Feb 15 2007
End Game In Iraq
Too many today forget the horrors of the last year of WW II, when Europe was nearly destroyed as the Allied forces pushed the Nazis back into Berlin. The bombings and killings were horrific. The destuction on a scale never before seen on Earth. It was similar in Japan, just more abrupt because the atom bomb arrived to do in a week what took months to do in Europe.
The point is the end game of a war is when the fighting is at its most intense. I had the data once before, but 1945 was one of the most deadly years of the war (if not the most deadly). The intensity at the end makes sense if you think about it. One side is cornered and is fighting back with all they have. And the other side, after giving up on all the fantasies about quick and easy endings, keeps pummeling the one in the corner so as to end the fighting once and for all. I was surprised to read that in WW II, 80% of the deaths were on the Allied side – the winning side.
So for all the neophytes and slackers on History who are destined to repeat history (or continue to be surprised by how many things repeat themselves) the headlines out of Baghdad might impart a different view than from what history has shown happens when these world wide conflicts of ideals come to a head:
Iraq Offensive Grows, Bombs Don’t Stop
Thunderous booms were heard across Baghdad, British and Iraqi soldiers surrounded the southern city of Basra and the nearby border with Iran was sealed Thursday as Iraqi officials said the massive security operation to route militants was underway.
Iraqi army Brig. Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for the Iraqi commander of the Baghdad security plan, said U.S. and Iraqi forces had launched a major operation in the Sunni insurgent-infested neighborhood of Dora, in Baghdad.
Defying the security sweep, two parked car bombs struck Dora near a major intersection with a highway leading to Shiite areas in southern Iraq, killing at least three civilians and wounding 15, police said.
The Islamo Fascists are brutal animals, and they are going to act like cornered animals. They are going to fight to the death – that is the creed, their promise of a wonderful afterlife. They are the Kamikazee’s of the 21st century. They will lash out where ever they can, in an attempt to force the death hold on them. And they will call out to the weak hearted for help, simply to turn around and kill their helpers if they get a chance. The fighting and dying in Iraq will escalate in the natural crescendo that indicates the end of all conflicts. War has been fought using different tools and tactics since the dawn of human history, but it follows the same pattern. Test, probe, push. But at some point the combatants engage for the end game and it is an all out donnybrook. This will happen when we are near the end. Are we near the end now or just building to it? I don’t know. But we will know when it happened when it is over. Of course, we could take the hints offered by some of those resisting us in Iraq.
End game, indeed.
The problem arose in the beginning. It’s impoosible to overestimate how screwed up Pentagon pre-war palnning was, and how the Bush administration failed to plan adequately for what was once known as “post-war” Iraq. But a U.S. military PowerPoint presentation obtained by the National Security Archives reveals a whole new layer of red on the rose-colored glasses war planners were wearing before war began.
In the presentation, Pentagon planners estimated that 5,000 U.S. troops would be needed in Iraq by December 2006. How it actually turned out: There were about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq in December 2006. And in January 2007, the president said he needed to send 21,500 more.
The outlook?
An assessment of the security situation in the Middle East published by Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center, one of Israel’s premier think tanks was not only bleak, but also openly critical of U.S. policy:
It went on to state essentially that American actions in the Middle East over the past few years have harmed Israeli security. It also argued that the United States should withdraw from Iraq in the near term, rather than add more troops, as Bush’s surge plan is now doing.
Uzi Arad, the former director of intelligence at the Mossad, said
Last week, Rafi Eitan, currently an Israeli cabinet minister and a former spymaster who led the Israeli capture of Adolf Eichmann in 1960, and who was the handler of the infamous spy Jonathan Pollard in the 1980s, added:
In the meanwhile, US troops are used as bleeding pawns to prop up Bush failed Legacy.
AJ,
Keep up the great work! One of the best blogs on the net! I guess that is why Sotthie and the other unhinged, uninformed lefties come here to try and rebut with empty arguments.
