The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > How do you know if you are winning a war? > Comments

How do you know if you are winning a war? : Comments

By Keith Suter, published 15/9/2005

Keith Suter argues we never imagined the US pulling out of Vietnam so abruptly and asks if it will happen in Iraq?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All
Good article. Given the nature of the war in Iraq possible measures of winning might include.

- Reduction in the number of terrorist bombs being detonated per week
- reduction in casualties from such bombs, and
- reduction in weekly casualties of the coalition forces - particularly US soldiers. This is the main measure the broader US public is likely to notice.

Any increase in the number of “terrorists” (often civilians) killed would be an indication that the US is losing the war because every time an Iraqi (or international Muslim fighter) is killed bitterness towards the US increases. Those embittered have long memories.

Whether the US is looking at such simple equations is another thing.

The US appears to be in Iraq to:
- control Iraq’s oil production and reserves (a significant proportion of the Middle East’s (world’s major producers) oil supplies)
- protect Saudi Arabia from outside threats particularly from the Shiite threat (including Iran). Bush has a long record of personal and public ties with the Saudi’s.
- act as a buffer between Israel (with a well documented record of owning weapons) and Iran and Pakistan (emerging Muslim nuclear weapon states). Its in the US’s interests to prevent a regional nuclear war in the Middle East.
- Give a large (post Cold War) US defence establishment something to do. Defence spend is traditionally good for the US economy and hence the Republican’s chance of reelection.
- Focus American public interest on “manageable” and until recently popular government activities, that is, making war on Muslims in Iraq (while providing far smaller resources for the more useful activity of fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan)

If there is sufficient US public pressure on Bush regarding US casualties then most US forces may need to withdraw to friendlier real estate (such as Kuwait) leaving a civil war in Iraq.

Whatever happens I think a large US presence in the Middle East will remain, however winning or losing the Oil War is measured.
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 15 September 2005 1:35:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A moment of silence - Ortiz

A poem by Emmanuel Ortiz...

Before I start this poem,
I'd like to ask you to join me
in a moment of silence
in honour of those who died
in the World Trade Centre
and the Pentagon
last September 11th.

I would also like to ask you
a moment of silence
for all of those who have been
harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
tortured, raped, or killed
in retaliation for those strikes,
for the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
for the tens of thousands of Palestinians
who have died at the hands of
U.S.-backed Israeli forces
over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence
for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation
as a result of an 11-year U.S. embargo
against the country.

Before I begin this poem:

two months of silence
for the Blacks under Apartheid
in South Africa,
where homeland security
made them aliens
in their own country.

Nine months of silence
for the dead in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, where death rained
down and peeled back
every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin
and the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence
for the millions of dead
in Vietnam-a people, not a war-
for those who know a thing or two
about the scent of burning fuel,
their relatives' bones buried in it,
their babies born of it.

A year of silence
for the dead in Cambodia and Laos,
victims of a secret war ... ssssshhhhh ..
Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn
that they are dead.

Two months of silence
for the decades of dead
in Colombia, whose names,
like the corpses they once represented,
have piled up and slipped off
our tongues.

Before I begin this poem,

An hour of silence for El Salvador.
An afternoon of silence
for Nicaragua .
Two days of silence
for the Guetmaltecos .
None of whom ever knew
a moment of peace.

Read on here
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/silence.html
Posted by Rainier, Thursday, 15 September 2005 6:42:54 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Id like to make a number of points

Firstly I fear and expect that the number of insurgents will continue to replace the ones that are killed as happened in Vietnam.

Secondly unless the US or the coalition is willing to acknowlege the death toll by being transparent with the numbers of dead' then an already resentful public will become increasingly hostile and suspicious of the administrations plans to further exicute the war.

Thirdly whilst the west is good at dropping bombs and using technology it as you state, it has so far failed to win the hearts and minds of the people. Until this happens success will be nigh impossible.

Fourthly the Vietnam war taught many of our generation that the use of military force was at best a very blunt abhorrant instrument and mostly failed to achieve anything but blood shed. As a result spending on military was wound back in all western countries in the late seventies; in favour of diplomacy. The current crop of neocons who push pens in Washington offices have conveniently forgotten this.

Fifthly the invasion of Iraq never had any real legitimacy. As such the patience of the public in continued occupation was/is bound to be much shorter.

