iraq worse than vietnam...
After apparently learning nothing from its own Vietnam debacle , and having learned nothing from the demise of the old soviet union -- a demise none too seceretly aided and abetted with vigorous enthusiasm by billions of dollars worth of , US technology , training ,organizational people-management skills and knowhow, along side tons of military hardware also supplied the mujahids by the west during the decade-long human-meatgrinder that was the Afghan /Soviet war ...the US Dinosaur has foolishly stumbled deep into the sticky mire of the tar pit that is iraq and created now an even worse situation for itself there ,than it did in vietnam...but with at least one critical difference --the US economy is much weaker in this era of information , cooked books ,severe consumer gouging by energy companies , federally stimulated construction of low and moderate income housing lagging far behind demand and at woefully weak levels --perhaps most ominously of all is the omen delivered by an economy reliant upon drug money laundering -the prison industrial complex , the gaming industries along with stock market gambling represented by hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stock derivatives-- paper speculation on nothing more than bubbles of air . also forboding for the US economically is the increasing failure of key social infrastructure --especially the public school systems and the growing , undereducated ,poorly motivated , debt-enslaved underclass workforce it provides the economy to draw labor from .
at least in the vietnam era america still relied upon a physical economy that primarily manufactured tangible goods for sale at home and abroad...now we have sent much of that economy overseas in search of child labor ,penny-wages and no worker benefits
...Economically , the expenditure and loss in vietnam of $225 billion dollars caused serious long term harm to the US economy -- through subsequent recessions and inflations it caused serious decline in the standard of living of the American middle classes .
Economically the war in afghanistan broke the old soviet union causing serious neglect of necessary production ,communication and transportation infrastructure and continuous downard plummetings in basic living standards of the soviet consumer and downward plummetings in the ability of the national economy to meet its citizen's needs .
the US is spending about 4 billion a month on iraq ...some 200 billion already... Of course , the dollar of the early vietnam era could buy about 20 candy bars ...while today's dollar can barely get about two .
the iraqi resistance appears sophisticated enough to have adpoted the strategy of depriving the US occupiers and the puppet interim government of much needed influx of funds by targeting that nation's oil infrastructure --cleverly denying the US economy the petro-profits it was counting on not only for constructing the neo-con's vision of a "USer"-friendly iraq , but to also bolster a seriously ailing US economy...
...leaves one to ponder in the long term
future if a decade long debacle of an american loss in iraq could be one of the straws that finally broke the much looted US taxpayer's back ...
Far graver than Vietnam
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian
'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.
But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."
Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."
W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.
"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."
After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base.
"If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of angels and the Prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and emanating wonderful scents."
"I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."
General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."
Terrill believes that any sustained US military offensive against the no-go areas "could become so controversial that members of the Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign". Thus, an attempted military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."
General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there."
He compares any such planned attack to the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Asad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."
General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defence and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."
ยท Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com
at least in the vietnam era america still relied upon a physical economy that primarily manufactured tangible goods for sale at home and abroad...now we have sent much of that economy overseas in search of child labor ,penny-wages and no worker benefits
...Economically , the expenditure and loss in vietnam of $225 billion dollars caused serious long term harm to the US economy -- through subsequent recessions and inflations it caused serious decline in the standard of living of the American middle classes .
Economically the war in afghanistan broke the old soviet union causing serious neglect of necessary production ,communication and transportation infrastructure and continuous downard plummetings in basic living standards of the soviet consumer and downward plummetings in the ability of the national economy to meet its citizen's needs .
the US is spending about 4 billion a month on iraq ...some 200 billion already... Of course , the dollar of the early vietnam era could buy about 20 candy bars ...while today's dollar can barely get about two .
the iraqi resistance appears sophisticated enough to have adpoted the strategy of depriving the US occupiers and the puppet interim government of much needed influx of funds by targeting that nation's oil infrastructure --cleverly denying the US economy the petro-profits it was counting on not only for constructing the neo-con's vision of a "USer"-friendly iraq , but to also bolster a seriously ailing US economy...
...leaves one to ponder in the long term
future if a decade long debacle of an american loss in iraq could be one of the straws that finally broke the much looted US taxpayer's back ...
Far graver than Vietnam
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian
'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.
But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."
Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."
W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.
"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."
After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base.
"If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of angels and the Prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and emanating wonderful scents."
"I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."
General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."
Terrill believes that any sustained US military offensive against the no-go areas "could become so controversial that members of the Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign". Thus, an attempted military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."
General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there."
He compares any such planned attack to the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Asad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."
General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defence and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."
ยท Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com
posted by dsekou at 7:21 PM
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