A great deal of yesterday's entries, especially from myself, DeepDark, Mattman, and several others, concerned the military situation in Iraq. Specifically we were talking about supply lines, resupply of fighting units, and the real number of actual fighting troops with respect to the number of support troops.
Troops in Iraq Strain to Hold Lines of Supplyin tomorrow's NYTimes, is a piece by Eric Schmitt that addresses that issue somewhat directly...a day later.
I generally don't toot my own horn, but in this case, because I am actually tooting OUR horns. The blogosphere - opensource, democratic, wide-scope news gathering and analysis in real time - is better. We are literally days ahead in time, and light-years ahead in analytical depth - than the major media. Read down in my diary for my take on what we should do about this disparity, why, and how. Fire them all!!
Enough braggadaccio, however! On to the meat.
Mmmmmmm....Meat!
American troops in Iraq are battling insurgents to keep open vital military supply lines in and out of Baghdad.
Surprise!
We were talking about that this weekend. Gilliard, DeepDark, myself, and numerous others.
The attacks on the supply lines are posing new hazards to civilian contractors who operate many of the convoys and siphoning short-handed combat forces away from the main fight against militants
By attacking the supply lines, the insurgents are:
- Prevent the flow of needed materiel (obviously)
- Pulling troops away from the fight against the main groupings or gathering points of insurgents/mujahedeen
- Discouraging contractors from performing, and discouraging people from hiring on to those contractors.
- Pulling the focus of the military/civilian leadership away from other areas. ONce that focus is redirected, the insurgents will (I predict) remove themselves from the newly "hot" zone, and reform in the areas now abandoned or ignored by the military/civilian command. The insurgency will use their greatest weakness (lack of heavy armor or a command structure and central clearinghouse) to their own advantage (Fluidity, flexibility, invisibility). Fire off a few RPGs, light up a few trucks, or a convoy or two. Strip off the scarf and mask, get into the civilian clothes, hop in a taxi and head for the next town over...and do it again.
Over the weekend, American forces fought pitched battles to clear the north-south and east-west routes to and from Baghdad, and also near Falluja, for trucks to haul food, fuel, water and ammunition to soldiers and marines.... Many convoys have been delayed; others have been suspended...
Now, do you REALLY wonder why we called for a unilateral cease-fire? Do you REALLY wonder why we are negotiating? We have lost the operational tempo, our movements are curtailed, and our offensives stalled.
Yet, we can read the above, and in the next article or interview read how we are winning, destroying, obliterating...and so on.
No, we're not. We are getting pasted.
The attacks on convoys, along with sabotage to roads and bridges, have opened yet another front in the week-old surge in violence in Iraq.
Wait, I thought that there was some kind of pause or pull-back on the part of the Mahdi army?
Bzzzzt. They have drawn forces into the cities and are now melting away to attack those forces supplies.
Don't our commanders and strategists READ the fucking textbooks? Have the READ Mao's military moves? Do they know what Sun Tsu or Machiavelli were talking about????
Fucking idiots.
"
We've had to take extraordinary steps to get stuff to them, fighting to open up some of the routes," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of military operations, said in a telephone interview from Baghdad about clearing the supply routes.
General Kimmitt told reporters that none of the routes in Iraq were now classified by the military as "black" or "red," meaning too dangerous to use. But he said most were "amber," a classification that means convoy operators assume "a certain measure of risk." He added, "It is certainly not green yet."
Oh. My. God. What about Puce, Mauve, or Chartreuse, you fucking goon?
"A certain measure of risk?" You mean like "Seared, Brazed, Char-grilled, or burnt to a crisp"?
On Monday, a convoy of flatbed trucks carrying M-113 armored personnel carriers was attacked and burned on a road in Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, according to The Associated Press. Witnesses said three people had been killed. A supply truck was also ambushed and set ablaze on Monday on the road from Baghdad's airport. Looters moved in to carry away goods from the truck as Iraqi policemen looked on without intervening, The A.P. reported.
Yah. But we're winning, right?
So our fuel, food, ammo, replacement armor, drivers, guards, and freighters are getting crashed, burned, shot, kidnapped, and stolen...and the police we armed and trained are hanging out, smokin' a butt, and watching.
Cool. Nice job.
Kellogg Brown & Root vowed Monday "to stay the course and move forward with the logistical support to troops," but with unspecified changes in delivery and security procedures, a spokeswoman said.
Specify, please. Do you mean like "Now we will be delivering everything next year" or like "Now we will be using M1-A1 tanks to deliver everything" or like "Now we will build huge catapults in Kuwait and launch everything in the general direction of our troops"?
But John C. McCarthy, the director of projects for T.T.S. Group, a British company whose Kuwaiti affiliate ships cargo into Iraq, said his company would not operate north of Basra, in the relatively secure south.
In other words "No fuckin' way is my company going to risk our capital on your capitol."
"We've got to get more senior Iraqis involved -- former military types involved in the security forces," General Abizaid said.
Riiiiiight.
So you morons dissolved the army, tried to replace it with a goon squad of raw recruits, who turned coat or turned tail at the first chance. Now, after it is abundantly clear that the insurgents are using military tactics and strategies because the military men you sent home to be jobless and useless are now running the fight against you, and after you have conducted wholesale slaughters of women, children, the elderly, and probably killed civilians and insurgents in a 10:1 ratio. And those operations were conducted in the hometowns of those same military professionals you fired in the first place...
Now you want to go and hire them back?
Asses. Complete asses.