28% of Virginia Tech
The United States military paid a heavy price Monday in Iraq, a terrible harbinger of what our troops will face in the future. Iraqi insurgents deftly exploited a major vulnerability of U.S. forces and in a single attack killed 9 U.S. soldiers. That is almost one-third of the number killed last week at Virginia Tech by a crazed gunman. This is the largest loss of life in a single ground attack since the war began. According to the AP:
Nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 20 wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing against a patrol base northeast of the capital in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting, the military said.
The attack came on a day when insurgents struck acrossIraq, carrying out seven other bombings that killed at least 48 people. . . .
It was the second bold attack against a U.S. base north of Baghdad in just over two months and was notable for its use of a suicide car bomber.
The various Iraqi insurgent groups will certainly count this as a major success and will try to replicate it in the coming days. The current surge strategy makes this kind of incident more likely. Why?
The surge strategy is predicated in large measure on the dispersal of U.S. troops to outposts known as "Joint Security Stations". It gives your forces a chance to "get to know" the locals but it also makes them more vulnerable. Pat Lang commented on this earlier this year:
That means that we will have numerous small garrisons placed alone in "Indian Country" in positions that will come to be well known to insurgent reconnaissance. These garrisons will have to be supplied in spite of IEDs, anti-aircraft ambushes and sniping. The widely dispersed garrisons will be co-located with Iraqi security forces. This is an inherent security problem. Tactical reserve (QRF) forces will have to be large and highly mobile.
Smaller outposts situated in the middle of urban areas means U.S. troops have less stand-off--i.e., less ability to construct a fortified perimeter that pushes potential attackers away from the U.S. troops. Less stand-off means attackers can get closer. Insurgents face an easier tactical problem in planning their attacks on these outposts. We may see a surge in the coming days. Yes sir. But it may be a surge of attacks on these small outposts.
We are well on track for the second consecutive month in which U.S. military casualties will exceed that of their Iraqi counterparts. Do you understand this point? The burden of "defending" the new Iraq government is being borne primarily by U.S. troops not Iraqi troops. That is not a recipe for success or victory. It the Iraqi military and police will not bear the brunt of ensuring security in their own country then our soldiers have no business being there. Looks to me like the Iraqis are playing us for suckers. And many U.S. soldiers who are the same age of the Virginia Tech students who died last week shed their blood for nothing today. And you wonder why I'm pissed?
I've been pissed since those loonies went down to Florida in 2000 and pounded on the glass doors when they were trying to recount the Florida vote.
Tom
April 24, 2007 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I keep wondering if it is going to be possible to withdraw all of our contingent from Iraq, both military and contractors, without major casualties. Such a withdrawal could easily become a bloodbath. This doesn't mean remaining in Iraq, but negotiating with the Sunni and Shiite factions to allow safe passage in return for an expedited withdrawal. Eventually we have to do that, and we will probably be required to leave the military bases intact as part of the agreement.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 24, 2007 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
As William Lind stated in his Flickers of Light piece:
...Saddam's Iraq was the main regional counterweight to Iran, which means we should not have attacked it. Operationally, we have been maneuvered by Iraq's Shi’ites into fighting their civil war for them, focusing our efforts against the Sunnis. As I have observed before, we are in effect the Shi’ites’ unpaid Hessians....
April 24, 2007 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
As long as we have our "Unitary Executive" that will never happen. His pathetic stubbornness is based on more than his many pathologic personality flaws; the bases are part of the deal he has made with the devils (our oil companies and the mercenaries). He doesn't want to have those kinds of enemies when he is out of office. Paraguay might even fall through if they get really pissed.
No, he either has to be stripped of power or removed from office. Otherwise we are stuck with his mahem, either for the rest of his term, or until the place actually blows up completely.
Jan
April 24, 2007 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Bush/Rove/Cheney talking points are focused on the Democrats undercutting the generals ability and decisions to fight the war in Iraq. I can't understand when a Democrat is going to point out that no generals ever make the decisions about how long to keep troops involved in an occupation in the midst of a civil war. That is solely a political decision by the administration. The generals just work out the details about how to achieve objectives laid out by the administration.
