LOOK A PUPPY!!

The Administration is no doubt trying to upstage the coming coverage about how Iraq War 2 is in its 3rd year with no end in sight.

On the other hand, this is a town and area we knew we had insurgents in last year, and had a terrible fight.

...So if there aren't insurgents, where the locals are supportive of them...

Maybe it's a glimmer of hope.

Besides, the Iraqi troops and police could probably use a few milk runs; their morale was and has continued to be pretty poor, especially with the stolen uniforms, destroyed stations and massacred trainees.

Good thing a REAL Democrat was in charge of WWII - you guys would have lost it and we'd all be typing in German right now - that's all I can say for the sad future of our country.

And maybe it's just a coincidence, but no reporters were taken along. Hard to report what you can't see.

Meanwhile Bushco says the Iraqi troops are "leading." This will be proof that his plan is working.

So what's all this complaining that we don't have enough troops? We've got one for every citizen!

Incidentally, this new "Don P." that's shown up doesn't seem to be the old Don P. I'm getting a whiff of Charlie in yet another new persona.

It's like aWol's quick trip to vote in Texas; just another waste of our money. How much did this wag the dog effort cost?

Making great progress! Great progress! Great progress!

And, of course, the media have to support the terrorists...

Who expected anything else from the Potemkin Presidency? Who is surprised by this? Why does Kevin look at every such issue in isolation from the past behavior of the President and his cohorts?

Incidentally, this new "Don P." that's shown up doesn't seem to be the old Don P. I'm getting a whiff of Charlie in yet another new persona.

Yeah, I think its pretty sad when the trolls start stealing eachother's identities...

I'm getting a whiff of Charlie in yet another new persona.

Could it be because DonP's posts are nonsense and stink to high heaven?

Feints, maneuvers, lies, exagerations, all part of war.

Where is the serious charge? Hey, I think they should do this stuff all the time, only engage the enemy one out of every 20 road trips. Isn't that how you fight a war?

Potemkin operation? The entire damn administration, start to finish, has been a Potemkin operation. Slap on a fresh coat of paint, put up a shiny facade, brand it with a deceptive name ("Healthy Forests," "Clear Skies," "Operation Iraqi Freedom") and boom! you're job is done. Why be a sucker and do any actual substantive work?

From Bill Roggio

Amazing how people here will snap up a meme, often word for word, like a carp taking a hook. Be interesting to Google "Potemkin" in about a week.

The BBC report seems to confirm the Potemkin operation view:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4817762.stm

Amazing how people here will snap up a meme, often word for word, like a carp taking a hook. Be interesting to Google "Potemkin" in about a week.

Also be interesting to Google "incompetent," "idiot," and "liar" in about a week.

tbrosz,

Do you even click on your own links?

The commentary you link to is about a vacant a piece of "analysis" as I've seen on the operation. As best I can make out, not a single pertinent fact is adduced as to whether this is indeed a real or theatrical operation.

It might behoove one to hold off a bit before making any assumptions...we'll know a lot more in a week.
I'll admit to being a little surprised as to why this particular offensive was being played up...there have been far larger ones in terms of personnel in the past year.

I take it that the troll tbrosz above has nothing substantial to utter except his trademark snark at anyone who dare criticize the dear leader.

Does it bother tbrosz not to have any coherent foreign policy positions of his own, other than "find out what Bush will do, and support it"?

No surprise at all, the polls are low and something has to be done. To raise the alerts to orange would be too obvious.

monica whittingtons are here in full force today.

I'm reminded of this theatrical line from the 60s:

"No prisoner has ever escaped from Stalag 13!"

Renate and others:

this operation is altogether too small to have been aimed at U.S. polling...

the link tsbroz gave was actually quite informative...it makes sense that this may well have been more of piece of showmanship designed to bolster the confidence of Iraqi forces...designed at the theater level.

this operation is altogether too small to have been aimed at U.S. polling.

Its been getting quite a bit of media attention, no doubt because the government has been promoting it to the media; what does its actual size, rather than its promoted importance, have to do with whether it could be aimed at US polling?

Wow,

Talk about getting a bang for our buck(s).

Think of the adrelanine rush this operation induced in the troops, all those helicopters thumping the air.

What a joke.

Face it, you can't fight a conventional war in Iraq (anymore...remember Mission Accomplished?).

New names:

Operation Quagmire

Operation Shifting Sands

Operation IEDradicator

Operation Depleted Uranium

Operation F*** this S***

Amazing how people here will snap up a meme, often word for word, like a carp taking a hook.

Yeah...for example, tbrosz has been pushing the same loathsome Dolschtoss argument that Glenn Reynolds has. Shame on you both, tbrosz.

On the more serious side, is anyone besides me struck about the fact that this was not an "Iraqi Army" operation at all, but a U.S. Army operation with Iraqi soldiers included? That's the real "Potemkin" lurking here, not the fact that the operation itself was just so much military PR instead of an actual counter-insurgency operation like Falluja was.

frankly0:

Really? What "pertinent facts" were included in the original reference? That there wasn't any significant firefight? If the opposite had been true, the meme would have been "another Fallujah." That there were no insurgents there? They recovered weapons, explosives, and stashes of uniforms. Probably hobby collectors, I suppose.

Another point of view on possible motivations for the level of news coverage from the SF Chronicle.

Alek Hidell wrote: Incidentally, this new "Don P." that's shown up doesn't seem to be the old Don P. I'm getting a whiff of Charlie in yet another new persona.

