RE: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,146542,00.html

Awww man! And here I was still believing Dick Cheney's comment that the insurgency was "in it's last throes".

Salami Bologna-Nonsense
Nice Iran sound-bites. Are you all running out of propped up dictators and enemies? Why doesnt the top brass whom many get employed by Carlyle group's type co. etc and then the CFR go to Iraq and then Iran? We have plenty of our own resources in this Nation in Alaska etc. We do not need collapse of our system of Checks and Balances and economy so you could all make more profits and take away our Freedoms. Our media is mute at the North American Union meeting by Defacto change of government to the United States in Canada and Iran is a bad guy? You are the ones telling lies and abusing the intelligence of the American People. We cant even protect ourselves from you all selling our Nation to Canada and Mexico elites and then fearmongering us into giving up who we are. Grow up already and quit using your one way media to make out everyone in the world our enemy when perhaps the true enemies are yourselves violating our Constitution every single day and night. We no longer have representative government in this country. We are going to be converted into an International Socialist Capitalist, Disney Land were just like mexico there is no Middle class. Just a bunch of soft hand bureaucrats talking nonsense and pointing fingers at Nations business. Why are we in Iraq again? Is it for Brussels type of Federalist Superstate type of future ruling in America? Our soldiers fight while you sell the Land that their Founding Fathers Conquered. Cowards! I do not care how many medals you have on your uniform not all Americans fell off a truck like stupid. Let the banks fight their own money central wars.

Whoa...dude...decaf brother

oops...my bad...didnt look at your profile...decaf sister.

quote:

Originally posted by 12613916:
Salami Bologna-Nonsense
Nice Iran sound-bites. Are you all running out of propped up dictators and enemies? Why doesnt the top brass whom many get employed by Carlyle group's type co. etc and then the CFR go to Iraq and then Iran? We have plenty of our own resources in this Nation in Alaska etc. We do not need collapse of our system of Checks and Balances and economy so you could all make more profits and take away our Freedoms. Our media is mute at the North American Union meeting by Defacto change of government to the United States in Canada and Iran is a bad guy? You are the ones telling lies and abusing the intelligence of the American People. We cant even protect ourselves from you all selling our Nation to Canada and Mexico elites and then fearmongering us into giving up who we are. Grow up already and quit using your one way media to make out everyone in the world our enemy when perhaps the true enemies are yourselves violating our Constitution every single day and night. We no longer have representative government in this country. We are going to be converted into an International Socialist Capitalist, Disney Land were just like mexico there is no Middle class. Just a bunch of soft hand bureaucrats talking nonsense and pointing fingers at Nations business. Why are we in Iraq again? Is it for Brussels type of Federalist Superstate type of future ruling in America? Our soldiers fight while you sell the Land that their Founding Fathers Conquered. Cowards! I do not care how many medals you have on your uniform not all Americans fell off a truck like stupid. Let the banks fight their own money central wars.

Good post ...

Getting back on topic, this shows how impotent our Army is in the face of the insurgency.

Jammers, tactics, bomb-disposing robots... ALL ARE REACTIONS. They are all reactions to insurgent actions and, as long as the Army reacts to the bad guys (instead of pre-empting them), then we will ALWAYS be behind the power-curve.

Because I don't care how many IED's it takes to accomplish a succesful attack against one of our guys. So long as the insurgents can do so with impunity, WE ARE LOSING.

Why do our commanders not think outside the box? Why do we not employ two-man sniper teams in LP/OP's with ROE's that allow them to kill anything moving on the side of the roads after dark? Why are we continuing to simply respond to enemy actions, thereby giving up the initiative in the fight (which we really have not had since 2003)?

Kill the emplacers while they're doing their deed. All the true believers will eventually be eliminated (or whittled to an insignificant number). All the bums who are given $5 to plant an IED will stop doing it after a few of them are killed and left rotting the next day in the hot, Iraqi sun.

This is ridiculous already. We have a problem and the Army solution is to throw money at it. We have the tools and talent to mitigate this problem. I suggest we actually employ them.

Get the heck off the ground! Nazi Germany was the size of the state of Texas & we bombed them into defeat!
Has nothing been learned?!
If the populace will not assist us, destroy them before they do us!!
It's a no brainer ya'll!!

