hardhead
11-09-2004, 06:51 PM
Note to the Republicans on AI. Please read all the way through before you guys reply. OK? Remember, I was a registered Republican for most of my adult life.
Putting aside momentarily whether we all agree or disagree about going into Iraq to begin with. Let's PRETEND that we ALL felt going into Iraq was justified. From that premise we'll casually examine the situation strategically and tactically from the American point of view.
1. We went in with roughly 150,000 troops. This level of troop strength was a HARD fought compromise. Mainly because Powell HAD some influence at the time. He’s gonna be gone pretty soon…The Generals wanted 250,000. The military genius that is Donald Rumsfeld, felt that it could be done with 50,000 pairs of boots. General Kinseki was probably/maybe retired early over this issue… There are now approximately 138,000 troops in Iraq not counting employed “mercs”. Of which there may now be 18,000. Maybe more.
I was offered $300,000 to go work in Iraq for six months but both my son and daughter “forbid” me to go. I love ‘em! Even my psycho ex weighed in against my going over there. It was tempting as it takes me about sixteen months to make that much dough.
When I went to Iraq for the first war, we went in with far more boots and we weren't even going to do a regime change.
2. We were sold on the idea that our liberating forces would be welcomed with open arms. We actually were in some areas. Of course, maybe we also should have avoided dropping fuc*ing cluster bombs in neighborhoods full of women and children!
3. Of the many surgical strikes that were taken to kill Saddam and his two butcher sons (and they were...) not a single one did the job. However, we managed to kill hundreds of innocent Iraqis whose surviving family members are now our sworn enemy. These are people who may have HATED Saddam the mo-fo previously. Now they hate us.
4. The looting that occurred after Saddam's fall happened mainly because there were not enough troops there. Period. The fact that we made sure that the oil ministry was protected (and I agree that this was important) and left one of the world's most important antiquities museum unprotected, will be judged harshly and rightfully so, from a historical perspective. If you guys will recall, we heard variations on a theme from the administration concerning, "oh the people of Iraq are just excited to be free of the tyrant...". There is some basic human behavior truth to this line. Why hell, look how stupidly hundreds of white folk acted after the 'Sox World Series win! Yeah, I only saw my fellow pale faces in the newscasts. The point is, more boots on the ground!
5. This brings me right to this point. Tied in with the lack of American troop strength is our fumbling of relations with the Iraqi Army. Many of the generals did as we asked. They stood down their troops and stayed out of our way. Many of them had no love for Saddam and his sons. Many of them had intimate knowledge of the Saddam Feddayeen structure and members. We basically threw this knowledge away. We could have utilized the standing military structure by going battalion by battalion to weed out the hard core Baathist Party members. The size of the insurgency we are seeing right now is due in large part (I believe) to point #5.
6. OVER half of our troops are not properly equipped. This includes things like body armor, hardened Humvees, night vision goggles…
7. We put a puppet government in and that’s going to help create a “democratic” society.
Uh, no…
8. We have NOT finished our business in Afghanistan. That puppet government will not survive without our presence. Indeed, in an ironical twist of fate, President Karzai’s area of rule is approximately the same as of the Soviet’s puppet regime. Weird huh? What did the President say about Bin Laden? “I’m not worried about him…”
9. Not enough troops. Oh, I’m sorry. Am I repeating myself again…
My numbers are not exact. For the sake of this rant they’re close enough.
I will give our military half a break. The blunders above are mainly attributable to the “war” being run by politicians. Not just any politicians, “Chicken Hawk” politicians… Believe me guys, I’m no peacenik. When I went to the first Gulf Farce, err, War, I was a gung ho S.O.B. My eyes were opened up over there. They were opened up to some very sordid business dealings between the Saudis, the Kuwaitis (whom were generally reviled by Sunni, Shiite and Kurds alike…) and the Bush family.
God bless ALL the troops of the “coalition”. However, I will admit that every time I hear an American soldier say “I’m proud to be here defending our country’s freedom…”, man I cringe. Freedom from what? Saddam attacking the USA? What a bill of goods we were sold. Yes, Kerry voted to go to war against Saddam, he was presented with the same bull*hit evidence as everyone else.