I posted the same thought on another thread earlier. The original Don P. had a very distinctive attitude and style of rhetoric. So, of course, did Charlie. This new "Don P." seems a lot more like Charlie in attitude and style than like the original Don P.

I would not be surprised if the new Don P. was Charlie again. Charlie's posts as "Cheney" seemingly stopped a week or so ago when he exploded in outrage at criticism of one of his posts, vowing to have nothing more to do with this site and to devote the rest of his life to ensuring that all of us "liberals" wind up in Gitmo. Usually after such an outburst, Charlie returns with a new handle, pretending not to be Charlie.

Operation Fleece the Taxpayers
(or the Iraq War is a Gold Mine so shut up you leftist losers)

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B4CC934B5%2D11E8%2D4A01%2DA2DC%2D048D573C2CF9%7D&dist=newsfinder&siteid=google&keyword=

That there were no insurgents there? They recovered weapons, explosives, and stashes of uniforms. Probably hobby collectors, I suppose.

Is there any single neighborhood in Iraq where you won't recover caches of weapons and explosives?

But what's the deal with uniforms? After all, the rebels don't wear any. So that would seem to indicate these were Iraqi Army or police uniforms, which would seem to be a bad rather than a good sign, as it would indicate they have ready ways to blend in and infiltrate those units.

Another liberal conspiracy where's the real Don p

Yeah, Don. P is Charlie/Cheney. Same style and syntax. Now watch this:

Abortion!

They recovered weapons, explosives, and stashes of uniforms. Probably hobby collectors, I suppose.

Or perhaps any of the caches Saddam was known to have salted away across the country, tbrosz. That dishonesty was low even by your standards. Shame on you.

Folks, can't you tell how grumpy tbrosz is that someone rained on his parade of imagining a glorious, victorious operation?

As tbrosz, if there had been a big firefight y'all would be all over that as evidence of 'civil war' and 'quagmire'.

Suppose for a moment that the Time correspondennt is correct (we don't even know who, where he/she is, what they've seen, but suppose). This then becomes a large-scale exercise and drill for both our troops and the Iraqi forces, and a complex one: an air-assault involving two battalions of troops with all the coordination required for the helicopters, logistics, etc. Getting the Iraqi troops trained to do that, and then getting that knowledge and experience to the rest of the Iraqi troops, is a useful step.

Recovering whatever weapons, etc., also is useful. You don't have to be in a firefight to do well in the field.

And we'd all want to see plenty of operations in which the troops hit the field and ... not do a whole lot, because there aren't a lot of insurgents willing to stand and fight. That's a good thing; it suggests that the real work ahead is quiet counter-intel and police work, which the Iraqis can do more and more on their own (and should).

There are very few soldiers in the world who kvetch when no one's shooting at them. We should learn from them.

Ah, look it's the mind reading trolls. "If this had happened, you would have said this." Well, if there had been a valid reason to go into Iraq then there might have been more support from the left.

Then again, if things were different, they wouldn't be the same.

Morons

Steve W., is the Iraqi Army going to get all the hardware they need to fight a U.S. style war? We aren't even giving them tanks at this point, let alone all the helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, etc. they would need to fight the way we do. As far as I can tell, such operations as this are more to "integrate" Iraqi soldiers with our forces, and do it in such a way that our command and control is required. Call me a pessimist if you like, but somehow I don't think making Iraqis Hessians in their own damn country is going to work as a counter-insurgency strategy, or even work as a neo-colonial one.

If those 47 million babies had not been aborted we would not have to worry about social security. An added bonus would be the large pool of talent our military could draw from. Old Europe with her declining birth rate could not afford these policies. When Roe v. Wade is overturned all will return to what God had commanded

Yeah, Don. P is Charlie/Cheney. Same style and syntax. Now watch this:

Abortion!

Not only that, but the real (?) Don P. appears to have resurfaced as "Jason." See the healthcare thread below.

As I noted there, I'd never considered any kind of link between Charlie and Don P., though they both are obsessed with abortion - except (purportedly) from opposite sides. I don't know, maybe Charlie and Don P. are some kind of brilliant performance artist.

IRAQIS AND U.S. LAUNCH HUGE ASSAULT ON INSURGENTS
RAIDS ON STRONGHOLDS

Here's a quote from the SF Chronicle linked to by tbrosz at 3:10.

While still largely an American production, the operation was a clear step toward the kind many military analysts have said for months should be the U.S. goal in Iraq: Iraqi forces provide the basic intelligence about the target and the bulk of the ground forces and take most of the risk on the ground.

No shots were fired. No casualties. Of 41 arrests, 17 detainees have already been released. I guess it depends on what your goals are, as to whether this was a "good" target. It was good for the Iraqis who were taking most of the risk on the ground.

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^^^ Grassroots Petition Drive

Amazing how people here will snap up a meme, often word for word, like a carp taking a hook.

Yeah, it's not like Chris Albritton is actually on the ground in Iraq, hearing these things first-hand. Er, wait.

cmdicely:
"Its been getting quite a bit of media attention, no doubt because the government has been promoting it to the media; what does its actual size, rather than its promoted importance, have to do with whether it could be aimed at US polling?"

How is it supposed to accomplish anything in the polls? Besides the midterms are aways anyway. Its getting a lot of media attention because it's a slow news week. For this to be a true Wag the Dog operation it'd have to be a lot larger and aimed at a much longer time frame.

