Iraq this year
The anti-war left, in it’s many forms, told us that when US troops left, there’d be peace in the country, because the Iraqis would have no one left to kill and they were only fighting against an occupying power. So we set an arbitrary withdrawal date with no other clear goal except withdrawal, much like we’ve done in Afghanistan. So how’s that working out for peaceful Iraq these days. According to the UK’s Telegraph, not so well;
The death toll for 2013 has already topped 7,000, with the United Nations saying that 979 died in October alone, the latest month for which figures are available.
That is roughly twice the Iraqi death rate when US forces plucked Saddam from his “spider hole” in Tikrit in December 2003, an arrest hailed at the time as spelling the end of Iraq’s insurgency problems.
The brunt of al-Qaeda’s new onslaught is borne by Iraq’s majority Shia Muslim community, who are classed as apostates in the terror group’s extremist Sunni Muslim vision.
So far, senior Shia clerics have forbidden retaliation. But in interviews with The Telegraph, both Iraqi politicians and foreign diplomats have expressed fears that the sheer scale of the current onslaught is putting a strain on Shias’ willingness to turn to the other cheek.
They fear a return to the sectarian warfare of 2006-2007, when up to 3,000 people a month were killed in tit-for-tat violence waged by Sunni and Shia death squads.
This is not a plea to return troops to Iraq, but a reminder that the only way to destroy an insurgency is to marshal your entire force and kill all of your enemies, all of the time, every where they hide. War is not something that half-assed politicians should not be allowed to have a say in the way it’s fought. Neither should lawyers nor journalists.
When your Congressmen stand on the roof of your enemy’s palace and declare that enemy to be more trustworthy than their own president, the war is lost. When history tells your enemies that you’re not willing to see a fight through to the end, their utter and total destruction, the war is lost. When you tell folks that you’re better as human beings than your enemy and you won’t stoop to his tactics, the war is lost. When your generals go out in public and criticize the way the war is being fought, because they weren’t included in the game, the war is lost. When the generals who are engaged with the enemy ask for more troops and you “compromise” with them and give them less than they ask for, the war is lost. When you end your wars depending on the whims of your domestic press, the war is lost.
The war is won when the enemy doesn’t exist any more and his army is planted in the soil. Period.
Category: Terror War
I think the best way to look at war is similar to the answer Conan gave to the question “what is best in life?” in the 1982 movie:
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Kill every living thing, raze any structure, burn every plant and salt the earth…..
Or just Nuke them.
/either way….
You mean this, Flagwaver? (smile)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc
Have to disagree on one point, Jonn. I don’t think I ever want to see US forces using suicide bombing tactics or beheading people – regardless of whether our opponents are doing that.
@1 Right on! Jonn you said it well. We as a nation, minus the troops in the field, do not know how to wage war anymore. We let the wrong people make decisions. Our POTUS and all politicians believe troops are something you spend like ammo and foreign aid. I have always agreed, if we wage war against anyone, we do not stop until the entire enemy is DEAD! Especially in the fight against terrorists and fanatical Muslims. Unlike Japan or Germany, who could be brought to their knees and allowed to surrender, terrorists have no national “face” or infrastructure to destroy. That is, if we are leaving the real terrorists, Iran, out of the equation. If we include them then, yes destroy every building and piece of infrastructure they have. They want to live in the seventh century, so let’s turn off their lights and let ’em.
“The war is won when the enemy doesn’t exist any more and his army is planted in the soil. Period.”
Not so Jonn.
Examples? Well lets see.
England still existed after the Revolutionary War.
Mexico still exists in spite of the fact that we didn’t kill all our enemies there.
Right here in America the South still exists in spite of the fact that we didn’t kill everyone who hated the North.
Italy still exists in spite of the fact that we didn’t kill all our enemies there.
Germany still exists in spite of the fact that we didn’t kill all our enemies there.
Japan still exists in spite of the fact that we didn’t kill all our enemies there.
You get the point.
I was there in 2006 and you couldn’t walk 100 meters without funding 5 bodies. I realized how numb I had become when we were at Yarmuk hospital as they were wheeling in 18-20 victims that were missing various limbs. I looked at my buddy and exclaimed “holy shit did you see the size of that cat!”.
I have always said when the politicians pick up the phone and call the Pentagon from that point on they need to sit down, shut up and wait for the return call that it is now alright to begin talking to what is now a vanquished enemy.
I say we do this:
Remove all of our troops from any country that has publicly declared us an enemy (the ruling body, not the people). We also remove all foreign aid from any such country, as well.
We fortify our borders (like every other country in the world).
If a country attacks us, we retaliate with such force that all vestiges of their ruling body are removed. Then, we pull out with a percentage of their natural resources (to compensate us).
If a terrorist group attacks us, then we locate them and ask the country if we can enter their territory to retaliate. If they say no, then they are complicit in the attack and we hit them with such force that all vestiges of their ruling body are removed (along with the terrorists there). Then, we pull out with a percentage of their natural resources (to compensate us).
After one or two times, I think the world will get the idea not to screw with us. If not, perhaps the next ruling body will pay better attention to the Orientation Briefing.
Unconditional Surrender is apparently a thing of the past, our preference is now to have small teams of men wandering around looking for individuals like the FBI might for a most wanted in the US….that’s not now and never has been a proper way to fight a war and deal with an enemy bent on your destruction.
As occupiers we needed to set martial law and let Iraq know we were not just at war with AQ but also with Iraq as they were a sanctuary for these pr1cks, Afghanistan needed to be dealt with in the same fashion….the lesson needs to be learned by the US again and once again taught to the world that harboring our enemies is the same as being our enemy and we don’t have time to f#ck around with “occupation” and lame ass ROEs….
We will kill our enemies and those who hide them in numbers that will frighten the world, ask the Japanese how the Norden Bombsight worked to limit civilian casualties…or ask the Germans who survived Dresden how we avoided civilian casualties…sometimes the best method for reducing the enemy forces is to kill them and the civilians they live amongst 80-100,000 at a time….we had no qualms about burning japanese women and children to death in Tokyo, nor did we mind killing blue eyed blonde german kids in Dresden….Iraqis and Afghanis need to understand what we are capable of should we choose to actually wage a real war some day in the future.
Jacobite, to defeat an enemy you must destroy their will to wage war. In almost every case you cited the conquered country suffered such severe devastation that they no longer could wage war. In case you forgot England did come back at the United States. A little thing called the War of 1812 where they sacked our capitol and if wasn’t for problems closer to home in the form of France and having an ocean between us the story could’ve been much different. And as far as the south is concerned you still won’t find any kids named Sherman and I wouldn’t be so quick to rule them out.
Strangely absent from your list is Korea and Vietnam.
USAF General Curtis LeMay (the father of SAC) once said “if you kill enough of them, they quit fighting.” Guess we didn’t kill enough of them!
Oooh, but didn’t the French tell GWB to declare victory and walk away? Barack Obama is just following their advice.
I don’t consult the French for strategic advice.
Iraq is a sovereign nation, and as long as our troops aren’t in harm’s way, Iraq’s sectarian violence and death toll is once again their business. They will have terrorists killings exactly as long as they continue to tolerate them.
But if we ever go there again, we need to lay waste to that shithole and be done with it.
Jonn: What you’re saying; I’ve been saying for decades and many times right here on these pages.
When chuckleheads come on here and try to be all intellectual and ask; how do you achieve victory? I tell them straight out how you do it, but they don’t like the answer because it gets too bloody for their tastes. That’s reality, not pretty and not from a book and they can’t handle it.
How about if we stop solving other peoples’ (countries’) problems for them?
Must we be the world’s policemen? Is there any way to keep the press from lying about collateral damage? Since when did warfare become the arena of political correctness?
Tequila, you’re right, now please explain how you destroy the will of an enemy that has no centralized power structure and even literally operates out of allied countries like the UK, France, Spain et. all.
And no, I didn’t forget the War of 1812, I simply was giving a cross section of wars we won, and did so in contradiction to Jonn’s assertion that a ‘war is won when the enemy doesn’t exist anymore’. Obviously the statement is not true.
As for Korea and Vietnam, neither is an example of a war we ‘won’, so obviously I would not use them to make my point, nothing strange about it.
And no Old Trooper, I really have zero problems with bloodshed, my point here, as it was on another recent thread, is that the total annihilation of a nation, or 6, is not a victory, and will certainly eventually lead to our own destruction. And what do you have against intellectual observation anyway? We have lots of intellectual posters here. Despite the rare disagreements with them, Hondo and VOV would be on that list, chucklehead.
Thinking anyone can ever achieve real ‘peace’ on this spinning rock is a pipe dream; it’s not in our natures, period. So claiming you can ‘win’ through the total destruction of your enemy and the country where he originates, is just as idiotic as those loons with the ‘Visualize World Peace’ stickers on their cars.
It. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.
So you all might ask, “OK then, what is YOUR solution to Iraq or Afghanistan Jacobite?”
My answer is, there isn’t one, period. No one can actually win, all anyone can do is manage.
Other than that I most closely agree with Flagwaver’s ‘solution’, no nation building, no infrastructure repair, no political wrangling, just a clear and harsh retaliation, then walk away. Repeat as necessary. Let THOSE countries figure out how to stop thier own discomfort, or not.
To be fair, the timeline to get out of there was Bush’s idea. Ambassador Crocker penned an agreement at the end of 2007 which gave a strict timeline for us to withdraw. We followed it to the letter. Obama and the Iraqis discussed altering it, but they had some of the same hangups Karzai is now. The Left likes to praise Obama from ending OIF, but all he had to do was sit on his hands and it would have ended anyways. These days whenever I hear or read about our withdrawal either Obama gets blamed for not keeping us there or gets credit for us leaving. Bush is never mentioned.
I’m glad that everyone can read things that I didn’t write and skip over the things I did write. I didn’t say anything about turning our troops into suicide bombers and executioners, what I meant was that our troops should be allowed to be ruthless in the pursuit of our enemies like they’re ruthless. I said that wars are ended when our enemy’s ARMIES are destroyed, not every individual soldier, FFS. I didn’t blame Obama for the timeline, and I know Bush set the timeline, but at the time, the insurgency was in decline, and the timeline was only created because the various anti-war crowd had been bleating for a timeline withdrawal from day one and at least Bush didn’t set one until the timing would have been advantageous for us to withdraw. Sheesh.
There is some speculation that if Schwarzkopf had followed Saddam Hussein’s trail back to Baghdad, he might have been able to finish the job and all this would be a moot point. I’ve never understood why that didn’t happen. That, and not crossing into North Korea to finish the job, escape me.
I thought it was a good article.
Ah, damn…we’re singin’ off key again!
It happens in the best of families PN. 🙂
Wars end when your enemy is motivated to stop being destroyed, since we have not destroyed AlQaeda or the nations that harbor them there is no motivation to end the suffering. AQ thrives on the deaths of those it determines are enemies as well as the deaths of its’ own people whichever islamic stripe they might adhere to.
When your children can be killed as easily as the the children of those you hide amongst it changes your perspective. When you can find no shelter because those whose nation you’ve taken have decided to join with the invaders it’s tough to continue, we’ve done none of that.
Jacobite offers managing the situation as a solution and I suspect managing can be defined in as many different ways as we all have opinions here, but managing the situation is not what we’ve done on any level to date we’ve just spent some lives and some money staving off the return to the previous status quo.
I would have preferred unrestricted bombing and an open declaration of war against any nation that harbors these 4ssholes, or I would have preferred no entry into any nation. Getting Americans killed to make a meaningless temporary regime change is a monumental disgrace in my opinion. Bush and Obama have both continued down that path to meaningless transition. That’s a real failure of leadership on every level.
I hope I am completely wrong and that once we leave both nations become peaceable law abiding members of the international community, that would be one of the few times in my life I would be absolutely thrilled to completely wrong in my assessment of a situation.
Time will tell what was accomplished in 10 years of conflict in two nations. I really hope to be wrong, but I would not bet much money on my being wrong at this time.
The specific sentence to which I was responding was this, Jonn (emphasis added):
When you tell folks that you’re better as human beings than your enemy and you won’t stoop to his tactics, the war is lost.
The terrorists we’ve been fighting for over a decade deliberately use – publicly – both beheading and suicide bombings as part of their standard TTPs. They presumably do so for intimidation and shock value.
I never want to see US forces use such barbaric tactics.
The most important statistic is “Zero”, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq last year. I did two tours in Iraq and there is nothing worth another American life in that cesspool.
Ex-PH2: shortly before the end of hostilities during Desert Storm, Schwarzkopf was told by the POTUS (on a secure conference call or VTC) that he would like to “stop the killing” and end the first Gulf War. Schwarzkopf’s response were words to the effect that he could accept stopping immediately. If Schwarzkopf had reservations about doing so, that was the time to raise them.
There’s also the matter of the fact that neither conquering Iraq nor effecting regime change were ever “on the table” as possible COAs for the first Gulf War. There’s a good reason for that. Some of our coalition partners – in particular the Syrians and many of the Gulf States – would never have bought that course of action.
While our coalition allies wouldn’t have IMO bought us conquering Iraq, they would have allowed us to finish the destruction of the rest of the Iraqi army – including the remaining Republican Guard elements in southern Iraq. Our failure to do so IMO allowed Saddam Hussein to survive the ill-fated revolts that swept Iraq during the months after the end of Desert Storm.
Schwarzkopf was a great general. But IMO he should have told the POTUS, “Sir, the Iraqi Army is still dangerous as hell. I’m not convinced they’re finished yet, and that means my forces are still at risk. I need 2 more days to finish the job.” I’m certain Bush 41 would have given him that.
