Throwing Victory Away

The New York Post ^ | May 13, 2004 | Ralph Peters

[dts32041]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1125602/posts

[The Lumster]

This guy is 100% correct. Even though the Marines are still there this is a defeat.

This war is about perception as much as anything else. The perception in the arab world is that they won, we lost. They drove us out. They are dancing in the streets. Regardless of what happens after this the perception will remain unchanged.

This is exactly how we lost Viet Nam. Politicians and diplomats making military decisions based on political expediency. All our military might is worthless without the willingness to use it. To have the power to win but not use it is morally reprehensible. It means those Marines who've died at Fallujah have died in vain.

President Bush could have gone a long way toward winning this war AND winning the election if he had taken a firm hand and destroyed this town immediately after the murders of the US citizens. I believe the American people are chomping at the bit for a leader who will take off the gloves with these animals and actually treat this like a war.

Apparantly many many many more Americans will have to die before we get serious.

[Valin]

What an absolute piece of male bovine excrement! Get a clue Ralph.


"I Ask That the American People Be Brave"
Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog | 5/12/04 | Amy Ridenour
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1134095/posts
(A report from Iraq)
(snip)
The fighting we are engaged in against the uprising of Muqtada Al-Sadr is one that is extremely sensitive and risks catastrophe. Had we entered this previously, it would not have been possible for us to win. Over the months, we have been involved in preparations and much planning. Thus, today we are scoring amazing successes against this would-be tyrant.

I ask that the American people be brave. Don't fall for the spin by the weak and timid amongst you that are portraying this battle as a disaster. Such people are always looking for our failure to justify and rescue their constant pessimism. They are raising false flags of defeat in the press and media. It just isn't true.

Last year in April while the main war was still going on to defeat Saddam Hussein's military, I myself gave a class to my company of the 16th Engineers about the threat posed by Sadr and the prospects for conflict with his militias. Though my fellow soldiers didn't appreciate having to attend a class at 8am on one of our last days before deploying to Baghdad, they can tell you that what is happening now is no surprise. I used open and general information that my superiors were already aware of.

The basis of our evaluation over a year ago was that Sadr presented a formidable and possibly impossible threat. Last summer, as my unit covered Sadr City -- the sprawling part of Baghdad that Sadr controlled then -- his militias challenged us by making a show of force in defiance of the effort to open up Iraq society to the new freedoms. Sadr clearly demonstrated that he would deny Iraqis democracy and freedom in his quest for power. By the fall, he had most of Iraq's Shia leaders and the community at large intimidated and kowtowing to his bully tactics. In January through March, his arrogance and thuggery led him to pursue two further attacks upon the hopes for Iraqi freedom.

He vigorously pursued courting and forming alliances with Iranian hard-liners. Upon returning to Iraq, he then welcomed many foreign fighters to train and assist his militia in terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare.

In fact, we almost went into full conflict with him back then, months ago!

So our leaders, Paul Bremmer, Gen. Abizaid, and countless other US and Coalition leaders all over the land, acted w/ caution and care to secure for the US ever stronger cards against Sadr while simultaneously working to achieve four main goals.

Now we today are in a climactic battle against him and his militia. When the remnants of Saddam's regime were in full uprising in Fallujah, Sadr thought his time had come to make his bid for total power and to oust the US from Baghdad. He was very wrong.

It has been subtle and very well done by our leaders. You should be proud. It would have seemed impossible to have achieved our four main goals against Sadr even just a few months ago. Now today, despite the message of the pessimists who are misleading you into despair, we are have scored all the victories needed to bring this battle to a close. First goal was to isolate Sadr. Second was to exile him from his power-base in Baghdad. Third was to contain his uprising from spreading beyond his militias. And the last goal was to get both his hard-line supporters to abandon him, and to do encourage moderates to break from him. This has been done brilliantly, and now we are on the march in a way that just months ago seemed impossible to do. Sadr is losing everything.

Goal one: His so-called Mahdi Army militia is fighting alone. We are out defeating them day and night, and all the time we find them exposed and vulnerable. The people of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf are not supporting him. His forces are isolated.

Goal two: His one-time powerbase, Sadr City in Baghdad, has been lost. Sadr has been exiled from there, and we have him on the run. He is trying to cloak his presence and activities in Najaf and Kut as planned, but that is damage control on his part. Yes we confront pockets of his followers. Just a couple days ago, I had to maneuver around such a crowd of 300 in Sadr City. The point is, though, we operate in Sadr City, and his followers are merely trying to raise the lost cause of his. It is perhaps better to understand why he is able to mobilize groups like this by seeing him as a mafia leader who is just sacrificing his own people in a mad last plunge to grab onto power. He is no different from any other thug in the world who manipulates and betrays his followers for his own lost cause. The critical thing to see, however, is that in Baghdad, Sadr is gone. He has been effectively exiled and we are destroying his one-time properties of power and abuse there.