There is an in-theater rumor that this was actually aimed at nailing specific individuals...that might make sense (the helicopter assault provides the benefit of surprise...the 1,500 troops are being used to create an area cordon....)

Maybe Michael Moore was right all along. Maybe there really isn't a terrorist threat at all.

The little martinet, Gen. Braxton Bragg, will be so proud either looking down from that quadrangle in the sky or up from that cauldron of incompetent butchers below.

So many shiny new CIBs to pass out to the Iraqis.

"Oh, what a lovely war"

The TV coverage of this "Operation" was patently controlled and managed by Pentagon PsyOp folks. Unfortunately, they are trying to make it more complicated than that by continuing to lie to the American public. Let's hope the Dems get their act together and start telling it like it is in Iraq...rather than sitting on their butts, stunned and deluded by the madness of the entire "Operation".

so when are we going to give the Iraqis what they really need to stem the insurgency -

helicopters
tanks
something beside the pee shooters they have?

Potemkin. Now there was a real character.

I was wondering about those action shots of our troops disembarking to the ground with nothing but sand as far as the eye could see.

"Search and destroy" redux?

As tbrosz, if there had been a big firefight y'all would be all over that as evidence of 'civil war' and 'quagmire'.

Would we have been wrong? At this point in the war, the mere fact we are running these operations, fake or not, is damning.

Recovering whatever weapons, etc., also is useful. You don't have to be in a firefight to do well in the field.

That is useful, but we don't have any indication we're making any significant headway in that regard.

And we'd all want to see plenty of operations in which the troops hit the field and ... not do a whole lot, because there aren't a lot of insurgents willing to stand and fight. That's a good thing; it suggests that the real work ahead is quiet counter-intel and police work, which the Iraqis can do more and more on their own (and should).

Now you're sounding like a liberal. Pretty soon your fellow conservatives are going to say Steve White would rather find Osama a therapist than shoot him in the gut.

But intel and police work have always been the real work. Like weapons caches, we don't have any indication of significant progress here. What's more, we have plenty of indication from the military's civlian leadership and the whitehouse that they hold such efforts in disdain.

Or perhaps any of the caches Saddam was known to have salted away across the country, tbrosz. That dishonesty was low even by your standards. Shame on you.

Yeah. Saddam salted away current accurate Iraqi Army uniforms. An example of excellent foresight. Another site (different operation) recovered fake security IDs. No doubt Saddam also knew what those would look like three years ago.

I think the military knows the difference between a recent cache and one three or four years old.

Can we talk ignorance instead of dishonesty?

Flanders: Can we talk ignorance instead of dishonesty?

What are two words associated with George W. Bush?

Man, I love Jeopardy....

"Can we talk ignorance"

Well, Tom, you do speak it so well.

Stefan and ThirdPaul:

"Oh, yeah?"

I'm completely intellectually outmatched here.

Stefan, ThirdPaul, etc.:

"You sure are!"

I'm completely intellectually outmatched here.

cite?

Yeah. Saddam salted away current accurate Iraqi Army uniforms.

Maybe he did it using some of those pilotless drone planes the Right was so hysterical about....

Or maybe he's in league with a secret army of Al Qaeda tailors who are busily sewing, sewing, sewing....!

looks like Time's official version is up.

There is not a terrorist threat that requires armies and bombs.

Since the invention of dynamite here is and always has been a terrorist threat. Economic difficulties in late 19th century Russia produce antiauthoritarianism, anarchism and “propaganda by the deed”. Czar Alexander was assassinated, prussic acid was thrown into the Paris stock exchange, bombs were lobbed in opera houses, a group called the “Black Band” appear north of Lyon against religious and political leaders, there was the “Black Hand” in Spain. In 1894 Jose Echegaray wrote in the periodical La Lectura that

Explosives are on the order of the day in the Chambers [of parliament], in the disorder of the night in the theaters; they hang as a menace over the entire bourgeoisie, without respecting the poor worker if they encounter him in passing, and there is no person who does not worry about dynamite, nitroglycerine, panclastinas, and detonators. Modern explosives have come to upset everything: ideas and property and social relations..

After the decline of anarchism other terrorist groups appeared, the Red Brigade, the IRA, ETA, Baader-Meinhof and on and on. It is a part of modern life, not an emergency that requires the suspension of habeas corpus and military intervention into other people’s countries.

Terrorism does exist but the threat to the American nation-state is nothing but exaggeration. The Muslim extremists are very much like the old anarchists. They are fragmented groups, unorganized, stateless (a key point for the ambitious neocons) and certainly they do not create anything like a “black wave” of Islamofascism that wants to dominate the world. Often they are just nationalists like the IRA. Terrorism is a form of propaganda, not a threat to civilization, although the powerless groups would like to think they can change history.

Can we talk ignorance instead of dishonesty?

In your case, the two are hardly exclusive, though its been my impression that, to date, you've favored the latter. Are you proposing a change in your posting style?

Actually, a "Potemkin operation" sounds better than the impression I had formed. I can see value in running Iraqi units through a largish-sized sweep, practicing combined arms tactics, etc. Pretty standard field training.

Last night, on NPR, I heard an American officer state that there were about 100 partisans in the "Operation Swarmer" area. Of course these sorts of numbers are always informed guesses, but even so, the 15:1 force ratio (even larger, if you include air support) doesn't bode well for a war in which everyone acknowledges that trained coalition soldiers are in short supply. So yeah, "Potemkin operation" sounds much more preferable.

