Worse than a BJ? You be the judge.
Posted on:: November 10th, 2004
Key Insurgents May Have Already Fled Fallujah:
Battle Could End Soon as a Result, But There Are Concerns About Insurgents Regrouping
Battle Could End Soon as a Result, But There Are Concerns About Insurgents Regrouping
So, while W postponed invading Fallujah until immediately after the election in order to avoid bloody headlines, the insurgents escaped.
Who will pay for this craven commander in chief’s self-interested political calculation? Any chance that maybe the commander in chief will?
Haha. Just kidding.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
David, I am glad you posted on this. I can not believe we waited so long. Well let me take that back, I can not believe we waited so long (allowing it to be publicized), and then publicized a build up. Everyone in America new it was coming, and probably the first news cycle after the election (Which would be, let me check, Monday!), which means you better believe every Iraqi new it.
I have been meaning to blog about this. It is like we are still fighting against the Iraq of the first Gulf War, remember the month long build up? The Iraqi army wouldn’t / didn’t run, but the insurgents will, thats what they do. Its a guerrilla war! There was an article on CBS, a reporter who had spent a great deal of time with the insurgents said you could buy a Kalashnikov on the street for the equivalent of $100. Why wouldn’t you just drop your stuff and leave for a few months, and go harass U.S. troops somewhere else(which are inevitably of a smaller number because of the Fallujah build up), or perhaps go kidnap the interim prime ministers family members (like just happened).
I just don’t get it. Maybe I am seeing things all wrong, but for some reason I don’t think I am.
Dave, as sympathetic as I am to your point of view, and as unsympathetic as I am to this presidency, this shot misses the mark.
All military operations are conducted in a political context. Sometimes it’s favorable, sometime’s it’s unfavorable. But it’s never _not_ a factor.
As perception goes, it’s a two-way street. Had an attack on Fallujah taken place in the weeks prior to the election, he might have been criticized for staging a battle to emphasize his role as the commander in chief in a “wag the dog” sort of way.
In fact, we don’t know how much of the timing is due to political considerations within the interim government of Iraq. We don’t operate with quite the independence we had as the governing authority.
I’m all for criticizing this president. But I think we might improve the S/N ratio by advancing legitimate criticism and avoiding the opportunities to exploit differing perceptions of highly ambiguous situations as criticism.
I guess maybe he of the “internets’, and Donald of the “digital cameras and the Web are to blame” Rumsfeld still aren’t sure whether or not some of the the “insurgents” can read English and still have acces to the Web ?
From GlobalGuerrillas http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/
“TARGET: THE FALLUJAH TAZ
Fallujah is a TAZ. A temporary autonomous zone that is being used by global guerrillas for regional operations. It isn’t a central hub of the insurgency, because there isn’t any central hub. The insurgency is a decentralized entity composed of many small networks that coordinate their activities through the open source bazaar. A good definition of Fallujah (and other locations like south Wazirastan) is that it is:
A lawless zone
that is locally controlled and
fiercely independent.
What a TAZ provides
A TAZ is not a major source of funding, manpower, or supply for the insurgency. It doesn’t power the insurgency at a root level. It is merely a geographic zone that is free of state control — an organic byproduct of a failed or weak state. Global guerrillas find sanctuary in a TAZ because they fight the same enemy. The state. A TAZ provides:
Basic shelter (housing, etc. that can be bought).
Freedom of movement (it is a no-go zone for forces of the state).
Open commerce (interconnections with other groups, trading, etc.)
Collapsing the TAZ
The current operation to take Fallujah pits US Marines (and their reconstituted Peshmerga and Badr Brigade allies) against local boys, organized by neighborhood, mosque, family, or tribe. Most of the global guerrillas previously operating in the city are already gone. However, some will stay for the fight (as payment for the support provided and/or due to a strong affection for the city’s people). The net result will be:
A good fight. The city is being defended by people that are fighting for their homes. This isn’t Najaf (which is often cited as the model for Fallujah), where the militia was bused in. Think Grozny lite (to the limited extent that traditional Arab warfare can translate to siege warfare).
Little damage to the insurgency. Most of the people and equipment we want to kill or capture is already gone. The US/Iraqi government telegraphed their desire to retake the city months ago. Further, many other locations are available (the US does not have enough troops in country to make a full court press on every TAZ in Iraq).
A moral loss. The first target seized by the US military was Fallujah’s hospital. The reason: to limit information (or disinformation) on the number of casualties generated by the firepower heavy Marine assault. Despite this action, the media will deliver the moral message. A weak force of local “freedom fighters” has been crushed by a powerful US military. As a result, it will result in a Sunni boycott of the elections.”
Perhaps genius behind the Fallujah wait
I just ran acrossDefense Tech: FALLUJAH PUSH: BY THE BOOK? and it got me thinking. Recently in a post on Joho there was some discussion on the long wait and build up for Fallujah. Joho posted, and I commented, that…
I recently returned to thinking about this, and realized that perhaps there was some genius behind the plan here.
I blogged on it: http://pt.lifewiki.com/archives/2004/11/perhaps_genius.html