Intimidation….
That’s what the firebombing of cities by waves of bombers is for….intimidation. Of course you can’t fire bomb cities of nations you don’t actually declare war against without some adverse repercussions from the international community.
Fighting terrorists who use weak political nations as a base of operations will never fully be successful as long as we are concerned about the nation hosting the terrorists.
We don’t have to stoop to anyone’s tactics, the unrestricted bombing of cities of nations whose occupants kill our civilians should not be considered stooping, it should be considered as a necessary component of a large scale invasion and destruction of a foreign power occupied by our enemies.
The Italians quit the war early but the german b4stards occupying the country meant we had to destroy large parts of Italy in order to get the nazi b4stards occupying the nation….it’s a shame we need to relearn these lessons.
But relearn them we must and employ them to our benefit we should or else we should stay the f#ck out of these places. Neither nation will be the equivalent of a law abiding international community member like Germany or Japan in the future, I suspect Iraq and Afghanistan will remain sh1tholes incapable of resolving their internal problems to benefit anyone in the world.
@16: What the fuck are you talking about? Where the hell did I say anything about “annihilation” of a nation? There are 2 ways to achieve victory and both of them are laid out above. They either have to want to quit by realizing that if they continue, they will be wiped out, or you destroy their ability to continue fighting. That’s it, no mystery involved. We did so in every war where we have had lasting peace and not where we have “negotiated” peace where there is no unconditional surrender. Korea was our first foray into that realm and it still goes on today, yet Japan, Italy, and Germany, which we had vanquished less than a decade before, have been lasting partners in peace. Funny how we were willing to fire bomb entire cities in order to gain surrender of our enemies and victory for ourselves, yet we now refuse to even fire on bad guys in a mosque???
Not a bad analysis for a non-intellectual chucklehead; eh?
@19, 25 According to some accounts Powell came up with the 100 hours because it sounded tidy and catchy. The Arab part of the coalition definitely didn’t want to march on Baghdad. They wanted a return to the status quo. Bush wanted Saddam overthrown by the generals and politicians but it didn’t happen. Ironically Bush and then-SecDef Cheney feared back in 1991 the same thing we dealt with this time around – a Shia-led uprising, anarchy, and a lengthy occupation. In 1996, Cheney was asked why we didn’t go all the way and he said “because we’d still be there.” I couldn’t stand him as VP, but he wasn’t wrong with that assessment as a former SecDef. It makes you wonder why he changed his mind in 2003.
As for Schwartzkopf, his original battle plan was to encircle the entire Iraqi Army but the Marines attacked so successfully on the first day that the Iraqi Army started to retreat rather than stand their ground so by the time the Army was in position to conduct the “left hook” we were chasing the Republican Guard rather than encircling them.
“The war is won when the enemy doesn’t exist any more and his army is planted in the soil. Period.” Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. That does not require the annihilation of a people or a nation, just their capitulation or formal surrender. When that occurs, the opponent is no longer your enemy. What’s the issue Jacobite?
VOV: I suspect you’re correct about Afghanistan. Their fractured ethnic make-up and history suggests exactly what you state above – for the foreseeable future, it’s gonna be a violent, chaotic place.
Pity. It’s a damned beautiful place, and at one time (1960s/1970s) was reputedly peaceful, tolerant, and quite accepting of strangers.
I’m not as sure about Iraq. It’s less ethnically fractured and has somewhat less of a history of chatoic violence. But it’s fractured enough that you may well be right about that area, too.
TMB: could be. Bush-41 was also catching hell for the supposed “massacre” of “frightened fleeing Iraqi troops” from those clueless enough to think those retreating troops represented no threat.
That said: if Schwarzkopf had reservations, IMO he should have raised them when he had the chance. He was given that chance, and opted to keep any reservations he might have had to himself vice speaking up.
Readings I’ve done lead me to believe we still could have trapped the bulk of the Republican Guard in the south (though obviously not the elements Hussein had retained near Baghdad) had we continued. Numerous postwar accounts of huge convoys of intact units/equipment withdrawing from Kuwait/southern Iraq under US observation. Had we continued for another day or two, that wouldn’t have happened – and IMO, Hussein would have fallen to internal revolt shortly thereafter.
We’ll never know.
In any case, in the final analysis the purpose of any war is to further a political goal, set by the nation’s political leadership. The war strategy is tailored to accomplishing that goal. Our actions in Desert Storm accomplished the stated political goal – which was likely the most we could accomplish given the circumstances. We did so in a wildly successful manner. My only quibble is that we ceased fire a day or two too early – and left the enemy enough intact forces enough to both survive and pose a future threat.
