Apparently the U.S. is in the early stages of a big retaking of the town.

What do you all think will happen? Easy win or hard fought slog or something else?

Personally I expect the US will win with minimal casualties but that it won't affect much. Guerilla warfare is all about fading away in the face of overwhelming force and living to fight another day. The US which virtually invented modern guerilla warfare in the revolutionary war, showed that hit and run and melt into the crowd attacks can be effective against an occupying power if you have local support. It doesn't appear for now that the US is doing much to reduce that local support.

Do you all think this battle will be critical? Or just one in a series or what?

I think it will be an easy winn too, because most of the fighters probably already skipped town. They're determined, but they're not stupid enough to fight the U.S. face-to-face.

I think the 50 remaining guerillas armed with AK-47s will face the evil American force and destroy it.

In a pep talk to U.S. troops ahead their invasion of Fallujah on Sunday, the senior enlisted Marine in Iraq, Sgt. Major Carlton Kent drew inspiration from great Marine triumphs of the past. "You're all in the process of making history," he told them. "This is another Hue city in the making."

Some marines seem to think it will be a big deal. It'll be interesting in coming days to see how it turns out.

Time

Meh..if it gets too hot for them in there, they'll just bomb the city until there is nothing left of it and then go in, hehe. I don't see it being such a major thing they make it out to be.

Do I think Falluja is going to be as big a deal as the papers are making it out to be? No. They're in the market for selling their print daily, I'm not. For me, sorry to beat it to death once again, I think this is useless. I think "Invading" some rinky dinky delapited town by now is not going to help at all. I've argued similarly in the past, and have also tied in different operations such as Hamas and the West Bank bulldozing into this discussion, and the reason I adhere to it is because I'm pretty damn sure we're not dealing with small physical entities (i.e. Terrorist groups). We are dealing with a massive system, bordering on governance, which is consolidating funding, personell, and power. And the way we (and I don't just mean the U.S. or Bush, or Israel and Sharon) are going about it is just allowing for redistribution and regeneration of power whenever a couple individuals take a hit. We're fighting the immediate battle without realizing, ultimately, that the landscape of the larger war has completely changed.



I edited out particular part in order to not distract from my discussion.

-Dolce

This is one of the great ironies of the war on terror that would be funny if it wasn't so important. The Bush administration has repeatedly accused its critics of having a "law enforcement" approach to terrorism, which is outdated they say. But the administration itself uses a law enforcement approach, often talking about what percentage of the leadership is dead or captured as a sign of progress.

They don't seem to be taking a new approach, a new look, and attacking terrorism as a wider problem. Even the terms like smoke em out, wanted dead or alive, and you can run but you can't hide are oldlaw enforcement terms, which is an outdated approach to terrorism.

You know, I hear this criticism time and time again. "By fighting them we increase their ranks". I'm sorry, but that's just BS. We increase their ranks by bending over backwards for them. It's not a coincidence that Islamic terrorism grew exponentially over the last 30 years. It is because we HAVEN'T been fighting them at all. They see that with each succesful attack the West backs off and concedes to their demans, so they're bound to use more terrorism.


Until 2001 Islamic terrorism hasn't really been confronted outside of Israel, and even there it was a half-assed approach that involved negotiations with the terrorists such as Arafat. That approach has not worked in the past, yet you still want to use it.

And dolce, I'm sorry, but Fallujah IS a big deal. It's not some rinky-dinky town. It's a terrorist base (well, not anymore). When you take out the terrorist base, it makes it harder for the terrorists to organize their attacks.

That's a straw man. Nobody in this thread has said that we shouldn't fight them. If you were referring to my post, I said that by taking a law enforcement approach to progress (X number have been captured, Y number have been killed, therefore we are winning), the administration uses the old model against terrorism which didn't work. We need to find a new way of describing progress, somehow.

And yes Fallujah is a big town, at least 300,000 people. How many forces will it take to keep that town once it is retaken and hold it? Currently the US force is described as 10k with 2k Iraqis helping. Is it enough? Neither of us are experts so it's hard to say, but it doesn't seem promising.

And that's not a strawman? The administration HAS been using other ways in describing progress. For instance, this administration believes that a free nation is less likely to produce and cooperate with terrorists than a nation under a dictatorial regime. Hence, with two such regimes gone, the progress has been made.