Christopher Allbritton is scheduled to be on Air America later today.

That tells you everything you need to know about this guy. Sure, he has gone to Iraq and he has seen what he has seen. I take his observations wih a grain of salt, because he is a Bush-hater to the core.

And by the way, Albritton didn't observe Operation Swarmer himself. He got the info from a TIME reporter. Hmmmmmm.

I would like to know how many children the US military killed for this photo op.

Needless to say, this piece is a little more restrained than Allbritton's blog post, but it still gets the point across.

More restrained? Where do you get that. Allbritton claims it was a propaganda set-piece, which, okay, propaganda and PR are key to winning a counter-insurgency effort.

But the TIME piece claims that there were real targets, but they all got away: IOW, it was a substantive operation that completely failed.

Seems to me the latter is the more serious criticism than the former.

How rude of you, Hostile. Such things are not discussed in a civlized forum.

where's the real Don p

He went back to the yeshiva to learn how to torture Palestinians better.

I would like to know how many children the US military killed for this photo op.

And you guys complain when I assert that the left always sides with the enemy.

Just got done skimming the comments. I don't believe I have ever agreed with tbrosz here, but this time, the truth is on his side.

Know what I suspect? The western journalists in Iraq are, by now, pretty much cloistered in their hotels. Can't blame them for that -- everybody's gotta look out for his or her skin, right? But along comes this middling-sized confidence building operation, it's safe (lotsa soldiers providing security, after all), and so it gets coverage disproportionate to any real military significance it might have. And, oh yeah -- "the largest air operation since Shock'n'Awe", or some such. Meaning a bunch of helicopters, and some attached jets. Not exactly the Normandy invasion. Let's not get too worked up, here.

And by the way, Albritton didn't observe Operation Swarmer himself. He got the info from a TIME reporter. Hmmmmmm.

And by the way, BigRiver didn't observe Operation Swarmer himself. He got the info from a FOX reporter. Hmmmmmm.

Maybe I missed some film clips but all I saw on CNN was from DOD. The info was no journalists were allowed. So what is it if not photo ops?
That was yesterday, have not seen anything today.

>And you guys complain when I assert that the left always sides with the enemy.

Yes because it's the type of bullshit you'd never say to my face. I got a US address on my driver's license (hell, birth certificate) too, buddy. Two kids. So don't tell me I don't have the best interests of my country at heart.

I don't think either you or Bush/Cheney are deliberately "siding with the enemy".

I just think you all are complete idiots and are just getting people killed for no reason. WWI is starting to look sane by comparison.

Maybe Michael Moore was right all along. Maybe there really isn't a terrorist threat at all.

Posted by: Freedom Fighter on March 17, 2006 at 3:49 PM

Sure there is it's Bushco blowin up civilians that haven't done anything to him.
Memo must be slow getting to homeschoolers.

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg.com, "US military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will average 44 percent more in the current fiscal year than in fiscal 2005, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said. Spending will rise to $9.8 billion a month from the $6.8 billion a month the Pentagon said it spent last year, the research service said."

Spending will rise to $9.8 billion a month from the $6.8 billion a month the Pentagon said it spent last year

how many coats of paint do those schools need?

Tbrosz, sorry, but you are the enemy. The left never sides with you.

The left didn't let Bin Laden knock down those towers, the left didn't spend two decades underfunding levees in LA, the left didn't loot the nations treasury or rack up debt to chinese communist dictators. You and your cohorts did that.

The right is the enemy and the right is in charge and so all mayhem is occuring.

I'm completely intellectually outmatched here.

uh yeah--you're just realizing this tdouche?
That's the problem with blithering idiots, they don't realize how stupid they are. They just keep telling themselves that they're smarter than everyone else.

David W writes, Steve W., is the Iraqi Army going to get all the hardware they need to fight a U.S. style war? We aren't even giving them tanks at this point, let alone all the helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, etc. they would need to fight the way we do.

We're not looking to make them a clone of our Army; we're looking to help them learn what they need to do to provide security for their own country. An air assault operation involving a battalion is useful training (as other other operations). They don't need to own lots of tanks and helicopters of their own, but this operation is helpful to their training.

As far as I can tell, such operations as this are more to "integrate" Iraqi soldiers with our forces, and do it in such a way that our command and control is required.

They have to walk before they can run -- that's been the point of this all along. Right now, today, yep, they need a lot of command and control from us. But one of the ways they develop their own C & C is through operations like this.

Call me a pessimist if you like, but somehow I don't think making Iraqis Hessians in their own damn country is going to work as a counter-insurgency strategy, or even work as a neo-colonial one.

They're not Hessians, and that's a silly thing to say. They're defending their own country. That thousands of young Iraqi men continue to volunteer should tell you something. You might not like what's been wrought in Iraq, but a sizable proportion of Iraqis see it as something worth fighting for.

Stefan - I got all my information on Christopher Allbritton from Allbritton's own web site. Not FOX.

I am a Republican and I am not afraid of getting information from Allbritton's web site.

But I take him with a grain of salt because of his self-admitted anti-Bush views.

Boronx responds to me: Now you're sounding like a liberal. Pretty soon your fellow conservatives are going to say Steve White would rather find Osama a therapist than shoot him in the gut.

Gut-shot sounds good to me.

But intel and police work have always been the real work.