Hondo, as I said I sure as h3ll hope I am proven dead wrong as I would be thrilled to see a positive outcome in both places….Afghanistan has always seemed to be as alien a culture to itself as to the rest of the world with all the unique factions and disagreements in blood along faction lines.
I hope you are right about Iraq, I really do. I’m no fan of dealing death and destruction, but if it’s required I am all for using overwhelming amounts that bring foreign nations to the knees as quickly as possible and uses as few American lives in the process as required to get the job done.
Otherwise we are just wasting lives and money for no reasonable outcome and I have reached the point where that is intolerable to me and I would is intolerable to everyone else.
@31 From the biographies and analyses I’ve read, we literally stood there and were forced to watch them build an earthen bridge across the Euphrates (we bombed the metal bridge) and retreat into Basra. I’ll have to go back tonight and see if Schwartzkopf had any opinions or objections on ending the war.
TMB: contemporary accounts seem to indicate Schwarzkopf concurred in ending hostilities at 100 hours:
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-03-28/news/mn-1321_1_h-norman-schwarzkopf
@27
‘What the fuck’, 😉 where did I say that you said anything about the annihilation of a nation? I didn’t, not in so many words. However, you and VOV, have and are, advocating a course of action that would ultimately result in Afghanistan being a glass parking lot, and STILL not cure the problem. If that’s not the annihilation of a nation, I don’t know what is.
@29
What’s the issue? The issue is that Hamid the sheep farmer and his family are not the enemy, nor do they have the power in any stretch of the imagination to effect the enemy’s actions, yet the tactics being discussed are very clearly willing to accept Hamid and his family being colateral damage in a policy that would ultimately fail. In addition, Hamid and his clan hold no sway over their government, so how exactly do they protect themselves against both a corrupt government, and foreign powers fighting across their patch of sand?
Do I think we should get out of the ‘Stan? Yep, we’re not acomplishing anything there, and won’t regardless of what tactic we employ. Do I think we should stay out of Iraq now? Yep. They wanted to play by themselves, now let them. If we suffer an attack from either quarter I advocate Flagwaver’s policy. Drop in quickly, kill everyone in control, then leave, taking enough natural resources or treasure home with us to pay for the trip. Repeat as necessary.
@31 Hondo you are correct. “In any case, in the final analysis the purpose of any war is to further a political goal, set by the nation’s political leadership. The war strategy is tailored to accomplishing that goal.” Your correct statement above is also our nation’s problem. We do not have leaders who know what is or how to establish a good political goal. Thus they cannot come up with a successful war strategy. I don’t like the idea of complete annihilation but if that is what it takes to achieve a goal of stopping an enemy or an enemy’s supporting nation then let the bombs fall. With as few American lives lost as possible. I believe one of our strongest goals should be to show all current and potential enemies that we will not be f@cked with, to use simple language. And if you do, this is what happens. I believe it will only have to be done once, maybe twice for the truly diehard fundamentalists and they will get the message. Trouble is there are not enough balls in all of Washington, including I am sad to say, the DoD, to set such a foreign policy goal and follow through with it till the end.
The real “foreign invasion” of Iraq was islamist jihadiscum from all over the planet. Every country that has moslems had representation in that invasion. Damn near every neighborhood in every moslim bearing nation had its representatives.
The Iraq war also, strangely enough, saved the EUs ass. The jihadiscum already in the various nations of the EU were ramping up hard for the usual method of expanding the Caliphate. The uprising was in its early stage and both the Iraq and Afghan battlefronts drew many tens of thousands of the jihadiscum away from the EU, where they were originally planned to be put to use, and into kill traps where they were slaughtered in the thousands.
Now we return to that phase of things were the jihadiscum are going to have their protected training areas, their numbers will be replenished and it all begins again.
The media and the liberal’s were determined to turn the OIF into another Vietnam, they did and now Iraqi’s are killing Iraqi’s which in my humble opinion is the only good thing to come out of the whole goatscrew.
Now we have Afghanistan telling us what to do and who not to kill forget that Al Q in that shathole country attacked us first.
We arm Al Q in Syria allow Taliban in the government.
Anyone who grew up during the Vietnam war and saw the results of incompetent leaders and flower power could have told you what would become of any war the US gets involved in. VIETNAM.
That’s why any war we get involved with in China or NORK will result in a waste of human lives money and when it’s almost won the US will sail away.
Snatching defeat from Victory every phuc’ing time due to the republican and democrat idiots in charge of the government and the Gorram media.