Operation Spear concluded [Iraq]

"the iraqis, they better hurry up - turn in these terrorists, clean the crap off their streets using their own security forces. they better hurry, because US public support for this iraq effort is falling, and in need of some positive developments fast."

I can appreciate your concerns. I do not like to watch some big fat pig teddy or slick joey biden etc., play games within public forums during arm services committee meetings. And I don't like to see polls that are full of negative responses that where brought on by the far left liberal L/MSM calculated AS USUAL just like during NAM and elsewhere to sway the un-informed who simply cannot fathom the total significance of why we invaded and why we want a free democratic mideast to emerge.
But I do like what I have seen so far accomplished under very and quite frankly hard to plan for conditions in Iraq.
I do like how the Iraqi government in its extremely difficult possition consisting of many different political groups, ideologies, and differing religious sects have come together and said.........we must do this for the sake of Iraq. We need a fully democractically elected government put into place that will represent all it's peoples. We need an honest and common sense constitution what will guide us in the future. We must allow the US and coalition to move as fast as possible to train and equip our budding army and security police forces. Since we (Iraqis) now have a growing army that is proving itself to be able to fight well, we must allow them to integrate with the American soldiers and Marines when they ask us to.

As for your probably geniune concern. How pray tell do we speed up the processes that obviously still require some time? Perhaps another year or more at best.

Do we walk out of Iraq tommorow because a minority of senators want us to leave? In any war we are in oceanview, are you of the opinion the public should tell the POTUS when to pull out? Are you aware of the blatant one side L/MSM coverage of the Iraqi war and this follow up SASO?
If your answer to the last question is yes. Then do you not
realize that the above questions in essence become mute points? And if you where to say no as to what the L/MSM has pulled off, then what are your positions on all the "other side of the story the L/MSM never report on in many conservative based news feeds/papers, and blog sites, are they all providing us with lies?

Seems to me that all of your comments on anything concerning the WOT/war in Iraq are two basic sentences at most, and always totally negative. I sense strongly you are against all the POTUS and our country has done in regards to fighting the war on terror and somehow bring forth major ideological changes in the mideast that can lead to making America and the rest of the world a more safe place. I say this not to attack you. I don't do that. I do have a mental image of all those two liners we see coming from you that always is negative in support the efforts being made.

In closing. It takes a real POTUS not to buckle under. He started something all major UN players said must be done before most dropped out when it was time to do it, he has weathered both the L/MSM neglegience and sense of fairness in not totally biasing news to turn the country against this administration, and he continues to weather the often idiotic behavior from our elected congressional officials.
HOW STUPID CAN ONE BE! TO ASKED FOR A DATE OR TIME SCHEDULE TO PULL OUT OF IRAQ. What fools and damn totally iresponsible people that pretend to have our nations security at heart and honor our troops commitements are. And they have the NERVE to pretend they really do care!

COME OFF IT ALREADY! No I did not change the subject.
Your question begs the verbosity provided.

Let me ask you this. Are you for what the POTUS had decided to do or are you against it?

for one thing, they can pressure this transitional government to get off their beauracratic a**es and get this constitution drawn up and move to a more permanent structure. I don't know how you instill bravery in their security forces.

the administration must have known they were going to have to fight this war here at home too, that is was going to be vietnam all over again with respect to the Dems and the MSM. they have done a poor PR job, allowing the Dems to constantly be on offense and whittle down the support numbers month after month. just this past week, they seem to have figured out that they need to be on offense, let's hope its not too late. but in addition to PR, the situation on the ground has to change - our KIAs, these daily car bombings on seemingly any target the terrorists desire, these are not being made up by the MSM.

Thank you. Adequate answer. I would only differ in that you seem to follow things close. So you must be reading the articles here an perhaps at places like the forth rail etc., that link elsewhere, as well as what some our Marine staff officers have said over the past few months that experienced units of the IA, are being quite effective, they are killing both local and foreign insurgents/terrorist, as they are being found. Some of them have become rather ruthless in their puruit of their now common enemy and have been working well with our units.
The election of the constitutional assembly if I may call it that was on formed almost on schedule ( a major accomplisment), and now is on schedule to draft then ratify their new constitution. The upcoming federal elections which will create their permenant government is literally months away. It has been planned for a long time to happen sometime during 2005. Obvious it will happen if all goes well between 12/05 to at latest 3/06. No minor accomplishment in my opinion for what they have gone through. We complain how we got problems with a two party system. Imagine the adjustments many of them have to make to accomodate in their scenario.