Joel97 says:

“Why do our commanders not think outside the box? Why do we not employ two-man sniper teams in LP/OP's with ROE's that allow them to kill anything moving on the side of the roads after dark? Why are we continuing to simply respond to enemy actions, thereby giving up the initiative in the fight (which we really have not had since 2003)?”

ABSOLUTELY RIGHT


A couple of million sniper teams would take care of the problem.


gcool says

‘Get the heck off the ground! Nazi Germany was the size of the state of Texas & we bombed them into defeat!’

ABSOLUTELY WRONG

gcoll sounds like a pilot, like GW and Rumsfeld.

We dropped megatons of bomb tonnage on Vietnam, kilotons island hopping in the Pacific and each WWI battle they never stopped fighting.

80% of the Nazi army died on the Eastern Front, not by bombing.

The only thing that will conquer is boots on the ground, maybe a million sniper teams as our forefathers learned in their century long anti savage-terrorist war was ‘boots on the ground’ and ‘hot lead and cold steel.’

Just reduce the number of troops on the road. It is the best defense.

Withdrawe troops from Iraq now.

quote:

Originally posted by vvawtom:
Joel97 says:

“Why do our commanders not think outside the box? Why do we not employ two-man sniper teams in LP/OP's with ROE's that allow them to kill anything moving on the side of the roads after dark? Why are we continuing to simply respond to enemy actions, thereby giving up the initiative in the fight (which we really have not had since 2003)?”...

The only thing that will conquer is boots on the ground, maybe a million sniper teams as our forefathers learned in their century long anti savage-terrorist war was ‘boots on the ground’ and ‘hot lead and cold steel.’

Gee, that sounds so simple! On the other hand, maybe *real* history *teaches other lessons ... more complicated one.

quote:

The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building
RAND Monograph MG-557-SRF (2007)

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States, NATO, the United Nations, and a range of other states and nongovernmental organizations have become increasingly involved in nation-building operations. Nation-building involves the use of armed force as part of a broader effort to promote political and economic reforms, with the objective of transforming a society emerging from conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors. This guidebook is a practical “how-to” manual on the conduct of effective nation-building. It is organized around the constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: military, police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development. The chapters describe how each of these components should be organized and employed, how much of each is likely to be needed, and the likely cost. The lessons are drawn principally from 16 U.S.- and UN-led nation-building operations since World War II and from a forthcoming study on European-led missions. In short, this guidebook presents a comprehensive history of best practices in nation-building and serves as an indispensable reference for the preplanning of future interventions and for contingency planning on the ground.

Here's a thought-provoking little quote from the above:

quote:

The U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has been marked by a myriad of unforeseen challenges and hastily improvised responses. Observers might be forgiven for thinking that the United States had never mounted such an operation.

Yet, Iraq was the seventh major U.S.-led intervention in little more than a decade, having been preceded by operations in Kuwait, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Of those seven societies, six are Muslim, Haiti being the sole exception.

At the commencement of the Iraq occupation, therefore, no Western military had more modern experience operating in Muslim societies than the U.S. Army and no country had more experience managing large nation-building enterprises than did the United States.

Unfortunately, neither the U.S. military nor the government as a whole had made a systematic attempt over the preceding decade to reflect on the experience of those earlier operations and apply these lessons in preparing for what was likely to be their biggest and most difficult such challenge to date, in Iraq.

So Iraq is the sixth Muslim nation we've pacified in recent years? How does that jibe with the "deploy snipers to kill them all" strategy???

That sum is comparable, in inflation-adjusted dollars, to what the U.S. spent building the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, based on figures compiled by Washington's Brookings Institution. Some in Congress complain the money's accomplishing little.

"We don't mind spending money if it's saving soldiers' lives," said Rep. James Moran, D-Va., a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "But we haven't seen that it has saved a lot of lives yet, and it's been up and running for three years

So why not save costs and drop some bombs? Are we becoming too diplomatic in war? Divided, we fall. We need to show our superiority to these terrorists. If we're not going to bomb them, these leaders/officers need to stop ***** footing around and let us start taking them out. There seems to be too much red tape to get the best equipment to our troops and they should have it.

quote:

Originally posted by soldiersmomx2:
That sum is comparable, in inflation-adjusted dollars, to what the U.S. spent building the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, based on figures compiled by Washington's Brookings Institution. Some in Congress complain the money's accomplishing little.