Also, one of the tools in assessing the terrorism threat around the world has been the State Department's report that shows the number of terrorist incidents around the world annually. That number dropped more 50% from the 2000 and 2001 to 35-year lows in 2002 and 2003. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm

It used to be 300,000 people. Now it's Less than 100,000, what with the people fleeing it from terrorists and all. We don't know what's going to happen afterwards, true, but it's erroneous to think that it isn't a big deal that we're taking on terrorists there.

To add to my previous post. I, was referring to rhetoric such as this: And the way we (and I don't just mean the U.S. or Bush, or Israel and Sharon) are going about it is just allowing for redistribution and regeneration of power whenever a couple individuals take a hit. We're fighting the immediate battle without realizing, ultimately, that the landscape of the larger war has completely changed.

There's no indocation that the terrorists are increasing their ranks or funding because we're fighting them.

No, I didn't say we shouldn't address the issue of terrorism, I just don't think dealing with it as a physical entity with a *fixed* amount of leaders that can slowly be picked off is the way to go about it. You can ask me what the alternative is, and I'm sure you will :wink: so I'll try to anticipate that question. Its not sure. I think earlier, much earlier in this experience, Bush had some good ideas about freezing funding, etc. I'm not sure if it is at all possible though. I mean, how can you tell where funding is or isn't going and in what way. We can thank Switzerland, Brazil, and who knows how many other off-shore banking spaces for that inability to trace funds. But, if the CIA can check what questions my boss answered querying historians at the Chicago Historical Society, I'm sure they've got something to trace funding with.

I also think there does have to be greater involvement of local government officials. Mind you, this does not necessarily mean local police, which again, shift the discussion to physical presence and can cause huge civil rifts.

I'll be honest with you, I don't 100% know the solution, but I think part of that problem is the inability to step back and explore different approaches. Chances are handling this siruation is going to be a process of ellimination type solution, but that can't happen unless we open up the disscussion about how to handle this beyond bulldozers and "Wanted" posters.



I meant that the physical city itself is not a big deal. Even Lecter has already cracked jokes that they skipped town a long time ago. What does that mean? I guess it could mean you make sure there is no roof over their heads if they ever return, but something tells me that's not that much of a deterrent. Also, it means all those evacuating civilians won't have roofs over their heads either, and one can only guess to what that will lead to. Perhaps it means we will find alot of their supplies and deny them access to it? Yes, but what are those supplies? There is such a steady stream of this stuff flowing in, that I doubt it phases them much. It would be best for us to try and identify those streams and handle the situation fromthere. Will there be a black market then? Always. But this is nothing new, and sadly not particularly controllable at any point in history.

Furthermore, if there is one thing we should learn about Israel and 9/11 its that these sort of acts rarely require the kind of "arms and supplies" we would be trying to weed out in Falluja. What, those airplanes went down with some shaving razors. And all the bus and mall bombs in Israel just take some powder and alot of nails. These are not supplies that the military is somehow going to eliminate by enetering Falluja.

You know, your guess, any of you, is as good as mine, but we need to start exploring those guesses anyways. Because I really don't think the current approach is working much at all.

-Dolce

Well, with the funding frozen (and Switzerland HAS been cooperating), you think we should just sit back and pat ourselves on the back? Terrorism is still a threat. We can't lull ourselves into thinking that just by freezing the funds (which is a great deal too) we've beaten terrorism.

Are you sure the local government over in Fallujah would listen to us? It's nice to theoritize like this, but how are we going to cooperate with local governments, if they're not willing to cooperate with us?

How about spreading freedom in the Middle East? Maybe free countries are less likely to contribute to terrorism?

Actually, I said that. I do believe that the terrorists such as Al-Zarqawi are gone from Fallujah. But it is for the better. They're on the run, which means they're less likely to plan an attack and less likely to have the resources to do so.

Frankly, I'm not sure what you're talking about, The majority of Fallujah residents already fleed the town, because of the terrorist and insurgent activity there. They already don't have a roof over their head (unless they're living with their relatives somewhere else in Iraq, which is still not at all great).

Again, I don't know what you're talking about. Weapons caches in Fallujah? Yes, there are many of those. But the main point of attacking it is not to capture the weapons, but to destroy the terrorist infrastructure in place there.

And about terroist attacks: you'd be surprised how costly they can be. 9/11 cost half a million dollars and took 3 years to prepare. That's not chump change; and were the CIA and FBI not operating with such decentralization, they would've put two and two together before 9/11. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

You can only claim that if you show me what your criteria for "working" and "not working" are.