And surely you must see that regardless of how many troops we might have had over there, that until good intellegience had been set up, and the formation of a viable temp gov., and the training of a new Iraqi Army, all which where in the plan from day one, things would just go along as usual. There are significant changes now in place. And it takes time to train new Battallions of troops to perform given type tasks, equipe them, etc.. Think about it a moment. They now have the equivalence of roughtly 3 ground divisions of troops, not even considering the growning size and effectieness of their police forces. The L/MSM do not give the American public a fair balanced view of what continues to happen over there, so naturally they assume all is wrong.

If I appeared to be to rough in my statements to you, I will apologize. But the tone of your statement just made it appear that you where either without a clue as to what has been in progress there or you are against the war/SASO/WOT by default. I sense perhaps that is not the case.
And in either case, if you where against the actions taken in Iraq, you still have the right to voice your opinions.
So perhaps my emphasized print was in-appropriate. But watching the fat boy ask the DoD if it was time for him to resign was still very fresh on my mind as I wrote.

"A major problem is that Basher Assad does not exercise the same control that his father did. He is, to a large extent, a figurehead for the old Baathist bulls in the Syrian military. The neutralization of Syria as a military entity will not be that difficult militarily and, because there is no oil or major foreign contracts, international fall out."

Understand. Thank you for the statements. Much is left out of our dialogs due to space requirements and how much we are willing to read at a clip.
It is quite possible that if an altimatim was handed down to the Syrian government, that they had a week to accomplish some particular action, or else face a pre-emptive attack on their countries infrastructure, military, air/ground defense grids, and government by air attacks, perhaps he would loosen up a bit. But what would he do? What can they do? That is where my thoughts lead. If it turns out that they are not capable to actually close down all foreign terrorist movements in their country, then what can we do? I for one have read articles over the past two years or so that indicate he is not in control nearly as much as some may think as how his minions behave. The very nature as how their military operates, based on their culture, say just as an example, at "The Adventures of Chester" site, about half year back there was and excellant article by a US Army officer in how all arab militaries operate, there gross in-abilities to fight effectively at various unit levels. The officer corps., are far different then say the US way.
They do not understand the importance of expecting accountability at all levels of command. They hoard power at the higher levels and do little to lead, etc.. In saying this, I then wonder just how well they can (assuming Assad said it must be down regardless), be expected to route out terrorist, stop them from entering the Syria to begin with,
and stop terrorist from moving across the border.
I look at it as the same for some Canadian/US border guard stoping a legitamate Pakistanian with legit Visa/passport from entering the US a border check point. The person has no weapons on them, no computers nothing to indicate they mean no harm, they are visiting their sick aunt in say Milwaukee,Wisconson. How does the Canadian border patrol person know the person is on the level? Obviously the mideast with it's long established open door policy for Muslims to travel, makes the situation even harder to control. So these are only a few briefly touched on concepts I use judgeing if Syria is really capable of stopping terrorist entry into Iraq. I make no excuss for the young lion, errrr dentist. In closing, the US cannot be perceived as conqueres and occupiers I think we would all agree. At best the situation is one of touch and go, and often withholding what we are capable of doing, in the spirit to show all we are not trying to punish the Muslim world, but to give them all a chance at a new beginning.
Lastly, we do not know how the Syrian military and many Syrian citizens would react to an attack. For all we know it could be a near identical situation as what has happened in Iraq. Surely as had been told to our intel orgs, and administration, the good folks in Iraq did not line the streets with hand fulls of rose petals and toss em when our tanks and bradely's came rolling through. Lastly, how could we expect a stablized Syrian government from being formed in the aftermath? I know the question begs long complicated dialog. But sense you are on top of things, I don't expect an answer. I simply post the thought in context of stablizing the mideast, in that region in perhaps another a few years, at best.

"I'm guessing it was just Zarqawi's lieutenant of the week."

Check out: http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Releases/May/050506d.htm

If you have powerpoint available on your machine, then downloaded and view the chart. Notice all the lieutenants have been captured or killed at this point.

So my guess, obviously purely a guess, the goon referenced, may have been a new start, or perhaps long established interface of perhaps Izzat el Douri's Saddamist insurgents that are known to work closely in some cases with the Z-mans goons, when required. Unless Zarqawi truly has established a new set of "senior" leaders it appears he is simply on the run, and more independent actions are being performed by in place units that already had been in the process of carrying out a series of car bombings etc.. One thing I think is helpfull to remember is we and the Iraqi forces have discover many large weapons caches, safehouses, hideouts, bomb factories etc., in the past few months, located mostly in Al Anbar and Babil provinces. This has put a big dent in the combined terrorist/insurgents abilities to put together car bombs, and carry out their dirty deeds. So many easy to get at weapon caches are no longer available. Of course there probably is still some 100,000 tons of ordnance still to be found and destroyed. But we surely have found, cataloged and destroyed some half a million tons of estimated weapons/ordance out of the estimated 0.6 million tons. But I do not where rose colored glasses. There surely is still lot of French artillery and mortar rounds still at their disposal to cause continued terrorist attacks. So much more the reason for the now good HUMIT that is coming in from sunni, kurd, and shiite Iraqis, to point out who is doing what and where.

Thanks for the perspective. It is good to occasionally get some cogent feedback.

In reality there is a form of democracy operating in Syria, just not the right kind. Assad rules with the consent of the general. The generals rule with the consent of the tribal thugs. The tribal thugs rule with the consent of the more extreme elements of islamic society. It is a completely bakshish driven society. Wahabi petro dollars injected into the bottom of the food chain get the desired results at the top. We need to make it far less desirable for the upper echelons to continue the status quo than to do the right thing. A few well placed cruise missiles with the threat of a lot more will have the desired effect. Unfortunately, without some kind of "cleansing" we will never have a trouble free region.

I assure you my feedback is not meant to be forcefull. I have as much to gain from learning new things as dishing them out.
What you wrote I have understood to some degree as I read a bit on the Syrian issues. Your, and what I consider rather accurate statements on how that country operates, based on my limited readings, surely could justify the need for well placed tomahawks to get the message across. But I still stick by my assesments in what would be required, give or take, if the Syrian army and intel corps. decided they would not cave in but fight.
That is the issue I have tried to address. And regardless of what the outcome would be, again, are our best chance at success in Iraq ( with all it's poublically announce goals as well as less advertised goals, spook shops etc.), at risk of failure if the Syrians would not play ball after we wiped out a number of military bases, just for one example of what obviously could be down. But then again, what kind of military base? One could plummet a given based with quite a few tomahawks and do absolutely little damage as far as "taken it out". And if they did decide to go to war with us figuring they have nothing to loose, then how much does it deter our current air/ground forces to have to fight them?
A few Bn's of Marines currently stationed in Al Anbar and perhaps a Bn or two of special forces Airborne surely is not enough to defeat the whole Syrian Army of perhaps over 40,000 strong. We would have to quickly the required air/ground/sea air support required to take them out. Perhaps it would take much longer then a year. Meanwhile, we leave the Iraqi's hanging a bit. The political uproar would be to much for Americans to at least not get to anti-war minded. You fully understand the total hay day the demos and L/MSM would have if we had to conduct a ground war in Syria any time soon.
So yes I support your idea that perhaps the application of surgical strikes in Syria could perhaps persuade them to reconsider their position. I somehow don't think it would.
They will be at the UN screaming to the high heavens that see, the American aggressors attackes us when we only are trying our best to control our borders with Iraq.
At best a sticky set of conditions to work under.

Hits on leadership and the command and control infrastructure would result in anarchy in short order giving a friendly opposition, with US support the opportunity to take control. I just don't know what is taking so damned long. Perhaps we are waiting for Lebanon to be purged and stabilized."

