How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

TMT


U.S. Spending Billions to Stop Iraq IEDs By CHARLES J. HANLEY,

The United States is pouring billions more dollars and fresh platoons
of experts into its campaign to "defeat IEDs," the roadside bombs
President Bush describes as threat No. 1 to Iraq's future.

The American military even plans to build special, more defensible
highways here, in its frustrating standoff with the makeshift munitions
- "improvised explosive devices" - that Iraqi insurgents field by
the hundreds to hobble U.S. road movements in the 3-year-old conflict.

Out on those risky roads, and back at the Pentagon, few believe that
even the most advanced technology will eliminate the threat.

"As we've improved our armor, the enemy's improved his IEDs. They're
bigger, and with better detonating mechanisms," said Maj. Randall
Simmons, whose Georgia National Guard unit escorts convoys in western
Iraq that are regularly rocked, damaged and delayed by roadside blasts.

Lt. Col. Bill Adamson, operations chief for the anti-IED campaign, was
realistic about the challenge in a Pentagon interview. "They adapt more
quickly than we procure technology," he said of the insurgents.

Casualty charts show a growing problem.

Better armor and tactics lowered the casualty rate per IED attack last
year. But attacks almost doubled from 2004, to 10,593, meaning the U.S.
death toll from IEDs still rose. Since mid-2005, an average of about 40
Americans a month have been killed by improvised explosives, twice the
rate of the previous 12 months, according to icasualties.org, an
independent Web site that tracks casualties in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the overall U.S. death rate held steady from 2004 to 2005,
making IED fatalities comparatively more significant. Last month, for
example, 36 of 55 American military personnel killed in Iraq were IED
victims.

The bomb makers have the White House's attention. In a radio address on
Saturday, Bush said roadside bombs "are now the principal threat to our
troops and to the future of a free Iraq."

Bush said in a speech Monday that Iran had supplied IED components to
Iraqi groups, but U.S. officials have presented no evidence to support
that, nor did Bush explain why Shiite Muslim Iran would aid Iraq's
Sunni-dominated insurgency.

For their IEDs, Iraqi insurgents, who are believed under the direction
of former military and intelligence officers, rely on the tons of
military ordnance left over from the era of Saddam Hussein, and on
store-bought electronic and other items for ignition systems.

The Pentagon's upgraded Joint IED Defeat Organization is getting a
sharply increased $3.3 billion this year to foil the often rudimentary
weapons, which the Iraqi resistance generally fashions from artillery
and mortar rounds. The "JIEDDO" staff of explosives experts and others
will almost triple, to 365.

From 2004 to 2006, some $6.1 billion will have been spent on the U.S.
effort - comparable, in equivalent dollars, to the cost of the
Manhattan Project installation that produced plutonium for World War
II's atom bombs.

The investment has paid dividends in Iraq: in "jammers" installed on
hundreds of U.S. vehicles to block radio detonation signals; in
massively armored Buffalo vehicles whose mechanical arms disable
roadside bombs. Forty-five percent of emplaced bombs are cleared before
detonation, the U.S. command says.

In one initiative showing how seriously it takes the threat, the
Defense Department proposes spending $167 million to build new supply
roads in Iraq that bypass urban centers where convoys are exposed to
IEDs.

But experts like the Air Force's Bob Sisk, an explosives-disposal
specialist whose teams are daily disarming IEDs north of Baghdad, said
the most important investment is in intelligence.

"The idea is to get the pieces of an IED to `Sexy,'" said this senior
master sergeant.

"Sexy" is CEXC, the Counter Explosive Exploitation Cell, a secretive
group at Baghdad's Camp Victory that is building a database on IED
incidents, in search of patterns and defenses.

"The initiation system" - detonators - "is always of interest,"
Sisk said. The bomb makers have progressed from using washing-machine
timers and pressure switches for initiating explosions, to cell phone
and walkie-talkie signals, and even infrared beams.

The IED analysts are vitally interested in placement-concealment
tactics. The bombs can be found in roadside garbage bags or sandbags,
in piles of rocks, buried in holes, in sheep or dog carcasses. One was
recently discovered disguised as concrete street-side curbing.

Hoaxes are a peril. "The enemy's very smart," said Capt. Peter Weld,
Sisk's commander. "They plant a harmless device that soldiers find and
gather around, and then they hit them with a real device nearby."

"Shaped charges" are also proliferating - killer explosives that
direct armor-piercing projectiles into U.S. vehicles.

The Pentagon's Adamson said new ways to neutralize IEDs on the ground
are critically important. But "we'll never keep up with the enemy's
agility," and the top priority must be "taking down the human component
- the financiers, the suppliers, the bomb makers."

For that, he said, "our goal is to get better technical and forensic
data off the ordnance" - from digital photos, measurements, explosive
residue, fingerprints, debriefings of troops on the scene.

The U.S. command claims significant success, saying it has captured or
killed 41 bomb makers since November. But soldiers still face the bombs
at seemingly the same rate.

The Georgia National Guard's Sgt. Robert Lewis couldn't help being
impressed while on duty in central Iraq.

"There's a road we called IED Alley that the ordnance disposal guys
would clear regularly," Lewis, 47, of Carrollton, Ga., said at his
current post in western Iraq. "But no sooner would they reach the end
of that stretch" - eight miles - "than the insurgents would be
planting IEDs again at the beginning."

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?
TMT
U.S. Spending Billions to Stop Iraq IEDs By CHARLES J. HANLEY,
snip
==========================
George Santayana built his career as historian on his
observation "those who will learn nothing from history are bound
to repeat it."

There are several good historical monographs available about the
German attempts to control the partisans in several areas they
"liberated," many of which were *NOT* under soviet/communist
control. Indeed after the Germans were driven out (and in some
cases while the Germans were ther), the first order of business
in several countries such as Yugoslavia and Greece was the
settling of accounts between the various national and
soviet/communist partisan groups, as their only point of
agreement was they did not like the Germans in their country.

