Posted on 02/18/2006 6:55:13 AM PST by Flavius
BAGHDAD -- During his first tour in Iraq two years ago, recalled Army Sgt. James Eyler, "the mindset of the whole unit was, if they pose a threat at all, shoot to kill."
Back then, "we didn't trust any Iraqis," he added as he manned a machine gun atop a Humvee and prepared to go out on a night raid this week. These days, Eyler says he is forcing himself to be more patient with Iraqis. "Now we understand that to get out of here, we're going to have to," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Interim government took over from the Coalition Provisional authority
The Iraqui contitution was ratified
Elections occurred in December 05
America held it's side of the bargain now the Iraquis will hold theirs.
I have to say it: It's George Bush's fault!!!
That, that George Bush!
Like it or not, this is the description of a police action, not war.
Warriors should NOT be in any country fighting a police action. We should fight wars, not engage in police actions.
If we want to send Marines and Army soldiers overseas to engage in politically correct police actions, then we should form a new branch of the military and train heavily armed policemen for that task. It is nuts to have Marines in a place like this doing police action--this is NOT what they were trained for.
The point of training the Iraqis is to get them to take over policing the country
What do you think the post-war occupations of Germany and Japan consisted of? They were nothing but "police actions", too. And the military seems to have handled those situations rather well.
Post-war occupations: isn't that why every branch has a Civil Affairs unit?
Spot the reporter who has never been shot at.
After WW II, we controlled the media. We had full censorship of the media. This is what caused a more rapid achievement of our goals.
The police action today in Iraq, without full control of the media, is costing us the lives of our troops and our allies. It is nuts. We should never engage in a war if we do not do everything possible to win the war and then use all the tool to win the peace, with the FULL range of the tools at our disposal.
That is true, so far as the indigenous media is concerned.
But I don't beleive the indigenous media represent any kind of realistic threat to the success of our policies.
Instead, the threat comes from our domestic media...
Actually, during WW II, we censored are own media as well, which is what we should be doing now. The Office of Censorship was established in 1941.
"This has been attributed to more sophisticated, more powerful IEDs that are being deterred more effectively."
More like used more sparingly. They are more effective individually, being harder to detect and resistant (if not immune) to ECM, are more often directional to defeat armored Humvees and armored private security vehicles. But at a cost of being harder and slower to make. I've seen some impressive performance by some of the latest armored sedans & SUVs against simple blast-IEDs. One good example is the VBIED that was used in an attempt to assassinate an Iraqi general, all caught on video. There was not much more than a car-length or two between the VBIED and the target in front and the security SUV about the same distance behind when it went up in a massive blast. Only the bomber was killed.
"Like it or not, this is the description of a police action, not war.
Warriors should NOT be in any country fighting a police action. We should fight wars, not engage in police actions."
Hard to see what you are advocating should have been the course of action in this case?
* Invade country, blow up some stuff, depose government, cut'n'run?
* Invade country, place under military occupation government, take no steps to return any form of sovereignty, have large numbers of troops carrying on periodically blowing stuff up for forseeable future?
* Not invade in the first place?
Most modern armed conflicts have been what would be described as Police Actions rather than of a major war.
Most of the Colonial Wars of the 18/19th century fell under that heading.
"Most modern armed conflicts have been what would be described as Police Actions rather than of a major war.
Most of the Colonial Wars of the 18/19th century fell under that heading."
Most of the Indian Wars fought by the United States in the 19th Century were police actions. So were Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. Imagine how different this country would be if we had not engaged in those police actions.
"Something has changed in Iraq over the past 60 days or so."
There are enough Iraqis trained that their army is now standing up. There is a major Shia religious celebration that falls in February. In 2004 and 2005 there were scores of people killed by terrorists attempting to break up the ceremonies. This year zero people were killed. 2006 was the first year Iraqi police and military had responsibility for providing security.
We *are* winning.
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