"We don't mind spending money if it's saving soldiers' lives," said Rep. James Moran, D-Va., a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "But we haven't seen that it has saved a lot of lives yet, and it's been up and running for three years

So why not save costs and drop some bombs? Are we becoming too diplomatic in war? Divided, we fall. We need to show our superiority to these terrorists. If we're not going to bomb them, these leaders/officers need to stop ***** footing around and let us start taking them out. There seems to be too much red tape to get the best equipment to our troops and they should have it.

I gather, then, you are in favor of 'carpet bombing?' Cannot be precision, because if we knew who, exactly, was the terorist to be hit, boots on the ground would be more effective. So we randomly bomb or carpet bomb and maybe kill a terrorist or two. If an innocent gets whacked, well that's what happens if you live in a war zone; never mind that it is your country. Then that innocent's daddy, or son, or uncle becomes the next terrorist out for revenge. It's been their way of life for centuries.

I agree with the poster who said that you can't be reacting. However, his version of "pro-acting" is typically American: deploy 2-man sniper teams to cover all the roads of Iraq. Yah right. Ignoring the fact that there probably aren't enough snipers in all of NATO - let alone the US - to do that job, would you want to be in a 2-man sniper team out in the middle of Iraq hell-knows-where? The populace would spot you sooner or later.

The way to proactively attack this problem is not brain surgery. It's interfacing with the populace. It's T.E. Lawrence of Arabia stuff. You could probably do more with just a handful of operatives who could fluidly intermingle with the populace than an entire division of armed-to-the-ying-yang MAHRINES! or whatever. (Look what Lawrence's handful of Brits did in Saudi Arabia, 1917; or what the US Spec Ops did in Afghanistan when you originally overthrew the Taliban.) Unfortunately, I don't think that handful exists in the US forces.

QUOTE]Originally posted by helez:
Just reduce the number of troops on the road. It is the best defense.

Withdrawe troops from Iraq now.[/QUOTE]


Helez you have it half right. We should be at a point in the training of the Iraqi forces that would allow them to take over a larger share of the road patrols. A greater portion of U.S. troops should be concentrating on securing the borders with Syria and Iran to reduce the infiltration of foreign terrorists and importation of advanced weaponry such as the EFPs that are doing our troops so much harm. Perhaps Iraqi forces will build a better rapport with the citizens that will result in less IEDs being planted or more reports to authorities when they are. That combined with increased use of UAVs and other remote surveillance techniques and equipment coupled with quick reactionary forces and armed UCAVs to rapidly destroy insurgents observed implanting explosives should be the direction we are heading in.

First you have to find out who the ENEMY is. As there is no CUT & DRIED answer to that, we need to get the 4ell out. Let them figure out the mess. We need to spend the money on MASS transit & getting the IMMIGRANTS out of the United States & closing the borders. As long as you have the U.S. dependent on so much OIL, we will always be fighting somewhere until the U.S. falls. REX

You know we can deploy snypers and who knows what wlse, but till we secure the borders and not allow the enemy to cross the borders we fight a loosing baddle. In Vietnam Charlie owned the country at night. All we could do was to have the Arty fire rounds in designated areas as harassing fire at night. We set ambushes at night and we got a body count, but this is a differant fight. Towns and big cities. But you still have the same nights. The Grunt is the answer to this. Patrols at night in designated areas along the roads in differant areas. Search and Destroy and CIOPS ....

quote:

The U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has been marked by a myriad of unforeseen challenges and hastily improvised responses. Observers might be forgiven for thinking that the United States had never mounted such an operation.

Yet, Iraq was the seventh major U.S.-led intervention in little more than a decade, having been preceded by operations in Kuwait, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Of those seven societies, six are Muslim, Haiti being the sole exception.

At the commencement of the Iraq occupation, therefore, no Western military had more modern experience operating in Muslim societies than the U.S. Army and no country had more experience managing large nation-building enterprises than did the United States.

Unfortunately, neither the U.S. military nor the government as a whole had made a systematic attempt over the preceding decade to reflect on the experience of those earlier operations and apply these lessons in preparing for what was likely to be their biggest and most difficult such challenge to date, in Iraq.

Okay, let me clarify what I said earlier before I address this quote. First, ANOTHER poster receommended a "million sniper teams". We don't have that many, and I know this. Second, I realize you can't cover ALL the roads ALL the time. But, you really don't have to. If you do it enough to make the "true believers" look over their shoulder enough and not plant IED's with impunity (as they do now) AND you sufficiently deter the "amateur" (for lack of a better word to define those who are not real insurgents, but just someone looking to make some money), then you can REALLY put a dent into the IED threat.