Goal three: Other Shia leaders are breaking from him now in large numbers. The overall Shia leader of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has left Sadr's call for jihad and uprising to flounder on deaf ears. Bremmer and Gen. Abizaid stunned the overall Shia community by negotiating a calm in Fallujah. That has tail-spinned Sadr and his efforts to intimidate Iraq's Shia leaders. They see the US hand is strong, and that therefore they are making a mistake in kowtowing to Sadr's terror and violence.

Sadr is now running scared in Najaf. This is great. The Iraqi people of Najaf are offended by this Baghdad thug coming to their city and trying to hijack them into conflict with us. His militias have moved into Karbala too, and the same sentiment is being expressed by the people there. Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia are occupiers of those cities, and are insulting the most sacred sites of Shia Islam daily in their actions. Sadr's forces have stockpiled weapons in mosques and schools, and he continuously is going into the Imam Ali Mosque to call for jihad against us. This is offending Iraq's Shia leaders very much, and the Shia people are not following.

Our units, in fact, are operating w/in 500 meters of the most sacred Shia religious sites in these cities, and you should notice that the local people are not resisting. This is what the pessimists amongst you are preventing you from understanding. Something like this would have been impossible before Sadr and his militia thugs went into there to hijack Iraqi Shia Islam. The people of Najaf and Karbala know we are not there to conquer and occupying the religious sites; we are there to liberate them from this would-be tyrant who is trying to hijack them. His uprising has been contained, despite Sadr's desperate efforts to expand.

Goal four: Now Sadr's patrons and mentor in Iran are breaking from him. Grand Ayatollah Hossain Kazzam Haeri in Qom, Iran, is no longer backing him and has instead made it clear that Sadr's uprising is not sanctioned. Haeri is his mentor, and was a close intimate to Sadr's respectable father. The Teheran Times has run stories that are largely exaggerated, but still are making clear that Sadr's uprising is counter to Iranian interests and does not have the support of even one of Iran's grand statesman, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

In lieu of this, Sadr has exploded increasingly desperate and offensive. On Friday, he offended perhaps the whole Muslim world when he issued a fatwa (a religious edict) that if his forces in Basra capture a female British soldier, they can keep her as a slave. And as I pointed out already, his militia thugs in Najaf and Karbala are keeping weapons in mosques and schools.

In this, quite frankly, Sadr has done it to himself. He has compelled his would-be supporters amongst Iran's hard-liners to break from him and to put distance between Iran's interests and Sadr's uprising. Along with this, Shiites all over Iraq are breaking from Sadr and ignoring his frantic calls for jihad and slave-taking. Sadr has been abandoned.

I'm not writing you blind to the casualties this is causing us. My battalion, the 16th Armored Engineers, should be home reunited w/ family and friends after serving a full year here. Instead, we are still here where the temp is reaching 115-125 degrees. And some of my fellow soldiers have fallen. Units of my battalion are right in the front of the fighting. Your prayers are needed. [A soldier] lost his eyes and a hand last week. The surgeons are trying to salvage his hand now by re-attaching it. This tragedy is a real nightmare. Another suffered shrapnel wounds in his abdomen. Others have been cut badly. Miracle of miracles, however, Sgt. Morales on Friday was shot in the CVC (helmet) -- the bullet ricocheted around his head and fired into the back of his seat, never cutting his skin!!!

I'm telling you this because you need to know that your soldiers are working their hardest. My unit is just one of many in this fight. What you need to do is be strong and persistent in your faith with us. Sadr's militia is in panic and desperate, so they are dangerous, but you need to keep this all in perspective. The pessimists would have you believe this is a disaster. Don't listen to them. I think some of them feel that their reputations require our failure because they have been so negative all along, so they are jumping at every opportunity to sensationalize what is happening here as a disaster. Eliminating Sadr's threat is part of the overall mission and we are further ensuring the liberation of the Iraqi people. This has to be done, and we are doing it.

Don't be seduced by those who would rather that we sit back and just enjoy the freedoms past generations of Americans have sacrificed to gain for us. This is our time to earn it. I remember President Bush saying after the September 11th attacks: "The commitment of our Fathers is now the calling of our time."

[Valin]

see reply #23

[Moby Grape]

What matters in an elections is what the public THINKS, not what it KNOWS.....the polls now say that the public THINKS Bush is not doing that well with Iraq.

[Valin]

I do what I call a galloping poll (just talking to people) and I don't find this to be true. I've found that most people understand that we're going to have good days and bad days. I've not found that people are backing off on their support for what we're doing in Iraq.
(now as always I COULD BE WRONG, I am after all only a factory worker)

Interestingly enough kerry numbers haven't picked in the polls I've seen.

[gandalftb]

Good info, it would take partisan politics to corrupt career military into this kind of self-deprecating comment.

[ZULU]

"The president likes to stress that we are in a war, but he's the one who seems to have forgotten it. He needs to take charge of his subordinates, in Washington and Baghdad, and remind them that some things are worth fighting for."

Are you OUT there, George Bush?

The writer of this piece is perfectly on the mark.
And its disgraaceful that our initially tough talking President has allowed himself to become psychologically castrated by the liberals in his administration and the opposition.

If he doesn't stop worrying about losing the election and start acting like the kind of commander and war-lord we NEED at this moment of crisis, he WILL loose, and the nation will be all the poorer for it.

[Moby Grape]

I agree in large part with what you are saying, and your method...I do the same...I listen in supermarkets, etc...

However, what I am pointing to, again, is the mushy middle....many of the mushy middle don't vote at all UNTIL something rattles them...they don't vote based upon Iraq...they vote when something gets their ire up...like gas prices...and it is my OPINION (and it is only opinion) that the sinking poll numbers on Bush's handling of the economy are result of gas prices...

Let's face it, most voters don't understand the numbers...they only view matters from their personal condition...for the well off, or the upper middle income groups, gas prices may be a bother, but not a major concern....for the AVERAGE Joe, gas prices are a big deal.

[Valin]

Agree. It's a long time to Nov. and anything can happen between now and then. What will help is an increase in jobs, I know the unemployment rate has dropped and hopefuly this will continue.

[gandalftb]

The 9 Marines that died in Fallujah did not die in vain. They and their Marine brothers killed at a minimum 2,700 hard core old-school mujahadeen from all over the Middle East, mainly from Syria. And the local toughs that lived learned a lseeon 'bout a messin'.

Their fight emboldened Sadr's militia to collect and make a stand in Karbala where 1st Armor is exterminating them right now. The enemy cannot replace these hardened, fanatical, and trained cadres in sufficient time before we kill or co-opt their enemy leadership. That's how we'll win the battlefield, then we can get Iraq productive.

[The Lumster]

The fight with Sadr in Najaf and the battle for Fallujah are 2 different things.

I agree we still have an opportunity for a real victory against Sadr and I was encouraged to see us flatten that mosque in Karbala yesterday. It remains to be seen however if our tough talk against Sadr will come to fruition.

[The Lumster]

"The 9 Marines that died in Fallujah did not die in vain. They and their Marine brothers killed at a minimum 2,700 hard core old-school mujahadeen from all over the Middle East, mainly from Syria. And the local toughs that lived learned a lseeon 'bout a messin'"

It doesn't matter how many our guys killed. We always killed more than the enemy in Viet Nam too. What matters is perception. The perception among the enemy is they won, we lost.

And by the way, the "local toughs" may or may not have learned a lesson but they did in fact live to fight another day.

[Valin]

The fight with Sadr in Najaf and the battle for Fallujah are 2 different things.

True but there is a connection between them as Sadr really wants to form an alliance with those fighting in Fallujah.

[varon]

We bragged publicly that we would avenge the mutilation of those four contractors at the hands of Fallujah's thugs.

Hmmm, in a way we are. Instead of capturing or killing the perpetrators, our politicians found it more expedient to appease the subhuman murderers by court martialing our own service(wo)men..............

[Uncle Miltie]

I quite agree that the breakup of Sadr's forces has been exemplary.

The perception and actuality of a Fallujah retreat when we had the rats cornered is the tactical issue that could become strategic.

We demonstrated that we are unwilling to perform in-city fighting against Saddamites and Al Qaeda boys in their home turf. Whatever spin we may wish to put on it, insurgents have received (past tense) the training that we can be stood down. That training will require at least four bloodbaths to overcome.

I predict several massacres in which "Remember Fallujah!" will be their rallying cry.

Yeah, we'll win those, but at quadruple the cost of finishing the job now would have required.