Our strategy in Iraq = complete idiocy
 

I'm not saying I'm the top dog at the war college but from just reading the news everyday on Iraq there are a few things that bother me.

The invasion of Fallujah. First, we give everyone and their brother a month's notice we're coming in with 10,000+. Sure this is great to let citizens evacuate but we had to have known a great deal of the insurgents would skip town also. Why did we not set up checkpoints for all those leaving town? Or do something along those lines. Hell, we could just claim we are launching a huge offensive and order everyone to evacuate then do screenings and probably wind up capturing a shitload of insurgents. So, according to CNN's inside reports, the insurgents left about 50% of their forces in Fallujah to fight street by street with the Marines. The other 50% are now attacking other cities all over Iraq. The majority of those attacking police stations, etc. in the other cities were people we let walk right out of town. So now that these towns are under seige we had to remove 1/4 of our forces in Fallujah to go fight those we let go. Did we seriously not see this coming?

Also, the Iraqi forces we are training are turning around and fighting us. Days before the offensive began hundreds of Iraqi soldiers, many of them officers with knowledge of the complete invasion, disappeared. More than likely to go fight with their buddies against us. Sure I think we should be training them but I sure as hell don't think we should be giving them inside intel and trusting them to fight with us. No matter how much politics plays in the matter, it seems worse to me to risk the lives of thousands of troops because they were set up by the Iraqi security forces we equipped and trained. Did we seriously not expect this?

Lastly, I thought one of the most important parts of a war/occupation was winning the hearts and minds. It seems as though we haven't given two shits about this when you have the coalition of Muslim leaders in Iraq (can't remember their official name) calling on all Muslims to fight and kill the invaders. It seems that in a theocratic state like Iraq, the first thing we would want to do is make peace with the religious leaders. Instead, it seems like we've done the opposite. Why did we not plan for this early on in the occupation?

Like I said, I'm not claiming to know anything about war and military tactics, but some of the stuff you read in Iraq has to make you scratch your head. You would think with all the wars in the past 100 years we've been involved in we would be better at this stuff.

Anyone else with Friday thoughts on Iraq?

The world will be paying for Iraq for decades.

How to defeat terrorism, Bush style. = Kill innocent people.

Yes that makes a lot of sense, to a moron.

I said there were no WMDs in Iraq, I was right.

I said winning the peace would be ten times harder than winning the war, I was right.

I now say that within 5-6 years Iraq will be ruled by the Mullahs or another dictator. Probably worse then Saddam.

And terrorists will be attacking soft targets with the justification of what is happening today in Iraq.

You strengthen resolve by the use of terror.

Problem is too many Americans think real problems can be solved in the way they are solved in Hollywood.

Word.

Like you said, we totally gave full justification for future attacks on US and allied interests. Funny thing is, a great majority of Americans still believe Bush has made the world (or more correctly, the American world) a safer place. What a surprise they're all in for.

Thank goodness for Red Americans; God's chosen people. :winkwink:

It's much easier to export SUV's to Iraq than american style democracy ...

But to know that, you have to been out of your native state ...

and when citizens of Fallujah come back to see the destruction done by the americans, they will be way more motivated to embrace that so called democracy brought by freedom and liberation.
:2 cents:

USA doesn't give a shit about terrrorism. it is purely oil-related.
And apparently they don't give a shit about their own soldiers being killed. I guess they are just cannon meat to the Bush (read Bullshit) administration.

How sad!

you sure bout that.:) i have complete faith that the u.s. will fuck this up just like everything else....

bump

The war threads just seem crazy to read now, considering he actually got voted back in by the majority...

This assumes for a moment that there wasn't check points set up. I'm sure there are checkpoints set up all over the place, but in case you haven't figured it out yet it's pretty hard to tell the difference between a terrorist and the average Iraqi. I'm sure they caught some of them, I'm sure some of them slipped by, and I'm sure that some of them stayed behind to fight the fight.

Is this about oil? I hope so. In the next ten years the world will begin pumping less and less oil, and in the next forty to fifty years we'll run out. The wells will be dry. But during those fifty years the US will be right where the oil is. While everyone in our industry voted against Bush - including myself - maybe in the future we'll be thankful he forced Iraq on us.

Did everyone forget what Iraq did to Kuwait?

bush is a moron and over 50% of the americans voted for him :thumbsup

50% of the insurgents staying behind in Fallujah is higher than I've previously heard. When the leaders left they gave their men the option... those that wanted to live to fight another day left with them and those that wanted to became a martyr at Fallujah stayed behind. I remember one article estimating 10% the number who stayed behind.

I think the next several months will top each as "deadliest month yet":(