Article

2006-11-30 Iraq

Two US battalions moving into "extremely important" Baghdad area

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Posted by Fred 2006-11-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 ...we spend a lot of time dancing on the head of a pin as far as what particular words we should use to describe the environment which is currently unacceptable," he said.

Ahhh...a Marine. Gotta love 'em. Not that he changed anyone's mind, of course.

How many reporters can dance on the head of a pin?

Posted by Bobby 2006-11-30 05:53|| 2006-11-30 05:53|| Front Page Top

#2
How many reporters can dance on the head of a pin?

An infinite number, for of late days reporters are mythical beasts. All that are left are "journalists" who find it sufficient to phone in the reports of enemy agents.

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2006-11-30 07:24|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2006-11-30 07:24|| Front Page Top

#3 Pace is in a tricky position. Since almost all the US forces are in Baghdad or Anbar, if he makes a troop movement in either direction, he is accused of "abandoning" the other.

This denies him the blunt tool of a major force movement, so he has to rely on finesse--moving just the right number of soldiers to the most critical area.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-11-30 09:10|| 2006-11-30 09:10|| Front Page Top

#4 Economy of Force
Employ all combat power available in the most effective way possible; allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts.

Economy of force is the judicious employment and distribution of forces. No part of the force should ever be left without purpose. When the time comes for action, all parts must act. The allocation of available combat power to such tasks as limited attacks, defense, delays, deception, or even retrograde operations is measured in order to achieve mass elsewhere at the decisive point and time on the battlefield.

- FM 100-5, Operations

Not that any 'journalist' would ever be caught reading up on the subject matter they claim to report on. Not to be confused with actual writers who cover such mundane subjects like 'Sports' do on a daily basis. How long would a sports columnist be in his job if he kept getting the subject matter and facts wrong or made up stories from whole cloth?

Posted by Procopius2K 2006-11-30 09:37|| 2006-11-30 09:37|| Front Page Top

#5 Procopius2K: Economy of force is neglectful of an additional factor, time. That is, economy of force is a constant--what is applicable is using that force in a strategic, rather than tactical sense.

In this case, for example, if we used our forces to secure Baghdad, Anbar would be neglected. So this means the security of Baghdad must be done with gradualism, using far less personnel than would be used, optimally.

In a manner of speaking, playing offense and defense at the same time.

Gradualism is peculiarly unsatisfying for those who expect large, discreet battles with a given beginning and end, however. But as we take over a neighborhood and purge it of its troublemakers, we can then turn it over to local authority. They will need to do much less to keep it clean then to clean it up in the first place.

This frees us up to move to the next neighborhood.

But all of this opens Pace up to double criticism: that he isn't doing enough in either place. Though all our forces everywhere are busy, even a small shift is used to natter at him that he isn't fighting the large, discreet battles with the enemy.

Eventually, what I expect will be that the US will turn over most of Baghdad to Iraqi security, when a comfort level is obtained in the city. Then most forces will move to Anbar, to both keep the Sunnis cooled and to protect them from the Shiites.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-11-30 10:07|| 2006-11-30 10:07|| Front Page Top

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