I think I have figured out how to wrap this thing up in Iraq. [Archive]

Okla-homey

3/14/2007, 07:51 PM

I thought about this for a whole hour while I worked out. Much of this is based on my own personal observations having spent time in different places around the world and some of that professional military crapola I learned in all those schools they made me go to.

Here goes:

First off, please recognize that in any society, only 10-15% care enough about anything to turn into fanatics (a/k/a "jihaadis," "patriots," whatever) and die for their beliefs. We'll call them Group ONE.

That leaves about 50-60% who will morally support them, give them a pat on the back and maybe even send them a few bucks. This is also the group you typically find people who will fight with the group above if the price is right, but they aren't fanatics. They're just there to make a few dollars, particularly the ones who don't have many other viable options, but they'll split if it gets rough. This is Group TWO.

The remaining 30% in a society really don't care either way and just wish the whole mess would blow over and ain't fighting nobody unless they are personally attacked. This is Group THREE

Now, here's Homey's super-excellent, guarenteed war-winning, anti-jihaadist strategy.

Just kill everyone of those 10-15% guys in group ONE who try to tangle with you. They show-up in your battlespace, they die. Eventually, Darwinian natural selection will kick in and there won't be any of those guys left -- particularly since they usually get greased before they have a chance to settle down with a wife and have little Achmeds. In the meantime, the remaining 70-80% of the population are reproducing and they aren't raising their little boys to be martyrs for Muhhamed (or the Flying Spaghetti Monster).

I've been reading some stuff from buds "over there" and it seems that's the approach the new JTF commander is taking these days...and, surprise! It's working!

BTW, we're starting to kill and capture less-than-fanatical "pseudo-Muji's" who are just there for the bucks. I hear tell those "jihaadis for hire" are tremendously relieved when they are captured because it means they don't have to die for a couple thousand bucks. Generally, you've broken an insurgencys back when you eliminate a large proportion of the the "die-hard" guys in Group ONE.

Stay tuned. Its getting really interesting. I think we may just reclaiming the initiative.

reevie

3/14/2007, 07:59 PM

so are you saying we should periodically line up 100 people, shoot 10 to 15 and see if anyone else wants to still play?

royalfan5

3/14/2007, 08:27 PM

so are you saying we should periodically line up 100 people, shoot 10 to 15 and see if anyone else wants to still play?
I think he is saying those to 10-15 will come to you and self-select out of the gene pool.

Tulsa_Fireman

3/14/2007, 08:48 PM

...and self-select out of the gene pool.

I like that.

Okla-homey

3/14/2007, 09:18 PM

I think he is saying those to 10-15 will come to you and self-select out of the gene pool.

precisely.

MojoRisen

3/14/2007, 09:21 PM

What if we took out the 65% and dropped leaflets for the others to get the F out?

Just kidding :)

Okla-homey

3/14/2007, 09:27 PM

Also, the Iraqi Sunnis are really getting the message that the foreign Shiites who have interjected themselves into the situation have almost equal disdain for the Sunni and the American infidel pig-dogs. Therefore, if deftly handled, we can leverage the Sunni against the Shiites. The foreign Shiites are really losing support among Iraqis because the average Iraqi understands if those bastages would just go away, they could regain some normalcy in their country.

Don't get me wrong, those people will never adopt American style democracy. It's counter to everything they understand about how life is supposed to work. We might as well try to turn them into Presbyterians for all the good that will do. But, the Sunnis and the Kurds are definitely becoming open to the notion of running those Shiite jihaadis the heck out of Dodge, especially if the Shiite jihaadis keep killing Sunnis and beloved Sunni clerics who preach tolerance and peace.

Octavian

3/14/2007, 09:27 PM

slam dunk

MojoRisen

3/14/2007, 09:32 PM

Idealogy is not what these people would call home and something will give. I agree and with the up in pressure and our legitimate intel and experience- we are doing a lot better.