As for the quote from the RAND report... I have to thoroughly disagree with it. Simply because we've operated in Muslim countries six out of seven times over the past decade does not mean we should have had an easy time in Iraq. Each situation was uniquely different and each offered its reasons for our successes and failures.

Take Kuwait for example. This was a smashing success for us because, quite simply, the Iraqis played by our rules. They dug into an open desert with tanks, artillery, and troops and stood there while we unleashed our conventional firepower against them. This fight was an aberration due entirely to Saddam's stupidity. It was a corps-level drive-by.

Somalia was a disaster for us. While we started strong, the Clinton administration did not have the will to send in the forces necessary to bring the militias to heel. The Marines, after a few rumbles in the beginning, had the place under control. Once the forces were removed (along with the heavier stuff), the control was lost. Clinton also had advisors who thought that the elite troops in place were a substitute for robust ground forces (they aren't) and could resolve the situation by capturing Aideed and not having to face down and destroy the Habd Gidr clan and others like them (they couldn't).

Bosnia was, in a way, an aberration as well. While technically a "Muslim" nation, it really is a mixture of Muslim, Greek Orthodox, and Catholic peoples. The somewhat success on the ground (because the place still is, politically, sitting on the precipice of disaster) I believe was largely due to the fact that the people had basically gotten tired of slaughtering eachother. When the U.S. got involved, everyone (even, for all their talk, the Serbs) were too tired to try and fight us.

Kosovo was (and is) a similar situation. With the Kosovars slowly approaching a "critical mass" in demanding their independence, this situation is not really resolved yet. Stay tuned to that bat channel for more problems in the next couple of years.

The jury's still out in Afghanistan. While our SOF were a smashing success in the beginning (because, technically they were the insurgents), "big" Army has taken over and progress has definitely slowed down. The Taliban are licking their wounds and itching for a fight. I believe that they are standing by to wait and see how things play out in Iraq.

That all being said, Iraq was a problem from the beginning simply because the administration and senior miltary leadership thought in simple and naive terms. They didn't understand the cultural, political, and religious dynamics of Iraq. They, quite literally, thought we'd roll in and everyone would play nice once Saddam was gone and everything would end splendidly.

Iraq has been a painful lesson in Sun Tzu's moral, "know yourself and your enemy and you will win every battle, know yourself but not your enemy (or vice versa) and you will win half your battles, know neither yourself nor your enemy and you will lose everytime."

The Bush administration did NOT know Iraq and did NOT know what the Army was capable and not capable of.

Counterinsurgency is a very delicate balance of the application of force (sometimes very brutal force) as well as the application of non-lethal force (CA and PSYOP). We have exhibited a poor judgement in the application of both.

There are times when wasting a whole area is appropriate... other times when it's not. It's not wholly one or the other.

The ability to know when it's appropriate or not is a good quality of a leader... and that's an ability I have yet to see. We either hold back when we shouldn't or "let 'em have it" when we should be holding back.

Since time this has been a military problem. It became overwhelming in Vietnam and sent our causality rate soaring. Same problem different place. Scroll down to Vietnam and read the Colonel's report about roadside bombs and ambushes.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:0qBA8EcVZOgJ:www.l...=us&client=firefox-a

I SEE ALL THIS PROGAMS ABOUT OUR HOW GREAT OUR
SNIPERS ARE BUT I NEVER HERE ABOUT THEN
M BEING USED, ALL I HERE ABOUT IS HOW ONE OF OUR
GUYS GOT SHOT BY ONE OF THEIR SNIPERS. WE HAVE ALL THIS MODERN EQUIPMENT AND PEOPLE IN THE STONE AGE ARE KICKING OUR *** I JUST DON'T GET IT. WE SHOULD HAVE SNIPERS ALL OVER THE PLACE WITH SILENCERS JUST WAITING FOR THE WRONG PERSON
TO TRY AND PLANT AN IED AND I WOUL TAKE HIM OR
HER OUT. WE USED TO HAVE GOOD MILITARY LEADERS
BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAS HAPPEN TO THEM. THEY
DON'T SEEM TO HAVE GOOD FRESH IDEAS. MAYBE THEIR
HANDS ARE TIED BY THIS BLEEDING HEART CIVILANS
IN WASHINTON.

CAMEL1/18CAV.(SWIFT&DEADLY)