AJ, there are ways to track the IP addresses of your posters. I would do it because soothsayer is just Ken reiventing himself. Same lame arguments. If not Ken, maybe Joe Wilson or his wife Valerie or some other loser.
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Soothsayer,
Were we in the middle east fighting in Iraq when we were attacked on 9/11? No. Were we in Afghanistan attacking the Taliban? No. The attacks of 9/11 were planned for several years before they happened. They were planned when we had a democratic president on a conservative one. GW is just trying to clean up the mess that grew under other presidents because Bill Clinton failed to cut the head off the snake when he had a chance. While Monica blew, Al Qaeda grew. We know which had higher priority for Clinton.
At least now, we have moderate muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and now Palestine fighting the radicals amongst them. Muslims fighting Muslims because the moderates understand the dangers of terrorism. They get it, you don’t. Why are they fighting in Lebanon and Palestine if there is no threat from the radicals? We have no American forces there. YOu lefties seem to think we are the problem inflaming the terrorists. We are not causing the fighting in Lebanon bewtween the governement there and Hezzbolah. We are not causing the fighting between Abbas’s forces and Hamas.
What you on the left will never get until you are on your knees about to be beheaded, is that if we do not fight radical islam and the terrorists that fan it, they will be coming here to the US.
They will not be attacking conservative areas either soothie, but large metropolitan cities where all you lefties congregate like, NY City, LA, San Francisco, etc. The terrorists do not care if we are liberal or conservaitve but Americans and freedom loving people. They will kill you as fast as they would kill the rest of us.
The difference between the likes of us and the likes of you, as we recognize that and you don’t.
If you want to rant with your pathetic moanings and no weight arguments that prove you have no clue, start your own blog. You obviously think you know better than the rest of us, so why do you not put pen to paper on your own blog, so you can see how many visitors come to your site to read your words?
Maybe you don’t because you know you would be a lonely writer on your blog with few that had interest in what you wrote.
Cherrypicking quotes is neither an argument nor a strategy. But, continue.
Uh – sorry to burst your bubble – but
1. We had troops stationed in Saudi Arabia – on holy Islamic soil. If you would read Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, a book originally published anonymously, but authored by Michael Scheuer, a 22-year CIA veteran who ran the Counterterrorist Center’s bin Laden station from 1996 to 1999, you would find out that Osama bin Laden specifically referenced US troops in Saudi Arabia as the trigger for 9/11.
2. The 9/11 terrorists were Saudis. We should have invaded Saudi Arabia – isntead – we invaded Iraq – a secular-run country that had nothing to do with the attack.
No – WE don’t – but Israel – our close ally – and a country currently in violation of 63 UN resolutions – DOES – and we continue to blindly support Israeli interests – in spite of the fact that they spy on us (Pollard & AIPAC). Bush’s Israel/Palestine efforts have been non-existent.
Don’t know about you Rodent1 – but I live in Independence, Missouri – about a 3-wood away from Harry Truman’s house.
Soothie,
You did not answer why you do not start your own blog. Funny even you think you would not be as successful as AJ here.
For as where you claim you live, I doubt that. You are some journalist, political operative or some other code pink, Gerorge Soros, Cindy Sheehan bed jumper, and you are in some metropolitan area where you can huddle with the other malcontents of society whom hate this country, yet wants it s freedoms, however will never help to defend them. You all can not live without being around each other.
The next major attack on American soil will kill more liberals than conservatives because it will be in a major metropolitan city. I do not want to see another attack happen or any Americans killed but if you all are going to continue to help the enemy attack us, it is better it is you all on the left than those of us that are trying to stop them.
Roonent1
I read over 150 blogs a day and dozens of international and national news feeds.
The blogs I read cover the whole spectrum, left right centrist and and lost in space.
I see the few seminar posters here as being so transparent. I can see how predictable they are as I assume you also do.
Each and every thing they present has been better argued in the blogsphere by many well beyond their competence level.