Octavian

3/14/2007, 09:37 PM

Don't get me wrong, those people will never adopt American style democracy. It's counter to everything they understand about how life is supposed to work.

That's not really our goal. Our goal is to get them to adopt American-style commercialism.

The Wilsonian stuff is a pretty facade to appease and reassure the fanbase that was convinced into supporting the decision to go. We don't give two damns about democracy if they're trading peacefully and everyone's makin' coin

Harry Beanbag

3/14/2007, 09:38 PM

I'm left stunned at why we weren't following this stategy for the last 4 years. :stunned: I mean, I thought that's what we were doing.

Okla-homey

3/14/2007, 09:42 PM

That's not really our goal. Our goal is to get them to adopt American-style commercialism.

The Wilsonian stuff is a pretty facade to appease and reassure the fanbase that was convinced into supporting the decision to go. We don't give two damns about democracy if they're trading peacefully and everyone's makin' coin

That, and I honestly believe everyone thought they had WMD's. I know that was what we were all briefed as early as 1993. I know we haven't found any, but they had plenty of time and porous borders to get them out. Why else would they have led those UN inspection teams on such a merry chase for so many years if they had nothing to hide? Unfortunately, the jackholes hanged Saddam so we may never know where the things ended up, but my money's on Syria or Iran.

usmc-sooner

3/14/2007, 09:51 PM

That, and I honestly believe everyone thought they had WMD's. I know that was what we were all briefed as early as 1993. I know we haven't found any, but they had plenty of time and porous borders to get them out. Why else would they have led those UN inspection teams on such a merry chase for so many years if they had nothing to hide? Unfortunately, the jackholes hanged Saddam so we may never know where the things ended up, but my money's on Syria or Iran.

Syria, Iran, or the back seat of Ted's car.

Okla-homey

3/14/2007, 09:52 PM

I'm left stunned at why we weren't following this stategy for the last 4 years. :stunned: I mean, I thought that's what we were doing.

Here's what I think happened. We rolled in. Yay America! Thanks for taking out our monster leader!

Then, we didn't get the lights back on very fast. No running water either. Life for the average Iraqi began to succs largely.

This created an opening for foriegn jihaadis to move in and ally with the surviving Baathists who were p1ssed their Big Cahuna was toppled. Unfortunately, because we were busy patting ourselves on the back and proclaiming "mission accomplished" we took off our game face and we didn't have the d00ds in the theater or the training to deal with the quick escalation of violence and ruthlessness. That whole Abu Grab dealio was a big distraction too.

We've been holding our own for a couple years, but now we're playing offense again in a great way. We also have the benefit of a generation of leaders (officers and NCO's) who know how to fight this kind of war. I really think General Petreus is the right guy to be in charge. He's really the Patton of counter-insurgency warfare these days. Don't forget, we have a long history in this country of bumbling around until we find the right guy to lead. You may recall that U.S. Grant didn't get command of the Union Army until almost the last full year of the Civil War. Prior to him, it was just a long line of wanna-be's who thought they knew what they were doing but merely danced with Lee. Grant grabbed Lee by the sack and held on. I think that's what Petreus is doing too.

If the goobers in the big white-domed building in DC will just let them do their jobs, we can get this done before too much longer. That said, I honestly don't believe we can compeltely pull-out in the foreseeable future. Even after we restore order, if we split, the vacuum we would leave would immediately be filled by the fresh fanatics from Iran who are itching to roll in.

MojoRisen

3/14/2007, 09:52 PM

No doubt but making Sadam naked in front of American woman is likely going to get a response of Infidel cowards.

He was a 10-15% kind of guy.

As for our strategy I believe I remember a long hard slog as a reference. As well as even Russian Analyst/High ranking Military guys saying - come on smart bombs and things of this nature just won't work against the likes of these countries.

We toppled 2 governments in less than 2 years- everything else we have learned as a culture in action.

No doubt Sadam had some weapons and resources and is not our Friend- along with his agenda and his terror training endorsement.

