Iraq - The Real Situation

[mhr]

The following post at the Daily Kos from the blog by Steve Gilliard paints a devastating picture of Iraq.

Be sure to follow the link to Gilliard's blog for the graphics.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/21/143749/505

A Snip ......

Rumsfeld's eagerness to use Iraq as a test bed for his transformation of the military was a disaster. While the US handled stage one capably, his indifferent to disorder set the stage for stage two.

Leaving open the ammo dumps set the bed for the resistance. The Iraqi resistance is the most lavishly equipped in history. Every unit well armed with modern weapons.

Poor planning left the US without their Third World auxillary armies to provide basic security. Without the large Pakistani and Nigerian units to patrol towns and provide basic area denial, US units have had to do two jobs, security and quick reaction.

Disbanding the Army set the stage for the resistance to have trained people running it. These men didn't learn war from textbooks. The senior folks learned in combat and passed those lessons down

US forces have adapted to tactics only to have those tactics shift.

The Iraqis have minimized the use of helicopter units and limited them to observation and attack.

Snip ......

[LibertyorDeath]

1. Wow you won't get this from the MSM thanks & a rec

[Jacobin]

2. I disagree that he 'handled the invasion capably'

the closest thing in military terms I can think of to compare the rush to Baghdad would be if we had parachuted 100,000 people into the middle of Germany in WWII...just dropped them in there and declared victory, after which the German war machine picked them all apart from all sides, while the u.s. troops tried to hide behind bunkers.

there was no causus belli. there was never a victory. there was never a defeat, there was never a surrender. We just plopped 150,000 soldiers into the middle of a highly armed hornets nest of Iraqis pissed off beyond belief and then proceeded to prod them, torture them, humiliate them and make them more and more pissed off.

If I hear ONE MORE time that 'we did a great job of invading Iraq" I think I'll hurl.

(I do NOT blame the troops, they follow where they are led. They were led into a quagmire by an egotistical, crazed, meglamaniacal, delusional war criminal and his neo-con stooges)

[OneBlueSky]

3. where some see "the insurgency," others see "the resistance" . . . n/t

.