The current general with the bag in Iraq would, if he were honest enough to admit it, do anything to get the US presence there reduced to the bare minimum as fast as possible. If that isn't the case, the general is a dunce. No rational person could possibly think there is something positive that can result from "staying the course" there.
And, I don't believe any general would care the slightest if the families of those who have died or been maimed there want the US to "win" to make them feel like their loss was meaningful. Again, no rational person would consider that as a justification for "staying the course" in Iraq.
So, the only conclusion I can reach is that this general with the bag in Iraq is neither honest nor rational. I know the commander in chief fits that profile.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 24, 2007 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can we at least get the Congress to take the lead and lower the flag to half-mast whenever an American soldier dies in Iraq or Afghanistan; don't we owe our soldiers as much respect as the dead students of the senseless and tragic massacre at Virginia Tech? Is this more Bush Administration trying to cover up the human cost of these wars?
April 24, 2007 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ostentatiously mourning the college students killed at Virginia Tech helped the Dick Cheney Shogunate Regency get Deputy Dubya's stinking dead albabross of Iraq off the front pages for a few days. Any mention of our GIs getting killed or wounded in Iraq would only put the damned dead-and-rotting road-kill back on prominent display again. I hope this helps in some small way to clarify your question, if not answer it.
April 24, 2007 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
The American policy of "Vietnamizing" the Vietnamese had another, less euphemistic name: "Yellowing the Corpses." The current American policy of "Iraqifying" the Iraqis also has another name: "Browning the Bodies." Since the yellow people back then didn't want to become corpses any more than the brown people today want to become dead bodies -- all in service to obscure American policies opaque even to Americans -- it should surprise no one if the occupied colonials du jour prefer that Americans die for their own policies rather than forcing the occupied colonials to do the dying for them.
The religious crusades died in the twelfth century and colonialism died in the twentieth. Not all the king's horses nor all the king's men can put those two Humpty Dumpties back together again in the twenty-first century. The American Lunatic Leviathan, though, seems unaccountably anxious to try. Hence, only the looming Stalingrad, Little Big Horn, Dunkirk, or Dien Bien Phu seems likely to make the point to an America over its head and drowning in its own stupid shit.
April 25, 2007 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you suppose it has yet dawned on Bush’s bungling Middle East Neo-Con handlers just why Saddam needed to be so incredibly vicious to hold Iraq together. I think Iraq needs to be three states or one loosely united and ruled by Jordan's King whose bloodline both the Shia and Sunni would likely accept. What the Brits cobbled together eighty some years ago has never been a success.
The insurgents do not fear our troops, to instill the necessary fear to enforce peaceful behavior on their part would require acts on our part the world would be horrified at. Best we leave now instead of later.
Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
William James
April 25, 2007 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Generals have not set troop levels in Iraq, ever. The reason generals are there is because our feckless President ordered the Army there; generals come along with the package.
I believe that the great majority of our generals are smart, honest people stuck with a very crappy job and trying to make the best of it, just like the rest of the Army. Look at the history: Shinseki tossed out for speaking truth, Abazaid into retirement because he wouldn't support the surge. Active duty people cannot question orders, certainly not in public.
Don't blame the team, blame the coach.
April 25, 2007 4:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree with Larry's last paragraph. That is the wrong metric for measuring the engagement of the Iraqi Army (IA). We need to look at trends and use reasonable metrics. Lots of reasons why the IA may not sustain as many casualties - less of a target, used more for peacekeeping as opposed to combat ops, etc.
I hear that the IA is more engaged and taking on more of the burden. I get this from people who would know in theater.
Hopefully, the IA will be taking the entire burden. Yesterday.
April 25, 2007 4:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shouldn't the above be describing 'our' troop's mission by now and not the Iraqi army's?
April 25, 2007 5:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
On April 24, 2007 - 10:35pm CVille Dem said:
"His pathetic stubbornness is based on more than his many pathologic personality flaws; .......
No, he either has to be stripped of power or removed from office. Otherwise we are stuck with his mahem, either for the rest of his term, or until the place actually blows up completely."
Exactly, and this is why its extremely important that the Dems do not vacillate
in the face of Bush/Cheney intransigence.
April 25, 2007 5:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
So sayeth the white man.
April 25, 2007 5:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes of course, but cudda shudda wudda. What I was trying to point out is that Larry conflated casualties with participation. The casualty metric has some bearing, but it isn't the whole story, and he didn't talk about trends.
