"GOD GET ME OUT OF THIS BECAUSE THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO GET ME KILLED"
…During Operation Lion Strike…the goal was to capture insurgents in the Fadhil district of central Baghdad. It was the first time the Iraqi army's 9th Division was to be in complete control of an operation in the two years it has been training under the Americans. Teams of U.S. advisers remained close, but planned to leave the fighting to the Iraqis.
"It started out that way. But about five minutes into it, we had to take over," Staff Sgt. Michael Baxter, 35, said…
…U.S. military leaders had called it an "outstanding" example of Iraqi forces taking charge…But interviews the following day with U.S. and Iraqi soldiers at Camp al-Rashid in Rustimayah, where they are based, painted a more complex picture…
…While some soldiers froze in indecision, others fired wildly (at friendly and insurgent targets alike) as they ran across streets…
"I'm just thinking to myself, oh God, get me out of this because these guys are going to get me killed if we stay here," said Staff Sgt. Baxter.
--"'About Five Minutes Into It, We Had to Take Over': U.S. Military Advisers Step In As Iraqi Army Mission Falters," Nancy Trejos, Washington Post, December 3, 2006
"Fear took over," among Iraqis, said Staff Sgt. Michael Baxter.
"They refused to move. We were yelling at them to move," he said. "I grabbed one guy and shoved him into a building…"
…"I had to throw bullet casings at them to get their attention," said Army 1st Sgt. Agustin Mendoza, another U.S. trainer who manned a Humvee gun-turret during battle…
No count was taken of the number of civilians killed in the densely populated neighborhood, but U.S. and Iraqi soldiers acknowledged significant "collateral damage…"
The offensive…initially was billed by U.S. officials in Baghdad as an Iraqi-led success and a case study in support of the Pentagon's increasing reliance on military advisers to shift security responsibilities to Iraqi soldiers.
--"An Ambush Erupted, Then, 'Fear Took Over': U.S. Officials Called the Offensive a Success, but Military Advisers Say Iraq's Elite troops Wilted," Solomon Moore, Chicago Tribune, December 5, 2006.
The risks to American troops of working as trainers away from the security of larger American units were underscored early last month, when a staff sergeant and two team leaders--a lieutenant colonel and his replacement--were killed in a single attack in Baghdad.
Another risk is that operations carried out with Iraqi security forces in the lead may be less effective and result in more casualties among Iraqi security forces and civilians than with the better-trained American troops.
--"U.S. Troops in Iraq shifting to Advisory Roles," Thom Shanker and Edward Wong, New York Times, December 5, 2006.
You know, there are only a few dogged reporters who are actually telling the unvarnished truth about what is going on in Iraq. And there is a good reason why.
It's called wishful thinking.
The White House is a master of it, and after six years of semantic obfuscation and euphemisms galore planted by the administration in press conferences and daily media "talking points," the truth is that so many in the mainstream media--particularly in the television news biz, just don't seem to realize that they have started speaking in Bush-talk dialects themselves.
A case in point is the nonsense about the glorious Iraqi army and about how all we have to do is train them better and then they can stand up and we can stand down.
Makes ya just wanna leap to your feet and place your hand over your heart, doesn't it?
Even Democrats think this sounds like common sense.
Not too many politicians, however, have gone out on maneuvers with this much-vaunted Iraqi army, nor have they taken the time to talk to troops on the ground, like my son, who would be only too happy to share with them the REALITY--(that's Bush's favorite new word--see how often he uses it so that he can fool people into believing he really IS thinking in terms of actual real true reality rather than simply parroting the word so it will sound good)--anyway--the REALITY of training these bozos.
Even those in congress, like my favorite, Duncan Hunter, are making grandiose claims about how if only more Iraqi army troops would move to Baghdad, why, by God, we'd clean that sucker up!
The U.S. military is ramping up its training program to add 30,000 more Iraqi troops by mid-2007…The new recruits will add to the small number of Iraqi forces willing to travel away from their home bases…
"In August, when we started Operation Together Forward to secure Baghdad, we called on a bunch of units to assist," said Army Col. Douglass Heckman, commander for the 9th Division Military Transition team. "This division was the only one that moved into operation. The others balked."
--"An Ambush Erupted, Then 'Fear Took Over'", Solomon Moore, Chicago Tribune, December 5, 2006.
Here's the REALITY, guys.
*only 65 % of the weapons and equipment allotted by the U.S. has made it to the Iraqi troops
*The Iraqi Defense Ministry refuses to provide necessary funding, preferring to depend upon the U.S. to do it
*Even with only a few hours advance warning to the Iraqis, as in this particular instance, they were still ambushed by RPGs, snipers, and AK-47 fire from every direction, which not only resulted in wide-scale panic among the Iraqi troops, but caught the Americans in a deadly crossfire that went on for 11 hours. We can--quite literally--TRUST NO ONE.
*At any one time, liberal leave policies and desertions keep barely half of any Iraqi brigade functioning; the rest are absent with and without leave
*90% of the Iraqi army refuses to deploy to areas in Iraq other than their home bases; and even then, Shi'ites refuse to fight Shi'ites and Sunnis refuse to fight Sunnis
*We are currently in the process of QUADRUPLING American troops as advisers in the Iraqi army to speed up training, in the theory that the more troops are trained, the quicker we can leave. But according to the New York Times, the 9th Division was the U.S.-led flagship, the Iraqi division considered "the best hope for U.S. troop withdrawal."
The best hope? Here is our best hope:
Confusion reigned as insurgents pummeled dismounted Iraqi troops and American advisers. American radio jammers blocked Iraqi soldiers' walkie-talkies, forcing them to use unreliable cell phone signals to stay in contact. Voice commands were lost amid the explosions and gunfire echoing off the looming walls. At one point, U.S. and Iraqi troops piled into a Humvee to escape the hail of insurgent bullets pinging off the armor cladding.
"I was pulling people in," Army Sgt. 1st Class Kent McQueen said. "We were all bunched in there together with the gunner. It was like a game of Twister."
--"An Ambush Erupted, Then 'Fear Took Over'", Solomon Moore, Chicago Tribune, December 5, 2006.
The thing is, the more American troops we embed with the Iraqis, the greater the danger to them, not of just being pinned down with their hapless trainees, as was the case here, but how long, then, before we see some American trainer-soldier kidnapped and beheaded on al-Jazeera?
Recently, we had a visit from my husband's brother, who just retired from the U.S. Army Special Forces, where he reached the rank of Brigadier General.
Counter-terrorism is what my brother-in-law has spent 27 years doing, with successes in such diverse places as Bosnia and Afghanistan. And he said that, in order for the U.S. to succeed in Iraq, we would need to stay there--ideally, using counter-terrorism tactics--for two full generations.
Let me repeat that in case you are scan-reading. Wouldn't want you to miss this:
In order for the U.S. to succeed in Iraq, it needs to be practicing intensive counter-terrorism techniques for as much as TWO FULL GENERATIONS of time before we can claim anything like a "victory." This is because, thanks to colossal Rumsfeldian blunders and Bushian lies, there is no way the current American troops can possibly win over the Iraqi insurgents or have any real influence on Iraq's current divided government.
Of course, this is the suggestion of a counter-terrorism expert. And although the U.S. military is doing its damndest to revise its tactics into those of classic counter-terrorism methods, the truth is that a behemoth like the U.S. Army is not built for small teams of counter-terrorist groups to move into a desert village or teeming urban neighborhood and slowly win over the people there by gaining their trust.
It is built to crush.
(And the U.S. Marine Corps was not even created to mount a sustained ground war or anything like nation-building. It is a rapid-reactionary force, meant to go in hot, secure an area, and turn it over to the Army before moving on to the next hot spot. Like the army, it's better at crushing than at winning-over.)
So, after four years of attempting to CRUSH an insurgency, we're left with chaos.
Therefore, the only idea remaining to the pundits and politicians and policy-makers for them to be able to claim "victory" is to train train train those Iraqi troops to take over for themselves and restore some semblance of order to their crumbling country.
Boys and girls, let's get one thing perfectly straight.
There are no good solutions for "winning" in Iraq.
In fact, there are no solutions at all, and everybody--even the much-heralded Iraq Study Group--knows this.
What we have now is this: What is the best way to LOOK like we are accomplishing anything LIKE a definitive goal in Iraq, so that we can get the hell out of there before the next presidential elections?
Training Iraqis looks like the way to go.
LOOKS like it.
But the truth is that our longsuffering American troops can train their butts off, but if the Iraqis don't wanna be trained, they will "fight" like the Keystone Kops and beg the Americans to rescue them. And the worst thing of it all is that, in the process of rescuing them, we're getting MORE Americans killed.
I guess what the pundits and politicians and policy-makers have to do now is convince the American people that the Iraqis really are standing up and we really are standing down. Takes a few good slogans tossed around in on-camera interviews and "leaked" memos sounding all official-like to select reporters.
Of course, those reporters who are willing to speak truth to power can expose the lie pretty quick, to those who are paying attention, like moi.
On the other hand, maybe we should ALL play a game of Twister.
Let's just all pretend that the Iraqis have been trained, just like they said, and then God get us out of there before they get us killed.
THAT is the truth.
"It started out that way. But about five minutes into it, we had to take over," Staff Sgt. Michael Baxter, 35, said…
…U.S. military leaders had called it an "outstanding" example of Iraqi forces taking charge…But interviews the following day with U.S. and Iraqi soldiers at Camp al-Rashid in Rustimayah, where they are based, painted a more complex picture…
…While some soldiers froze in indecision, others fired wildly (at friendly and insurgent targets alike) as they ran across streets…
"I'm just thinking to myself, oh God, get me out of this because these guys are going to get me killed if we stay here," said Staff Sgt. Baxter.
--"'About Five Minutes Into It, We Had to Take Over': U.S. Military Advisers Step In As Iraqi Army Mission Falters," Nancy Trejos, Washington Post, December 3, 2006
"Fear took over," among Iraqis, said Staff Sgt. Michael Baxter.
"They refused to move. We were yelling at them to move," he said. "I grabbed one guy and shoved him into a building…"
…"I had to throw bullet casings at them to get their attention," said Army 1st Sgt. Agustin Mendoza, another U.S. trainer who manned a Humvee gun-turret during battle…
No count was taken of the number of civilians killed in the densely populated neighborhood, but U.S. and Iraqi soldiers acknowledged significant "collateral damage…"
The offensive…initially was billed by U.S. officials in Baghdad as an Iraqi-led success and a case study in support of the Pentagon's increasing reliance on military advisers to shift security responsibilities to Iraqi soldiers.
--"An Ambush Erupted, Then, 'Fear Took Over': U.S. Officials Called the Offensive a Success, but Military Advisers Say Iraq's Elite troops Wilted," Solomon Moore, Chicago Tribune, December 5, 2006.
The risks to American troops of working as trainers away from the security of larger American units were underscored early last month, when a staff sergeant and two team leaders--a lieutenant colonel and his replacement--were killed in a single attack in Baghdad.
Another risk is that operations carried out with Iraqi security forces in the lead may be less effective and result in more casualties among Iraqi security forces and civilians than with the better-trained American troops.
--"U.S. Troops in Iraq shifting to Advisory Roles," Thom Shanker and Edward Wong, New York Times, December 5, 2006.
You know, there are only a few dogged reporters who are actually telling the unvarnished truth about what is going on in Iraq. And there is a good reason why.
It's called wishful thinking.
The White House is a master of it, and after six years of semantic obfuscation and euphemisms galore planted by the administration in press conferences and daily media "talking points," the truth is that so many in the mainstream media--particularly in the television news biz, just don't seem to realize that they have started speaking in Bush-talk dialects themselves.
A case in point is the nonsense about the glorious Iraqi army and about how all we have to do is train them better and then they can stand up and we can stand down.
Makes ya just wanna leap to your feet and place your hand over your heart, doesn't it?
Even Democrats think this sounds like common sense.
Not too many politicians, however, have gone out on maneuvers with this much-vaunted Iraqi army, nor have they taken the time to talk to troops on the ground, like my son, who would be only too happy to share with them the REALITY--(that's Bush's favorite new word--see how often he uses it so that he can fool people into believing he really IS thinking in terms of actual real true reality rather than simply parroting the word so it will sound good)--anyway--the REALITY of training these bozos.
Even those in congress, like my favorite, Duncan Hunter, are making grandiose claims about how if only more Iraqi army troops would move to Baghdad, why, by God, we'd clean that sucker up!
The U.S. military is ramping up its training program to add 30,000 more Iraqi troops by mid-2007…The new recruits will add to the small number of Iraqi forces willing to travel away from their home bases…
"In August, when we started Operation Together Forward to secure Baghdad, we called on a bunch of units to assist," said Army Col. Douglass Heckman, commander for the 9th Division Military Transition team. "This division was the only one that moved into operation. The others balked."
--"An Ambush Erupted, Then 'Fear Took Over'", Solomon Moore, Chicago Tribune, December 5, 2006.
Here's the REALITY, guys.
*only 65 % of the weapons and equipment allotted by the U.S. has made it to the Iraqi troops
*The Iraqi Defense Ministry refuses to provide necessary funding, preferring to depend upon the U.S. to do it
*Even with only a few hours advance warning to the Iraqis, as in this particular instance, they were still ambushed by RPGs, snipers, and AK-47 fire from every direction, which not only resulted in wide-scale panic among the Iraqi troops, but caught the Americans in a deadly crossfire that went on for 11 hours. We can--quite literally--TRUST NO ONE.
*At any one time, liberal leave policies and desertions keep barely half of any Iraqi brigade functioning; the rest are absent with and without leave
*90% of the Iraqi army refuses to deploy to areas in Iraq other than their home bases; and even then, Shi'ites refuse to fight Shi'ites and Sunnis refuse to fight Sunnis
*We are currently in the process of QUADRUPLING American troops as advisers in the Iraqi army to speed up training, in the theory that the more troops are trained, the quicker we can leave. But according to the New York Times, the 9th Division was the U.S.-led flagship, the Iraqi division considered "the best hope for U.S. troop withdrawal."
