Article

2004-01-22 Middle East

OSC: Loyalty, Sacrifice, and War on the Cheap

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Posted by Aris Katsaris 2004-01-22 1:07:49 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The supply lines aren't tenuous - Kuwait is a secure base. To attack Syria there wouldn't have been a base at all, as Israel would be too politically touchy for the other Arabs to swallow, and Turkey ? I think Mr. Cards strategy is faulty.

Posted by Anonymous 2004-1-22 1:42:18 AM|| 2004-1-22 1:42:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Mr Card knows jack squat. Tell him to learn something about interior lines and the ability to shift forces rapidly and concentrate them anywhere - as well as the ease of supply. And look at a freaken map.

Iraq is the keystone. It interrupts the flow of terror throughout the region. If you want to get from Iran to Syria, without crossing the Kurds and Turks in the North, or taking a slow boat from the Persian Gulf, you have to cross Iraq. Same goes for Soddy and Syria - a lot of flat open and easily monitored terrain there too.

And all those areas are now subject to US and Iraqi patrols - the latter of which are no longer looking the other way.

Tenuous supply lines? Basra has one of the finest deep water posts in the gulf. And we are still a maritime nation - with the largest and finest Navy that can resupply anything anywhere on the globe. How the hell does he think the "overland" (from Turkey) supplies get there? They move by shipt to German, then on trains. Just reroute the ships to Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain. No problems. And those nations are a lot more dependable than Germany, Turkey or France would be.

Were we to follow hte Syria/Iraq/Iran line, the whole of the supply line woudl be strained, especially reachign across Syria - much more hazardous terrain there. The flat and open terrain in Iraq is much more suited to mechanized and wheeled movment - with long sightlines that give an advantage to the patrollers over the ambushers. Try looking at that versus the terrain in the Bekka Valley.

Card is ignroant to the point that he doesnt even realize how ignorant he is. And consequently gravely mistaken.

QED Card is a jackass.

Posted by OldSpook 2004-1-22 2:00:18 AM|| 2004-1-22 2:00:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 OldSpook you summed up most of it... Just a couple more things to add Syria would have been FAR more difficult to occupy.

The Syrian people pretty are quite anti-american as opposed to the Iraqis that are relatively pro-america. Saddam would have been supporting the resistance with his vast resources which, the combination of which would make the occupation far bloodier and less likely to suceed.

And besides that why bother with Syria? They aren't nearly the threat that Iraq was or pose the same stragic benefits of being a US ally that Iraq does or have oil wealth to guarantee their economic growth and help maintain stability for democracy to thrive in.

Iraq and Iran were the only reasonable targets. Iran maybe would have been a better choice but their is also the possibility they will have their own revolution in the short term, especially with democratic Iraqi influence, and war would have proven unneccesary. Time will tell.

This Card guy doesn't have a clue.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-1-22 2:42:45 AM|| [http://brighterfuture.blogspot.com] 2004-1-22 2:42:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 LMAO my spelling and grammer in that post were awful... time for sleep ;)

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-1-22 2:45:48 AM|| [http://brighterfuture.blogspot.com] 2004-1-22 2:45:48 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 DPA is right to mention the oil. The oil is important - not so Bush and his cronies can get rich or anything like that. But we will need to be in a position to counter any shortfalls in Saudi production, and soon.

Posted by Pete Stanley 2004-1-22 2:53:34 AM|| 2004-1-22 2:53:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 I've read some sensible pieces by Orson Scott Card lately but this is just un-fu&*in believeable. Syria is nowhere near as dangerous as Iraq. Assad is no Saddam. The Iraqi people distrust the Americans but they are glad to be rid of Saddam. Syria would be a lot different. I don't know if Assad is loved. I know there are some villages that hate his father and the Baathists.

Posted by Tokyo Taro 2004-1-22 3:36:10 AM|| 2004-1-22 3:36:10 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Card's military strategy may be off, but I think he makes a few good points. People can dispute whether Syria should or shouldn't have been first, but I think we can agree that it - or Iran - should be NEXT. (And faster, please.)