One of the best is a study published by the Center for Military
History of the US Department of Defense. This was written by a
committee of high ranking German officers "who been there and
done that." This study offers penetrating insight into the
insolvable problems of attempting to control huge areas of
territory populated with warlike peoples, with insufficient
forces and unsuitable equipment, where all problems are
continually being exacerbated by arbitrary changes in policy and
endless counter-productive directives by the "High Command." In
the last analysis "pacification" was rendered insolvable because
of the contradictory requirements of an endless supply of passive
slave labor and the need to exterminate those who could/would not
be assimilated into this "new order" (which turned out to be the
majority of the population).

Ignoring questions of ethics the foundational problem in Iraq is
that Iraq is a geographical area and not a country. The British
spent 20 years after WWI attempting to create an "Iraq" country
and eventually declared victory and came home. Saddam Hussain
knew this vital fact and acted accordingly.

This is an important difference and not logic chopping because if
you have an actual country such as France or Czechoslovakia, the
people are more or less pacified, and not particularly restive.
The odds are good that you can "conquer" the country by simply
occupying the capital and using the existing governmental
structures to rule.

A geographical area is far different in that occupation of the
[nominal] capital, and especially if any reliance is placed on
the decorative appendages such as parliament, and the coercive
elements of government such as the party, secret police and armed
security services that were the actual "glue" that kept things
together and under control are disbanded.

From the historical record, pacification/"civilization" of a
geographic area *CAN* be accomplished, but the tactics required,
such as deliberate genocide by starvation and disease, are so
abhorrent to modern sensibilities that this is no longer an
option. It is also a slow process. For example, it required
about 200 years for the original people of North America to be
"pacified," and some Indian areas in rural Mexico are still only
marginally controlled by the "government." Unless the original
culture is totally erased, problems are sure to again arise, e.g.
Ireland and Wales.

Until and unless the US is willing to take traditional
pacification actions such as eliminating mobility and
communications such as the confiscation of automobiles, draconian
fuel rationing, elimination of civilian telephone and wireless,
draconian rationing of electricity, and food rationing to about
1,000 calories a day the problems will only get worse.

Additionally, severe reprisals must be imposed such as the
execution of random hostages from the incident location and the
demolition of their houses, and temporary reductions in
deliberately marginal fuel/food rations for every American/Allied
service person injured or killed, possibly on a sliding scale
based on rank and severity of injury. Say 5 for causing a
hangnail on a private to 100 for killing a general.

Given that the US people will not permit these historically
necessary actions, and even if the US government was willing,
implementation would prevent the economic exploitation of Iraq
and require the importation of "safe" labor for the petroleum
fields/refineries.

While the technology appears to be different, i.e. precision
guided munitions and pilotless drones v suicide bombers and IEDs,
in reality the asymmetry is totally different. The U.S. troops
are there because they were sent there, and are trying to impose
a foreign culture/economic structure while the "Indians" are
fighting for their lands and "way of life." As long as there are
suicide bombers there is no answer, short of a general
pre-emptive massacre, to the threat of IEDs.

The least bloody (and costly) "solution" is for the U.S. to
declare victory and come home after establishing three successor
states with good boundaries, and possibly arranging for the
exchange of populations. One for the Kurds, one for the Sunnis,
and one for the Shiites. Almost immediately, The Shiiets
[religious fundamentalists] will closely align with Iran, The
Sunnis [modernist/secular/fascist] will closely align with Syria,
and Kurdistan will be a major pain for Turkey.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen until the president
after next [next one won't want to appear "soft" on terrorism no
matter which party wins], so we must anticipate at least another
6 years of carnage unless a foreign exchange/trade catastrophe
resulting in a hyper-inflation/depression intervenes.

The big winner will be the PRC as it will provide the consumer
goods and arms the new states want and it needs the oil. Look
for a gas pipe line. Counter-trade [direct swap of so much oil
for so many anti aircraft missiles] is likely, with the Euro
being used where required. Brasil is another likely winner with
lots of production capacity, big need for oil, and no historical
baggage in the area.

German philosophical insights / bon mots may prove more
explanatory of the current problem.

"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against
an enemy. -- Friedrich Nietzsche"

"The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from
history." -Hegel (1770-1831)


Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)

"Ignoring questions of ethics the foundational problem in Iraq is
that Iraq is a geographical area and not a country."

So if the United States was invaded, would the United States be a
geographical area or a country?

Would we fight or roll over?

TMT

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:32:43 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

I would apologize to Iraqis and leave Iraq.




Or maybe deny the enemy sanctuary and block his
supply routes in from Syria and Iran. That would
of course require more troops. An insurgency can
be defeated by denying him sanctuary.
Then it becomes a matter of attrition, or more importantly
national will power and probably activating the draft.

In the RVN the 25th Armored Cav dealt with
command det IED.s on Rt 1 in the mid 60's.
There's a historical account of their ordeal
titled, " A Hundred Miles of Bad Road".

The pentagon policy makers surely knew this
was coming three years ago.........didn't they?

ED


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On 13 Mar 2006 19:35:01 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:

"Ignoring questions of ethics the foundational problem in Iraq is
that Iraq is a geographical area and not a country."

So if the United States was invaded, would the United States be a
geographical area or a country?

Would we fight or roll over?

TMT
===================
My best guess is the citizens rural areas would fight and the
residents in the urban areas would shrug their shoulders and go
on with business as usual as they are used to taking orders.




Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:59:36 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

I disagree with you that those semi-genocidal measures would work, as
they did not actually work in many situations (Germans, Soviets in
Afghanistan, etc). These kinds of things sound simple, but do not work
in reality.
===============
Operation word here is semi-genocidal.
^^^^
Problems occur when you want a docile slave labor force as the
Germans found out. When all you want the land/resources and not
the inhabitants [no need, import Africans, Chinese and Irish to
do the heavy lifting] kill them *ALL* off -- end of problem.
Again this may take some time, possibly 50 or 100 years in Iraq.

A large part of this analysis was my own conclusions. Which ones
would you like references on?



Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)

1) --**** 'em; let's go home.
2) --Assuming we don't, the Humvee is an accident looking
for a place to happen. We should scrap them all and switch to something that
works, like one of the South African carriers that are specifically designed
to deal with these sort of threats.
--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Better an early adapter
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : than an early adopter..
http://www.nmpproducts.com/intro.htm
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

google chain cannon.

There are some very good wmv files of a chain cannon used on insurgents
placing an IED. Range, 4,000 yards. 30mm chain cannon recoil ............
9,000# sending out an explosive projectile at up to 300 rounds per minute.

Entertaining.

Steve

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:55:59 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:52:38 -0700, DE wrote:
On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:32:43 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

I would apologize to Iraqis and leave Iraq.




Or maybe deny the enemy sanctuary and block his
supply routes in from Syria and Iran. That would
of course require more troops. An insurgency can
be defeated by denying him sanctuary.

It is an interesting idea, but insurgency covers a larga area and
doing so would require much more troops than are available.

A perfect application for interdiction and mining operations.
No tripple canopy cover, mostly open desert. Declare that the Iraq
borders between Syria and Iran are no-man land and are freefire
zones...and seed the travel routes with land mines. And while
were in the mining mode start at the us/mexican border..

Our troops derserve to either be fully supported or should be
withdrawn..

Bottom line Pres. Bush is in over his head..and needs some sound
council..

Then it becomes a matter of attrition, or more importantly
national will power and probably activating the draft.

In the RVN the 25th Armored Cav dealt with
command det IED.s on Rt 1 in the mid 60's.
There's a historical account of their ordeal
titled, " A Hundred Miles of Bad Road".

The pentagon policy makers surely knew this
was coming three years ago.........didn't they?

Maybe their advisers were too busy shoplifting at Target, to think
about that stuff.


Yea go figure that one, **** your life away for what?



http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...172159,00.html

i


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http://www.zippyvideos.com/202106025827375.html

speaks for itself

"Steve B" wrote

30mm chain cannon recoil ............
9,000# sending out an explosive projectile at up to 300 rounds per minute.

Sorry, 625 per minute

So do you think the roundup would start with those who have registered
guns?

It is much harder to resist when you are throwing rocks and Ipods.

TMT

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:32:43 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

I would apologize to Iraqis and leave Iraq.


One would assume you would also return Saddam to power, donate some
brand new wood chippers, build a couple childrens prisons and give all
the surviving Baathists and Feyadeen brand new Delta cordless drills
and Forstner bits just the right size to drill knee caps?

Gunner


It is similar to the problem that Hitler's troops had in Belorussia 60
years ago. Despite even extreme cruelty and recruiting local traitors,
they could do nothing to stop the guerrilla war. Just before the
Soviets attacked Germans in Belorussia in 1944, the partisans brought
their rail traffic (there were no good roads for moving a lot of
materiel), to a complete standstill, by blowing up all railroads.

Losses amongst Belorussian civilians were about 50%, and yet the
insurgency was thriving. And Germans were quite clever, and still
could not invent anything to stop it.

It is hard to stop an IED that is detonated by wire, if it is already
emplaced. Preventing them from being emplaced is very expensive. There
is no one local authority to pay off for stopping attacks.

i


TMT


U.S. Spending Billions to Stop Iraq IEDs By CHARLES J. HANLEY,

The United States is pouring billions more dollars and fresh platoons
of experts into its campaign to "defeat IEDs," the roadside bombs
President Bush describes as threat No. 1 to Iraq's future.

The American military even plans to build special, more defensible
highways here, in its frustrating standoff with the makeshift munitions
- "improvised explosive devices" - that Iraqi insurgents field by
the hundreds to hobble U.S. road movements in the 3-year-old conflict.

Out on those risky roads, and back at the Pentagon, few believe that
even the most advanced technology will eliminate the threat.

"As we've improved our armor, the enemy's improved his IEDs. They're
bigger, and with better detonating mechanisms," said Maj. Randall
Simmons, whose Georgia National Guard unit escorts convoys in western
Iraq that are regularly rocked, damaged and delayed by roadside blasts.

Lt. Col. Bill Adamson, operations chief for the anti-IED campaign, was
realistic about the challenge in a Pentagon interview. "They adapt more
quickly than we procure technology," he said of the insurgents.

Casualty charts show a growing problem.

Better armor and tactics lowered the casualty rate per IED attack last
year. But attacks almost doubled from 2004, to 10,593, meaning the U.S.
death toll from IEDs still rose. Since mid-2005, an average of about 40
Americans a month have been killed by improvised explosives, twice the
rate of the previous 12 months, according to icasualties.org, an
independent Web site that tracks casualties in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the overall U.S. death rate held steady from 2004 to 2005,
making IED fatalities comparatively more significant. Last month, for
example, 36 of 55 American military personnel killed in Iraq were IED
victims.

The bomb makers have the White House's attention. In a radio address on
Saturday, Bush said roadside bombs "are now the principal threat to our
troops and to the future of a free Iraq."

Bush said in a speech Monday that Iran had supplied IED components to
Iraqi groups, but U.S. officials have presented no evidence to support
that, nor did Bush explain why Shiite Muslim Iran would aid Iraq's
Sunni-dominated insurgency.

For their IEDs, Iraqi insurgents, who are believed under the direction
of former military and intelligence officers, rely on the tons of
military ordnance left over from the era of Saddam Hussein, and on
store-bought electronic and other items for ignition systems.

The Pentagon's upgraded Joint IED Defeat Organization is getting a
sharply increased $3.3 billion this year to foil the often rudimentary
weapons, which the Iraqi resistance generally fashions from artillery
and mortar rounds. The "JIEDDO" staff of explosives experts and others
will almost triple, to 365.

From 2004 to 2006, some $6.1 billion will have been spent on the U.S.
effort - comparable, in equivalent dollars, to the cost of the
Manhattan Project installation that produced plutonium for World War
II's atom bombs.

