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2005-08-28 Iraq-Jordan

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Posted by Captain America 2005-08-28 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 This is the "carrot" side of the argument. The "stick" side are the less cooperative towns where you intentionally do not form a presence. The bad guyz, who are dispersed, concentrate to fill the vacuum, which doubly punishes the place. First in the dictatorship of the villains, then when the US and Iraqi forces come to root them out. It also simplifies our task immeasureably to have identifyable targets en masse, instead of individuals blending in with the crowd of civilians.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-28 00:13|| 2005-08-28 00:13|| Front Page Top

#2 Instead of trying to kill insurgents, Krepinevich argues, it's more important to protect civilians. You set up safe havens where you can establish good security. Because you don't have enough manpower to do this everywhere at once, you select a few key cities and take control. Then you slowly expand the size of your safe havens, like an oil spot spreading across the pavement.

All you need is a corps of telepaths to distinguish between civilians you're trying to protect and "insurgents".

Posted by gromgoru 2005-08-28 01:00|| 2005-08-28 01:00|| Front Page Top

#3 This was known as the "enclave strategy" in Vietnam. Here is a good article.

Of course, big chunks of Iraq already are enclaves. Unfortunately, they are all Shiite or Kurdish areas. To run with Krepinevich's analogy, will a Shiite oil spot spread into a Sunni zone or are they immiscible? I think also that Fallujah is a good example of what happens when you declare an area to be outside the enclave.

I honestly think that you have to create safe areas and keep the bad guys rocking back on their heels. To fail to do the former would mean giving up the strategic intiative. To fail to do the latter would entail giving up the tactical initiative.

Posted by 11A5S 2005-08-28 01:05|| 2005-08-28 01:05|| Front Page Top

#4 Rather than focusing on killing insurgents, they should concentrate on providing security and opportunity to the Iraqi people, thereby denying insurgents the popular support they need.

Wrong.

It's not 'either/or', it's 'do both'. And it's working.

Posted by Parabellum 2005-08-28 08:54|| 2005-08-28 08:54|| Front Page Top

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