That's been part of the real work. Field operations have been part of it as well, but one (of several) measures of on-going success is that you have less need for large scale field ops. I see this one as being as much a training exercise for the Iraqis as anything else. If they run into bad guys, fine, deal with them, if not, fine also.

Like weapons caches, we don't have any indication of significant progress here.

I see plenty of indicators of progress both in the political and economic front. That's probably another thread.

And by the way, Albritton didn't observe Operation Swarmer himself. He got the info from a TIME reporter. Hmmmmmm. Posted by: BigRiver

There isn't a single legitimate news service (meaning that the Washington Times, FOX, and the NY Post don't count) claiming that this was anything but a gloried training mission, if even that. They didn't rocket and strafe prior to going. In fact, they didn't even fire a shot. They arrested 41 people, most of whom were released in a couple of hours, and the weapons cache was six unidentified items.

Boy. The U.S. military really kicks butt (when they are stagin great theater for their running dog political bosses). Shit. It might as well be the Soviet Army on the Eastern (Western) front prior to the political commisars being removed from the "chain of command."

They're not Hessians, and that's a silly thing to say. They're defending their own country. That thousands of young Iraqi men continue to volunteer should tell you something. You might not like what's been wrought in Iraq, but a sizable proportion of Iraqis see it as something worth fighting for.

Uh, no, a sizeable proportion don't. Iraq has about 36,000,000 people, if memory serves, and only a few tens of thousands of men are in the military. That's not a sizeable proportion. The fact that so few young Iraqi men don't volunteer to defend their own country should tell you something.

We're not looking to make them a clone of our Army; we're looking to help them learn what they need to do to provide security for their own country.

If the Iraqi Army is not provided with tanks, APCs, attack and transport helicopters, heavy artillery, a self-supplying logistical chain, a functioning quartermasters corp, a navy, an air force complete with fighter jets, etc., then they will never be able to provide security for their own country, since they will not be able to defend themselves or their borders from foreign attack. A few thousand men armed with nothing more than assault rifles and relying on trucks and pickup trucks for transportation isn't an army, it's a glorified street gang.

Bellumregio writes, After the decline of anarchism other terrorist groups appeared, the Red Brigade, the IRA, ETA, Baader-Meinhof and on and on. It is a part of modern life, not an emergency that requires the suspension of habeas corpus and military intervention into other people’s countries.

If only al-Qaeda and other like-minded terror groups behaved like the IRA and ETA. Then you'd be correct.

The Baader-Meinhof gang engaged in kidnappings, bombings and the occasional airport shoot-out. Never once did they plan to kill tens of thousands of people in one blow. If they had, they would have been much more of a threat to us, and would have warranted a commesurate response. That's the difference.

Terrorism does exist but the threat to the American nation-state is nothing but exaggeration. The Muslim extremists are very much like the old anarchists. They are fragmented groups, unorganized, stateless (a key point for the ambitious neocons) and certainly they do not create anything like a “black wave” of Islamofascism that wants to dominate the world. Often they are just nationalists like the IRA. Terrorism is a form of propaganda, not a threat to civilization, although the powerless groups would like to think they can change history.

I can't agree with a single statement of that. Islamofascism is not fragmented: it has a common core ideology and belief system. It is not at all stateless, since adherents believe in the unmah and an eventual caliphate. They are not unorganized, they are decentralized, as they've learned that such a network is vital to survival.

And they most assuredly want to dominate the world, a world in which their belief system is supreme. You need to listen to them. Like other dangerous thugs in history, they have the habit of saying, up front, exactly what they want and what they'll do to get it. They believe in a single caliphate, with Muslims who think like them on top and everyone else either dead or subject to their rule. There's more to it, of course, but that's the bottom line. They win, we lose.

They are a threat to Western civilization, and they're certainly a threat to progressive Western civilization. I hope you understand that in their system, both you and I are among the first ones dead. Sorry to be blunt.

Stefan writes, If the Iraqi Army is not provided with tanks, APCs, attack and transport helicopters, heavy artillery, a self-supplying logistical chain, a functioning quartermasters corp, a navy, an air force complete with fighter jets, etc., then they will never be able to provide security for their own country, since they will not be able to defend themselves or their borders from foreign attack.

Certainly they'd have a hard time defending themselves from 1) Iran or 2) Turkey. The latter won't invade, and the former knows better (or at least prefers to work from the inside. It's a good point that they need more, in the future, than what they have right now. It will take a series of steps -- they need to develop a good infantry now; and add the other items to that in the future.

A few thousand men armed with nothing more than assault rifles and relying on trucks and pickup trucks for transportation isn't an army, it's a glorified street gang.

If that's what we were building there you'd be correct.

That's not what we're building there. What we're trying to do (mixed results so far) is a professional army.

That's not what we're building there. What we're trying to do (mixed results so far) is a professional army.

It's nice to end the work-week with a good laugh.

On the more serious side, is anyone besides me struck about the fact that this was not an "Iraqi Army" operation at all, but a U.S. Army operation with Iraqi soldiers included?

That's the reason the Army made sure that in "attacking" this nearly empty wasteland there would be no opposition from the hapless farmers we rousted out of their hovels. In a real firefight against real resistance, the U.S. troops would have to make sure the Iraqi soldiers stayed in front (probably with bayonets in their backs)because they'd either run away or shoot our guys in the back, rather than kill their fellow Iraqis.

This way the psy-ops department got lots of pretty pictures, the Iraqi soldiers were able to do their part in the show without embarrassing their masters by joining the resistance or skedaddling to somewhere else, and Dimbulb will get a 1% boost in the polls.