CNN reports that the troops took the center of Fallujah. 10 American soldiers dead.

Gang I have a question here:
<somewhat oversimplified but?>

Can we not give the good guy Iraqi's guns show them how to point them at the bad guy Iraqi's and we catch a bus home. I mean the combat has been over for like 15 months and the elections over.....

The "good guy" Iraqis are divided, a lot of them don't want to fight other Iraqis and have refused to. Plus with the Iraqi army so infiltrated by the insurgents, when we train Iraqi soldiers we're training some future insurgents too.

We'll probably be in Iraq with thousands of troops well into the next decade. Hopefully not but that's what the non partisan experts are saying.

Geez, I'd hate to see what the partisan experts are saying.

I think we'll just have military bases there, like we do in Europe and other parts of Asia.

No.
1. we can't be sure who the "good guys" are, because its not like the "bad guys" are still in national military uniform or something. Besides, this is, in theory, what we are trying to do by training local police. I have my doubts, that kind of stuff can get really ugly. But I also don't see too much of an alternative, so that's the route we're taking.
2. Once we establish who the "good guys" are, how can we be sure once we give them guns they won't change their minds? Remember who first put guns in Bin Laden and Hussein's hands.
3. I wasn't aware this was just about the election and our shock 'n awe combat anticipation? we bombed them, now we deal with it and see the job through. Now, how we see that job through and how long it will take is debateable, but for sure its not going to be a weapons feed and a quick bow out.

-Dolce

Wednesday, September 8, 2004

'Quick, surgical' war has turned long and bloody

By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Sen. John McCain, the president's political pal, showed up the other day on a news program with Aaron Brown, the former Seattle news anchor who now punches the clock for CNN.

Their chat turned from the Republican National Convention to our troops in Iraq.

McCain: The United States will probably be there militarily for a long time.

Brown: What is a long time?

McCain: Ten years, 20 years.

Yes I typed my previous post half toungue in cheek but it shouldnt take 39 months to train a police force?

47% of our country do not agree with the current regime but we dont call them insurgents and radical fundamentalists and battle house to house. They (Iraq) need to put their own house in order and deal with what is the proper course of action for their own people, the sooner they do it on their own the sooner they will be done with all this violence. You dont see this crap in the UAE, they would have these guys hung in the center of town by dinnertime no questions asked. Stability will come from Iraqi's governing Iraqis not the US governing Iraqi's.

Saddams regime worked because of consequences, law and order is the same principal without the fear.

5 Days? This sounds awfully *Shock 'n Awe.* Who else here things that the fat lady hasn't sung yet? What I'm wondering is what happenes when people are allowed to re-enter the city and how the resettlement of the area is going to be documented and handled, and the infrastructure rebuilt. I feel like this is a microcosm of Iraq, and we're going to see the same thing over again on a city scale that we've been seeing for months on a national one. I don't have much information on their plans for the city after this initial "Victory" though, so perhaps they've anticipated it this time and it will be smoother?

Also, I'm wondering how Abbas could possibly tie into this? The election in 60 days? That is going to be crucial, I think, however, it could mean nothing depending on if terrorists running the show now don't feel like listening to any newly elected leader. But Perhaps if Sharon goes back to the negotiating table the entire place will cool off? How's that pipeline coming along? What the hell are the other factors in this? I'm pretty sure we'll still be posting in this thread three months from now, unfortunately.

-Dolce

Abbas, pipeline, Shock and Awe. Boy, that Fallujah is getting bigger by the day :-D

More info. I guess the papers are asking the same questrion, "What Now?" How does the u.S. go about translating a military victory into a long-term socio-political one? I wonder how they are going to handle between now and the (sonn to be postponed) elections? It reminds me of Israel everytime there is an election too. Violence always sky-rockets.

<shrug> it doesn't matter. The entire Green Zone could blow up tomorrow and the Bush admin would say it is working as intended, and it would be reported by the press as "Republicans and Democrats disagree on whether the Green Zone exploding was a positive development."

We're in a guerilla war, like the British during the revolutionary war or the French in Algeria. In a guerilla war the enemy hits and runs and melts into the populace. Either the U.S. has to have a lot more troops there to maintain order or they need to start making serious efforts to get the Iraqi public behind them.

Seeing as how they've ruled out the draft, and most US actions are basically recruiting posters for Al Qaeda and Zarqawi, I don't see how either option can happen.