Saturday, October 21, 2006My Thoughts On Iraq
I was saddened on Thursday… After the Cardinals win I turned the TV to one of my favorite channels, The Military Channel. One of Discovery’s seven hundred franchise channels. On was a show called ‘Military Showcase’, one of their series, and this one was about Operation Iraqi Freedom.
There were two parts. The Push to Baghdad and A New Era in Baghdad. They were shot by US Marines in a tank division going into Iraq. The first was very interesting. The tank division pushed almost all the way to the Iraqi capital with minimal resistance. They lost only four men, and that was due to a tragic accident caused by fatigue; a tank driver fell asleep and his tank with four crewmen inside drove into a river and inverted.
The second part is actually the sad part. It chronicled the first few days in Baghdad. As the tanks and hummers rolled in, hundreds of Iraqi men, women and children greeted the Americans with waves, food, kisses and flowers. They chanted for joy, cheering their liberators.
Only one thing was missing.
The police.
The Baghdad police didn’t show up till day two, and then there weren’t a lot of them. Looting began almost instantly. The Marines in the tank division couldn’t do anything. The simply could only drive around with the working Iraqi police. American MPs were miles behind; and as a result, Baghdad turned to chaos.
That’s what really made me sad. The day we arrived, we were cheered and loved. Now, three years later, we are shot at; bombed; brave American servicemen are killed on a near daily basis.
What happened?
The general consensus I have been able to find on the internet blames the lack of law and order in those first few days after the regime fell. That helped start the insurgency. But that isn’t all that went wrong.
L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run occupation agency, ordered the "De-Baathification of Iraq Society." What’s wrong with that? Because most of the Baathists were BINOs; Baathist in Name Only. Under Saddam, to get a good paying, government job you needed to join the Baath Party. These booted Iraqis were unpaid, and disenfranchised.
The military dissolved the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi National Police. The only policing coming from Coalition military police, furthering the growing feeling that it was not a liberation, but in fact an occupation.
Why were the military and police disbanded? It should have been pretty obvious from the lack of resistance coming into Baghdad that the military wasn’t really that dedicated to Saddam. To top it off, these soldiers and policemen were not paid, furthering their resentment towards the American ‘liberators.’
It saddens me even more now thinking about the fact that at least one of those smiling, dancing Iraqis that I saw, who greeted us with open arms, is now dead because of a botched military strategy. What pisses me off is that it seems that the administration refuses to admit that they really fucked things up. Not just made mistakes, but really fucked up good.
I don’t know if it’s the President’s pride or ego or what that won’t let him acknowledge this and fire Rumsfeld. But regardless, Mr. Rumsfeld and his inadequate planning and his refusal to listen to people who specialize in counter-insurgency type things (I’ll post some links later) is responsible for almost three thousand American deaths, multiple other Coalition deaths, and countless Iraqi deaths.
Sure, President Bush is ultimately responsible, as he is the one who sent our troops in there in the first place, but I honestly feel it’s the SecDef more so, since he’s the one in charge of planning this debacle.
I feel bad, personally, as I supported this war in the beginning. Even after no WMDs were found, I still supported it since Hussein was an all around asshole, and the Iraqi people are – well should have been – better off without him. Now, I don’t. I still support ever man and woman in uniform over there, but I can no longer agree with the decision to invade.
What to do now is the biggest question. Would withdrawing all US troops really be as bad as people make it sound? I don’t think it would be cutting and running as we’ve done almost as much as we can do. We’ve trained a new army and new police force. Neither seems able or willing to take control. US bombing and assaults don’t seem to help any, and short of another invasion with an additional 500,000 troops or so, doesn’t seem like it will help.
Our reputation is already stained. A hasty withdrawal doesn’t really seem like it would hurt us any more in the PR department than this screwed up war did.
And quite frankly the notion that the insurgents would hop on planes and fly back here to fight us in Seattle, New York, Detroit, etc. is simply ludicrous.
I’m not under the disillusion that a unilateral and immediate withdrawal is the best option, but when you consider that we’re limited to bad, worse and worst it’s not an option that should be immediately dismissed as it is now.
What ever we do, ‘staying the course’ has failed miserably. The battlefield has changed and so must our tactics. That’s not just me saying that. Several high ranking military officials – both former and current – agree. It seems, in this humble layman’s opinion, that winning this war is no longer possible. All we can do is work not to lose it.
My heart goes out to the families of each and every Coalition soldier, Marine and seaman lost in this war, as well to the innocent Iraqis murdered. My thoughts and best wishes also go out to those still fighting.