Okla-homey

3/14/2007, 10:13 PM

And apparently Mrs Clinton agrees with me that it ain't gonna be a simple matter of knocking down the insurgency and hauling our buttocks out of there.

NYT: March 14, 2007
Clinton Sees Some Troops Staying in Iraq if She Is Elected

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and PATRICK HEALY

WASHINGTON, March 14 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced but significant military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain in Iraq after taking office would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing. [Oh yeah. Right. Sure. Gotcha.]

In outlining how she would handle Iraq as commander in chief, Mrs. Clinton articulated a more-nuanced position than the one she has provided at her campaign events, where she has backed the goal of “bringing the troops home.”

She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.

MojoRisen

3/14/2007, 10:15 PM

Perfect example of learning on the run- her stance has changed...

Okla-homey

3/14/2007, 10:18 PM

Perfect example of learning on the run- her stance has changed...

yep. and anyone who says they "will bring all the troops home if elected" is either a liar or a blithering idiot.

MojoRisen

3/14/2007, 10:24 PM

I am sure now that she is savvy enough too not want to be either- however the biatching is annoying. Ther are a lot of area's we can improve but too be a leader we should either lead or get out of the way. If we want to get objective about it- we need to improve our strategies and allow our Military to adjust. We are!!

sooneron

3/14/2007, 10:33 PM

yep. and anyone who says they "will bring all the troops home if elected" is either a liar or a blithering idiot.
This I agree with. I need to call my relative in the pentagon and find out what he thinks about the goings on over there before I pass judgment.

Octavian

3/14/2007, 10:41 PM

yep. and anyone who says they "will bring all the troops home if elected" is either a liar or a blithering idiot.

I agree.

Likewise, anyone who previously said we could "get in and get out" was either a liar or a blithering idiot. And I think there were both.

There were rosey predictions and promises from many leaders who supported it, but the architects of this war never had any intentions of leaving.

We'll be in Iraq for decades.

MojoRisen

3/14/2007, 11:03 PM

Just a huge thanks to the people who have lost their lives and fought since 9/11 with this war against terror- all the politics are novice in my opinion- or geared towards the mass numbers of un-educated voters.

We do learn on the run, we do get better and we need more troops.

I heard a lot of grumblings before the issue that we needed more troops to begin with- but I know we have better Intel now and experience perhaps less lives lost.

Marine Corp like rotations, better and gauranteed equiptment, better recruitment- better overall politics especially with the new government. Better training for Iraqi soldiers- special thanks to the veterans who stuck it out longer than expected of them- reinforcement and let's not forget TECHNOLOGY

as far as intra-departmental information sharing- and Data Warehouse technology and better clearance process & sharing to do so.

Logistics, Supply Chain, Saftey equiptment upgrades - Overall intel

We are Americans and I garauntee the Marines will be willing to get in there hang..

Frozen Sooner

3/14/2007, 11:22 PM

Okla-homey

3/15/2007, 05:53 AM

You know, regarding the WMDs...

I think they didn't exist.

I think we THOUGHT they existed.

Moreover, I think SADDAM thought they existed. I think that people in the Ba'athist government were so scared to report failure to Hussein that they were feeding him a total line of bull****.

It's like back in the old Cold War days. The guys in Moskva thought things were going swimmingly, because all the reports said things were going well-everyone was scared to report failure.

Not to get all Cartesian or anything, but perception+belief="reality."

I own this big door stop of a book called the "Oxford Dictionary of Military History" (it was a gift from some of my former students.) It was published in 2000 so its now painfully obsolete. Anyhoo, in the description of Gulf War I, the article ends with words to this effect: "Among the criticisms of those who maintain what was otherwise a brilliantly executed campaign to liberate Kuwait ended badly are three central notions. Firstly, Saddam remained in power -- he, no doubt, was as surprised as the rest of the world the victors allowed him to remain in his palace unscathed. Secondly, he was given the authority to use his rotary-winged aviation in the immediate post-war period, which made it possible to brutally put down the Kurdish insurrection. Lastly, he was allowed to retain the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability his nation is now feverishly working to perfect."

