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| Iraq-Jordan |
| (Iraq) All but won |
| 2005-02-28 |
| Overly optimistic, perhaps? Well, anyway, I really liked the iraqi Darwin awards bit... like "Dumb and Dumber", only slightly more graphical. The media can't see that Iraq is close to secure Sunday, February 27, 2005 Lt. Col. Jim Stockmoe, chief intelligence officer for the First Infantry Division, roared with laughter as he recalled the increasing missteps of the resistance in Iraq in an interview earlier this month with British journalist Toby Harnden, writing for The Spectator. "There were three brothers down in Baghdad who had a mortar tube and were firing into the Green Zone," Stockmoe said. "They were storing the mortar rounds in the car engine compartment and the rounds got overheated. Two of these clowns dropped them in the tube and they exploded, blowing their legs off." The surviving brother sought refuge in a nearby house, but the occupants "beat the crap out of him and turned him over to the Iraqi police," Stockmoe told Harnden, "It was like the movie 'Dumb and Dumber.' " "The nine election day suicide bombers averaged about three victims each, a strike rate so bad that Allah might soon start rationing the virgins to show his displeasure," Harnden wrote. Stockmoe has heard so many similar stories that he created an Iraqi version of the "Darwin Awards." Created in 1993 by a student at Stanford University, the Darwin awards commemorate those who "contribute to our gene pool by removing themselves from it in a really stupid way." The number of insurgent attacks has fallen off significantly since the Fallujah offensive last November, and the attacks that are being made are less effective. There are about 50-60 attacks a day on coalition forces, about half the pre-Fallujah level. Almost all are within the Sunni Triangle, and most are ineffective. "Most of these are ambush-style attacks that result in no casualties," noted StrategyPage.com. The news media report the attacks, but tend not to report, as StrategyPage does, that "dozens, sometimes over a hundred, of the attackers, or suspects, are arrested every day." Unbalanced reporting has given Americans a false impression of how the war is going, said Austin Bay, a retired colonel in the Army Reserve who was called to active duty in Iraq last year. "Collect relatively isolated events in a chronological list and presto: the impression of uninterrupted, widespread violence destroying Iraq," said Bay, who is also a syndicated columnist. "But that was a false impression. Every day coalition forces were moving thousands of 18-wheelers from Kuwait and Turkey into Iraq, and if the insurgents were lucky, they blew up one. However, flash the flames of that one diesel rig on CNN and 'Oh my God, America can't stop these guys' is the impression left in Boston, Boise and Beijing." It will be some months before the news media recognize it, and a few months more before they acknowledge it, but the war in Iraq is all but won. The situation is roughly analogous to the battle of Iwo Jima, which took place 60 years ago this month. It took 35 days before the island was declared secure, but the outcome was clear after day five, with the capture of Mt. Suribachi. Proof of this was provided by Sen. Hillary Clinton. Iraq is functioning quite well, she said in a press conference in Baghdad Feb. 19. The recent rash of suicide attacks is a sign the insurgency is failing, she said. "When politicians like [Clinton] start flocking to Iraq to bask in the light of its success, then you know that the corner has been turned," a reader of his blog wrote to Bay. More substantive signs abound. The performance of Iraqi security forces is improving, as are their numbers. Nearly 10,000 men showed up at a southern Iraqi military base Feb. 14 to volunteer for 5,000 openings. Only 6,000 had been expected. Sunni Arab politicians have admitted they made a big boo-boo in boycotting the Jan. 30 election, and are pleading to be included in the political process. Some ex-Baathists are seeking terms for laying down their arms. Those who get their news from the "mainstream" media are surprised by developments in Iraq, as they were surprised by our swift victory in Afghanistan, the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein, the success of the Afghan election and the success of the Iraqi election. Journalists demand accountability from political leaders for "quagmires" which exist chiefly in the imagination of journalists. But when will journalists be held to account for getting every major development in the war on terror wrong? |
| Posted by:Anonymous5089 |
| #16 JP is right. However, this will be a war of attrition. If Syria starts to fold, that may mean good news for the people of: 1. Lebanon--they could get their country back. 2. Iraq---it will greatly reduce terrorism by drying up the personnel and resources. 3. Israel---Hizb'Allah will lose a base and the northern terrorist threat to Israel will diminish. 4. Syria---they may get their country back from the thugocracy. 5. Iran---The MMs will become more isolated. The people and Just Plain Joes will see what is happening and will make demands of the MMs. 6. Saudi Arabia---More pressure will be put on the Princes to change or get the hell out. Just like WW2, victory just did not happen. Little things went right, big things went wrong, more things went right than wrong, momentum built. But it was a long hard slog. Same here. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-02-28 11:29:55 PM |