There were two parts. The Push to Baghdad and A New Era in Baghdad. They were shot by US Marines in a tank division going into Iraq. The first was very interesting. The tank division pushed almost all the way to the Iraqi capital with minimal resistance. They lost only four men, and that was due to a tragic accident caused by fatigue; a tank driver fell asleep and his tank with four crewmen inside drove into a river and inverted.
The second part is actually the sad part. It chronicled the first few days in Baghdad. As the tanks and hummers rolled in, hundreds of Iraqi men, women and children greeted the Americans with waves, food, kisses and flowers. They chanted for joy, cheering their liberators.
Only one thing was missing.
The police.
The Baghdad police didn’t show up till day two, and then there weren’t a lot of them. Looting began almost instantly. The Marines in the tank division couldn’t do anything. The simply could only drive around with the working Iraqi police. American MPs were miles behind; and as a result, Baghdad turned to chaos.
That’s what really made me sad. The day we arrived, we were cheered and loved. Now, three years later, we are shot at; bombed; brave American servicemen are killed on a near daily basis.
What happened?
The general consensus I have been able to find on the internet blames the lack of law and order in those first few days after the regime fell. That helped start the insurgency. But that isn’t all that went wrong.
L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run occupation agency, ordered the "De-Baathification of Iraq Society." What’s wrong with that? Because most of the Baathists were BINOs; Baathist in Name Only. Under Saddam, to get a good paying, government job you needed to join the Baath Party. These booted Iraqis were unpaid, and disenfranchised.
The military dissolved the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi National Police. The only policing coming from Coalition military police, furthering the growing feeling that it was not a liberation, but in fact an occupation.
Why were the military and police disbanded? It should have been pretty obvious from the lack of resistance coming into Baghdad that the military wasn’t really that dedicated to Saddam. To top it off, these soldiers and policemen were not paid, furthering their resentment towards the American ‘liberators.’
It saddens me even more now thinking about the fact that at least one of those smiling, dancing Iraqis that I saw, who greeted us with open arms, is now dead because of a botched military strategy. What pisses me off is that it seems that the administration refuses to admit that they really fucked things up. Not just made mistakes, but really fucked up good.
I don’t know if it’s the President’s pride or ego or what that won’t let him acknowledge this and fire Rumsfeld. But regardless, Mr. Rumsfeld and his inadequate planning and his refusal to listen to people who specialize in counter-insurgency type things (I’ll post some links later) is responsible for almost three thousand American deaths, multiple other Coalition deaths, and countless Iraqi deaths.
Sure, President Bush is ultimately responsible, as he is the one who sent our troops in there in the first place, but I honestly feel it’s the SecDef more so, since he’s the one in charge of planning this debacle.
I feel bad, personally, as I supported this war in the beginning. Even after no WMDs were found, I still supported it since Hussein was an all around asshole, and the Iraqi people are – well should have been – better off without him. Now, I don’t. I still support ever man and woman in uniform over there, but I can no longer agree with the decision to invade.
What to do now is the biggest question. Would withdrawing all US troops really be as bad as people make it sound? I don’t think it would be cutting and running as we’ve done almost as much as we can do. We’ve trained a new army and new police force. Neither seems able or willing to take control. US bombing and assaults don’t seem to help any, and short of another invasion with an additional 500,000 troops or so, doesn’t seem like it will help.
Our reputation is already stained. A hasty withdrawal doesn’t really seem like it would hurt us any more in the PR department than this screwed up war did.
And quite frankly the notion that the insurgents would hop on planes and fly back here to fight us in Seattle, New York, Detroit, etc. is simply ludicrous.
I’m not under the disillusion that a unilateral and immediate withdrawal is the best option, but when you consider that we’re limited to bad, worse and worst it’s not an option that should be immediately dismissed as it is now.
What ever we do, ‘staying the course’ has failed miserably. The battlefield has changed and so must our tactics. That’s not just me saying that. Several high ranking military officials – both former and current – agree. It seems, in this humble layman’s opinion, that winning this war is no longer possible. All we can do is work not to lose it.
My heart goes out to the families of each and every Coalition soldier, Marine and seaman lost in this war, as well to the innocent Iraqis murdered. My thoughts and best wishes also go out to those still fighting.
posted by ewink at 1:44 PM
ewink's FUNKDAFIED Ranma 1/2 Site
2 Comments:
Very well written commentary, EWINK, just like your Freedom of the Press commentary.
Great post, ewink. It is truly disheartening that the President refuses to change his strategy in Iraq. Not only disheartening but frightening considering the other threats on the table, i.e. North Korea and Iran.
The next two years concern me greatly.
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