It is pretty incredible watching how the US "News" Media IS continually trying to "Tet" the mission in Iraq. Tet, for those of you who do not know it. was a North Vietnam Offensive against South Vietnam during the January 1968 Tet Holiday . It was a bloody defeat for the North Vietnamese that shattered their Viet Cong guerrilla units. However, because of the reporting in the US "News" media, the public perception of the time was that Tet was an clear indication the USA had lost the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1715700/posts
American casualties in Iraq rise sharply
The Washington Post ^ | October 8 2006 | Ann Scott Tyson
This story from the Washington Post is a perfect example of how the Junk Media is trying to repeat the same scenario in Iraq. Due to petulant dislike for the President and a fanatical feverish need to reestablish the Democrat Party in power the US Media has simply pull out ALL the stops to lie, distort and mislead on Iraq. Statistically it is nonsense to draw any conclusion on a war based on a single month's data. April 1945 was the bloodiest single month of the World War 2 for the USA. 4 months later the war ended. 1 month blip in casualty figures is utterly irrelevant as an indicator of long term trends. Notice, the Washington Post suddenly wants to site casualty figures where before they always were measuring deaths. Of course they do that because the casualty increase sounds so dramatic and scary. It written that way to have the reader make negative assumptions about the war.
It is also totally misleading and intellectually dishonest to not put the casualty figures in context. Given the nature of the operations ongoing at this point of the war the increase in casualties is a completely understandable and expected outcome. We are engaging in offensive operations in Urban terrain. EVEN the Washington Post was forced to admit the last time we took casualties like this was when the Marines cleaned out Fallugha.
Nothing else in war generates casualties, major and minor, like Urban combat. Not only does the combat take pace at shocking close ranges, but there is a huge increase in minor wounds. Sprains, broken bones, contusions, bruises etc are common in Urban Combat. Just too many hard surface for people to run into. Then there is the fact we are expanding operations to clean out the Shi'a militia. Adding them to the to do list, we are upping the tempo of our operations. The casualties, while terribly painful in individual human terms, are in terms of militarily conflict insignificant. The Do Nothings the Right wings Neo Isolationists on the left are trying to manufacture into a New Tet
The Post contention in this "news" story is that the effort in Iraq is a disaster. That things are going from bad to worse and nothing we can do will change it. The point of this story is to validate the spin from the Democrat Leadership that the US has no choice but to cut and run from Iraq. It complete nonsense.
Of course Casualties and attacks are up. We are engaging in offensive operations in Urban terrain. NOTHING in war generates minor casualties, sprains, broken bones, contusions etc like Urban Combat. Just too many hard surface for people to run into. Plus since we are expanding operations to clean out the Shi'a militias we are upping the tempo of our operations. Militarily this an insignificant blip on the screen which the Neo Isolationists and fevered Know Nothings are trying to manufacture into a New Tet
I think we can define the American Public as P.A.D.D. Policy Attention Deficit Disorder. We are winning in Iraq. The Terrorists and Militias have been unable to evolve beyond state 1 of Guerrilla War Counter Insurgency is slow, painful work. But the progress is all on our side. The "Insurgents" has demonstrated no ability to politically or militarily evolve. Guerrilla war strategy consists of 3 phases.
1. Stage one: very small unit harassment actions.
2. Stage two: continuation of state one with an evolution to large units actions. Development of larger and large geographic areas fully under Guerrilla control.
3. Stage three: conventional warfare between large units.
The Terrorists are still stuck in stage one of Guerrilla Warfare. They can wreck stuff and kill people they cannot grow. They cannot take and hold ground or engage in anything beyond small scale hit and run attacks. Their failure to develop a shadow political structure to act as a polar opposite to the Iraqi Government is their fatal flaw. They simply lack the structure or local support network needed to move beyond state one Problem is thanks to the Junk Media and the Treason of the Democrat Party Leadership most Americans have no clue how well the mission is actually going. All they see is the thing that are seemingly going wrong. They are not actually going wrong, that is actually how combat works.
It is incredibly odd how Democrats, via their mouthpieces in the Junk Media, demand a level of perfection in Military operations that NO Journalist or Politician could ever live up to in their own professional spheres. Odd how Americans, who live with a very high level of incompetent in their government, their media, their day to day lives are so surprised and upset to discover war does work on a perfectly flawless time table. They seem to think war should work like their two hour Hollywood action movies told them it did. 2 Hours, bad guys dead, sympathy frag of supporting actor, hero gets girl and lives happily ever after. These absurd expectations explain how it is Americans get "war weary" so very very rapidly. It is one of the biggest Achilles heels of US Foreign Policy. Our foes count on us getting bored with it all and just going home. I guess we could call it the America's Policy Attention Deficit Disorder.
Counter Terrorism (or Counter Insurgency) is as much about politics as it is about war. Conventional Military often find them incredibly frustrating because they are usually a case of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, pause, repeat. Conventional Military people think in terms of go there, kill them, wreck their stuff, make them stop pissing us off. Counter Insurgency does not work that way. Counter Insurgency works by making the local political structure strong enough to contain or beak the Insurgency. THAT is a slow painful process.
It is made a lot hard in Iraq by the hyper negative Media coverage and excessive nonsense spewed out by Domestic Politicians using the war because they think it will help them politically. I suspect that if we win Nov 7th, the Iraq mission is won. By 2009 the Iraqis political structure will be strong enough to stand on its own with minimal US support. Probably Iraq security forces stiffened with US SOF support teams. However, if the Democrats win November 7th, we can count on the Teting us right into another Vietnam style defeat. Iraq will be another war won militarily lost for domestic political advantage.