It's a win-win for everyone.

Stefan likes to pretend he is a military expert.

What a joke.

Also be interesting to Google "incompetent," "idiot," and "liar" in about a week.

Heh - have you tried this? For "incompetent", I get a mention of Bush on hits #1,#4,and #9. "Idiot" at #2, and "liar" at #8. Tony Blair is Google's #1 liar, apparently.

All of which means... not much.

Time to append a Kevin Drum quote:

In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo and medal op.

Medal op™

Did I coin a new term?

Stefan likes to pretend he is a military expert. What a joke.

Yes, every so often I enjoy putting on my codpiece, dressing up in a flight suit with lots of straps and buckles, and prancing around on the deck of an aircraft carrier, yelling "bring 'em on, boys! Bring 'em on!"

Steve White: And they most assuredly want to dominate the world, a world in which their belief system is supreme. You need to listen to them. Like other dangerous thugs in history, they have the habit of saying, up front, exactly what they want and what they'll do to get it.

Funny thing then, that I have never heard of any Al Qaeda types saying any such thing. What Osama bin Laden has said, clearly and repeatedly, is that he wants to eject what he regards as "occupiers" and "crusaders" from Arab lands, and has repeatedly and clearly said that the purpose of attacking the US is to force the US to change its foreign policy and withdraw its military presence from that region.

On the other hand, the neoconservatives behind the Bush administration's foreign policy have said, clearly and repeatedly, that their goal is permanent unchallengeable US military domination of the planet. The term they use is "full spectrum dominance". Like "other dangerous thugs in history" they say what they want (military domination of the planet) and what they'll do to get it ("preemptively" attack any country that looks like it might someday present a challenge to their supremacy).

They are a threat to Western civilization, and they're certainly a threat to progressive Western civilization.

Al Qaeda and its ilk are not a "threat to Western civilization". That's ludicrous and absurd. In terms of the number of lives lost, the 9/11 attacks were the equivalent of a one-time ten percent increase in annual motor vehicle fatalities in the US.

Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists would be a serious threat, but nuclear weapons in anybody's hands are a threat to civilization, and have been since they were invented. The US and Russia each still have thousands of hydrogen bombs locked and loaded on ICBMs, targeted at each other's cities, and the possibility of a global thermonuclear war (including an accidental thermonuclear war, which came terrifyingly close to actually occurring on multiple occasions during the Cold War) is still real, and perhaps a greater danger than nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

And by far the most serious and imminent threat to civilization is anthropogenic global warming and our ongoing destruction of the capacity of the Earth's ecosystems to support life.

If you really believe the things you are saying, then you have been duped.

Stefan's posts fall into 2 categories:

(1) mocking the Iraqi army, and,
(2) mocking GW Bush.

And I get the idea he impresses himself with every post.

SecularAnimist has given an appropriate response. Thanks.

To it I will add:

How large is the army of the caliphate? Hundreds of thousands or millions? By what means will they come to dominate the US or Europe or whoever? How will they break us? Do you think that they can do what Hitler, the Japanese empire and the Soviet Union could not do? Do you really think they have the capacity to convert us to their unhappy version of Islam? They are mice thinking up the biggest boom for media converge so they can advertise their programme. Should we give up the rights of the Republic and our treasure for every cut-throat sitting around a table in some dust land who doesn’t like us?

Sure they have illiberal ideas and dreams and sure they are prepared to be nasty. But the proper response is what happened in London after the Tube bombings- a stiff upper lip, find the bastards, and get on with your day. Not suspend the constitution and invade, say, Iran.

Get a bloody spine.

It is the neo-cons who are broadcasting their desire to rule the world. As a matter of fact, they did it again yesterday, when the Bush Regime released the National Security Strategy, re-afirming preemptive war and their intention of maintaining militant hegemony over the world.

Hannah Arendt said totalitarians were forthright in proclaiming their intentions. I think she was correct.

Stefan's posts fall into 2 categories:

(1) mocking the Iraqi army, and,
(2) mocking GW Bush.

And I get the idea he impresses himself with every post.

How about response to his actual points, rather than making broad generalizations and reports on your attempts at remote psychoanalysis?

Posted by: bellumregio on March 17, 2006 at 6:46 PM

Spot on.

And I get the idea he impresses himself with every post.

He's clearly impressed you.

How about response to his actual points, rather than making broad generalizations and reports on your attempts at remote psychoanalysis?

Maybe its just me, but I've noticed the trolling around here has gotten a lot more personal as of late. Its as if they don't have any other defense anymore other than shoot the messenger. Hmmm.

SecularAnimist on March 17, 2006 at 6:30 PM

bellumregio on March 17, 2006 at 6:46 PM

Both posts are spot on. Props.

And they most assuredly want to dominate the world, a world in which their belief system is supreme.

Yeah! Damn Fundamentalist Christians.

Wait, what?

Iraq-alypse Now! Complete with helicopters! "Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit!"

Steve W. writes:

They're not Hessians, and that's a silly thing to say. They're defending their own country. That thousands of young Iraqi men continue to volunteer should tell you something. You might not like what's been wrought in Iraq, but a sizable proportion of Iraqis see it as something worth fighting for.

I suspect the loyalty of many Shia troopers is not first and foremost to Iraq, nor are members of the Kurdish Pesh Merga loyal first to Iraq. But in a country where jobs are scarce, the money for being a soldier is the best thing many young men can get. The U.S. would certainly like the Iraqi Army to be loyal to a united Iraq, but in our military absence that unity would likely crumble, and I think the Pentagon knows it. Which is one big reason we aren't giving them heavy armnaments. How well a lightly armed force may do against the insurgency depends on how many casualties they are willing and able to take to keep control of the country. Given the lack of political agreement between Shia, Sunni and Kurd, such control may not even be achievable in any case, and we'll end up with a largely Shia force occupying strategic parts of Sunni Iraq, with U.S. backup for the foreseeable future. Which if the example of Lebanon is any example, will be at least ten more years.

Whad'ya expect from a Potemkin President?

I think I've discovered a fifth column!!

They're in the fucking White House and GOP controlled Congress!!

by the way, this post, by cmdicely responding to one of our village idiots:

Can we talk ignorance instead of dishonesty?

In your case, the two are hardly exclusive, though its been my impression that, to date, you've favored the latter. Are you proposing a change in your posting style?

is hands-down post of the day.

steve white: " They are a threat to Western civilization"

The hell they are. They're less of a threat than a dipshit country like Oman or Yemen. When you have ten thousand megatons staring you in the face, now _THAT's_ a threat: we faced that for decades without going anywhere near as crazy as we are today.

A few thousand semiliterate fanatics without money, without an industrial base, without echnical knowledge or significant weapons - without a single jet, without a single _tank_ as far as I know - that's supposed to be a threat to Western civilization. Give me a break. Oh, and the Caliphate is about to be reborn - ridiculous, and it's not as if it'd amount to a hill of beans if it _did_ exist.
A lazy, hazy, crazy President is far more of a threat to the country than all the Arab terrorists ever born.

This actually makes me feel better. Whenever we've made a major assault on a city (Falluja, for example), it seems we just kill ordinary citizens and destroy the city but make no real progress against the insurgency. I'd rather we stop doing it. I was feeling sick that we were bombing Samarra until I read that we weren't actually bombing but sending in troops by helicopter.

I also recently read an article about strategies that have worked in other similar situations, including an "oil stain" approach to Iraq that by securing small areas then over time spreading out; It also said that we need to take the time to train Iraqi troops thorougly, including sending them on smaller, easier missions at first, rather than rushing them through the training process only to have them fall apart under heavy fire and running away. It's probably too much to hope that maybe this is such a mission, but maybe, maybe it's not meant to be sham but the US has finally adopted a better training strategy for Iraqi troops?

I must be insane to think that they might try something new just because what they're doing isn't working.

http://www.defendamerica.mil/archive/2006-03/20060308pm2.html

check out the iraqi tank.

"Whenever we've made a major assault on a city (Falluja, for example), it seems we just kill ordinary citizens and destroy the city but make no real progress against the insurgency.:

Does anyone remember Vietnam?

Yeah. Saddam salted away current accurate Iraqi Army uniforms. An example of excellent foresight. Another site (different operation) recovered fake security IDs. No doubt Saddam also knew what those would look like three years ago.

No, but he did stash weapons, you dishonest hack. I notice you don't say anything about those. And as was already pointed out to you, the discovery of these uniforms is ominous news, as it indicatates how deeply the insurgency has penetrated that Iraqi army you're counting on to save Bush's face.

I think the military knows the difference between a recent cache and one three or four years old.

Your faith is touching. As is your faith that the military is telling the truth. I wonder, though, how you would tell? If memory serves me right, weapons are stored coated in preservatives.

In any case, tbrosz, if you want to pretend this op dealt some crippling blow to the insurgency, you go right ahead. Speaking of which:

Can we talk ignorance instead of dishonesty?

As the other posters have noted, tborsz, those are all you ever do talk, but you favor the latter.

And you guys complain when I assert that the left always sides with the enemy.

Rightly so, tbrosz, you dishonest hack. If expressing concern about the civilian casualties created by an anti-insurgent operation that even Bush water carriers like you aren't denying was a big dog-and-pony show is exclusive to the Left, then that's nothing but an indictment of the right. Not to mention, of course, that the question offers no support to the enemy -- although the US military killing Iraqi civilians sure does.

Shame on you, tbrosz. This was a disgustingly dishonest and offensive performance even by your standards. Shame on you.

When you have ten thousand megatons staring you in the face, now _THAT's_ a threat: we faced that for decades without going anywhere near as crazy as we are today.

Word. I'm old enough to remember the Cold War and A-bomb paranoia. I grew up in a city that was a probably first-strike target.

The USSR was not the existential threat to the US many imagined -- after all, when it was breaking up, no lunatic Soviet ordered an apocalyptic missile strike -- but a threat nonetheless. Radical Islam is no such thing (and, by the by, in my opinion anyone whouses the term "Islamofascism" is just indicating he is not to be taken seriously).

Gregory - also Word.

I lived on Oahu in Kailua next to the Marine base at Kaneohe. We had the duck and cover exercises to protect us from a 10 Megaton bomb landing about 3/4 mile away. Even had the evacuation kits - couple of quarts of water, peanut butter, etc.

My father's contempt for that shit glowed in high ultraviolet. And my nother was more restrained in her language but could have removed paint from the walls. They were both WW2 vets and had a good idea of the difference between mindless belief and actual physics.

Iraq was not a threat and Iran won't be a threat to the mainland US for a decade. The intermediate shit can be dealt with by some hard nosed (not Bolton - he's a psychotic fantasist) diplomacy.