They almost seem in some cases to be wrapping the known left side talking points with their only little bit personalization to their their cut and paste logic.
A clear case of monkey see monkey do.
Due to past experience, I refuse to debate them, since it’s like trying to keep the salesman at the door from sticking his toe into the gap. I occasionally will mock them but that is only because it is the highest level of respect they deserve.
The sad part is that they don’t even realize it.
I like AJ’s site very much but I have other places I debate with those who wish to have an intellectual meeting of the minds and it proves it’s worth.
The latest group here is nowhere near that standard that it even begins to suggest such an option.
Merlin,
Great post. I have been reading your posts for some time. I post here once in a while but read everyday. I think you are spot on with your analysis about left leaning posters and bloggers. Keep up the good fight.
Roonent1
Thank you sir.
Hey I don’t claim myself to be a person who is more competent because of all the sources I read. I know I have my own limitations. But I do know that because of all I read I have a bit of affinity for pattern recognition. I wish I had a more sharp sarcasm engine embedded in my toolbox of talents, but I do with what I have.
If I were to peg myself, I would have to say objective realist. I may have my idea of how the world should be, but I deal with it as it is and do my part to try to shape those area of policy I may be able to have some chance of effecting.
I don’t tilt at windmills or stick my fingers in dikes even though my heredity includes Dutch in my family tree.
On an average week I read over 60 to 70 white papers from think tanks of all persuasions. I feel better informed by doing this, but give no pretense of any thing beyond that.
It my entertainment and distraction to my life.
So many I see because of lack of time or interest seem to be glaringly evidently informed by so little alternative arguments in their life, but I can understand it. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it.
Now if only I could get AJ to do a post on the Bremsstraulung effect so I could hit my area of known expertise where I could twist so many into a logical pretzel.
STRATA notations:
“Too many today forget the horrors of the last year of WW II, when Europe was nearly destroyed as the Allied forces pushed the Nazis back into Berlin.”
Better to forget than to compare rather than contrast a conventional
war with a guerilla war.
“So for all the neophytes and slackers on History who are destined to repeat history (or continue to be surprised by how many things repeat themselves) the headlines out of Baghdad might impart a different view”
I feel Strata’s fifth….sixth…(lost track) “turning point”
of the war coming on…..
“The Islamo Fascists are brutal animals, and they are going to act like cornered animals. They are going to fight to the death – that is the creed, their promise of a wonderful afterlife. They are the Kamikazee’s of the 21st century. They will lash out where ever they can,”…
Link depicts Al Qaeda, only 10% of the Iraqi insurgency, but
repeatedly stressed by Strata (and formerly Bush) to create the impression it IS the insurgency.
“But we will know when it happened when it is over. Of course, we could take the hints offered by some of those resisting us in Iraq. ”
Link claims al Sadr left for Iran, which, if true , could prove a
clever tactic, and regardless has little effect on Strata’s hoped-for
culmination, which is about as likely as was Christ’s return in 1880,
when the Millerites sold property and camped in the Appalachians waiting. Shia militias , Iranian-oriented, and their ideological role
in the new government, will not capitulate to the pro-American,
pro-Israel democracy of Strata’s vagaries, with or without al Sadr.
The real comparison with World War Two? After a similar
time, America had the kit and kaboodle about sewn up; in
Iraq, the nation is in worse straits than the day occupation
commenced.
roonent1
“Why are they fighting in Lebanon and Palestine if there is no threat from the radicals? We have no American forces there. YOu lefties seem to think we are the problem inflaming the terrorists. We are not causing the fighting in Lebanon bewtween the governement there and Hezzbolah. We are not causing the fighting between Abbas’s forces and Hamas.”
Sooth did a good job on your blather but a little icing on the cake:
American money and meddling has been and is there. Lebanon:The
Hezbollah’s are aligned with two Christian Maronite militias
this time around, such is the degree of anti-American, anti-Israeli
animus (Frangeih & Aoun’s) and the govenrment is attacked as
an American puppet. America subsidized Israel’s incursion(s)
into Lebanon. With its actions against Hamas , the democratically
elected government of Palestine, the US helped bring about
the in-fighting with Fatah.