The investment has paid dividends in Iraq: in "jammers" installed on
hundreds of U.S. vehicles to block radio detonation signals; in
massively armored Buffalo vehicles whose mechanical arms disable
roadside bombs. Forty-five percent of emplaced bombs are cleared before
detonation, the U.S. command says.

In one initiative showing how seriously it takes the threat, the
Defense Department proposes spending $167 million to build new supply
roads in Iraq that bypass urban centers where convoys are exposed to
IEDs.

But experts like the Air Force's Bob Sisk, an explosives-disposal
specialist whose teams are daily disarming IEDs north of Baghdad, said
the most important investment is in intelligence.

"The idea is to get the pieces of an IED to `Sexy,'" said this senior
master sergeant.

"Sexy" is CEXC, the Counter Explosive Exploitation Cell, a secretive
group at Baghdad's Camp Victory that is building a database on IED
incidents, in search of patterns and defenses.

"The initiation system" - detonators - "is always of interest,"
Sisk said. The bomb makers have progressed from using washing-machine
timers and pressure switches for initiating explosions, to cell phone
and walkie-talkie signals, and even infrared beams.

The IED analysts are vitally interested in placement-concealment
tactics. The bombs can be found in roadside garbage bags or sandbags,
in piles of rocks, buried in holes, in sheep or dog carcasses. One was
recently discovered disguised as concrete street-side curbing.

Hoaxes are a peril. "The enemy's very smart," said Capt. Peter Weld,
Sisk's commander. "They plant a harmless device that soldiers find and
gather around, and then they hit them with a real device nearby."

"Shaped charges" are also proliferating - killer explosives that
direct armor-piercing projectiles into U.S. vehicles.

The Pentagon's Adamson said new ways to neutralize IEDs on the ground
are critically important. But "we'll never keep up with the enemy's
agility," and the top priority must be "taking down the human component
- the financiers, the suppliers, the bomb makers."

For that, he said, "our goal is to get better technical and forensic
data off the ordnance" - from digital photos, measurements, explosive
residue, fingerprints, debriefings of troops on the scene.

The U.S. command claims significant success, saying it has captured or
killed 41 bomb makers since November. But soldiers still face the bombs
at seemingly the same rate.

The Georgia National Guard's Sgt. Robert Lewis couldn't help being
impressed while on duty in central Iraq.

"There's a road we called IED Alley that the ordnance disposal guys
would clear regularly," Lewis, 47, of Carrollton, Ga., said at his
current post in western Iraq. "But no sooner would they reach the end
of that stretch" - eight miles - "than the insurgents would be
planting IEDs again at the beginning."




"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:15:55 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

The least bloody (and costly) "solution" is for the U.S. to
declare victory and come home after establishing three successor
states with good boundaries, and possibly arranging for the
exchange of populations. One for the Kurds, one for the Sunnis,
and one for the Shiites. Almost immediately, The Shiiets
[religious fundamentalists] will closely align with Iran, The
Sunnis [modernist/secular/fascist] will closely align with Syria,
and Kurdistan will be a major pain for Turkey.


Excellent synopsis

Gunner



"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

In article ,
Ignoramus4546 wrote:

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:15:00 GMT, Gunner wrote:
On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:32:43 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, Too_Many_Tools
wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

I would apologize to Iraqis and leave Iraq.


One would assume you would also return Saddam to power, donate some
brand new wood chippers, build a couple childrens prisons and give all
the surviving Baathists and Feyadeen brand new Delta cordless drills
and Forstner bits just the right size to drill knee caps?

It does not look like Iraq is experiencing a lack of torture
instruments. As for returning Saddam to power, and generally returning
to the pre-2003 status quo, it is more of a fantasy than reality.

At least Saddam knows how to stop the civil war in Iraq.

--
Free men own guns, slaves don't
www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5357/

Good post George, thanks for taking the time.

- -
Rex B

F. George McDuffee wrote:
On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?
TMT
U.S. Spending Billions to Stop Iraq IEDs By CHARLES J. HANLEY,
snip
==========================
George Santayana built his career as historian on his
observation "those who will learn nothing from history are bound
to repeat it."

There are several good historical monographs available about the
German attempts to control the partisans in several areas they
"liberated," many of which were *NOT* under soviet/communist
control. Indeed after the Germans were driven out (and in some
cases while the Germans were ther), the first order of business
in several countries such as Yugoslavia and Greece was the
settling of accounts between the various national and
soviet/communist partisan groups, as their only point of
agreement was they did not like the Germans in their country.

One of the best is a study published by the Center for Military
History of the US Department of Defense. This was written by a
committee of high ranking German officers "who been there and
done that." This study offers penetrating insight into the
insolvable problems of attempting to control huge areas of
territory populated with warlike peoples, with insufficient
forces and unsuitable equipment, where all problems are
continually being exacerbated by arbitrary changes in policy and
endless counter-productive directives by the "High Command." In
the last analysis "pacification" was rendered insolvable because
of the contradictory requirements of an endless supply of passive
slave labor and the need to exterminate those who could/would not
be assimilated into this "new order" (which turned out to be the
majority of the population).

Ignoring questions of ethics the foundational problem in Iraq is
that Iraq is a geographical area and not a country. The British
spent 20 years after WWI attempting to create an "Iraq" country
and eventually declared victory and came home. Saddam Hussain
knew this vital fact and acted accordingly.

This is an important difference and not logic chopping because if
you have an actual country such as France or Czechoslovakia, the
people are more or less pacified, and not particularly restive.
The odds are good that you can "conquer" the country by simply
occupying the capital and using the existing governmental
structures to rule.

A geographical area is far different in that occupation of the
[nominal] capital, and especially if any reliance is placed on
the decorative appendages such as parliament, and the coercive
elements of government such as the party, secret police and armed
security services that were the actual "glue" that kept things
together and under control are disbanded.

