Posted on 09/12/2007 4:19:59 AM PDT by Renfield
The Left thinks Iraq is a killing field for Americans. Actually, it is a killing field for our enemies, at a very great but vitally important sacrifice. That reflects a grand strategy, tailored to the peculiar nature of the global terror threat.
You don't shoot poisonous fire-ants with a BB gun; you just set an ant trap. Ant colonies are highly "distributed" biological societies, much like the world-wide web. They can't be killed with a BB or a pressure hose; even pouring flaming gasoline on an ant hill won't work.
Instead, you destroy ant colonies by attracting hungry ants to a chemical bait, and then kill them all in one small place. Ant traps work.
That's the Bush strategy in Iraq. Al Qaeda isn't centralized, with big cities or steel industries like Nazi Germany. So you can't destroy the enemy by hunting them one by one. Rather, you bait a trap -- provoke them to come to you, and make sure they don't get out alive.
Iraq is a trap for Al Qaeda. Our mere presence in the heart of the Osama's Caliphate-To-Be draws them like ants to sugar. General Petraeus just reported that
"...in the past 8 months, we have considerably reduced the areas in which Al Qaeda enjoyed sanctuary. We have also neutralized 5 media cells, detained the senior Iraqi leader of Al Qaeda-Iraq, and killed or captured nearly 100 other key leaders and some 2,500 rank-and-file fighters. Al Qaeda is certainly not defeated; however, it is off balance and we are pursuing its leaders and operators aggressively."
Most of the Qaeda fighters come from Saudi Arabia and other breeding grounds. Now that the Sunni tribes are turning against them, they are more exposed and hunted than ever before. Wars are fluid and unpredictable, but no one can imagine that Al Qaeda is happy with its victories since 9/11.
In Afghanistan, they have been on the run since 2003, although the Pakistan border regions continue to supply new recruits. But in Afghanistan they are being destroyed before ever reaching the cities. Add that to a sizable numbers neutralized in Pakistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and more. Add to that the cells pinpointed in Europe and America, the Philippines and Indonesia. We are wiping out the fire ants wherever they can be found.
At that attrition rate, every single year we stay in Iraq, we could get rid of another couple of thousand AQ fighters. Yes, we pay a high price -- but nothing like the price that baddies running loose and attacking us at home would exact.
We are demonstrating who is the strong horse, and who is the weak horse. When the message is finally driven home, the enemy will come to his own conclusions.
In addition to Al Qaeda, other jihadi militants, like Iranian Quds officers and Shiite militants, are being caught in Iraq. A top Hezb'allah operative was just captured there -- and Hezb'allah has been killing Americans ever since they blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon. As the President said when our perverse press pointed out that the terrorists might hit us in Iraq: Bring them on. That was not an idle boast, but just a statement of the bait and kill strategy. The many critics of that statement simply do not understand or do not want to understand the strategy.
Now take a look at the map of Iran, http://www.iranmap.com/ and notice where our military are today. To the west is Iraq, where American forces move and attack freely. To the east is Afghanistan, where the same is true. South and south-west are Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and the Gulf itself; those Sunni countries now consider Iran to be their biggest threat.
We therefore have hundreds of thousands of military surrounding the next biggest problem, Tehran: to the east and west, and on naval vessels in the Gulf, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. We just had joint maneuvers with the Indian Navy, the Japanese and the Aussies. In Qatar we have major bases. We just sold another 20 billion dollars worth of military equipment to Saudi and Oman, including anti-missile defenses. Farther away, Egypt and Jordan are American clients -- within limits. So, of course, is Israel. In sum, Tehran can be struck from most points of the compass by our air and missile forces. The Israeli Air Force just struck Iranian weapons located in the eastern corner of Syria, right next to Iran.
Iran is a rising threat, and no one knows how that scenario will play out. But would you really want to be Ahmadi-Nejad today? Every time he makes another wild boast, more people become convinced that he cannot be allowed to get nukes. The German government has just been reported as giving up on the European negotiation effort to stop Iranian nukes. Instead, German officials
"gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities." It can't be comfortable to be a regime supporter in Tehran today.
Or would you want to be a Baathist general? A few years ago they were at the top of the heap.
The fact is that we are drastically weakening or destroying our terror-supporting enemies: Saddam is dead, Al Qaeda is being degraded, the Taliban are hemorrhaging, and the Mullahs are surrounded.
Yet all the know-nothings think there is no strategy for Iraq.
There's even a clever ironic twist in terms of domestic politics, because our liberals are constantly screaming Defeat! Defeat! Defeat! That message of weakness and vulnerability inspires more and more of our enemies to come to Iraq and join in the bloody slaughter of Americans.
But when they get there, they discover they've been suckered. It's not the Americans who are taking a beating, but the jihadis who fell for the headlines and who listen to the American Left. So even our malicious liberals end up encouraging the enemy to go to Iraq to die.
As President Harry Truman did, George W. Bush recognized the stakes, set in place the right strategy, and was vilified by critics as stupid. But good poker players like Harry S. Truman and George W. Bush know that you don't show your cards too soon, just to make people think you're smart.
> But good poker players like Harry S. Truman and George W.
> Bush know that you don’t show your cards too soon, just
> to make people think you’re smart.
Exactly.
The dimmicRATs do not understand the President’s strategry (mispelling intended :)
They are so frustrated between calling him out as stupid and characterizing him as demonically clever enough to have staged the 911 attacks.
The more shrill they sound, the more insane they look to normal people.
More of the President’s strategry.
Bush said “Bring it on!” and they stupidly complied.
“Ali, we have them right where they want us!”
Good read.
What is upsetting is that General Petraeus and Bush are trying to set the stage in Iraq where Al-Qaeda has to rethink if they can survive the US there for years and engaging their forces. Yet there are idiot Democrats and a few stupid Republicans are saying out of Iraq now which totally undermines the strategy.
If the left would just get on board for once and say yes, we will fight as long as it takes to win this war, I think you’d see even faster change in Iraq. However, the left is going to continue to subvert this strategy and will hamper the military’s ability to win the war.
Lure them in to Iraq and kill their butts.
Sounds better then having these scum here and having to kill them.
This is impossible, since Bush (and others) tell me repeatedly that Is-Lame is a “Religion of Peace”.
“Every time he makes another wild boast, more people become convinced that he cannot be allowed to get nukes”
Really? Who would that be exactly? The same feckless Europeans that think sending a strongly worded letter is equivalent to - Probably better than - Actual military action?
“German officials “gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign”
Wow! Giving a “distinct impression” is almost as good as being a weasel and a coward. OK, I’m convinced!
Exactly. Some have called it “the fly paper tactic”, and various other phrases that describe the historic military tactic known as luring the enemy into “the kill box”. bttt
“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue”
Dems- “We’ve got to save that rabbit. Pull Br’er Rabbit out of that briar patch.”
And this whole concept works best if it’s NOT very clear in the global public mind. It would still work even if it were clearly spelled out, because Jihad is a process by which mindless scum behave like mindless robots, however, the less clearly stated the more efficiently this kill-trap works.
Which is one of the reason Bush has had such a public-relations fiasco on his hands. There are other reasons, sure. He is not good at defending himself against the traitors on Capitol Hill, that’s true. But this is still a big reason. He can’t trumpet loudly, “it’s a trap! it’s a trap!” and still expect such high numbers of mindless scum to show up for their own executions.
So we have on the one hand Bush’s need to be somewhat circumspect while on the other hand the traitors in Congress, the media and the universities are out proclaiming how wrong the Bush policy is at every turn. So it’s no surprise that the public relations battle has gone so poorly. When you’ve got so many Americans who are willing to be so thoroughly and completely un-American and you’ve got a policy that requires a certain amount of subterfuge, then, public-relations-wize, you’re stuck.
bttt
Bush (and others) tell me repeatedly that Is-Lame is a “Religion of Peace”.The whole point of the kill-trap of Iraq is to confine the battle, as much as possible, to that single country.
What do you want him to do, declare war against 1.2 billion people across a huge swath of the globe? You think that would be sound policy?
Whew. I'm glad you're not president.
This is beyond excellent!
Every stinking jihadi "foreign fighter" SOB should be sent back to their cellpools of origin nicely gift-wrapped in a shoebox.
No exceptions - every one of those cockroaches should be killed, and their few, filthy remains sent back to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc. with some degree of fanfare.
These disgusting islammic sh!ts want to go that far out of the way to "fight the Crusaders" should pay the price that degree of stupidity demands.
Each and every one of them must be exterminated.
The larger issue I have is that when elected leaders use deceptive language, like publicly saying that Is-Lame is a religion of peace when it is the exact opposite. There are real consequences to that deception. Saying nothing about the fundamental nature of Is-Lame would be much wiser and more honest than the false puffery of such foolish blandishments, given in the hope that such self-esteem builders will moderate their actions.
And we can both agree, my presidency would be unfortunate for all.
The trap runs two ways. If Bush mutes his trumpet too much WE get high numbers of mindless scum showing up for their own ELECTIONS. Lose the mute, W. Fewer scum going to the Iraq ant trap now won't prevent your victory in this battle, but let OUR scum scream "Tet" long enough and we'll lose the war in in spite of winning the battle.
This is a prelude for the next phase of the strategy, which I will have to hold onto for now.
Be joyful, America is often more lucky than skilled. The short term strategies that looked like they were just marking time were exactly what was necessary for the much bigger picture and the grand strategy. We could have won sooner in Iraq, but that would have had an adverse reaction on the grand strategy. It is the end result that we want to come out right, not some short term benefits.
If the left were intellectually capable of understanding this, they'd be really upset. Fortunately, they have too acute a case of Bush Derangement Syndrome to allow them to see this.
Why has the media not complained before the Iraq war???? These are some rather eye-opening facts:
As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics.
Annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2004:
1980 .......... 2,392
1981 .......... 2,380
1982 .......... 2,318
1983 .......... 2,465
1984 .......... 1,999
1985 .......... 2,252
1986 .......... 1,984
1987 .......... 1,983
1988 .......... 1,819
1989 .......... 1,636
1990 .......... 1,508
1991 .......... 1,787
1992 .......... 1,293
1993 .......... 1,213
1994 .......... 1,075
1995 .......... 1,040
1996 .......... 974
1997 .......... 817
1998 .......... 826
1999 .......... 795
2000 .......... 774
2001 .......... 890
2002 .......... 1007
2003 .......... 1,410 -—— 534*
2004 .......... 1,887 -—— 900*
2005 .......... 919*
2006 .......... 920*
* Figures are Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom fatalities only
Does this really mean that the loss from the two current conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton’s presidency? Were we at war?
Now, are you confused when you look at these figures?
Especially look at 1980, during the reign of President “Nobel Peace Prize, Jimmy Carter” himself, there were 2,392 US military fatalities.
What this clearly indicates is that our media and our liberal politicians pick and choose, and they tend to present only those facts that support their agenda driven reporting.
Another fact our left media and politicians like to slant is that these brave men and women losing their lives are minorities. Wrong again - The latest census shows the following:
European descent (white) ... 69.12%
Hispanic .. 12.5%
African American ..... 12.3%
Asian ..... 3.7%
Native American ..... 1.0%
Other ..... 2.6%
Now, the fatalities over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom are:
European descent (white) ... 74.31%
Hispanic .... 10.74%
African American ..... 9.67%
Asian ..... 1.81%
Native American ... .. 1.09%
Other ..... 2.33%
These statistics are published by DOD and may be viewed at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf
“[A] man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.” -Thomas Jefferson
bttt
See, muslim terrorists are a lot like kamakazis so why travel half-way around the world when the West has its presence and institutions right in their backyard? Plus, we also get the benefit of our institutions taking hold in our enemy's back yard. The locals absolutely cherish their newfound democracy, liberty and economic freedoms so much more than anything Al Queda could ever do for them.
Bumping and gonna re-bump for widest possible readership.
Leni
Leni
Good find! Thanks ................... FRegards
Great stats, babe. Thanks ..................... FRegards
On the other hand, the left's ranting and threats embolden the terrorist's spin machine, leading more and more radicals to their deaths in Iraq....
More dead muzzies is always a good thing....
Florida FReeper Kick Ass, B T T T !
bttt
In Truman's Korean War, ten times as many Americans died in an average month as died in Iraq
In Truman's Korean War, the severest censorship in memory was imposed, unlike in Iraq
In Truman's Korean War, the military draft was in full swing, unlike in IraqThe Korean War would never have occurred if Truman hadn't committed a disastrous mistake which the Democrats want to repeat.
In 1949 Truman withdrew too many troops too soon from a young, unstable, and militarily weak country which we had freed 4 years previously. S. Korea was invaded the next year.
The first set of stats actually tell us very little other than fatalities are generally falling presumably due to better equipment and safety standards. Furthermore it is useless without knowing actual total number of active personnel. Add to that the qualification which states the figures in asterics are only Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom statistics, not the total number.
The second set is interesting though.
BTTT.
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