I still say they got the name of the operation from an episode of Seinfeld.. ("swarm! swarm!")

we'd all be typing in German right now

Well, the nazis may have lost the war, but 60 years later -- the people behind hitler's rise to power and the war machine are in charge of the US.

Guess they lost the war, but not the battle...

They won't make us speak german, but it is still becoming a facist state.

Get ready for the slaughter

One name for anyone who thinks terrorism is a 20th century invention: Guy Fox

Minor correction, GC: Guy Fawkes...

Which reminds me: V for Vendetta opened this weekend...

D'Oh! Trying to do three things at once: Toggle screens, answer the phone, and get the tube...Honestly, I do know better! Get out the wet noodle, I'll take my lashing!

And, if I recall correctly, the crux of it all was religion. Protestant persecution of Catholics, I do believe.

I see the Dems are back to their position from nearly 4 decades ago, calling our troops 'baby killers.'

Hey, how did I ever miss this one?:

‘The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house.’ - former Abu Ghraib 'detainee'

Found it in "What I Heard About Iraq in 2005", by Eliot Weinberger. Check it.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n03/wein01_.html

A dead child is a dead child. Undeniable, that. Not that I am defending calling troops baby-killers, I'm apalled that we could revisit that shameful era. Lets place the blame where it belongs: Mr. Pro-Life himself, George Bush, started this mess, and the deaths of children are blood on his hands.

Note too the Potemkin attacks on Taliban in Pakistan coinciding with Bush's visit.

Yes, every so often I enjoy putting on my codpiece, dressing up in a flight suit with lots of straps and buckles, and prancing around on the deck of an aircraft carrier, yelling "bring 'em on, boys! Bring 'em on!"
Posted by: Stefan

woohoo - send pix.

>>laughing

Steve White:

> Islamofascism is not fragmented:

"Islamofascism" is a term invented by Westerners who don't have much
of an understanding of Islam. Nazis and Fascists called themselves
Nazis and Fascists with pride. Islamists have no truck with this
label, and are in fact quite fragmented. Pro-state Islamists are
hardly the same thing as radical antistate Islamist revolutionaries.

> it has a common core ideology and belief system.

Oh really? So the Wahabi clerics who administer civil society in
Saudi Arabia have the same interpretation of Islam as the Iranian
Guardian Council? And both of these, of course, fully support Osama's
brand of Islam, and embrace Sayyid Qutb and the doctrine of takfir?

> It is not at all stateless,

Which is why Osama lives in a cave in an anarchic frontier region.

> since adherents believe in the unmah and an eventual caliphate.

Let me try to unpack this for you, Steve. Conservative theocratic
and quasi-theocratic Islamist regimes do not embrace the same
Caliphate ideology as Islamist revolutionaries. While there are
Koranic reasons that make separation of mosque and state a challenge
in all Muslim countries to a greater (Saudi Arabia / Iran) or lesser
(Turkey / Indonesia) extent, orthodox Islamic doctrine puts a premium
on getting along with rulers, even if they are despotic. Sayyid Qutb,
the ideologist behind the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama, revived an
ancient doctrine (not in the Koran or the hadiths) called takfir,
which means it is righteous to kill aspostate Muslims and overthrow
apostate Muslim regimes. Let me ask you, Steve ... How far do you
think Saudi Arabia, the nation to which every type of Muslim extant,
from the most austere Wahab to the most secularized Sufi, is obligated
to pilgrimage to (one of the Five Pillars of Islam), would get if
it officially embraced takfir and assassinated apostates in Mecca?

Don't confuse conservative with radical. Osama's ideology
is a threat to every Muslim government on earth -- including
the austere, purist theocacies of Saudia Arabia and Iran.

> They are not unorganized, they are decentralized, as
> they've learned that such a network is vital to survival.

If they were state-sponsored, that decentralized
network would hardly be as vital, would it.

Bob

The liberals are always stuck on stupid. It appears as though one of the main instigators of the Golden Dome Mosque bombing was nabbed in Operation Swarmer. But go ahead and laugh this one off too, afterall the Mosque had it coming right and Bushco is ultimately responsible for it anyway, not the people that actually detonated the bomb.

Global Citizen is a special kind of stupid and should be leading the charge for the lunatic minority fringe of the minority party. You'd better hope those Saddam Docs don't contradict all of the garbage that has been spewn from the left the last four years.

Jay:

You better be careful, dude, or I'll move you from the Obnoxious Troll category to Miscellaneous Psychotic :)

Bob

I just love how the so-called liberal PBS and NPR continue -- two days after the commencement of "Operation Swarmer" -- to report this as "the largest air offensive since the beginning of the war." And that is all they have to say, except that "the Iraqi soldiers are playing a key role in the operation."

Just goes to show how pathetic our "public" broadcasting networks have become.

Democracy Now!, anyone?

Um, Jay, just how often has the Bush administration claimed that it seized or killed a major terrorist perpetrator or leader of one kind or another? And how many times have they admitted later that, gee, guess what, it was all a mistake? If you read that story carefully, you will see that they are claiming that just maybe, they might have one of those perpetrators, not that they definitely do. As Iraq's national security adviser complained, too many innocent young men are being rounded up in these sweeps and he is calling for their quick release.

As for the "Saddam Docs," if there were anything there, the Bush administration would have revealed it a hell of a long time ago. It's kind of silly to pretend that we're going to get anything new now or that you're going to find the evidence you think will vindic