Your second reply to Sooth indicates a lunatic fringe quality
of paranoia that probably can’t be cured. Not even by noting
the anti-war sentiment is pervasive throughout most demographics
in America, not only the liberla metropolitian areas.
A year and a half ago, self-identified conservatives were evenly
split on the war and have undoubtedly turned against it since.
Whether Soothsayer is Left or not, respected Right organs
have opposed the war before its inception eg American Conservative and Chronicles.
Finally
“What you on the left will never get until you are on your knees about to be beheaded, is that if we do not fight radical islam and the terrorists that fan it, they will be coming here to the US.”
And LBJ said “fight ’em in Vietnam or fight ’em in Los Angeles.”
If America reduces animosity by loosening its alliance with Israel , developing energy self-sufficiency , resisting the urge to meddle
in regions spanning the globe, vacating a few superfluous bases overseas, the animus to us will be markedly reduced. That which still exists can be met by strengthening our security & defenses.
The Left wants the terrorists to have access to Iraqi oil fields. The Left hates America and wants us to fail. The Left is an enemy of my children and grandchildren. Period. It’s as basic as that.
And I am no longer reading certain posters here so my posts will not string along from there’s….
Ivehadit
I am no longer reading posters like Ken Look Alikes. I just scroll on through. And I go even further, I don’t read any posts answering them either.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/165.php?nid=&id=&pnt=165&lb=hmpg1
Ivehadit-
when I go to determine my position on certain subjects I do not firstexamine where people who imagine they are on the “left or “right” stand. I weigh what those most involved want.
And polls from the part and this poll shows about 9 of 10 Iraqi Sunnis wanted us out of Iraq yesterday and in the short-term, and support
insurgent attacks on US occupiers.
Strata-
no wonder that native Iraqi Sunnis join or work with al Qaeda. They want us out more than they want al Qaeda or other foreign jihadists out but they want the latter also. Your imperial hubris of course pretends to care
about the wishes of Iraqis, but in reality you forgive your leader for turning Iraq into a battleground involving foreign Al Qaeda, then you
ignore the wishes of those you claim to wish to bring “democracy” to!
Because their wishes get in the way of your real concern: furthering the expansion of American military/industrial/complex Empire.
Your immediate inclination might be to turn to the Shias for
support here, but as you can see, when Shia and Sunni wishes are
averaged, your support for “democracy” in Iraq is again exposed
as support for American Ocupation/Empire-which the natives
suspect will continue permanently, such is their alienation from
United States invasion and occupation.
You have not a democratic leg to stand on.
“. They want us out more than they want al Qaeda or other foreign jihadists out but they want the latter also.” should read “they want the latter *out* also.” . After WE leave, that is.
They are negative and hostile to America. They are not in a good-faith relationship with their fellow citizens.
They are inwardly ailing and need to face their rage as a former Hard Leftist, now mother and conservative, explained recently. She also said we are all TOO NICE to the Hard Left…they are NOT concerned with America’s best interest.
The Light is shining. It is our job to “see”.
My favorite former “hard leftist” is David Horowitz. Dove when
Vietnam was the crucible, hawk when Israel is vulnerable.
Used to call ’em “dawks,” when we predicted the evolution
in the 1970s.
” no wonder that native Iraqi Sunnis join or work with al Qaeda. They want us out more than they want al Qaeda or other foreign jihadists out but they want the latter also. ”
Actually, they want to take over our own country….according to the book of Qur’an.
Iraqi Sunnis want to take over our country like Viet Cong
peasants wanted to. It said so in the Commie Manifesto,
don’t ya know?
Today, while driving, I heard the news that another homicide bomber did what they were brainwashed to do in Iraq. Finally, someone is calling those devils what they are and with hope people will wake up that innocents are dying with them.