From the historical record, pacification/"civilization" of a
geographic area *CAN* be accomplished, but the tactics required,
such as deliberate genocide by starvation and disease, are so
abhorrent to modern sensibilities that this is no longer an
option. It is also a slow process. For example, it required
about 200 years for the original people of North America to be
"pacified," and some Indian areas in rural Mexico are still only
marginally controlled by the "government." Unless the original
culture is totally erased, problems are sure to again arise, e.g.
Ireland and Wales.

Until and unless the US is willing to take traditional
pacification actions such as eliminating mobility and
communications such as the confiscation of automobiles, draconian
fuel rationing, elimination of civilian telephone and wireless,
draconian rationing of electricity, and food rationing to about
1,000 calories a day the problems will only get worse.

Additionally, severe reprisals must be imposed such as the
execution of random hostages from the incident location and the
demolition of their houses, and temporary reductions in
deliberately marginal fuel/food rations for every American/Allied
service person injured or killed, possibly on a sliding scale
based on rank and severity of injury. Say 5 for causing a
hangnail on a private to 100 for killing a general.

Given that the US people will not permit these historically
necessary actions, and even if the US government was willing,
implementation would prevent the economic exploitation of Iraq
and require the importation of "safe" labor for the petroleum
fields/refineries.

While the technology appears to be different, i.e. precision
guided munitions and pilotless drones v suicide bombers and IEDs,
in reality the asymmetry is totally different. The U.S. troops
are there because they were sent there, and are trying to impose
a foreign culture/economic structure while the "Indians" are
fighting for their lands and "way of life." As long as there are
suicide bombers there is no answer, short of a general
pre-emptive massacre, to the threat of IEDs.

The least bloody (and costly) "solution" is for the U.S. to
declare victory and come home after establishing three successor
states with good boundaries, and possibly arranging for the
exchange of populations. One for the Kurds, one for the Sunnis,
and one for the Shiites. Almost immediately, The Shiiets
[religious fundamentalists] will closely align with Iran, The
Sunnis [modernist/secular/fascist] will closely align with Syria,
and Kurdistan will be a major pain for Turkey.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen until the president
after next [next one won't want to appear "soft" on terrorism no
matter which party wins], so we must anticipate at least another
6 years of carnage unless a foreign exchange/trade catastrophe
resulting in a hyper-inflation/depression intervenes.

The big winner will be the PRC as it will provide the consumer
goods and arms the new states want and it needs the oil. Look
for a gas pipe line. Counter-trade [direct swap of so much oil
for so many anti aircraft missiles] is likely, with the Euro
being used where required. Brasil is another likely winner with
lots of production capacity, big need for oil, and no historical
baggage in the area.

German philosophical insights / bon mots may prove more
explanatory of the current problem.

"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against
an enemy. -- Friedrich Nietzsche"

"The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from
history." -Hegel (1770-1831)


Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)

"Ignoramus4546" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:37:20 -0800, Steve B
wrote:

"Steve B" wrote

30mm chain cannon recoil ............
9,000# sending out an explosive projectile at up to 300 rounds per
minute.

Sorry, 625 per minute

That's not a continuous rating though... I doubt that it could even
fire for full minute before falling apart due to overheating...

i


Whatever it does, I wouldn't want it pointed in my direction.

I was just quoting from the stat sheet.

Steve

"One would assume you would also return Saddam to power, donate some
brand new wood chippers, build a couple childrens prisons and give all
the surviving Baathists and Feyadeen brand new Delta cordless drills
and Forstner bits just the right size to drill knee caps?

Gunner "

I for one do not know what the best course of action at this time is
BUT I do remember who got us into this mess and the lies that have
occurred along the way.

Meanwhile, remember those same people say that Iraq is not heading
towards civil war.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060314/...E0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Iraqis Find 85 Bodies in 24-Hour Period By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated
Press Writers

Police in the past 24 hours have found the bodies of at least 85 people
killed by execution-style shootings - a gruesome wave of apparent
sectarian reprisal slayings, officials said Tuesday.

The dead included at least 27 bodies stacked in a mass grave in an
eastern Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.

The bloodshed - the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since
bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month - followed
weekend attacks in a teeming Shiite slum in which 58 people died and
more than 200 were wounded.

Iraq's Interior Ministry announced a ban on driving in the capital to
coincide with the first meeting of the new parliament Thursday. The ban
takes effect at 8 p.m. Wednesday and lasts until 4 p.m. Thursday.

Squabbling over the composition of a new government has delayed the
inaugural session since the results of Dec. 15 elections were confirmed
more than a month ago.

Leaders of Iraq's main ethnic and religious blocs, meanwhile, began a
series of marathon meetings Tuesday to try to break the deadlock. U.S.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been shuttling between the main
factions, joined the session hosted by Shiite leader Adbul-Aziz
al-Hakim.

The stakes are high for Washington, which hopes a strong and inclusive
central government can stabilize Iraq so U.S. forces can start drawing
down in the summer.

Most of the corpses were found in Baghdad, while three were found in
the northern city of Mosul, police said.

Acting on an anonymous tip, police found a 6-by-8-yard hole in an empty
field. It contained at least 27 dead men - most of them in their
underwear - in Kamaliyah, a mostly Shiite east Baghdad suburb, said
Interior Ministry Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi. He estimated they had
been dead for three days.

Residents offered scarves to help cover the bodies, which were laid out
on the ground. Police guarded the site as members of a Shiite militia
dug for more corpses. An Associated Press photographer took pictures of
the grave but was warned not to publish them.

An abandoned minibus containing 15 bodies was found Tuesday on the main
road between two mostly Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad, not far
from where another minibus containing 18 bodies was discovered last
week, said Interior Ministry official Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi.

At least 40 more bodies were discovered in various parts of Baghdad,
including both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, he said.

They included four men shot in the head execution-style and hanged from
electricity pylons in Sadr City, where two car bombs and four mortar
rounds shattered shops and market stalls at nightfall Sunday as
residents shopped for food.

Scores of frightened Shiite families have fled predominantly Sunni
parts of Baghdad in recent weeks, some of them at gunpoint. More than
100 families arrived between Monday and Tuesday alone in Wasit
province, in the southern Shiite heartland, said Haitham Ajaimi Manie,
an official with the provisional migration directorate. More than 300
Baghdad families are now sheltering in the province, he said.

The violence since the Feb. 22 bombing of the famed golden dome atop
the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra has complicated negotiations for
Iraq's first permanent, post-invasion government. A caretaker
government has been in charge since the December elections, and U.S.
and Iraqi officials fear the vacuum in authority is fueling the
bloodshed.

Under pressure from Khalilzad, leaders of the main ethnic and religious
groups agreed Sunday to meet daily until they can unblock the political
negotiations.

Among the most contentious issues is Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim
al-Jaafari's candidacy for a second term. Kurdish, Sunni and some
secular leaders argue he is too divisive and accuse him of doing too
little to contain reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques and clerics after
the Shiite shrine was destroyed.

The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance is itself divided over al-Jaafari. He
won the nomination by just one vote last month in large part because of
the support of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Hakim favored
Adil Abdul-Mahdi, one of two current vice presidents.

Also present at Tuesday's meeting were President Jalal Talabani and
Massoud Barzani, leaders of the main Kurdish parties; Dhafir al-Ani, an
official with the main Sunni bloc; and former Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi, a secular Shiite.

President Bush said insurgents were trying to ignite a civil war by
escalating the violence.

"I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road
ahead will be smooth," Bush said in the first of a series of speeches
to mark the third anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
"It will not. There will be more tough fighting and more days of
struggle, and we will see more images of chaos and carnage in the days
and months to come."

Bomb blasts and shootings in Baghdad and north of the capital, many of
them targeting Iraqi police patrols, killed at least 15 more people
Monday and wounded more than 40. They included a U.S. soldier who died
in a roadside bombing, the military said. A U.S. Marine was reported
killed Sunday in insurgent-plagued Anbar province.

The American deaths brought the number of U.S. military members killed
to at least 2,308 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003,
according to an Associated Press count.

Britain, the United States' largest military partner in Iraq, announced
a 10 percent - about 800-troop - reduction by May.

In Paris, a high-ranking U.S. official expressed concern about security
in Iraq's oil sector.

Stuart W. Bowen Jr., U.S. special inspector general for Iraq
reconstruction, compared the rebuilding program to a three-legged stool
built on governance, security and infrastructu "Each of those legs
is a little wobbly right now," he said.

Iraq currently produces 1.7 million to 1.8 million barrels of oil per
day - far short of the capacity of 2.8 million and down from a
post-invasion peak of 2.4 million last summer, he said.

"The drop, since then, is connected primarily to attacks," he said,
adding that U.S. expectations on oil production were too high. "There
was an assumption that has proven not to be accurate - that is, that
the Iraqis would be able to fund recovery through their oil income."

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:35:46 GMT, Ignoramus4546
wrote:

Problems occur when you want a docile slave labor force as the
Germans found out. When all you want the land/resources and not
the inhabitants [no need, import Africans, Chinese and Irish to
do the heavy lifting] kill them *ALL* off -- end of problem.
Again this may take some time, possibly 50 or 100 years in Iraq.

Hardly practicable in the modern context.

Which is my point -- if you are unable/unwilling to apply the
only technique that is know to work historically, its time to
p*** on the campfire and go home.


A large part of this analysis was my own conclusions. Which ones
would you like references on?

You mentioned a study performed after WWII. That's what I wanted some
references on.

Now out of print
Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941-1944), DA Pamphlet
20-243 (Washington, DC: Dept. of the Army, August 1954).
for used see
http://www.arbutusbooks.com/cgi-bin/...m=1 572492287


Also see scan of typed manuscript same subject different author
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/cgi-bin....pl?docnum=397

Other publications that may be of interest to you

German Anti-Partisan Warfare in Europe: 1939-1945 (Schiffer
Military History)
by Colin D. Heaton ISBN: 0764313959
see http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0764313959


Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:31:06 GMT, Ignoramus4546
wrote:

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:15:00 GMT, Gunner wrote:
On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:32:43 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

I would apologize to Iraqis and leave Iraq.


One would assume you would also return Saddam to power, donate some
brand new wood chippers, build a couple childrens prisons and give all
the surviving Baathists and Feyadeen brand new Delta cordless drills
and Forstner bits just the right size to drill knee caps?

It does not look like Iraq is experiencing a lack of torture
instruments. As for returning Saddam to power, and generally returning
to the pre-2003 status quo, it is more of a fantasy than reality.

i

I would say that apologizing to Iraqis and packing up and leaving is a
fantasy also.

Gunner



"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:40:57 GMT, Nick Hull
wrote:

In article ,
Ignoramus4546 wrote:

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:15:00 GMT, Gunner wrote:
On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:32:43 GMT, Ignoramus19490
wrote:

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, Too_Many_Tools
wrote:
How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

I would apologize to Iraqis and leave Iraq.


One would assume you would also return Saddam to power, donate some
brand new wood chippers, build a couple childrens prisons and give all
the surviving Baathists and Feyadeen brand new Delta cordless drills
and Forstner bits just the right size to drill knee caps?

It does not look like Iraq is experiencing a lack of torture
instruments. As for returning Saddam to power, and generally returning
to the pre-2003 status quo, it is more of a fantasy than reality.

At least Saddam knows how to stop the civil war in Iraq.


By killing everybody, along with their families.

Gunner



"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

"There are some very good wmv files of a chain cannon used on
insurgents
placing an IED. Range, 4,000 yards. 30mm chain cannon recoil
.............
9,000# sending out an explosive projectile at up to 300 rounds per
minute.

Entertaining.

Steve "

So are you saying that we need to place chain cannons along every road
in Iraq?

Even if you could (which of course you can't), how would that fix the
problem?

TMT

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 16:15:46 GMT, Gunner
wrote:
snip
At least Saddam knows how to stop the civil war in Iraq.


By killing everybody, along with their families.