| #15 I'm still wondering if any of the bigger American (term used loosely in this context) journalists or their Eurotrash counterparts were on Saddam's payroll. All those zillions of dollars raked off Oil-For-Fraud can buy one hell of a lot of friendly press. |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2005-02-28 11:23:04 PM |
| #14 In the war against the insurgents do not expect a final "victory." There won't be one. The battle has been won - the war ongoing. The free Iraqis have won their first battle - the facsists are slowly losing their war. |
| Posted by: JP 2005-02-28 9:31:12 PM |
| #13 That, ST, is an excellent question. I'm guessing Banque Paribas. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-02-28 8:50:06 PM |
| #12 What happened to the truck loads of money taken from the central bank? |
| Posted by: SwissTex 2005-02-28 8:17:09 PM |
| #11 phil_b I wish I could be as optimistic as you regarding the money. Frankly, I thought the terrorists would suffer a crushing blow when Iraq changed its currency. They suffered a blow but recovered. I presume they are getting funds from Salafist Saudis and probably some from the Iranian side and some from the proceeds of kidnapping, extortion and robbery. That's a lot of sources to shut down. My hope is that they will start running short of munitions but that depends on a lot of factors for which I don't have a good theory. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-02-28 7:43:27 PM |
| #10 Not only is their recruitment probably diminishing but more importantly it sounds like their pool of intelligent willing martyrs has dried up. That is a problem they will have real trouble getting around. |
| Posted by: RJ Schwarz 2005-02-28 7:19:22 PM |
| #9 I think there are separate issues here. The insurgency cannot topple the Iraqi government. Like the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka did to the majority Sinhalese, Sunni terrorists can stage mass casualty attacks. But they cannot topple the Shiite-majority government. How Uncle Sam could lose in Iraq is by withdrawing before we get a political environment that we can live with. Having over 100,000 troops in Iraq gives us leverage. As long as our guys are in Iraq in significant numbers, the Shiites cannot do anything they want - including installing an Iran-style Shiite Islamist government. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-02-28 6:19:23 PM |
| #8 The battle can be lost, but not the war. Look at Lebannon. It's winter. The mullahs have to be looking forward to spring break. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-28 4:31:21 PM |
| #7 enormous resources left in money - Terrorism is a business and with any business you ask where is the revenue stream? As far as the Baathists are concerned the suitcases of Saadam era cash will be running low and there is no obvious replacement since the Sunni economy has collapsed. They may have plenty of men and munitions but the money is definitely running out. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-28 4:26:53 PM |
| #6 I think mhw is right. Still can lose. But with the people in the middle east waking up, like Lebanon (causing problems for a big provider, Syria). The resourses may begin to dry up enough that thier recruiting will be diminished. At least, as this story shows, have a lower end recruiting class. |
| Posted by: plainslow 2005-02-28 4:07:26 PM |
| #5 buwaya, I'm not talking about surviving. I'm talking about winning. Btw, in Columbia the terrorists do not have anywhere near the supply of munitions the terrorists have in Iraq. Nor do they have a functioning ideology corresponding to the Salafist uber alles ideology of the terrorists in Iraq. Nonetheless, I don't think you can say the war in Columbia is 'won'; and its been going on for over a decade. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-02-28 3:49:31 PM |
| #4 All those resources in people and money are not going to overcome the fact that most (80% +) of the Iraqi population hates them. And every bomb they explode and every murder they commit makes them hate even more. There is no way at all they can take over the country, given an effective government and army. Consider Columbia, a government and society can survive constant terrorism, if the terrorists have little or no popular appeal. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2005-02-28 3:40:02 PM |
| #3 Jack Kelly can write |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-28 3:28:05 PM |
| #2 "They were storing the mortar rounds in the car engine compartment and the rounds got overheated. Two of these clowns dropped them in the tube and they exploded, blowing their legs off." I'll bet that the media was sorely disappointed when this happened. Two of their comrades, dead. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-02-28 3:23:42 PM |
| #1 Unfortunately the terrorists have enormous resources left in money, people and munitions. Even worse, they seem to have a steady stream of new money coming in from individual terrorist finaciers and they have plenty of young people who go to terrorist mosques. The battle can still be lost. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-02-28 3:22:45 PM |