And that was written by a bunch of leading British academics.

Sooner in Tampa

3/15/2007, 06:22 AM

Vaevictis

3/15/2007, 06:31 AM

I suppose it was his only real defense against the powers that be, i.e. the U.S and Britian.

He liked to use the threat of WMD as a way of keeping his malcontents in line, and I think that's why he kept posturing that he had them. Probably from his point of view, if he was going to risk being deposed, better to be deposed by external forces than internal. (Given that the nice clean hanging he got from us/a government strongly influenced by us was a considerably more enjoyable end than what he would likely get from his own people had things progressed without our intervention.)

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 09:05 AM

Amazing that 500 tons on uranium, burried centrifuges and such don't get classified as "WMD".

Some of it is being incincerated in Oklahoma as we speak.

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 09:12 AM

We'll be in Iraq for decades.

Which will be a good thing. It certainly has been for Germany, Japan, Korea, Bosnia, etc.

Ike

3/15/2007, 09:26 AM

Which will be a good thing. It certainly has been for Germany, Japan, Korea, Bosnia, etc.
yeah, but the difference is that in all those other places, the people we were fighting eventually gave up and stopped fighting us. The people we are fighting in Iraq are not that sensible.

does that still make it a good thing? For the Iraqi govt, probably. For us, I'm not so sure.

Ike

3/15/2007, 09:33 AM

Amazing that 500 tons on uranium, burried centrifuges and such don't get classified as "WMD".

Some of it is being incincerated in Oklahoma as we speak.
why is that amazing? Uranium has to go through a whole lot of processing before it can be weaponized. Centrifuges are the least effective way of processing uranium (but 3rd world dictators like them because they can be kept more secretively)....and if they are buried, they probably aren't doing what they would need to do to weaponize uranium.

In other words, they don't get classified as WMD because those things are a long way from being WMDs.

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 09:37 AM

yeah, but the difference is that in all those other places, the people we were fighting eventually gave up and stopped fighting us. The people we are fighting in Iraq are not that sensible.

They gave up, once we nearly destroyed those entire countries and broke their will, back in the days when we fought wars to win.

Also, those countries didn't have foreign terrorists coming after us to fight their holy war, nor did they have other nations like Iran trying to stir things up as well.

Better to stay their, get Iraq stable and on its feet, and try our best to build a friend and democracy in the middle east. No reason for us to be in Europe anymore.

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 09:38 AM

why is that amazing? Uranium has to go through a whole lot of processing before it can be weaponized.

500 tons can make a lot of dirty bombs though.

SoonerStormchaser

3/15/2007, 09:38 AM

Trust me Ron, cause I deal with officers everyday who used to work in the Pentagon...the corruption and politics are so prevalent in that building cause it's so close to the Big White Dome that a lot of the senior staff there don't know their *** from a hole in the ground.

Centcom is finally waking up to this and General Petreus is finally fighting the way we shoulda been fighting in the first place.

Ike

3/15/2007, 09:39 AM

They gave up, once we nearly destroyed the entire country and broke their will, back in the days when we fought wars to win.

Also, those countries didn't have many foreign terrorists coming after us, nor did they have other nations like Iran trying to stir things up as well.

Part of the problem with the 'nearly destroying their country' argument in Iraq is that we can bomb them back to the stone age, but it will only set them back about 6 weeks or so.

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 09:43 AM

Centcom is finally waking up to this and General Petreus is finally fighting the way we shoulda been fighting in the first place.

AMEN to that!

Petreus may be Bush's Grant.

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 09:44 AM

Part of the problem with the 'nearly destroying their country' argument in Iraq is that we can bomb them back to the stone age, but it will only set them back about 6 weeks or so.