I am not playing apologist - I want us out yesterday - but we need to make sure the analysis is unbiased.
April 25, 2007 6:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is this one of the outposts that Commander Codpiece gave away the position of during his briefing the other day?
April 25, 2007 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Funny that when George stands up and says congress is trying to usurp the decisions of the men in uniform, you never hear anyone in the press asking him about this:
...Shinseki tossed out for speaking truth, Abazaid into retirement because he wouldn't support the surge.
Jan
April 25, 2007 7:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
VLaszlo,
I don't think Congress would be able to take this on right now. I think a better route to achieve this would be for citizens of each state to contact their Governor and request it be done at the state level to honor their individual state's fallen soldiers.
April 25, 2007 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're being gullible. Any number of Iraqis we train, whether for the Army or Police, put self-restrictions on what they will do. Others are actually our enemies.
I'm not sure how long we've been "training" the Iraqis but the need for the "surge" should tell you something about that training.
Start an orderly withdrawl of our troops today.
April 25, 2007 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good people can have honest differences of opinion,
but not if the Republicans are neither.
April 25, 2007 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is there a God-given reason that Democrats cannot question why this administration does not honor and mourn the war-dead as much as they mourn the slaughtered students at Virginia Tech. Why not seize this issue? It is also the right thing to do.
April 25, 2007 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Iraqis who will soon blow up our isolated and vulnerable new sitting-duck "outposts" know their location and vulnerabilities all too well without requiring Deputy Dubya the Delusional to "reveal" their GPS map co-ordinates. Hell, our pathetic commander-in-briefs probably couldn't locate Iraq on any of our standard geographical representations -- which, I suppose, means to him that if he doesn't know of it, then it really doesn't exist. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble ...
April 25, 2007 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
If by the phrase "taking up the burden" one means "taking on the job of making the American occupation of Iraq less costly to the American occupiers," then I suggest that few of the occupied Vietnamese -- I mean Iraqis -- will want the job other than for the few paychecks they might earn before their fellow countrymen kill them for collaborating with the American occupiers. Colonial Americans didn't want to fight and die for England's king and his hired Hessians, and re-colonized Iraqis feel the same about the American President and his hired Blackwater mercenaries. Not a difficult concept to grasp.
April 25, 2007 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
A good comment on the self-promoting ticket-puncher, General David "Israeli West Bank Wall" Petraeus, who if he had really trained "Iraqi security forces" instead of inflitrated sectarian Shiite death squads wouldn't find that Iraqi "security" needed his presence or attention any longer, if it ever did.
Too bad for all the enlisted men and junior officers who keep getting killed or having their brains bashed into vegetable pudding by IED blast concussion. As for the Iraqis? Well, as General Tommy Franks once obtusely remarked: "We don't do body counts." Obviously.
A fourth star for General Petraeus, though; so as a fuck-up-and-move-up career strategy, writing his "new" Army field manual on Counter-Intuitive Cluelessness (i.e., isolated and vulnerable sitting-duck "outpost" targets) ought to make required reading for the next generation of genius American generals who probably won't learn any more from our fucking up Iraq than their generational predecessors learned from our fucking up Southeast Asia.
After all, as I suppose lifer career officers take as an unquestioned given: the "fucking hippies" and Jane Fonda at home always lose our colonial wars and not our incompetently led foreign legion, the self-described (yet now once again disintegrating) "greatest military force the world has ever known."
I've really got to give credit to retired General Tony McPeak, though, for concisely summing up our military commander-in-briefs problem. He said that "For the past six years, America has been engaged in an experiment to validate the proposition that it doesn't really matter whom we elect president. Except that when we elect someone really stupid, it matters very much." The same goes for our genius generals who keep getting promotions and medals instead of the cashiering and forced retirement with reduced pay and benefits that their incompetence and sycophancy so richly deserve. Not the vapid and inane, "cudda, shudda, wudda," but "If they could have, they would have; but since they didn't, they can't."