Perhaps what you say is right on the money. I won't argue, your sentence constructs indicate you have a feel or actually understand the art of modern warfare, and I do support your appraisal of how the Syrian forces could collapse. Though a thousand SF seems on the light side if their army choose to fight, especially in the form of a long dragged out insurgency as we see Izzat el Douri pulling off in Iraq. Let us do remember Syria is dotted with many bases, lots of rough terrain, etc.. Put another way, a long slug it out like we see in Afghanistan to emerge.
Without the intent of being critical, your suggestions do hinge on the idea the Syrian military would simply vanish or implode, and be totally in-effective in fighting back, and sustaining a non-conventional resistance such as we see in Iraq from the Baathist/Saddam military machine.
One thing for sure, the weapon manufactures sure are in demand for keeping tomahawks at required inventory levels.
Perhaps the Lebanon issue does have a lot to do with the over all scenario. In fact it is hard to see how it does not enter the picture. And it sure appears unless all news has simply stopped, that the Syrian/Iranian love feast has not materialized into a significant sub equation. Not that I really hold much credence to that supposed alliance.
Guess time will tell.

I am not referring to a conventional force on force confrontation. We don't need to destroy Syria, only prevent it form supporting, facilitating or sponsoring the insurgency in Iraq.

I am advocation a purely Special Ops campaign in which we strategically take out key Baathist leadership and disable their military's command and control capabilities. A Syrian campaign would not need thousands of troops because the intent would not be to secure and hold territory. We wouldn't need long slogs. We have staging facilities for "black" insertions to the north (Turkey), south (Israel), east (Iraq) and west (USN). I am certain that we already have operatives in country and have established a number of safe locations.

The general public and the UN may never even know if or when this operation would begin (if it already hasn't). Just watch the international press for growing reports of economic and political trouble in Syria and in fighting among the Baathists.

Your words can be construed as being convincing in many respects, if your assesment of the true condition of the Syrian army and secret police is indeed as accurate as envisioned. Incidentally, there has been one report, within the reams written about Operation Matador, where I do believe a SF team went into one of the Syrian border towns, perhaps it was Abu Kamal just north of the border crossing at the Ephrates river.
One thing I did leave out earlier on, is how do we know that someone in the State Department or a US liason officer that is supposed to be working with the Syrian general (forget his name.....that Collin meet with at the end of his stay to arrange for better co-op between them and us on the border issue), has not already made it clear to them that they must improve ten fold or surgical strikes shall be required.
Another item I would like to respond to is, our military or others should never have made public the fact we gave the lists of names, phone numbers, house addresses etc. of all Izzat el Douri's operatives to the Syrians to have them quickly rounded up....which of course never happened. Only one cousin of Saddam's was handed over. Obviously their secret police did not do their job. But, the point is whether these clowns where tipped off, or not they would have gotten it from news that their names are on the list. Surely they would have moved out hours later to new locations etc.. So perhaps at this point, we have no targets dealing with Iraqi Baathist's insurgents residing in Syria.
At any rate, you sure seem certain a very small foot print of SF would be sufficient to bring down the Assad government as well as it's army and secret service. Another thing we did not discuss regarding the Syrian pull out from Lebanon, is now there are a lot more troops as well as part of the secret service now residing in Syria. For all we know the young lion realizing he had to pull out of Lebanon may have gone along with the whole deal with the idea he had to have beef up defences in the camel land, to appear postured and ready to strike against any invading force. Of course this raving detracts from your proposed plan to perform surgery on an un-willing patient.
Lastly I find it interesting that you don't and correctly so make any mention of the supposed ties between Iraq and Syrian Baathist parties. Which do not exist in the form some might tend to give credance to, as a mutual supportive force that would protect each other's territory. Obviously that connection is at best quite fragile in many respects, probably far exceeding my limited knowledge. Some times one is lead to believe they where mutual friends, when there is little to support such claims. At any rate NL, I have no problem with well planned surgical strikes that don't lead to detracting from our main objectives in Iraq. But I sure wish it would only have to be air/ground. Darn, my nephew is only some fifty miles from the northern road that leads to Damscuss. If SF where dropped in, surely the 2nd LAR and the other three Bn's would have to be put on notice to move north at a moments notice should the SF get into deep trouble. I love playing war on computers but hate what it is in real life.

