Zarqawi dead

I think the Americans are suffering extensibly in Iraq and so they need to show that there progressing on other fronts. Zarqawi, from recent footage, seems/seemed to be an amature who barely knows/knew how to uncock a gun so I doubt if he was really a major player. The situation in Iraq seems like its spiralling out of control and the American are looking more and more desperate to come up with evidence to the contrary.. as the body counts buildup. its looking more and more like a Vietnam scenerio of the 21st Century. :coffee:

PakTopGun said:

I think the Americans are suffering extensibly in Iraq and so they need to show that there progressing on other fronts. Zarqawi, from recent footage, seems/seemed to be an amature who barely knows/knew how to uncock a gun so I doubt if he was really a major player. The situation in Iraq seems like its spiralling out of control and the American are looking more and more desperate to come up with evidence to the contrary.. as the body counts buildup. its looking more and more like a Vietnam scenerio of the 21st Century. :coffee:

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Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. It's been 3 1/2 years and they're have been 2,500 troops lost. The US was in Vietnam for like 7 years. Multiply 2,500 by 2 and you get 5,000, just one tenth of the amount of troops lost in Vietnam! The insurgents can't successfully operate because Anbar province is under control by coalition forces, and Fallujah is a death trap for them. The mujahedin in Afghanistan had their base in Pakistan, in Chechnya the mujahedin are in Georgia. The insurgents comprise mainly of sunnis, so no support from Iran, can't operate from there. And Syria is finally clamping down on people crossing the border, and even if the insurgents try to cross the border they're are going to get blown to bits.

I, for one, certainly hope that the death of Zarqawi and the dismantleing of his organization (it's being taken apart) redirect the insurgency from attacks on Iraqis to attacks on American troops. As I am an American, that may sound odd. However, with Iraq so close to civil war, if the insurgents stop pushing it towards the brink and start fighting the "occupier" instead, it will, in the long term, increase US chances for victory. Besides, when the insurgents attack Americans, they suffer higher casualties. The 2nd Iraq War is in a complete stalemate. The insurgents will win if they can push Iraq into open sectarian war. The US will win if it can get enough Iraqi troops controling areas that it can concentrate its troops in Al Anbar, Baghdad and the other trouble spots. Since US troops levels in Iraq are up right now, they should follow up Zarqawi's death with a large operation in Baghdad. The central governement will never be able to control the country if it cannot control its own capital.

Finn's Plan for Victory in Iraq:
-Withdraw most troops from AL Anbar, except for those in strategic cities like Ramadi and Fallujah.
-Deploy those troops into Baghdad and semi-secure Shiite provinces. The Iraqi government needs a secure base to gradually control the rest of the country from.
-To prevent granting the insurgents a safe haven in the abandonded areas, launch periodic offensives in them, keep up a tempo of air strike and SF raids.
-Use the redeployed troops to secure the areas they have been sent to. As the Iraqi Army grows, the US will be able to maintain the high levels of security and move back into insurgent-infested areas.
-Launch offensives into the insurgent-infested towns, retake them, and then move in Iraqi soldiers and police to secure them.
-Repeat that process until the whole country is secure.
-Give Iraq a powerful Secret Police that can infiltrate insurgent networks. That is the most effective way to destroy an insurgency.
-Establish an Iraqi Air Force that can patrol Iraq's open desert with Syria to interdict insurgent smugglers.

The Iraqi insurgency will never be able to defeat the US militarily, but it doesn't have to. Also, you have to keep in mind that the Iraqi insurgency managed to inflict more casualties on the Americans in two and a half years than the Vietcong did in four years. All the Iraqi insurgency has to do is simply keep on fighting and keep Iraq away from American control and most importantly, keep away the oil from American hands.

crazyinsane105 said:

The Iraqi insurgency will never be able to defeat the US militarily, but it doesn't have to. Also, you have to keep in mind that the Iraqi insurgency managed to inflict more casualties on the Americans in two and a half years than the Vietcong did in four years. All the Iraqi insurgency has to do is simply keep on fighting and keep Iraq away from American control and most importantly, keep away the oil from American hands.

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Crazy is right. Insurgencies are hard to defeat because they win by not losing. To win they only have to survive. Also, their decentralized, hidden nature makes them difficult to kill. The Iraqi insurgency is a nightmare because it is so decentralized and has a lot of support.

DPRKUnderground said:

Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. It's been 3 1/2 years and they're have been 2,500 troops lost. The US was in Vietnam for like 7 years. Multiply 2,500 by 2 and you get 5,000, just one tenth of the amount of troops lost in Vietnam! The insurgents can't successfully operate because Anbar province is under control by coalition forces, and Fallujah is a death trap for them. The mujahedin in Afghanistan had their base in Pakistan, in Chechnya the mujahedin are in Georgia. The insurgents comprise mainly of sunnis, so no support from Iran, can't operate from there. And Syria is finally clamping down on people crossing the border, and even if the insurgents try to cross the border they're are going to get blown to bits.

Click to expand...

Actually it's worse.

In wars of the past the cost in men was higher and the cost in financial
terms was lower

In this war the cost in men is lower, the cost in financial terms staggering
and the cost for america in the future is going to be tremendous. america
is absolutely loathed by muslims. If you think that's a price worth paying you should consider how it's going to destroy your alliances in the future.

Rumsfeld may dream about alliances with Indonesia till the 'dead-enders' come home but the population is going to throw a spanner in the works

Perhaps you should consider carefully the research of Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

The Bush government in an attempt to guarantee the security of Israel has become entangled contrary to the advice of the founders of the USA like Benjamin Franklin in foreign affairs...and not just political but religious. You should knopw that of all wars the ones that carry on for centuries and wth the most hatred are religious wars

FreeAsia2000 said:

Actually it's worse.

In wars of the past the cost in men was higher and the cost in financial
terms was lower

In this war the cost in men is lower, the cost in financial terms staggering
and the cost for america in the future is going to be tremendous. america
is absolutely loathed by muslims. If you think that's a price worth paying you should consider how it's going to destroy your alliances in the future.

Rumsfeld may dream about alliances with Indonesia till the 'dead-enders' come home but the population is going to throw a spanner in the works

Perhaps you should consider carefully the research of Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

The Bush government in an attempt to guarantee the security of Israel has become entangled contrary to the advice of the founders of the USA like Benjamin Franklin in foreign affairs...and not just political but religious. You should knopw that of all wars the ones that carry on for centuries and wth the most hatred are religious wars

Click to expand...

FreeAsia, your view that this war is about the security of Israel or religon is quite naive. Oil and influence were the causes of the Iraq War. Neo-conservatives who came into the White House with Bush were not motivated by religon. They wanted to limit Iranian influence in the reigon and to put their hand on the world oil faucet. This was a war of the most base economic reasons. To have an American ally, with American troops in it, in the very heart of the Muslim world. Iraq was to be used a political leverage. 9/11 was used as an excuse to complete a project that powerful people in Washington wanted to do for a long time. That is what the US wanted, or at least the neo-cons who started this war. Of course, that is not how it turned out.

This thread is being closed. Because it has turned into a political & ideaology battlefield. Warning!! Do not open another Iraq War thread. This is a off limits subject.

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