I’m blowing hard steam right now because one of best friend’s son was just killed over there. His humvee was one of the regular unhardened models. It passed by an improvised bomb. Just like that his life is over. At this point, there should be NO soft bodied humvees in front line service. Of course, most of Iraq is now frontline. Including the so-called green zone. This is inexcusable on the part of our government…
Oh man, end of rant…
Putting aside momentarily whether we all agree or disagree about going into Iraq to begin with. Let's PRETEND that we ALL felt going into Iraq was justified. From that premise we'll casually examine the situation strategically and tactically from the American point of view.
1. We went in with roughly 150,000 troops. This level of troop strength was a HARD fought compromise. Mainly because Powell HAD some influence at the time. He’s gonna be gone pretty soon…The Generals wanted 250,000. The military genius that is Donald Rumsfeld, felt that it could be done with 50,000 pairs of boots. General Kinseki was probably/maybe retired early over this issue… There are now approximately 138,000 troops in Iraq not counting employed “mercs”. Of which there may now be 18,000. Maybe more.
I was offered $300,000 to go work in Iraq for six months but both my son and daughter “forbid” me to go. I love ‘em! Even my psycho ex weighed in against my going over there. It was tempting as it takes me about sixteen months to make that much dough.
When I went to Iraq for the first war, we went in with far more boots and we weren't even going to do a regime change.
2. We were sold on the idea that our liberating forces would be welcomed with open arms. We actually were in some areas. Of course, maybe we also should have avoided dropping fuc*ing cluster bombs in neighborhoods full of women and children!
3. Of the many surgical strikes that were taken to kill Saddam and his two butcher sons (and they were...) not a single one did the job. However, we managed to kill hundreds of innocent Iraqis whose surviving family members are now our sworn enemy. These are people who may have HATED Saddam the mo-fo previously. Now they hate us.
4. The looting that occurred after Saddam's fall happened mainly because there were not enough troops there. Period. The fact that we made sure that the oil ministry was protected (and I agree that this was important) and left one of the world's most important antiquities museum unprotected, will be judged harshly and rightfully so, from a historical perspective. If you guys will recall, we heard variations on a theme from the administration concerning, "oh the people of Iraq are just excited to be free of the tyrant...". There is some basic human behavior truth to this line. Why hell, look how stupidly hundreds of white folk acted after the 'Sox World Series win! Yeah, I only saw my fellow pale faces in the newscasts. The point is, more boots on the ground!
5. This brings me right to this point. Tied in with the lack of American troop strength is our fumbling of relations with the Iraqi Army. Many of the generals did as we asked. They stood down their troops and stayed out of our way. Many of them had no love for Saddam and his sons. Many of them had intimate knowledge of the Saddam Feddayeen structure and members. We basically threw this knowledge away. We could have utilized the standing military structure by going battalion by battalion to weed out the hard core Baathist Party members. The size of the insurgency we are seeing right now is due in large part (I believe) to point #5.
6. OVER half of our troops are not properly equipped. This includes things like body armor, hardened Humvees, night vision goggles…
7. We put a puppet government in and that’s going to help create a “democratic” society.
Uh, no…
8. We have NOT finished our business in Afghanistan. That puppet government will not survive without our presence. Indeed, in an ironical twist of fate, President Karzai’s area of rule is approximately the same as of the Soviet’s puppet regime. Weird huh? What did the President say about Bin Laden? “I’m not worried about him…”
9. Not enough troops. Oh, I’m sorry. Am I repeating myself again…
My numbers are not exact. For the sake of this rant they’re close enough.
I will give our military half a break. The blunders above are mainly attributable to the “war” being run by politicians. Not just any politicians, “Chicken Hawk” politicians… Believe me guys, I’m no peacenik. When I went to the first Gulf Farce, err, War, I was a gung ho S.O.B. My eyes were opened up over there. They were opened up to some very sordid business dealings between the Saudis, the Kuwaitis (whom were generally reviled by Sunni, Shiite and Kurds alike…) and the Bush family.
God bless ALL the troops of the “coalition”. However, I will admit that every time I hear an American soldier say “I’m proud to be here defending our country’s freedom…”, man I cringe. Freedom from what? Saddam attacking the USA? What a bill of goods we were sold. Yes, Kerry voted to go to war against Saddam, he was presented with the same bull*hit evidence as everyone else.
I’m blowing hard steam right now because one of best friend’s son was just killed over there. His humvee was one of the regular unhardened models. It passed by an improvised bomb. Just like that his life is over. At this point, there should be NO soft bodied humvees in front line service. Of course, most of Iraq is now frontline. Including the so-called green zone. This is inexcusable on the part of our government…
Oh man, end of rant…