April 25, 2007 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I personally knew Michael Vaughan, one of the nine 82nd Airborne paratroopers killed Monday. He was a district champion wrestler at Taft High School on the Oregon coast, and he came from a family with a long tradition of military service. I questioned his decision to enlist in 2004 just two weeks out of high school, but he was determined to do so even it meant heading off to Iraq. He was the first person I've actually known to be killed there for Bush and Cheney's treasonous lies, and I hope he is the last. But that is something I won't know until the last of our soldiers are withdrawn from occupation duties. This whole situation is absolutely disgusting. Beyond words. I almost felt physically ill when I found out yesterday that Mike had been killed. I wanted to reach out and rub Chimpoleon's sickening smirking face in the gore and blood of Mike's dead body. These filthy Republican traitors should immediately be taken into custody, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, all of them. Impeachment is not good enough. It is not a fast enough process to do much good. Frankly, though, I'm so smokingly furious right now I can hardly see or think straight.
David
April 25, 2007 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Impeachment, conviction, & removal for Cheney/Bush. Then march all three off to the ICC for trial as war criminals.
Tom
April 25, 2007 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear the angry comments, but there are no additional facts.
I took issue with one part of Larry's analysis, pointing out that the metric didn't entirely support his conclusion, and that I had some informal information that would point in the opposite direction.
I understand the logical arguments why Iraqis wouldn't fight, but I propose another countervailing set of observations:
-- those in the IA are fighting for their own lives, never mind anything else.
-- the IA is largely a Shia/Kurd militia. As long as its activities support Shia/Kurd agendas, there is no reason why the individuals would be unmotivated.
As to the observations on Petraeus:
The Army was ordered to Iraq. Generals come with the package. They execute the orders of the President. If you don't like Petraeus, which general would you rather have in charge? The "team" is the Army, all soldiers from private to general. The "coach" is you-know-who, President Bush.
Don't blame the team, blame the coach.
April 26, 2007 2:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Having served with the 82nd from January 7, 1943 to December 7, 1946, I feel a certain sadness, a personal sorrow, when I read about these GI's dying. Some things you learn with your eyes you never forget.
I saw this before.
April 26, 2007 5:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
"...I feel a certain sadness, a personal sorrow, when I read about these GI's dying."
... especially since they are dying for no reason except Bush's arrogance, incompetence, and dishonesty.
Tom
April 26, 2007 6:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
From what I understand, Abazaid and Casey were against the surge so Bush fired them
and went to Petraeus, who either obviously saw merit in the surge or was simply following Bush's orders to institute the plan, which I think was thought up by the neo-con Fredrick Kagin. The surge is simply flooding Baghdad with troops but IRAQ isn't only Baghdad. Both Kagens and other neocons are now saying the Surge is seeing signs of success.
I was beating my wife the other day and she was howling so louly the neighbors must have heard her and called the police. When the cops were on my porch ringing the bell I stopped beating my wife. Progress!
I'll wait for Petraeus' reports and see if they're reality based or just more "we're making progress" bullsh**.
April 26, 2007 6:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I'll wait for Petraeus' reports and see if they're reality based or just more "we're making progress" bullsh**."
Remember while you wait more Americans will die for no reason.
Tom
April 26, 2007 6:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. It was crippling to see friends die, it left a mark that never goes away, but you did have a modicum of solace and acceptance in that you knew their deaths were inarguably in a just cause.
April 26, 2007 7:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yep; and if I had my way I'd start a pullout today.
April 26, 2007 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
John,
You most certainly must be a WW II vet. Thank you for what you sacrificed during that time of great peril and danger for the entire world.
I am the daughter of a WW II vet who is now deceased. My father served in Signal Intelligence as a cryptanalyst. I eventually followed in his "footsteps" and ended up enlisting in the US Army in Military Intelligence as an intelligence analyst/OB analyst.
I spent my tour at Ft. Bragg and had several friends in the 82d. My heart aches and breaks for each military death and the families that suffer those loss. I am sickened at heart by what is happening to our military.
I further served in the Active Reserve and in a TPU in the Army Reserve for several years. I am still a soldier at heart and hate, yes hate, what the yellow-bellied chickenhawks have done to America.
April 26, 2007 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
John,
When the mission is initially based on lies and deceit, it cannot be accomplished -- particularly when the mission keeps changing.
I know that you know that, but think it important enough to state it for those who do not understand how the military works.