I do have specific military experience in this field and have spent considerable time in the middle east. I know this for certain, Assad and his henchmen are not patriots. They don't give a rats crack for Syria or their fellow citizens. They only care about themselves and retaining power. Our threat to them has nothing to do with the future of Syria, it has to do with their removal from power and the potential street justice that would ensue. Their hold on power is tenuous and it won't take much to tip the balance away from the current regime.

I know for certain that we have boots on the ground in Syria at this moment. I wouldn't doubt that their mission is to initiate hostilities between the Syrian military and the trespassing insurgents. Anyone proving we were ever there will be impossible

You have convinced me. Thank you for sharing your background. But I buy your line of thought regardless of that.
As you probably noticed I did not bulk at most you patiently conveyed, because my lesser knowledge base did not deviate to much from your assesments. Thanks for the confirmation of some things half expected on my part. Not to drag out the dialog unless it is mutal, but it had become obviouse to me that most if not all the mideast countries military are not exactly the brave desert warriors they are made out to be. Sure each country have a cadre of special forces, and the rest are perhaps next to useless. So it has been very easy for me to accept your analysis of what could be done. I obviously where giving them credit where it did not exist.

On the lighter side. I cannot help but wonder how much my LCpl Steven with the 2nd LAR at FOB Korean Village a few klicks NE of H3 must know about the Syrians. They are next to the Marines at Al Quam probably the closest men to the Syrian border. As you can imagine I look forward to going on some hikes in the mountains of PA when he returns and quizing the shit out of him. He was with the Marine Bn 2/2 Warlords the last deploy at Al Mahmudiay and alternately at camp MEK (Fallujah). He was in on quite a bit of actual patrols in humvees mostly representing H&S Intel group.
They where in on the first offensive into Fallujah, he was in the SE quadrant during that initial fray. He almost bought the farm during a mortar attack at Al Mamudiya as he and a staff sargent tried to reach a parked humvee as incoming started. The sargeant did not make it. Bless his soul. And again Steve almost got blown up when they where on a raid in Latifiya, where two parked trucks went boom, as they approached some buidings. The kid almost got decaped when he was riding the lead humvee standing in the hole with the 240G machine gun, when they ran a road that had a wire across it. He said it hit him square in the face and knocked him into the hole. So I for one have a very personal investment in this SASO activity. I salute every one that serves in uniform. Thank you sir, for serving your country.
George

The first thing we Americans have to understand about the middle east is that the concepts of nation and patriotism are completely foreign to them. They identify in terms of family and tribe first and their specific flavor of Islam second. The nations of the middle east are foreign constructs that are only marriages of convenience for the citizens. The second thing is that the western concept of war is also foreign. In the west a war is over when the vanquished surrender. In the middle east is is never over so long as any party feels that their honor has been sullied. They are still fighting the crusades, being stopped at the gates of Vienna and being pushed out of Spain. lastly, they have a completely different ethic in which the ends justify the means. Deceit and lies are all part of the tool box.

Lastly, God bless your nephew and his comrades for his sacrifices and the physical and emotional scars he will carry for the rest of his life. God bless you and yours for supporting the current and former American warriors. My nephew just returned from Iraq. He was with the 1st MARDIV in the assaults on Fallujha and Ramadi. I am grateful that he came back and got the thanks and support we didn't.

All you said I am in agreement based on a few years of study.
Thanks however. In support of what you said, it brings out the issue that there are many different divergent sects within Islam. And some of these sects inbreed within the given geographic environs, and ethnic cultures hold far widening views on various enterpretations of the Quaran. Some could care less with much of the crap the book and it's accompanying hadiths etc., contain. Just wanted to add that in case people may still view this thread in near future. I am sure you are quite aware of this.

Well lets us give praise to the good Lord for returning your nephew from the pit whole in body and hopefully in spirit and soul. And if he needs a bit of soul healing may the good Lord see fit to make him whole again. For anyone in America not to want to thank these guys, and perhaps snap to attention and salute them as they come into view in public, is beyond me. They serve with such honor and commitment.
Natural Law. From one uncle of a Marine to the other uncle of a Marine.
Semper Fi sir and may the good Lord bless you and yours.

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