten ranches. I guess the bake sales for bringing the human shields home aren't exactly churning up scads of money. Yep, when you have scarce resources to spend on peace, paying for the big skedaddle isn't high on your priority list. Because, after all, as generous as Western European welfare payments are, there is only so much to go around after you pay for cable TV, Mig Macs, that trip to EuroDisney, and cheap table wine.
On to Baghdad, people. More deadlines are insulting and dangerous. We have waited 12 long years for disarmament. Let's do it the right way now-by stringing up Saddam by his heels in the public square. Or rather, let the Iraqis do it.
"The Kevorkian Trio" (Posted March 5, 2003)
Germany, France, and Russia will not allow a second UN Security Council resolution to pass. We should put the resolution up the day we plan on going to war. If we get nine votes and they vote against it, we invade. If we can't get nine votes, we do not put it up for a vote, blast the Russians and French for threatening veto against this terrible threat from Saddam, and then invade. Let those boobs, those "sophisticated" old countries wise in the ways of the world, destroy their influence by killing off the UN Security Council. Even now, they are hooking up the suicide machine to the Security Council.
The UN will not be dead. It will still do valuable health work amidst its vast silliness. It will still be a place for the nations of the world to vent and to talk. It just won't have any pretensions to stopping us any more.
"Stalin" (Posted March 5, 2003)
This is how evil flourishes. Elderly Russians getting all misty eyed over Stalin's death 50 years ago. They are not unique. Occasionally, there will be stories here about some aging "feisty" communists who still dream of happier times and hope that gulags and firing squads and bread lines will finally come to America. How can they honor that monster's memory after all we know today. It was clear even during his time that he was evil yet many looked away. Now, how can they? Just the same way human shields speak so fondly of Saddam as a victim. Even when the Iraqis can finally openly weep about their ordeal and show us what Saddam and his minions did to them, the whack jobs in our country with tears tattooed on their cheeks will still think we are the evil party.
Freaking, mossy-rocked idiocy.
"So What Can We Really Do About North Korea?" (Posted March 5, 2003)
This article says nations, including the U.S., are coming around to accepting North Korea as a nuclear power.
This has been the heart of my worries about what to do about North Korea. Although I don't take seriously those who say we must do something about North Korea before we deal with Iraq-they want action against nobody; others who say we might need to use force against North Korea must answer this question: how do we do it alone?
The total red line is the sale of nuclear weapons material," said Rep. Mark S. Kirk (R-Ill.), who follows the North Korea issue closely. "Nuclear weapons transferred to the Iraqis would be tantamount to nuking Jerusalem."
The Senate source said the administration was playing "a very dangerous game" in not acting to stop reprocessing before it starts, because the resulting materials could be hidden in the country's network of caves awaiting export.
But administration officials argue they have no good military options for eliminating North Korea's nuclear capability. A surgical strike might neutralize the plutonium plant, but the country's effort to enrich uranium is proceeding at another, unknown site.
Now, I'm obviously not a pacifist. I am certainly no war monger, but war is a tool to protect us. The question of how we do this alone is critical. For Iraq, we do have the power to carry all of the burden of war if we chose to do that. Having allies, even if they only contribute 10%, is tremendously worthwhile as far as I am concerned.
But we would need the South Koreans for the mass of troops and for their bases. We would need Japan for their bases and hopefully their navy and air force. We would need China and Russia to cut off all shipments to North Korea to starve them of oil and other resources to prosecute war.
Clearly, we aren't going to get that kind of support. Shoot, we couldn't get a declaration of war out of our own Congress. The costs are so high and so virtually guaranteed that the idea that we would be forestalling an even greater toll would not be heeded. And such skeptics could be right.
Even if we decided that enduring a million American and South Korean casualties was worth keeping North Korea from going nuclear-and it may be-we cannot do that. At best we could take aerial shots at North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities and then gird to take the hit from the North. We would then rely on South Korean troops resolutely fighting even though the Seoul government did not want war. The South's morale might crack under those circumstances.
War might still come from miscalculation on Kim Jong Il's part. He may invade, thinking in his paranoia that he is preempting us. Like many tyrants before him, the North Korean psychopath may very well strike before he is really ready to defeat us. Should he strike us in the next couple months, we will likely absorb the first blow successfully, mobilize the reserves like they have never been called up since 1945, ship in 750,000 personnel to the region, bomb the North around the clock, and then advance on Pyongyang. A North Korean invasion would take the decision out of our hands.