April 26, 2007 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Helen,
There were 16 paratroopers in my stick when we went out the door in Normandy; after Holland, the Bulge, and crossing the Rhine
at Cologne and being there when Slim Jim Gavin took the surrender of the German 21st Army at Bleckede...there were only 4 of us left.
You were at Bragg too, heh? :-)
When we got to Camp Mackall it wasn't completed yet, nothing more than old huts and muddy rutted roads. It looked like someone called in an air strike.
Anyhow, the last time I saw Bragg was Dec 19, 1943 when we got on a train to Camp Shanks, NY.
Helen, my condolences on the loss of your father.
April 26, 2007 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I certainly agree with JohnW1141 about when to withdraw, but I'd like to return to the topic of the generals.
True, some generals may be just bad at their job, and that is always a terrible thing. However, the way I see Petraeus is that W would just go down his list until he found someone who decided it was his/her duty to grasp the dirty end of the stick and try to turn it into a lollipop.
W was going to "surge"; that wasn't Petraeus' idea, it was AEIs, I have the briefing.
We are reduced to this: a feckless President taking military advice from a stupid think tank full of armchair militarists and then... wait for it... foisting it off on real soldiers like Petraeus. Now Petraeus takes the heat. Much better to have chinless wonder Fred Kagan up there answering the questions, then we'd get the real picture.
April 26, 2007 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no complaints about Petraeus. On the other hand, I don't want him to seem to be parroting Bush when he reports "progress" there.
I was watching the Democrats debate last night and Kucinich was telling how we should get out of IRAQ, and what he was saying was reinforcing my belief, which is 'get the hell out now'; but then he started babbling about multi national peace forces and getting other nations to help with the rebuilding and he lost me with that bullshit. Yeah, I can see it all now, a hundred countries lining up to help keep the peace and donate billions to rebuilding as we pull out.
This is what I don't want from Petraeus or any other Commander in Iraq.
April 27, 2007 3:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we're in violent agreement.
Our soldiers will be there as long as the President wants them there, or until Congress pulls the plug. They will be trying to turn the proverbial sow's ear into a silk purse. That is their duty and their fate. There will be happy talk, because it is just too difficult to think that you are simply wasting time and lives because our President is a coward. This tragedy will just play out, badly for us and the world.
People will proceed to forget the bumbling incompetence and moral cowardice of our current government, and a generation from now will be blaming the "loss of Iraq" on weak-kneed anti-war liberal fifth columnists. That is the real lesson of Vietnam. Forgetfulness.
April 27, 2007 4:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Forgetfulness."
It's a manipulated forgetfulness.
Tom
April 27, 2007 5:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you go into Normandy the night of June 5th? I've heard about and read about General Gavin -- he impressed me as being a true "soldier's soldier." There were quite a few impressive generals in that era -- Ike, Patton, Bradley, Roosevelt, Jr. I heard something very interesting about Eisenhower's son -- he graduated WP the day the invasion began.
Yes, I was stationed at Ft Bragg for three years. Camp MacKall became the Phase I and Phase III training site for Special Forces. It has now been "renamed" Camp Rowe, in honor of LTC James N. (Nick) Rowe who was an SF officer taken prisoner in South Vietnam and escaped. He rewrote the Army's SERE manual and went back on to active duty to teach at Camp Rowe. An SF friend of mine worked with him and said he was a good man.
Thanks for the thoughts about my father. My most cherished momento of his is his WW II dog tag -- which I carry with me for "good luck."
April 28, 2007 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Helen,
We boarded the planes at Folkingham Airfield about 10:30/11:00 the night of June 5.The Pathfinders went in first, then I jumped between 1:30/2:00 am, the morning of June 6.
After the war ended, my Regiment, the 508, became the Honor Guard at SHAEF, in Frankfurt. I met just about all the Generals personally; Bradley, Gerow, Truscott, Hodges, Ridgway, etc. I can still hear Patton's high pitched voice.
I pulled guard outside Ike's office one day and Ike came out with his Chief of Staff, Bedell Smith. Ike was facing Bedell but his eyes were on me when he said to Smith: "Keep those Paras out of my liquor cabinet". He had a little smile on his face when he said it. :-)
Truman flew in one day to meet with Ike, he inspected the Regiment and I was about 5 feet from him.
April 28, 2007 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink