Posted on 06/15/2005 5:55:19 AM PDT by OESY
May was a costly month in Iraq: 700 Iraqis and some 80 Americans died, making it one of the bloodiest months of the war. While bombings in Baghdad decreased over the last two weeks as the result of a major sweep by some 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen, backed up by 10,000 troops (Operation Lightning/Operation Thunder), insurgent attacks against Iraqi civilians and police have resumed.
The continuing attacks have generated the usual sort of stories in the U.S. press: America is mired in a Vietnam-style quagmire. Thus a recent Boston Globe report began by claiming: "Military operations in Iraq have not succeeded in weakening the insurgency."
But the Globe is wrong. Coalition operations in Iraq have killed hundreds of insurgents and led to the capture of many hundreds more, including two dozen of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's top lieutenants. Intelligence from captured insurgents, as well as from Zarqawi's computer, has had a cascading effect, permitting the Coalition to maintain pressure on the insurgency....
The Globe's problem, one shared by most of the American press, is the tendency to see events in Iraq as isolated. They fail to see the overall campaign: a series of coordinated events — movements, battles and supporting operations — designed to achieve strategic or operational objectives within a military theater.
No force, conventional or guerrilla, can continue to fight if it is deprived of sanctuary and logistics support. Accordingly, the central goal of the U.S. strategy in Iraq is to destroy the insurgency by depriving it of its base in the Sunni Triangle and its "ratlines" — the infiltration routes that run from the Syrian border into the heart of Iraq....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
O,
An ongoing problem is that the broader American public has no clue how military forces operate.
Not that I'm an expert. But if more Americans served, fewer would be so puzzled about how the military works. They would also be less susceptible to the half-truths and rumor mongering published as news by the New York Times Companies.
The only similarity or comparison to Vietnam is that instead of being told that anything North of the DMZ, Cambodia, Laos and the dikes in North Vietnam and Hiaphong Harbor are NOT off limits. We can break the backs of the anti-American, anti-Capitalist world wide guerilla warfare.
What we are doing is providing NO SAFE HARBOR for these rat bastards and the only ones that want to provide one is the Democratic Party, liberals in the media and all the other limp wristed, thumb sucking liberals who "support the troops but oppose the war."
All the libs seemed to have forgotten that they killed 3000 Americans in one day.
Absolutely! There IS progress being made in big strides and the media tends to leave that alone.
I've been disgusted at how many FReepers seem to be joining the "Iraq Gloom and Doom" wagon. I suggest they turn off their television sets before they become mind-numbed robots.
One FReeper actually told me I have a distorted view of it all because I'm in Iraq. Can you believe it? I got a good laugh out of that one.
The "media"(MSM) was the messenger of the terrorist. They are both on the road to extinction.
In contrast to the Vietnam War the media and the Democrats are using the Iraq War as an Anti Bush mechanism and they do not give a damn that their efforts help kill American troops. The reason I say this is the media and the Democrats were the cheerleaders for Bill Clinton in Bosnia and any military action he chose to take. This is not about war but political power in Washington.
In Vietnam the Media opposed the war and thought it was wrong. (They were wrong it was a just war.) They way to tell if a war is wrong or right is which way the refugees run when it is over. Millions fled Vietnam. The media and the democrats lied about Vietnam and they are now lying and distorting the Iraq war, they do not care if it increases American casualties. In their twisted minds it is justified if it destroys President Bush and helps them regain power.
The media and the Democrats have American soldiers blood on their hands in both these wars. My contempt for both is without end.
Usually the first weapon used in the anti-freedom, anti-life criminal's (terrorist's)arsenal of weapons.
The enemy within is falling sooner rather than later.
Either deliberately or through incompetency - both are daily evident.
Every aspiring media person should, as a requisite to employment (in that racket), give national service in the military, Peace Corps, or alternative service as in a VA hospital.
This is only right, fair and proper.
They daily carry out a parasitic existence - which would be justified if they would just demonstrate THAT THEY, TOO, are willing to give up something for a brief period in the national interest.
What they also need to do is take a few decent courses in American History, closely read the Constitution and other historical documents and spend some time visiting American battlefields and military cemeteries.
HOOAH!! Stick it to 'em Dick!!
Affirmative on that - double-time.
Needed to be said again - louder.
Thanks for helping to keep us informed.
Please post the rest of the article here, would like to dissect it all.
"One FReeper actually told me I have a distorted view of it all because I'm in Iraq. Can you believe it? I got a good laugh out of that one."
That is a laugh and a half!
Yes, a lot of doom-n-gloomer types are full of "I told you so" ... and yet, they predicted a civil war (didnt happen), predicted the country would turn on us (nope), predicted we'd be in a quagmire (well, it looks like that to them, but it's really a quagmire for the terrorists).
Keep posting from Iraq and let us know what's up.
It's interesting that most non-MSM reports are quite positive about the Iraqi civilians attitude and note how most of Iraq is *not* like what the MSM pictures of car bombs show.
Key excerpt:
"Next came the rivers campaign — to destroy the insurgent infrastructure west and northwest of Fallujah, and so shut down those "ratlines" — which continues apace.
May saw four operations within that campaign:
* The first, Operation Matador, was a week-long Marine action centered on Qaim, near the Syrian border. Matador sought to kill and capture followers of Zarqawi known to be located there and to interdict the smuggling routes they used to move downriver to Baghdad. Some 125 insurgents died in the fighting.
* Next came Operation New Market, another Marine operation, in the Haditha area southeast of Qaim. Here, a major highway from Syria crosses the Euphrates and then branches north toward Mosul and southeast toward Fallujah and Baghdad. While the insurgents did not stand and fight as they had in Qaim, the operation still netted substantial intelligence.
* The third was a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation in the Mosul-Tel Afar region that contains the Tigris River ratline.
* The fourth operation of this campaign was the aforementioned Lightning/Thunder in Baghdad itself, which led to the capture of a former general in Saddam's intelligence service, who (according to the U.S. military) led "the military wings of several terror cells" operating in west Baghdad. Hundreds of other insurgents were captured as well.
The rapid tempo of Coalition operations will likely continue. ..."
Well-reasoned response!
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