Gunner
===========
The CIA and MI-6 put the Shah back in power didn't they? If
seddam will guarantee cheap oil priced in US dollars with the
profits to be invested in US treasury securities he will be back
in a heartbeat.




Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)

On 14 Mar 2006 08:20:16 -0800, JAn Howell
wrote:

In article .com,
Too_Many_Tools says...

How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

TMT


For an intersting possibility of a tactical partial solution see the following
URL for a directed energy solution:http://www.ionatron.com/default.aspx?id=1

Jan Howell


Very interesting stuff, but the asymmetrical aspect of this
particular situation, makes a technological solution improbable IMO.
I've been told the defense contractors are working hard on
a fix but with nothing so far..

All past successful anti insurgency operations share a number of
similar techniques.

In this case where foreign fighters are the core problem, it is
there where the focus must be aimed. Wacking street level fighters
with a chain gun is satisfying, but I believe it would be better to
snatch them up and find out who is further up in the organization.
And continue up the chain.
They have much more value alive and talking than being a grease
spot on the road...

But first the borders must be secured and that hasn't occurred.
I recall meeting a senior SpecOP guy years ago in SEA as a young
enlisted man and I asked him just exactly what he did. His reply was
that he kicked ass and took names......

The Bush admin. has tried to do this on the cheap and this is what
we got..a mess.....ne easy answers to this ordeal

ED


----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

JAn Howell wrote:

In article .com,
Too_Many_Tools says...

How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

TMT


For an intersting possibility of a tactical partial solution see the
following URL for a directed energy
solution:http://www.ionatron.com/default.aspx?id=1

Looks to me like a Beltway Bandit riding the gravy train. Do they actually
have a product that has been demonstrated to work in a combat environment?

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
"There are some very good wmv files of a chain cannon used on
insurgents
placing an IED. Range, 4,000 yards. 30mm chain cannon recoil
............
9,000# sending out an explosive projectile at up to 300 rounds per
minute.

Entertaining.

Steve "

So are you saying that we need to place chain cannons along every road
in Iraq?

Even if you could (which of course you can't), how would that fix the
problem?

TMT


I am confused. Are you asking if I said what I said or if I said something
different than what I said, or if what you heard is what you think I said,
or what I said is what you think you heard, or what I said wasn't what I
said, or what I said wasn't what I meant, or what I meant wasn't what I
said,

OR,

that I said, "Hey, have a look at this."

You can see the source of my confusion.

Steve

"Ignoramus4546" wrote

guess who would steal these chain cannons (hint, bearded men)

i

Why would they have to steal them when they could probably buy them from
their neighborhood dealer? Or over the Internet?

Steve

F. George McDuffee wrote:


George Santayana built his career as historian on his
observation "those who will learn nothing from history are bound
to repeat it."

Unfortunately, learning from history does not prevent repeating it.

This is an important difference and not logic chopping because if
you have an actual country such as France or Czechoslovakia, the
people are more or less pacified, and not particularly restive.
The odds are good that you can "conquer" the country by simply
occupying the capital and using the existing governmental
structures to rule.

Obviously, Czechoslovakia is not a good example of an "actual country."

David

On 13 Mar 2006 16:53:40 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:

How would you approach this problem...any thoughts?

TMT

U.S. Spending Billions to Stop Iraq IEDs By CHARLES J. HANLEY,

The United States is pouring billions more dollars and fresh platoons
of experts into its campaign to "defeat IEDs," the roadside bombs
President Bush describes as threat No. 1 to Iraq's future.

We've done a good job of cleaning out the 'regular rats' that the
amateurs from other countries are running in to try and disrupt the
progress we've made.

The Islamic nations in the area are scared to death that a peaceful
and law-abiding representative form of government might get a toehold
in Iraq - when the terror nations' stated goal since the time of
Mohammed is to spread Islam and Sharia Law across the world, and kill
any infidels who oppose them.

And they won't listen to reason - "Can't we all just get along?"

We could not, can not, and will not 'Cut And Run' - we need to stay
till we get the Iraqis up and running their own country, and they can
root out and capture or kill the terrorists and handle it themselves.

If the Iraqi citizens are convinced that their country is
salvageable, they'll fight for it - they have already formed their own
"Neighborhood Watch" style groups to notify the military of terrorist
activities. And when it's in full swing the Iraqi military will show
up as the bombmakers are planting their device, and send them to meet
Allah a little earlier than planned.

Once the Iraqis have control of the country the IED's should start
to go away on their own, and the surviving terrorists will go back to
Syria Iran and Lebanon (among other places) where they came from.

Like it or not, Saddam was in gross violation of the cease-fire
terms from the "first half" of the Gulf War before the ink on the
agreement was even dry, and we showed incredible restraint in not
going back in there sooner. Now that we've got the *******s out of
power, we have to clean up the mess and not leave a power vacuum.

-- Bruce --

--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.

"
F. George McDuffee wrote:
George Santayana built his career as historian on his
observation "those who will learn nothing from history are bound
to repeat it."


Unfortunately, learning from history does not prevent repeating it.


This is an important difference and not logic chopping because if
you have an actual country such as France or Czechoslovakia, the
people are more or less pacified, and not particularly restive.
The odds are good that you can "conquer" the country by simply
occupying the capital and using the existing governmental
structures to rule.


Obviously, Czechoslovakia is not a good example of an "actual country."


David "


Obviously, Iraq is not a good example of an "actual country" either.

TMT

" We've done a good job of cleaning out the 'regular rats' that the
amateurs from other countries are running in to try and disrupt the
progress we've made.

The Islamic nations in the area are scared to death that a peaceful
and law-abiding representative form of government might get a toehold
in Iraq - when the terror nations' stated goal since the time of
Mohammed is to spread Islam and Sharia Law across the world, and kill
any infidels who oppose them.


And they won't listen to reason - "Can't we all just get along?"


We could not, can not, and will not 'Cut And Run' - we need to stay
till we get the Iraqis up and running their own country, and they can
root out and capture or kill the terrorists and handle it themselves.