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2004-1-22 6:01:40 AM|| 2004-1-22 6:01:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Syria is a minor country of no interest to anyone but maybe Israel. We don't have to invade it to neutralize it. An international trade embargo would do it.

Posted by Bernardz 2004-1-22 8:15:20 AM|| 2004-1-22 8:15:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 I'm one of those folks who wonder just what the hell the administration was thinking to takle the war in the way it was done.

If it wasn't just arrogance, I suspect that the administration expects the Saudis to implode and cleaning up Iraq is a way of covering our bets.

Not that this would be politic to admit.

Posted by Hiryu 2004-1-22 10:10:19 AM|| 2004-1-22 10:10:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 neither Syria nor Iran has the humanitarian problems that Iraq had; neither Syria nor Iran are in violation of mandatory UN resolutions

I'll grant you these countries are bad; neither is as bad as North Korea.

Posted by mhw 2004-1-22 10:23:54 AM|| 2004-1-22 10:23:54 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 I think the guy is makeing it up as he goes along. With the toppling of saddam we have taken out an openly hostile tyrant. Msg sent. If all goes well in this war. Large scale military operations may be over and covert, garot around the neck style warfare may be the new battle order.

Posted by Lucky 2004-1-22 12:12:51 PM|| 2004-1-22 12:12:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 He makes some decent points but does come off as naive regarding the political situation and his trust for that one War College paper. For example to go to war against Iraq the US had to bottle up our fleet in the tiny little Persian Gulf as well as arrange for overflights or basing in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qutar. Meanwhile Syria and Iran have all sorts of open coastline and could have been hammered from the air without asking anyones permission.

What he misses though, is the fact that choosing the hard targets (like Afghanistan and Iraq) has a few benefits. (1) Those with lots of coast line and a reason to fear like Quadaffi realize that they could easily be taken out. (2) It requires less political manuevering if you don't need the bases and overflight, and political manuevering will become harder and harder as war progresses. (3) Picking countries off one by one allows some to reform and save themselves (Libya again) and keeps the rest from uniting to fight together.

The only problem with the Bush plan is it will take two administrations minimum to see it completed while Cards big fat ugly WW2 style war would have cost a fortune in money, lives and political capital but the bulk could have been finished or gone so far along as to be irreversable by the 2004 elections.

Posted by ruprecht 2004-1-22 3:02:34 PM|| 2004-1-22 3:02:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 The big bulk of the terrorism resource (i.e., funding before the Iraq war was supplied by:
1. Saudi Arabia (from resources derived from the 40 KM wide .com Stripâ¢.
2. Iran
3. Iraq

These three states were the big oil producers. Syria was basically a client state of Iraq and Iran. Afghanistan was a client state of, well Saudi Arabia princes' money. Pakistan is basically subsidized by Saudi money. Taking out Iraq isolates Iran, squeezes Syria, and probably dried up 25% of the terrorist money. We did not go after Saudi, which is the main source of funding because of political and oil supply considerations. I guess GW felt that he had to make a deal with the devil for a while, whatever. Now my guess is that 60% of the remaining funds for terrorism come from Saudi and 40% come from Iran. So now we are blowing away Baathist remnants (probably still some thousands of hard core active types) and a bunch of foreign Jihadis (which are dwindling, as they are seemingly going into a black hole). The NORKS are just trying to earn a living with supplying stuff like missles, possibly fissle material or eventually nukes, and heroin. So now the big issue is Iran and Saudi. If Al-Q brings down the Royals in Saudi, their money will dry up. We will have oil problems for a while, but the parasite will have killed the host. So the biggest money threat is Saudi. The biggest WMD threat is Iran. We have to deal with both in a sensible way that does not overextend ourselves.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2004-1-22 3:28:37 PM|| 2004-1-22 3:28:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 I think the list should have Lebanon on the top not Syria. Historically, I don't think that Syria's industrial produciton is viable without Lebanon's markets and ports. I may be wrong.

Posted by Super Hose 2004-1-22 9:07:53 PM|| 2004-1-22 9:07:53 PM|| Front Page Top

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