But short of that, what do we do?
Well, we'd need to build up anti-missile defenses. We'd need to get 2nd ID off the firing line. We'd need to build up air power in the region. We'd need to halt North Korean exports of plutonium by any means necessary. If regime survival is truly the goal of the North, this might not push them over the edge. But we would really have to get the Chinese and Russians to seal their borders with North Korea and we would need to intercept North Korean ships. Perhaps sink them with our subs. We'd need to be prepared to destroy any North Korean plane that lands anywhere in the world if it refuses to be searched when it lands by our people.
And with all that, even if we have the cooperation of most of the world, eventually we will fail. The North will get plutonium to a state or group that will use it.
Which is all the more reason to destroy rogue customer regimes now, before they can buy their nuclear nightmare from Pyongyang.
And then welcome a nuclear South Korea and Japan.
If we are lucky, North Korea will collapse before the worst comes to pass. If we are unlucky, somebody loses a city.
Welcome to our future.
"Turkish Front" (Posted March 4, 2003)
The Turks will reconsider their decision to deny us a Turkish front. Some say this will delay our war because we must wait to redeploy 4th ID. Others that it will hasten it since we won't wait for 4th ID to deploy elsewhere.
I just don't think we planned to send the division in as the northern front. Sure, if the Iraqis collapsed, it could have been thrust into the Mosul region to mop up, but I don't see why we would have forced our way in.
What do we want from a Turkish front anyway? We want the Iraqis up there, especially the Republican Guards, frozen in place. We want to protect the Mosul region oil fields. We want to support the Kurds. We want to nail Ansar al Islam. We want to stifle refugees flowing into Turkey. We want to keep the Kurds from declaring independence. We want to block the route north as a bolt hole for Saddam and his cronies trying to escape in a retreat from Baghdad. We want their air space and we want to launch air attacks from the north to complicate Iraqi air defenses.
Do we need 4th ID for these objectives?
The talk of a northern front worked to keep the Iraqis pinned for a while; but with one Republican Guard division moving south, we've lost that.
If we secure southern oil fields, getting the northern ones isn't as important in the short run since Iraq isn't about to pump at OPEC-busting levels anyway. We have time to put out fires and fix the fields.
Tenth Mountain Division, special forces, and air power will protect the Kurds. Ditto regarding the al Qaeda thugs holing up in Kurdish regions. Our troops should also have a good effect on persuading the Kurds they owe us for sending troops to help them and so therefore stay within Iraq.
Turkish troops will likely push across the border a small way to forestall refugees. They don't need aid to do that.
A thrust from the west that approaches Baghdad from the west could also swing north to cut off Iraqi retreat routes. Precision air power should also be very good at stomping fleeing Iraqis.
All we need the Turks to do is let us use their air space and hopefully their air bases. Even the latter is something we can probably replicate from the Mediterranean Sea since Jordan has opened her air space to American aircraft flying from carriers.
So, Turkish cooperation in a northern front is not really needed. In case of a quick Iraqi collapse, it could have been a nice bonus, but a war stopper? Nope. I'll be real curious to find out how much of this negotiation was farce pure and simply a modern-day Patton feint across from Calais.
On to Baghdad.
"Still, We Wait?"
(Posted
We wait for the Blix report this
Friday? And then we wait some more to see if France and her allies will
side with us?
Enough troops are flowing to start right now. Hopefully, we are just rounding up some more cells based on the KS Mohammed arrest to forestall terror attacks in defense of Saddam's regime.
Enough Blix reports already. And enough French whining. The North Koreans will not wait patiently forever, as their interception of our recon plane shows.
I know not why we wait any longer. I concede such decisions and the information to make them are well above my pay grade. Still, let's go!
"Cops" (Posted March 3, 2003)
Is it just me, or does the arrest picture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed look like something out of 'Cops.'? I swear, he could be any drunken man standing on his front lawn after the police responded to a too-loud party. Then, when the police find he is behind on child support and has about two dozen unpaid parking tickets, his problems really start. Of course, he gets upset and takes a swing at an officer. Before you know it he is perp walking to the squad car. Most appropriate. All he is missing is the proper 'wife beater' t-shirt.