If the Iraqi citizens are convinced that their country is
salvageable, they'll fight for it - they have already formed their own
"Neighborhood Watch" style groups to notify the military of terrorist
activities. And when it's in full swing the Iraqi military will show
up as the bombmakers are planting their device, and send them to meet
Allah a little earlier than planned.


Once the Iraqis have control of the country the IED's should start
to go away on their own, and the surviving terrorists will go back to
Syria Iran and Lebanon (among other places) where they came from.


Like it or not, Saddam was in gross violation of the cease-fire
terms from the "first half" of the Gulf War before the ink on the
agreement was even dry, and we showed incredible restraint in not
going back in there sooner. Now that we've got the *******s out of
power, we have to clean up the mess and not leave a power vacuum.


-- Bruce -- "

Whoa...who's been hitting the crack pipe?

Whether or not you have been paying attention Bruce, this war is not
going the way Baby Boy George promised.

"Cut and Run" is what America is good at aka Vietnam....that is after
billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost looking for
those WMDs that weren't.

And oh, isn't Osama Bin Forgotten is still laughing his ass off at
us.....


TMT

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
"
F. George McDuffee wrote:
George Santayana built his career as historian on his
observation "those who will learn nothing from history are bound
to repeat it."


Unfortunately, learning from history does not prevent repeating it.


This is an important difference and not logic chopping because if
you have an actual country such as France or Czechoslovakia, the
people are more or less pacified, and not particularly restive.
The odds are good that you can "conquer" the country by simply
occupying the capital and using the existing governmental
structures to rule.


Obviously, Czechoslovakia is not a good example of an "actual country."


David "


Obviously, Iraq is not a good example of an "actual country" either.

Actually, Iraq and Czechoslovakia are very similar. Both were an
artificial country imposed by outsiders on a geographic area with two or
more very diverse peoples.

"Cut and Run" is what America is good at aka Vietnam....that is after
billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost looking for
those WMDs that weren't.

Talk about your slow learner. tsk

clue ----- Syria

"Rex B" wrote in message
...

"Cut and Run" is what America is good at aka Vietnam....that is after
billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost looking for
those WMDs that weren't.

Yep. They found the mass destruction and all the bodies, but no WMDs.

Ironic.

Steve

"Actually, Iraq and Czechoslovakia are very similar. Both were an
artificial country imposed by outsiders on a geographic area with two
or
more very diverse peoples. "

That definition could be applied to Iowa and California also. ;)

My comment was commenting on how talking about fighting a war versus
fighting a war always differs...too bad we don't let authors fight
wars, the result would be fewer wars and better books.

TMT

" "Cut and Run" is what America is good at aka Vietnam....that is
after
billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost looking for
those WMDs that weren't.


Talk about your slow learner. tsk

clue ----- Syria "

Yeah, yeah...blame it on the neighbors.

REAL leaders would have expected for sympathic support from the
neighboring countries and would have prepared for it.

Instead we have...well, we don't have leaders, do we?

Once again the United States is being beaten by a third world country.

TMT

- -
Rex Burkheimer
WM Automotive
Fort Worth TX

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
" "Cut and Run" is what America is good at aka Vietnam....that is
after
billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost looking for
those WMDs that weren't.


Talk about your slow learner. tsk

clue ----- Syria "

Yeah, yeah...blame it on the neighbors.

REAL leaders would have expected for sympathic support from the
neighboring countries and would have prepared for it.

http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php

On 15 Mar 2006 08:59:20 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:
snip
Once again the United States is being beaten by a third world country.
snip
Its not the country -- its what was attempted.

As Townsend observed in his book "Up The Organization" "when you
attempt the impossible you are bound to fail." This can't be
revised no matter who signs off on the findings or directives.


Unka George
(George McDuffee)

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)

On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 07:09:34 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:
"Rex B" wrote in message
...

"Cut and Run" is what America is good at aka Vietnam....that is after
billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost looking for
those WMDs that weren't.

Yep. They found the mass destruction and all the bodies, but no WMDs.

Ironic.

Of course not - Saddam got the vast majority of his Chemical and
Biological WMD capabilities out of the country in those "earthquake
relief" airlift flights to Syria. And he buried the rest - they've
got many big deserts and lots of laborers to do the work. And when
everything's buried, the last trench is used to get rid of most of the
witnesses...

Without a "treasure map" or a guide to show where they are, it could
be a while before these dumps surface.

We've found a lot of evidence that doesn't get properly covered in
the press - little bits of nuclear chemical and biological weaponry
and materials all over the place. Several small "Smoking Guns", just
not the huge ones where the liberal nay-sayers will have to agree that
they did in fact exist and were in fact there.

If Saddam has the empty chemical and biological artillery shells and
missiles on hand, tested and ready to go, it's no big trick to brew up
the 'fillings' for them. Safer to make the materials when needed,
rather than chance your stockpile leaking and killing your own people.

Unless you want to use them on your own people - ask the Kurds.

Oh, and that big stash consisting of several hundred tons of
unenriched and partially-enriched Uranium Oxide 'yellowcake' should
count as proof of intent to develop a nuclear weapons program at the
very least. But even though that's another provable "Smoking Gun",
again the liberal nay-sayers want to ignore any facts that do not fit
nicely within their preconceived notions.

I am not a hawk, but we can't hide in a corner and hope they leave
us alone - 9/11 proves that won't work. You try peaceful means first,
but sometimes war IS the answer, like it or don't.

-- Bruce --

I would like to know how it is that nobody notices these fools burying
bombs in the middle of well traveled roads. If sombody was digging a
hole in my street in the middle of the night I might take the matter
into my own hands.
All these explosives were sent to syria and lebanon and now being sent
back to cause this mayhem.
SUCK THE PLACE DRY OF OIL. GET THE HELL OUT. IHAVE COMIC BOOKS WITH A
BETTER EXIT STRAGEGY.
MORONS