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2005-10-23 Iraq
Unseen enemy is the fiercest in Ramadi
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Posted by Dan Darling 2005-10-23 01:47|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 a popular sniping position is in the hotel across the street from the marine camp in the governor's office

Simple enough, raze the hotel.

If Ramadi is such a terrorist hotbed, detain every single male of fighting age and sequester them for the duration. Let the entire town choke and wither economically due to lack of manpower. Use acoustic triangulation to pinpoint sniper locations and level any building being used for attacks. Enough of this nice-guy sh!t. Hearts and minds isn't working, time to go for the short and curlies.
Posted by Zenster 2005-10-23 02:09||   2005-10-23 02:09|| Front Page Top

#2 Spot-on, Zenster. Rinse and repeat as need throughout SunniLand. The Triangle needs sterilization - and I means exactly that. One cannot emphasize too strongly, or too often, IMHO, the cost of giving the Triangle a pass - when it needed to feel the pain - far more than any other part of Iraq.

Fuck Turkey. Fuck them Forever.

:) - see the smiley? Isn't it cute? Fuck Turkey.
Posted by .com 2005-10-23 02:20||   2005-10-23 02:20|| Front Page Top

#3 Yeap,time for a Fallugah moment.
Posted by raptor 2005-10-23 02:34||   2005-10-23 02:34|| Front Page Top

#4 I agree with Zenster
Posted by 3dc 2005-10-23 02:37||   2005-10-23 02:37|| Front Page Top

#5 an aerosol with the solvent DMSO and nasty drug the CIA played with in the 60s should be considered for a few weeks of constant spraying on this town. At the minimum they would be too burned out after the first week to fight. At best they might be rendered perm. mellow.
Posted by 3dc 2005-10-23 02:54||   2005-10-23 02:54|| Front Page Top

#6 Fairly simple. Everything for one block around any IED spot is leveled.

And left that way.

Either the locals stop these bastards from planting the bombs (and we are talking about hunderd pounds or more of explosives - thats several 152mm shells - so its kind of obvious), or they move someplace else.

Pretty soon we either have a pacified city, or a parking lot.

But either way the bastards that are doign this run out of shelter, and our guys get hit less.
Posted by Oldspook 2005-10-23 03:16||   2005-10-23 03:16|| Front Page Top

#7 I agree with OS. Even if we end up flattening the entire town. I just don't care.
Posted by anymouse">anymouse  2005-10-23 08:30||   2005-10-23 08:30|| Front Page Top

#8 That's just evil and impatient.
Posted by Glort Whetle9985 2005-10-23 08:56||   2005-10-23 08:56|| Front Page Top

#9 Yeah. Isn't it swell?
Posted by .com 2005-10-23 08:58||   2005-10-23 08:58|| Front Page Top

#10 I am seeing a technology gap, here. We have geosynchronous satellites, high altitude recon aircraft, UAVs, and even have been testing blimps that will just sit over a place.

Why the hell aren't they using them?

Even a company could detail a squad to do nothing but look at monitors all day and night. Literally nothing would happen on the street without them knowing about it. A single squad.

What is the problem, here?
Posted by Anonymoose 2005-10-23 09:44||   2005-10-23 09:44|| Front Page Top

#11 My best friends all have sons over there. One drives a Bradley, another a Navy Medic traveling with him, another is a Marine...I have to read the news for them as they can't bear it. YOU tell them to patient because flattening the village is cruel???? That little boy was probably not asking for a treat but playing with a detonator....that's cruelty. Where's a neutron bomb when we need one?
Posted by Danielle 2005-10-23 09:44||   2005-10-23 09:44|| Front Page Top

#12 Surprise! A Gloom, Doom, Despair article from the front page of the New York Times. Another of the same by reporter Sabrina Tavernise (based in the Green Zone hotel bar?) and various Iraqi stringers. How does this compare for information to that lovely musical demonstration of troop movements (raids v.s clear&hold) clearing and garrisoning one town after another?
Posted by trailing wife 2005-10-23 10:48||   2005-10-23 10:48|| Front Page Top

#13 Wow! I didn't realize the INSURGENTS were so damn good. We don't have a chance. Let's run. OTOH maybe this is NYTBS and Ramadi is Okinawa.
Posted by Shipman 2005-10-23 11:07||   2005-10-23 11:07|| Front Page Top

#14 I say this place should suffer the fate Zenster outlined. We are dealing with a mindset that only understand a limited range of things. The option they understand and respect is the one to use. You can't "reason" with them.
Posted by Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-10-23 11:22||   2005-10-23 11:22|| Front Page Top

#15 If we flatten it (and I think they need a good reminder of what are are *capable* of) -- do not rebuild it like in Fallujah. Let it crumble and rot to dust.
Posted by  CrazyFool 2005-10-23 11:28||   2005-10-23 11:28|| Front Page Top

#16 Personally, I like the Israeli model for handling these kinds of terrorist situations being encountered in Ramadi.
A good overview of the theory and practice is to be found here
Posted by tipper 2005-10-23 11:44||   2005-10-23 11:44|| Front Page Top

#17 Gee Ramadi is just like Mosul used to be. Horrors. Work to be done, but it will be done because our Marines and soldiers are pros, something the NYT is willfully ignorant of.
Posted by Remoteman 2005-10-23 12:05||   2005-10-23 12:05|| Front Page Top

#18 I think that you should consider the source on this article before getting too exercised. The NYT article could have been published in the Guardian or any of a dozen mideast propaganda rags. It would be simpler if they just put "F**K BUSH" in red 72 point letters over and over and not bother with the pretense that they are printing news. Everything that I have read from that part of the world plus the first hand reports from my son and his buddies in the 1/23 4th Marines after they got back from Haditha and environs suggest this article is hyperventilating BS and wishful thinking by the NYT.
Posted by RWV 2005-10-23 12:05||   2005-10-23 12:05|| Front Page Top

#19 Too bad that we ate too civilized to go Roman on Ramadi. We would only have to do it once.
Posted by SR-71 2005-10-23 13:21||   2005-10-23 13:21|| Front Page Top

#20 I'm not overly exercised about this article, RWV, I just want our troops to have the means whereby they (to paraphrase Patton), make the other poor bastard die for his country.

I can only imagine that our going light on the Sunnis is due to incredibly misplaced loyalties being shown towards Saudi Arabia. Time to can that sh!t and get down to business. While I would prefer that we do not level the entire town, if we have to make an example of it, then make and example of it and get it over with. Enough of the death of a thousand paper cuts.

Simple fact; The terrorists dress in civilian clothing in order to better elude detection and capture. This practice knowingly endangers the civilian population. It's time to make sure (per Oldspook) that the civilian population realizes this. Once their casualty numbers surpass our troop fatalities the light may come on. If not, consider it a free edumahcation.
Posted by Zenster 2005-10-23 13:29||   2005-10-23 13:29|| Front Page Top

#21 Tipper---very interesting article. Thanks for pointing it out.
Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul  2005-10-23 15:58||   2005-10-23 15:58|| Front Page Top

#22 Its not a matter of vengance. Its a matter of operational safety. War is hell - time you faced up to it my anonymous little pointy headed friend., and these peopel doing the bombings and supporitng the bombers have made a decision to be on the other side - they are our enemies by their own choice.


Here is the clubat coming to you with the nugget of truth you nutters on the "peace at any price" bandwagon seem to miss: these are not "innocent" people.

To dig a hole in the street, place several (LARGE!) 152mm shells in a hole in the street, wire it to where the detonate properly (you cant just pitch them in there - triggering is important), and then cover it, set up the wireless trigger, and an observation point - and then to set an ambush with automatic weapons (machinguns, grenades,etc) to kill survivors...

Thats pretty blatent and obvious to anyone within eyesight that they are not doing charity work - they are setting up and comitting an illegal act of war and hiding with cilivilans to cover thier actions. So the locals are allowing this and not reporting it - thats called aiding and abetting, and they share in the guilt - and consequences - for the actions comitted with their knowledge and support in their home area.

So, if the locals make themselves part of the problem, then they get to be involved in the solution. They ahve made themselves and thier areas combat zones, and they will be subject to combat actions. This includes demolition of areas to improve scurity.

The solution is to cordon and clear any area attacked, and to do demolitions to clear dangerous areas so they can be observed by non-hostiles.

This means after an IED goes off, the area is cordoned off, the locals are put onto trucks with whatever goods they cna manage, then transported away by the IP/ISF to relocation camps in another region. Then D-9's bulldoze a 100m radius around the detonation point where they can be clear observation of the point.

Repeat this until they realize that if they support terrorists, they pay the price with thier own houses, land and goods - and therefore stop aiding and abetting the terrorists. OR else we have a miltiarily clear set of objectives and they all end up relocated out of the "Sunni triangle" into a Shia or Kurdish zone.

Either way, the military objective is done: the supply routes are secured, and the attacks against troops are halted.
Posted by Oldspook 2005-10-23 17:33||   2005-10-23 17:33|| Front Page Top

#23 Oldspook plan + pig blood. Lots of pig blood.
Posted by Master of Obvious 2005-10-23 18:55||   2005-10-23 18:55|| Front Page Top

#24 Sow salt in the craters (we provide).

Dear God, please Provide the Wadmin and congress critters of all stripes and markings, with the spine required to support our Warfighters (i know... ["Spell-Chk" snafu]). In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Posted by Asym Triang 2005-10-23 19:10||   2005-10-23 19:10|| Front Page Top

#25 Clear the women and children, the elderly and infirm, and then have a grand ceremony in which we re-introduce napalm on a massive scale.
Posted by Uleating Wheagum6743 2005-10-23 22:10|| http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com]">[http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com]  2005-10-23 22:10|| Front Page Top

#26 #19 Too bad that we ate too civilized to go Roman on Ramadi. We would only have to do it once.
Posted by SR-71 2005-10-23 13:21|| Front Page|| Comment Top

Yep. I once suggested that we do so and the guys at Arrrgghhh!!! website jumped all over my ass for that one. If that's how the military types think, we're not going to do too well against these modern day Nazis in thobes.
Posted by Uleating Wheagum6743 2005-10-23 22:16|| http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com]">[http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com]  2005-10-23 22:16|| Front Page Top

#27 What OS says. You flatten a few blocks and yoou'd be surprised how cooperative the rest would be. Ramadi is a no man's land.
Posted by anymouse">anymouse  2005-10-23 22:21||   2005-10-23 22:21|| Front Page Top

#28 From tipper's linked article:

At first we used such liquidations as our response to terrorist attacks: they start - we respond, then they respond again. But starting from February 2003 the liquidation practice was not in any way linked with their attacks. We just have a list of the key figures - the list of organization leaders, of the so-called "field commanders", etc. So we started neutralizing them according to our list: we arrested those we could and liquidated those we could not.

And in a short while, from mid-2003, the rate of terrorist attacks started decreasing - not only the rate of their successful attacks, but of the plotted attacks as well. After we first liquidated Sheikh Yassin and then his successor Rantissi, Hamas has not given up terrorism, of course. Quite the contrary - they have started planning a mega-attack, some kind of "Mother of All Terrorist Attacks" as they call it. But up to now, they haven't accomplished anything over the past two years.

... And you can see for yourselves that the dramatic decline of the number of planned terrorist attacks started when we were able to neutralize approximately one fourth of the activists from the list of militants from the three fighting organizations: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Arafat's radicals (Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades).


[Emaphasis Added]

Which is why I (and, I think, .com) keep harping about wetwork teams. You kill the serpent by cutting off its head, not its tail. The Israelis know this and the remaining world had better learn it d@mn soon. No waiting for logical conclusions, or for nature to run its course. You go out and find those who are spreading this pathogenic meme, and kill them.

Read tipper's linked article if you have any doubts.
Posted by Zenster 2005-10-23 23:34||   2005-10-23 23:34|| Front Page Top

23:55 NotMike Moore
23:46 Zenster
23:34 Zenster
23:31 AzCat
23:30 Vlad the Muslim Impaler
23:30 Vlad the Muslim Impaler
23:29 Vlad the Muslim Impaler
23:28 Vlad the Muslim Impaler
23:24 Thresh Fligum4577
22:51 RWV
22:28 The Lost Panzer Unit
22:21 anymouse
22:16 Uleating Wheagum6743
22:11 Barbara Skolaut
22:10 Uleating Wheagum6743
22:09 Barbara Skolaut
22:07 The Bleeding Panzerschreck
21:47 Jackal
21:44 Red Dog
21:43 Jackal
21:43 Jackal
21:42 Anonymoose
21:26 gromky
20:56 Bomb-a-rama









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