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| Iraq | ||
| IRAQ: New model army training begins | ||
| 2003-08-23 | ||
Fifty men queue in the hot morning sun for their turn to undergo a physical examination to determine their fitness to join a new Iraqi National Guard force, about to be formed. Training is to start this week for a platoon of 120 men, many of them former Iraqi army soldiers. In the empty rooms of a former library, the men were being weighed and having their eyesight, hearing and blood pressure checked. The new national guard was an experiment, Sgt Brent Williams, a spokesman for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division of the US army, told IRIN. "They’ll learn the way we train and the way we fight, compared to the way they train and fight," Williams said. "It will be about discipline and instilling a sense of esprit de corps." Once trained, the new force would handle things like crowd control and natural disasters, he added. They would spend time on the shooting range and learn crowd-control measures, undergo basic combat training and be taught the international laws of war.
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| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #5 We don't need an Iraqui Army who can kick ass, we need an Army who can kick fundies and Baathist asses and that is an entirely different thing. Until Iraq has become a structurally stable and friendly country we don't want them being able to oppose serious resistance to US or Israeli forces in case Iraq returns to an anti-western attitude. And still less to have Iraquis who can teach other Arabs to fight. However if you read Ralph Peter's "Why Arabs lose wars" you will notice that many of the weaknesses of Arab armies are societal so until Iraq becomes a modern society its army will not kick ass. In the interim the shortest path for building an Arab army that can kick ass is take N thousand new born babies, bring them to America (preferently in families who have been voting Republican since Lincoln and are card carrying members of the NRA), shield them from Arab culture, raise them as good Americans who play baseball, drink cocacola, chew gum and wiling to die in defence of the constitution. Then enlist them in the US Army or the USMC. :-) |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-8-23 1:33:27 PM |
| #4 Hey stevey, you seem to forget it was the American Democrat controlled Congress which cut all funds off for material support to the South Vietnamesse government which meant after a week or so of resistance, they ran out of ammo in many places. May Bella Abzug and her cohorts burn for abandoning their fellow man into bondage. |
| Posted by: Don 2003-8-23 9:13:42 AM |
| #3 James Dunnigan had an article on how to train the "New Model Army of Iraq" back in May on the StrategyPage website: Building An Arab Army That Can Kick Ass. Sounds like that process is underway. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-8-23 7:50:02 AM |
| #2 training a new Army , good so long as they r not like the south vietnamese army that if left alone could have been overrun by Vioetcong in a week. There was no excuse forthat, both were vietnamese ,same food,same height, same strengths and there is no reason the South Vietnamese just couldnt shoot straight. |
| Posted by: steveerossa 2003-8-23 4:36:23 AM |
| #1 Basic combat training was also missing from their repertoire |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-8-23 2:23:15 AM |