The best hope? Here is our best hope:
Confusion reigned as insurgents pummeled dismounted Iraqi troops and American advisers. American radio jammers blocked Iraqi soldiers' walkie-talkies, forcing them to use unreliable cell phone signals to stay in contact. Voice commands were lost amid the explosions and gunfire echoing off the looming walls. At one point, U.S. and Iraqi troops piled into a Humvee to escape the hail of insurgent bullets pinging off the armor cladding.
"I was pulling people in," Army Sgt. 1st Class Kent McQueen said. "We were all bunched in there together with the gunner. It was like a game of Twister."
--"An Ambush Erupted, Then 'Fear Took Over'", Solomon Moore, Chicago Tribune, December 5, 2006.
The thing is, the more American troops we embed with the Iraqis, the greater the danger to them, not of just being pinned down with their hapless trainees, as was the case here, but how long, then, before we see some American trainer-soldier kidnapped and beheaded on al-Jazeera?
Recently, we had a visit from my husband's brother, who just retired from the U.S. Army Special Forces, where he reached the rank of Brigadier General.
Counter-terrorism is what my brother-in-law has spent 27 years doing, with successes in such diverse places as Bosnia and Afghanistan. And he said that, in order for the U.S. to succeed in Iraq, we would need to stay there--ideally, using counter-terrorism tactics--for two full generations.
Let me repeat that in case you are scan-reading. Wouldn't want you to miss this:
In order for the U.S. to succeed in Iraq, it needs to be practicing intensive counter-terrorism techniques for as much as TWO FULL GENERATIONS of time before we can claim anything like a "victory." This is because, thanks to colossal Rumsfeldian blunders and Bushian lies, there is no way the current American troops can possibly win over the Iraqi insurgents or have any real influence on Iraq's current divided government.
Of course, this is the suggestion of a counter-terrorism expert. And although the U.S. military is doing its damndest to revise its tactics into those of classic counter-terrorism methods, the truth is that a behemoth like the U.S. Army is not built for small teams of counter-terrorist groups to move into a desert village or teeming urban neighborhood and slowly win over the people there by gaining their trust.
It is built to crush.
(And the U.S. Marine Corps was not even created to mount a sustained ground war or anything like nation-building. It is a rapid-reactionary force, meant to go in hot, secure an area, and turn it over to the Army before moving on to the next hot spot. Like the army, it's better at crushing than at winning-over.)
So, after four years of attempting to CRUSH an insurgency, we're left with chaos.
Therefore, the only idea remaining to the pundits and politicians and policy-makers for them to be able to claim "victory" is to train train train those Iraqi troops to take over for themselves and restore some semblance of order to their crumbling country.
Boys and girls, let's get one thing perfectly straight.
There are no good solutions for "winning" in Iraq.
In fact, there are no solutions at all, and everybody--even the much-heralded Iraq Study Group--knows this.
What we have now is this: What is the best way to LOOK like we are accomplishing anything LIKE a definitive goal in Iraq, so that we can get the hell out of there before the next presidential elections?
Training Iraqis looks like the way to go.
LOOKS like it.
But the truth is that our longsuffering American troops can train their butts off, but if the Iraqis don't wanna be trained, they will "fight" like the Keystone Kops and beg the Americans to rescue them. And the worst thing of it all is that, in the process of rescuing them, we're getting MORE Americans killed.
I guess what the pundits and politicians and policy-makers have to do now is convince the American people that the Iraqis really are standing up and we really are standing down. Takes a few good slogans tossed around in on-camera interviews and "leaked" memos sounding all official-like to select reporters.
Of course, those reporters who are willing to speak truth to power can expose the lie pretty quick, to those who are paying attention, like moi.
On the other hand, maybe we should ALL play a game of Twister.
Let's just all pretend that the Iraqis have been trained, just like they said, and then God get us out of there before they get us killed.
THAT is the truth.
posted by Deanie Mills at 11:27 AM
2 Comments:
Hi, Deanie. Thanks for continuing to pump away. It's good to know I'm not alone. On a related theme, here's what I wrote today to The Economist:
Sir:
Peculiar as it may be, this Economist subscriber happens to have a son stationed in Iraq with the U.S. Marines.
So when you write "What will not help is scuttling from Iraq before exhausting every possible effort to put the country back together," I must ask what is encompassed by "exhausting every effort." Would it include the continued slaughter of young, patriotic troops until the military services are once again drained of morale à la Vietnam, leaving in its wake tens of thousands of bereft families?
YOU GO GIRL!!!
I *love* it.
You and I and other military parents must continue to be voices crying out in the wilderness about this miserable godforsaken mess of a war, speaking for the troops, until they come home. We lost 34 American troops in Iraq last week alone, while all the politicians and pundits argued policy...
Hang in there; you and your boy are in my prayers.
Love and semper fi,
Deanie
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