"Very Soon" (Posted
The war must begin very soon.
Tonight if we decide to just stiff the UN, take advantage of the new moon, and
get tactical surprise; Thursday if we really want to go the extra mile for
Blair.
Human shields realized they
are not impervious to bullets and became quite distressed that the Iraqis were
unwilling to accommodate their symbolic mission by stationing them at Starbucks
outlets and convents. Being put next to military targets was a bit much for
their love of peace to endure. Oh well. At least the bus trip to
The really funny thing is,
when they get home they could still be human shields at convents and pizza
parlors in
The Iraqis will find their
last-minute destruction of some of their missiles will be for nothing. The
peace side has a funny view on these too. They are impressed with Iraqi
cooperation. But why? The Iraqis are supposed to be
disarmed of all such weapons following the 1991 cease fire. Why is it a success
that we have now discovered new
weapons banned but developed and built since 1991? Is this what we must support
in inspections? Not the final conclusion of destroying all weapons extant in
1991, but a game to discover even the new ones? So how does this square with
Get on with it. The North
Koreans exploit our delays.
Oh, and the same estimates
used by anti-war types to judge the size of their rallies should be used to
count the Iraqis crowding the streets, crying in
relief and joy when American forces sweep into Iraq. And like the Germans
herded through the concentration camps in 1945 to see what they would not
believe, make the protesters and apologists for Saddam see what we have destroyed
in
Let them see who and what they
defended.
"Disaster! Catastrophe!" (Posted March 2, 2003)
Well, I guess some will say that now that Turkey has turned down our request to deploy conventional ground forces in Turkey for an overland thrust into northern Iraq. Some say the war will be "twice" as long. I didn't know we had a baseline to double.
Personally, I never believed that more than a few light brigades going into Kurdish areas would be our northern front. It seemed that a heavy brigade to back the Turks would be the only Americans outside of special forces heading for Mosul. It all seemed a charade to pin the Iraqis in place. Now that the Iraqis have moved a Republican Guard division south, and Turkey has formally turned us down, we must attack quickly to gain the effects of distracting the Iraqis for so long.
The northern front could airlift 10th Mountain Division (2 brigades) plus 173rd Airborne Brigade into Kurdish areas by overflying Turkey. A Turkish corps could still advance into northern Iraq. Perhaps we have been fairly successful with our overtures to Iraqi regular army guys up there and some will defect and have American or British or Aussie special forces embedded to direct American air power in support.
Mostly, I wonder if the Turks will let us run an air war out of Turkey. That is more important at this point.
Mind you, after we busted a gut to get NATO to honor its commitment to Turkey, it is very disappointing that Turkey voted us down. But that is their right, and I don't think we ever planned an invasion from the north. It just never made sense to send a heavy division wading into the masses of the Iraqis up there. Not that I worried they would defeat that one division. Although if the Iraqis went for broke and threw a Republican guard corps at the isolated division, they might inflict some heavy casualties. No, I worried more that we would have to annihilate any Iraqi regular unit that we got near just to be on the safe side. Since we would likely want Iraqi regulars to take some role in the occupation after the war, we don't really want to destroy the army. We just want it to become the defender of the Iraqi people and not their executioners.
So the northern front farce has ended. We had a good run on very slender effort on our part. Not a bad disinformation campaign as far as I'm concerned.
A newspaper article today noted that 3rd Infantry is still in Kuwait. Still no TV stories about the division. I'm way too cynical. Just where is that division?
Now get on to Baghdad.
"3-172" (Posted March 1, 2003)
So, 173rd Airborne Brigade has had the 3rd battalion of the 172nd Infantry (ARNG) attached to it. That Guard battalion is the only true mountain unit in the Army. I'd earlier thought a British unit might have rounded out 10th Mountain Division (actually just a light infantry division) for the northern front. Putting an actual mountain unit in 173rd indicates it is going north and not part of the southern or western invasion forces.
Oh, and we got an al Qaeda bigwig in Pakistan. So how is Iraq distracting us?
"Northern Iraq" (Posted March 1, 2003)
Airfields in northern Kurdish areas are ready to receive US troops. The article only mentions 4th ID but that makes no sense to try to ship in a mechanized unit to this mountainous region. Now, shipping 10th Mountain Division directly into these Kurdish areas would make sense. These forces could be directed to capture the Kirkuk region, with Turkish and relatively small American forces (a brigade combat team of 1st ID?) Driving south from Turkey. With a Republican Guard division bugging out of the north, the regulars are probably feeling a little lonely. Which is good for us. They know they are on their own and they know that the regime enforcers are no longer behind them. Could we see defections from these divisions in the next couple days?
American regulars would also be useful to back up Special Forces and Kurds going after the al Qaeda thugs in Kurdish areas who have set up a little mini-Taliban enclave.
Oh, and I guess 101st AB, at least in part, must be scheduled for invasion duties. Perhaps a brigade initially and then the remainder in follow-up waves will secure the western part of Iraq in a sort of low-opposition, war-time "training" mission. This will prepare them for occupation duty without exhausting them in combat. At the same time, they will be a powerful reserve in case we need them for the battle for Baghdad. They could isolate the city to the east and north if needed. I still think they would be a great component of an occupation army. Yet a role in the west should not harm them for this mission. And basing out of Kuwait will not require them to fly too far west since I think Army and Marine forces will advance out of Jordan to grab the H-3 and H-2 fields close to Jordan and then drive east.
New moon soon. Let's go.
"North Korean Threats" (Posted March 1, 2003)
The North Koreans shrilly accuse America of preparing for nuclear war. Our President makes one "Axis of Evil" reference and we are escalating the situation; North Korean hysteria and threats to annihilate Seoul and strike America are to be ignored, if you are to believe some.
Yes, we are gearing up for contingencies. But we are incapable of invading North Korea without massive American reinforcements. Nor could we go without South Korean full-hearted assistance. North Korea by contrast is forward deployed on a hair trigger.
North Korea's threats of nuclear war are scary, but would they initiate nuclear war? They say that they wish them to deter an American invasion. If this is so, then regime survival is their prime objective and even a disarming strike against North Korea's nuclear infrastructure should not prompt a North Korean nuclear strike. After all, we would still retain the ability to destroy North Korea with nuclear weapons in a retaliatory strike.
A cool assessment says the North would bluster but if we struck their nuclear facilities, they would hesitate before responding. First they'd figure out if they still had their nukes. If they survived, they might feel more free to respond in a limited fashion. A deadly retaliation to be sure, but short of a general war. They'd not want to give us the excuse to attack again to finish the job. If they lose their nukes, then they have to worry about their regime if they retaliate. If we know they are defanged, and the North shells Seoul, we might go all out with an aerial offensive to dismantle everything above ground and some of the buried stuff.
Also, the North Korean army may very well be a very brittle instrument most scary when it is poised to invade. It may start out the war fine, behind a massive bombardment, but when it faces serious resistance it could break. This is a poverty-stricken, oppressive, regime, whose people are starving and fleeing to China for God's sake. It is possible that the North's army is really only prepared for a parade march behind a curtain of chemical bombardment against token resistance.
So, we must calculate the South's ability to resist. On paper, it is good. But given the apparently widespread desire to blunt American tough moves, are they up to it? A whole lot of our troops need Southern troops to hold firm to avoid a debacle on the peninsula. I imagine we'd drop nukes all around 2nd ID to save it if we have to. And once we do that, we'd better go after the Northern regime too.
Very messy. Very deadly. And much depends on all sides calmly calculating what is in their best interest. Even rational actors will have trouble with that if the balloon goes up. What Pyongyang's frame of reference for rationality is a mystery to me. So much could go wrong if fighting starts. Yet is paying the North off the right step? At some level, it may be the best thing to do. Especially if the North really is mostly interested in regime survival now. We can't just sign something-anything-and then just look away as we did in 1994. We would have to have intrusive inspections. We'd have to have inspectors look at every plane and ship and train leaving North Korea to make sure the North was not exporting missiles, nukes, or components.
One thing for sure, I'll feel more confident once the Iraq war is concluded. North Korea will feel relatively free to thumb their nose at us until we are in the post-war phase in Iraq. We may yet pay the price for delaying on Iraq. The bill may come due at the DMZ and not on the west bank of Baghdad.