Sixthly instead of the invasion containing terrorism as one of it goals it is becoming increasingly clear that it has had the converse effect spread the phenomenon like a virus.
Posted by aramis1, Friday, 16 September 2005 9:28:57 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Rainier posts "A moment of silence - Ortiz

A poem by Emmanuel Ortiz..."

Good start. Now Ortiz should go on in silence for all the Israelis killed by bombers (they do count, right?), the Sudanese raped, killed, and tortured by the Janjaweed militias, the Muslims of Srebenica, the citizens of Hama Syria, the Saharawi under Moroccan occupation, the Algerian villagers slaughtered, the millions killed in Congo, the millions killed in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the Armenians while we're at it...

How about the hundreds just yesterday killed in Iraq by the "resistance?" What exactly were they "resisting' in killing all those fellow Iraqis? (No US military personnel were killed or wounded AFAIK).

Oh we could go on. But not all that's going or has gone wrong in the world can be blamed so easily on the US and that perennial favorite, Israel. For Ortiz' "moment of silence" to truly do justice to all the victims of mindless violence, he'd have to shut up forever.
Posted by W_Howard, Friday, 16 September 2005 9:56:48 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
In the article Keith says that Guerrilla warfare is a new form of warfare. But wikipedia says it is one of the oldest forms of warfare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerilla_warfare

AN EXTRACT:-

"
The well-known first aspects of guerrilla warfare occurred in what is now Israel with the guerrilla leader Judas Maccabaeus, described in the books of Maccabees in the Apocrypha in the Bible. For years he fought off the Seleucids. In centuries of history, many guerrilla movements appeared in Europe to fight foreign occupation forces. The tactics of Roman dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus against Hannibal could be considered a predecessor of guerrilla tactics. In expanding their own Empire, the Romans encountered numerous examples of guerrilla resistance to their legions. During The Deluge in Poland guerrilla tactics were applied. In the 19th century, peoples of the Balkans used guerrilla tactics to fight the Ottoman empire. In 17th century Ireland, Irish irregulars called tories and rapparees used guerrilla warfare in the Irish Confederate Wars and the Williamite war in Ireland. In India in the 17th Century an Indian self-proclaimed leader and king "Shivaji Bhonsle" revolted against the ruling Mughal using guerrilla tactics.
"
Posted by Terje, Friday, 16 September 2005 11:55:17 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
From Polly Toynbee in the Guardian,

Iraq has shown that smart missiles, heavy metal and techno-tricks from the Americans are not working to plan. The lessons that the Vietcong should have taught the behemoth are being learned the hard way all over again as failure and calamity stare the White house in the face.

Divide and rule with so much success in the ME colonial past is not working so well in America's favour - like as if the US is being caught between two fires, from the Sunnis and the Shias.

What irony that Iran, the heart of America's axis of evil there, could win without hardly lifting a finger. Shock and awe is now over with the US more and more caught in the blowback.
Posted by bushbred, Saturday, 17 September 2005 5:03:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Who is winning in Iraq ? Le me throw some wild cards in here – at some possible risk perhaps to my own liberty and personal security in the present edgy national security climate in Australia. So I will preface this piece by saying firmly that I do not support terrorism of any kind from any source in Iraq or elsewhere. And that what follows is pure speculation.

Fallujah, October- November 2004 was as I have said on my website, a major US-led coalition crime against humanity. It killed thousands of innocent civilians, razed a living city, and turned 200,000 people into internal refugees. It outscales Guernica, Oradour, Lidice, Warsaw 1944, and even Grozny in Chechnya as a crime against humanity. It was an attempt to use massive destructive force against a civilian city to intimidate the whole Iraqi Sunni community into cowed submission. It seems to have failed in that aim.

So far the US-led coalition has avoided a similar level and intensity of lethal violence against the majority Shia community in Iraq though they came close to it when they went after Al Sadr in Najaf last year. They blew up a lot of holy places.

Now we see an alleged upsurge of Sunni –based terrorism against Shia people (not against US forces – US casualties seem to be down) in Iraq. While US forces stay in safe bases, all this anti-Shia bloodshed is, we are told, being masterminded by the Sunni Al Qaeda terrorist leader Al Zarqawi.

I wonder. Are all these Sunni atrocities against Shia really being perpetrated by Sunni Al Queda extremists? Who is Al Zarqawi ? Does he really exist at all, or is he an American special operations invention ? What do we really know about him except that US intelligence keeps telling the Western media that he is appearing on Arab websites ? What do we really know about him ? Are things being attributed to him that are being carried out by others? (End of part 1)
Posted by tony kevin, Sunday, 18 September 2005 10:25:36 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
(Start of part 2) These reported Sunni atrocities – yes, Shia people are certainly dying now in large numbers from terrorist bombings - would be a good way to keep the Iraqi Shia scared and dependent on US military presence and “protection”. And thereby keep the US access to Iraqi oil. And lessen risks of the Shia falling into the Iranian sphere of influence. Actually these Shia deaths suit present US interests well.

I think it is quite possible that a lot of the present alleged Sunni Al Qaeda violence against Shia Iraqis is a result of US covert operations, framed up as alleged Sunni terrorist operations. It would fit the Bush administration script well – remember how we kept being told last year that if the US forces left Iraq, there would be Shia – Sunni civil war there. Now here we are and it is happening – or is it ?

Two books to read as reality checks if you think such things are impossible of our great and powerful friends: Greene’s “The Quiet American” and Le Carre’s “Absolute Friends”. Truth can be stranger than fiction. And the world’s superpower certainly now has the resources and mass media influence to create whatever terrorist reality it wants.

I cannot prove this. But it is a possibility worth bearing in mind
Posted by tony kevin, Sunday, 18 September 2005 10:27:57 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ah Vietnam - a war waged by soldiers but lost by politicians.

Westmoreland might have got some strategies wrong but the biggest error was to restrain the military opportunity.

War waged should be waged absolutely.

The only way you can win any war is to use all the resources at your disposal to achieve your objective - anything short of this level of commitment points to the sort of fiddling and meddling which politicians undertake in the name of diplomacy. Hence, Truman was absolutely right to release the atom and hydrogen bombs over Japan to end WWII.

I would further recall, prior to Vietnam, another insurgent communist uprising was defeated in Borneo. The fighting was most severe toward the end as the communists realised the inevitablility of defeat. That war was waged with far greater control over supplies - even to the point that the entire rice harvest and subsequent food distribution system was requisitioned and regulated by the British military who allowed only boiled rice to be distributed - ensuring the "shelf-life" of food was severely limited and thus denying it as a sustainable resource to the insurgents.

Ultimately, the resolve and determination of the combined Allied and Iraqi forces will overcome the Muslim terrorist insurgents. Not today - maybe not tomorrow - but eventually - provided the military is left to do what the military do best - fight, crush and/or kill the enemy without meddling politicians getting involved.
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 20 September 2005 2:09:32 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Col I respect your attempt to bring a little history to your arguments, however, I need to clear up 2 points.

One – there were no hydrogen bombs used over Japan in 1945. Hydrogen bombs only became operational in the 1950’s. If a hydrogen bomb had been used over Hiroshima or Nagasaki perhaps 100 times more deaths would have occurred – stretching to other cities in Japan.

Two – re the insurgency in Borneo. You are confusing the Malayan Emergency, 1948-60, against ethnic Chinese communists, with Confrontation, 1962-66, fought in Borneo between “British Commonwealth forces” and non-Communist Indonesia forces.

Your attempt to compare the communist insurgency in Malaya with the coalition insurgency in Iraq doesn’t hold up. In Malaya the insurgency was overwhelmingly against a small number of Chinese in the jungle. The Chinese formed a small and identifiable portion of the population and so could be easily identified, cordoned off and starved out. There were no over-border supply lines to these ethnic Chinese.

In Iraq its more like Vietnam but with deadlier terror weapons. It consists of Iraqi Muslims (Sunni’s and Shia’s) and Kurds who all look the same (or similar) and all fighting amongst themselves or the coalition. They come and go across several open borders and receive $ billions in cash and arms from Muslims in the Middle East (mainly in Saudi Arabia).

So the Iraq insurgency is about the most difficult, complex and unmanageable insurgency you can possibly get. Just killing until there is no more war is no solution. Best that the coalition goes home and the UN comes in.
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 21 September 2005 12:22:21 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
plantagenet "So the Iraq insurgency is about the most difficult, complex and unmanageable insurgency you can possibly get. Just killing until there is no more war is no solution. Best that the coalition goes home and the UN comes in."

Suggesting something is the "most complex and forces should, therefore, come home" is simple defeatism.
The exact same stuff which prompted Chamberlain to sign the Munich Pact - as in - Hitlers German Aggression was just "the most difficult"
and too hard.

That attitude is what makes the difference between defeat and success - If a military force believes it cannot win, it will not. If a military force believes it is invinvicble, has the right training and most important, has the total and absolute commitment of the politicians etc. it will - almost certainly win.

Certrainly, if you were leading them, they would have lost before they arrive - such is the difference between a natural follower and a natural leader - the leader "leads" and can instill faith and commitment.
Its all psychology really - and as we all know from Reagans Star Wars initiative, the psychology of invincibility matters (even when the weaponary does not exist).

Oh as for the UN - that diplomatic talkfest of non-effective nobodies. It lacked the will to distribute food for oil without corruption. It lacked the will to act in Rwanda. It lacked the will to act on Iraq - Hence the coalition, fedup and tired of the incompetent vascillation of the UN decided to do something. The UN is on the precipise of its own collapse - if it does survive, it will only survive by radical changes to its structure and the demise of the entire upper levels of its executive and management tiers - a change too long overdue!
Posted by Col Rouge, Thursday, 22 September 2005 9:29:27 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Col

Your "up and at em lads" arguments pales when your band of diggers are plowing into Iraqi neighborhood full of possible targets.

Anyone in that neighbohood could be concealing a weapon or bomb. What do you do, shoot em all?

I note that you didn't address the corrections I made to your "H bomb over Japan" and "communist insurgency in Borneo" errors.

Your resort to Chamberlain, a precursor to a Conventional European war should not delay the day until you have to think about conditions in Iraq.

As in Vietnam (with Chinese and Russian support) the Iraq insurgents (with unlimited Muslim world support) are fighting a war of attrition. What is our interest in barreling into the Iraqi population when we could be fighting the 9/11 terrorists in their hidouts in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 22 September 2005 10:11:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tony Kevin's suspicions about the insurgency in Iraq are well founded. The fact is that the US economy is structured so that it is dependent upon being continuously engaged upon or preparing for warfare. It is therefore irrelevant whether the war is being won or lost as long as it keeps going. If it eventually grinds to a halt as it did in Vietnam, after a few regional skirmishes like Cambodia or Panama or Grenada, another major war will be started to keep what Eisenhower called the "military/industrial complex" in production. No doubt a suitable triggering device like 9/11 will be found to justify the action and the "necessary wartime restrictions on civil liberties" which will follow.

Another recommended book to read along with those Tony suggested is "The New Pearl Harbour" by David Ray Griffin.
Posted by Sympneology, Friday, 30 September 2005 4:48:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Oh come on Symneology

I said it on this string BEFORE Tony rightly wrote it down. See the FIRST comment on this string.

"The US appears to be in Iraq to:
- control Iraq’s oil production and reserves (a significant proportion of the Middle East’s (world’s major producers) oil supplies)
- protect Saudi Arabia from outside threats particularly from the Shiite threat (including Iran). Bush has a long record of personal and public ties with the Saudi’s...
- [HERE IT IS] Give a large (post Cold War) US defence establishment something to do. Defence spend[ING] is traditionally good for the US economy and hence the Republican’s chance of reelection.
...
Whatever happens I think a large US presence in the Middle East will remain, however winning or losing the Oil War is measured.

Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 15 September 2005 1:35:56 PM"

Yours sincerely

Plantagenet
(feeling childishly miffed!)
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 30 September 2005 10:11:46 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
OK Plantagenet, you said it first:
- [HERE IT IS] Give a large (post Cold War) US defence establishment something to do. Defence spend[ING] is traditionally good for the US economy and hence the Republican’s chance of reelection.

My point was that the US will always find an excuse to go to war whichever party is in control of Congress or the White House. Remember it was a Democrat President Roosevelt who got them into WWII after allowing Pearl Harbour to happen, and it was a Democrat President Johnson who escalated the war in Vietnam after his leader (JFK, who wanted to de-escalate) was out of the way. It is interesting that Johnson's firm, Brown & Root, which got the contract to build Da Nang airbase in Vietnam, is now, as Kellog, Brown & Root, a part of Cheney's firm, Halliburton, which has contracts for most of the infrastructure in Iraq.

So it does not matter who wins or loses, the wars or the elections, the war profiteers will win either way.
Posted by Sympneology, Friday, 30 September 2005 3:53:06 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy