you're kidding right? that or creaming in your jeans.
kelley
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No I am not kidding and I am not creaming. I was thinking about it seriously. Bush has fucked up everything he has touched or even thought about touching. Why should his war be any different? The objective is a waste of time and worthless, so why not the planned means to carry it out? The military isn't going to say no. They will plug along with what they're given and what they've got to use.
I think Bashra has a population of two million(?). All that has to happen is for a significant part of the population to decide they want out of town and they will immediately clog the highways, roads and dirt trails in every direction pushing the US forces out into the desert to go around them, which slows them down and probably requires air transport supply drops rather than ground supply support, which means timing drops in the middle of nowhere, more headaches, more mistakes, more accidents, more time, more exposure.
I am reading three books at the moment that are guaranteed bummers:
Hitler Moves East 1941-43, Paul Carell The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam The Making of a Quagmire, David Halberstam
Invasions that failed (Russia and Vietnam). But they are worth going over just to refresh the mind on what can be involved with conquering another country.
I must have heard the news wrong last night estimating 15-20k combat forces. The estimate on the news tonight was about 55k as the first wave, followed by a second group still in transit from Germany. But 55k is still low.
Anyway, civilians are like ants. You can never kill enough of them. They just keep coming out of the wood work and clogging up the machine.
The Russian invasion was carried out with high speed mechanized troops but there were not enough of them and they were spread too thin. They over reached their own supply columns and had to slow down. The German offensive was supposed to be over by the first winter, then by the end of the next spring, then by the end of summer at the latest, then before the next winter... Vietnam was supposed to be over in about one year, three years at most, which sounded realistic in 1961 during the first planning stages.
Anyway, a lot of the same basic elements of failure are present now in Iraq---despite all the `can do' talk. Too small a force, mechanized or not. A completely under rated enemy who are expected to give up at the first sign of fire power. Complete disregard for any civilian resistance. A very arrogant politically motivated civilian command planning a ridiculous war and expecting the military to carry it out without question. And I don't know about Iraq, but in both Russia and Vietnam, the civilian command ignored its own intelligence reports. Since I don't think the Iraqis have WMD, and the US says they do, it sounds like the US government is ignoring its own intelligence.
So, if I was in the military, I would be worried about the civilian command behind me. Is it committed enough to back me up with what might become necessary? Is the US government willing to commit mass civilian casualties with mass air strikes to support too few troops? Are the Bush team ready to become blatant war criminals to save their own troops? It could get down to that.
Then too, if this war drags on, how much international resistance will build up? How many of the surrounding countries can expect mass protests and destablizing chaos to develop? Will they be willing to suppress it for their own survival or will they start developing their own resistance to the US. What about Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Pakistan for example?
As it stands, everything depends on the Iraqis complying in their own conquest. Great if they do. But what if they don't? See, that isn't a very solid military plan. I will bet a lot of military commanders know that and are worry about it. If the US gets in a jam and uses mass air strikes as the way out, then they risk alienating the Iraqi people---but the US military is depending on them to comply. The basic logic is a mistake.
Chuck Grimes