Posted on 01/28/2007 11:01:41 PM PST by jmc1969
What for BS writing is this??
All of Islam is a apocalyptic Muslim cult!
We just whomped AQ big time.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
You may be spot on here.
The only other possible thing is that it was organized by the Iranian Quds force in some wierd, dark-lanternist thing to throw Iraq into further chaos.
If it's Revolutionary Guard sponsored we'll find a significant percentage of Iranians in there.
If these now cooling corpses are largely Sunni I'll lean very hard to your AQ scenario.
Either way the kill ratio is a field commanders wet dream.
L
Possibly, but not really their style. AQ and AQIZ have been out of the infantry game for a while. That's a lot of manpower and resources to commit to a Shia stronghold like Najaf. They've not tried to organize and hold territory since western Anbar, in al-Qaim and Husaybah. Doing so in Najaf seems suicidal.
Also, the Iraqi government wouldn't be unsure of who it was they were going after. They're intimately familiar with AQIZ, in many ways more so than we are. It's not like they're going to inflame Sunni tensions in Najaf like they would marching into Fallujah, so why keep it quiet?
Another wedding party, apparently.
An attempt to show the Shi'a that the Government and the Americans couldn't protect them.
You're spot-on. Infantry isn't their style, but AQ is full of surprises. They may have brought in outside help for this.
As to why to keep it quiet? Embarrassment, of course. Iraqi politicians don't want to admit that they almost screwed the pooch.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Wow, Reuters is actually reporting enemy casualties. It must be because of the democratic take over. Everything will be better now (sarcasm off)
The End of Major Combat Operations day should have started this way. God bless our Coalition troops.
I agree. First it was 250, then it was 300 and not they say its 200. Why is it always a round number? My gut feeling tells me its a mere two digit number.
Yep.
And IMO that's been the BIGGEST mistake since Operation Iraqi Freedom started - NOT announcing enemy body counts. As I recall 'they' (the Pentagon & Dubya) were afraid of 1) offending the 'Muslim street' after the Highway of Death 'massacre' (snicker) during Desert Storm and 2) feared some Vietnam body count style brouhaha over numbers - so none weer ever given. I recall a CENTCOM statement to the effect that 'numbers aren't important'.
Baloney, that leads one to believe you are losing the war if all you ever hear about are our KIAs and none of the enemy. And sure enough that's exactly what's happened. We've lost 3000 while the enemy KIA is likely 100,000 plus - but the impression is we're losing and all is lost.
From day one, enemy body counts should have been screamed loud and clear from the highest tower.
I doubt we've killed 100,000 enemy forces ... that number, to me, doesn't jive with intellegence estimates of the size of enemy forces in Iraq. Could we really inflict that many KIA with probably 2 to 3 times the number of WIA and not see any lessening in enemy activity?
In this operation, as in most, we do not know how many we killed. The numbers almost always end in zero's so we know they are estimating ... and in almost every war in history estimated body counts are higher that actual. That's just how it is.
This much seems pretty certain, our side suffered 10 KIA (2 U.S. and 8 Iraqi) with 6 MIA and 40+/- WIA. Enemy losses are estimated but probably heavy with most of their losses due to U.S. airpower; both fixed wing and rotary. A rough guess might put their losses as 300 - 500 cassualties (KIA and WIA) giving the coaltion a rough 5/1 exchange rate in cassualties.
But, we will probably never know.
The key thing, to me, seems to be the fact that this was primarily and Iraqi based operation with us in support. We provided the close air support but the operation on the ground was mostly Iraqi units. They did still need our help as reinforcements ... but we're the ones with heavy armor.
Big Effective Surge is possible just with ROE changes (though I believe that a new brigade from the 82nd is already in-country).
May not be the name of an organization, possibly just an "honorific" appelation. Islamo-terrorists have a tradition of calling themselves "heroes" of some kind and writing it on headbands.
Put another zero after those figures, and I would start smiling.
You'll see that I said pretty much that in Post #25.
Jeez... Don't these nutjobs ever come up with a good name?
Somebody needs to program up a "Jihad Jargon Generator" to streamline the process.
So far, we've had varying totals of 200, 250, 300, or 350 reported killed in the incident. That's the first 24 hours of the story. If the past is a guide, we can count on the claims about them being women, children, or members of wedding parties to start showing up some time today.
In those same "Arabian nights' there is a story about a bag contested by two men before a judge. The judge told them to describe its contents - and they were pulling one better in turns till the bag was said to contain about half of the planet. The judge accused them of heresy and contempt, and had the bag opened - and there was a bread loaf, a chunk of cheese, and not much else.
LOL! Yes, "Mahdi Army....Badr Brigade..." no creativity at all. Surely they can do better than that. ;-)
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