Heh. :D

SoonerStormchaser

3/15/2007, 09:45 AM

The other thing is our stupid Rules of Engagement...

our ROE are so detailed that we're basically going into an *** kicking contest with both legs tied together.

Sooner in Tampa

3/15/2007, 09:46 AM

Centcom is finally waking up to this and General Petreus is finally fighting the way we shoulda been fighting in the first place.I can't speak for the Pentagon, but I can speak for CENTCOM (worked here for 7 yrs now). There was not an Iraq analyst walking around that didn't think they possessed WMDs. They did NOT manufacture the imagery to meet anyones agenda.

The bottom line is this...we were duped into thinking that Saddam had more than what he really had.

And as far as Petreus goes...well he has the benefit of 4yrs worth of hindsight and the fact that we have learned some hard lessons along the way.

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 09:54 AM

And as far as Petreus goes...well he has the benefit of 4yrs worth of hindsight and the fact that we have learned some hard lessons along the way.

That is American military history in a nutshell.

Seems we go into wars time and time again where we get our asses kicked at the beginning, only to figure it out the hard way and start kicking *** at the end.

We can win this thing, if the donks will let us. Unfortunatly, their left-wing is invested in defeat and retreat.

C&CDean

3/15/2007, 09:55 AM

What? Are you guys trying to tell me that we're doing something right? That's damned un-american of y'all.

Ike

3/15/2007, 09:55 AM

I can't speak for the Pentagon, but I can speak for CENTCOM (worked here for 7 yrs now). There was not an Iraq analyst walking around that didn't think they possessed WMDs. They did NOT manufacture the imagery to meet anyones agenda.

The bottom line is this...we were duped into thinking that Saddam had more than what he really had.

This I believe...because I believe that Saddam thought the only way to avoid having us come in and whoop his *** after Kuwait was to have the world believe that he had nukes. Sure he wanted to really have them in case anyone ever called his bluff, but I think that he thought he could buy himself a lot of time by making the world believe he had them or was close to having them.

picasso

3/15/2007, 10:23 AM

If the goobers in the big white-domed building in DC will just let them do their jobs, we can get this done before too much longer. That said, I honestly don't believe we can compeltely pull-out in the foreseeable future. Even after we restore order, if we split, the vacuum we would leave would immediately be filled by the fresh fanatics from Iran who are itching to roll in.
Well they're too busy pounding the podium and proclaiming this another Vietnam. Damn right it is, politicians running the war.

Lesson not learned.

Vaevictis

3/15/2007, 10:25 AM

500 tons can make a lot of dirty bombs though.

I can make a lot of dirty bombs out of stuff I could dig out of old land fills.

(and I'm not being facetious here, there's a lot of old radioactive material out there, just waiting to be used. You just have to know where and what to look for.)

picasso

3/15/2007, 10:26 AM

OklahomaTuba

3/15/2007, 12:35 PM

I can make a lot of dirty bombs out of stuff I could dig out of old land fills.

(and I'm not being facetious here, there's a lot of old radioactive material out there, just waiting to be used. You just have to know where and what to look for.)

Like?

Harry Beanbag

3/15/2007, 05:19 PM

Like?

Like 500 tons of Uranium buried in Iraq. ;)

Frozen Sooner

3/15/2007, 05:51 PM

I've heard it said on the radio that all of Saddam's generals were told they had WMD. all the way up until the invasion. Saddam led them on and they were disappointed they didn't have them for defenses.

just sayin.

I'd agree with that. I think they DID think they had 'em. Noting the penalty for failure, the people in charge of making sure they had 'em were passing reports up above that they did and faking it pretty well.

Vaevictis

3/15/2007, 06:15 PM

Like?

You can start by processing certain items:

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/consumerproducts.html

You can also buy raw pitchblende and process a bunch of unhappy stuff out of it.

It'd be a real bitch to process this stuff into fissionable material, but enough radioactive material to make a dirty bomb is easily within the realm of possibility.

Example of someone actually doing it: http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html