Posted on 08/06/2005 8:46:18 PM PDT by WJHII
Who’s Killing Our Boys By William John Hagan
Houston Home Journal Warner Robins, GA 08/10/2005
One third of the 1,402 American Soldiers killed by hostile fire have died as a result of “roadside bombs” or what the US military, euphemistically, refers to as Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). While, at the beginning of the American Occupation of Iraq, the term improvised appeared to describe these devices, this is no longer the case. In the past few months, it has become clear that these IEDs are no longer the makeshift bombs of the early insurgency, but sophisticated factory-manufactured weapons from a deadly source.
On July 24th, one of these new generation IEDs was used to kill four soldiers with the Georgia National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team. The bomb contained 600 pounds of explosives buried beneath a roadside in South Baghdad. An additional four soldiers were killed, six days later, by a similar 500 pound bomb that was buried under a Baghdad Street. According to Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, Commander of the Georgia Brigade, his men had discovered about a dozen other bombs in the area. It is clear that these attacks took place with obvious complicity of the residents of South Baghdad. In the densely populated confines of South Baghdad, it would be impossible to bury dozens of half ton explosives under public roads without locals witnessing the events. We’re taking about major road work. The transgressions of these internal assaults become compounded when one realizes that we are not just fighting an internal insurgency but a well-financed foreign campaign to keep Iraq in tatters.
The IEDs, now being used in Iraq, are being supplied by Iran. As recently as last week, a large shipment of IEDs were captured as they entered Iraq from Iran. In direct response, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave a glaring critique about Tehran’s “meddling” in Iraqi affairs.
There are two reasons why Iran wants to keep the Untied States bogged down in Iraq: A successful Iraqi insurgency increases the chance that the United States will be forced into a Vietnam-like withdrawal from Iraq. Such a scenario would leave the Iranian government in a good position to bring Iraq’s Shiite majority into its sphere of influence. More importantly, the success of the insurgency decreases the likelihood that the United States will have the manpower left to expand the War on Terror to Iran.
If the United States plans to leave a democratic Iraq in its wake; then, it is left with no choice but to deal militarily with the Iranian theocracy that is threatening mid-East stability. According to a May 15th article in the Washington Post, the military has a classified contingency plan, known as COMPLAN 8022-22. This strategy is designed to strike Iran in response to "imminent" threats, using both conventional and possibly nuclear weapons against Iranian targets, without involving ground forces in the initial stages. This operation would be similar in nature to President Clinton’s war against Serbia. A source with close ties to the NSA and the former Carter administration also confirmed for me that in June 2004 the United States began preparations for such an attack on Iran with war exercises that included the majority of the US Carrier Fleet and the 6th Maine Expeditionary Unit. Publicly, the operation was know as Summer Pulse’04, which the Navy described as preparation for “a national emergency or crisis”. It seems that Iran’s current meddling in Iraqi affairs may leave the Bush administration with no choice but to take military action against Iran. The Iran Government should be well advised to consider this before assisting in the murder of any future US troops in Iraq.
Letters to the editor can be e-mailed to: hhj@evansnewspapers.com
William John Hagan can be visited on the web at: http://williamjohnhagan.blogspot.com
Even the best of us get demoralized, particularly if one spends too much time listening/watching the MSM (even if it's just "seeing what the other side is up to"). My mother is the most conservative stalwart and she gets so damn pessimistic sometimes I just want to scream...doesn't mean she feels any differently, she's just been had by the MSM. I keep telling her, but she has to "see what the other side is up to."
Hmmmm..... The sutor's slip is showing.
UGH!!
sutor = author
Excuse me?
plus airstrikes, apaches and predators
Sorry - typo - sutor=author.
I can't get past someone talking about the "American Occupation of Iraq." So far, in every article that I've read, that is a sign that the author is going to give me some left-wing mumbo jumbo which I can do without.
And if I've jumped to a conclusion I shouldn't have I apologize. I have a habit of seeing that phrase and stopping.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
Sheesh!! Pull yourself together man!!!
"We've never hit so many bumps before and this road has way too many curves!" =
Valley Forge
Manassas
Gettysburg
Verdun
Flanders
The Battle of the Buldge
Battaan
The Phillipines
The Beach at Normandy
A Bridge too Far
Discussing tactics and strategy and offering battle options is interesting as there are some very experienced and bright people here but sometimes the best laid plans......
grandma mac
(chewing her cud)
"Look back in regret I mean."
No, Americans will not look back with regret at GWB over these hideous IEDs......
Should we "regret" George Washington, remembering only his freezing, starving army at the Battle of Valley Forge?
And how regretful should we be over Abraham Lincoln, our leader at the time of the bloodiest battle in US history, over 20,000 lost in one day at Manassas/Bull Run?
The cost in lives on D-Day was staggering, and "regretfully", we remember FDR in only that context?
Debate over each battle defeat. It matters only that we achieve Victory in the war.
"Look back in regret I mean."
No, Americans will not look back with regret at GWB over these hideous IEDs......
Should we "regret" George Washington, remembering only his freezing, starving army at the Battle of Valley Forge?
And how regretful should we be over Abraham Lincoln, our leader at the time of the bloodiest battle in US history, over 20,000 lost in one day at Manassas/Bull Run?
The cost in lives on D-Day was staggering, and "regretfully", we remember FDR in only that context?
Debate over each battle defeat. It matters only that we achieve Victory in the war.
sorry, didn't mean to post twice.
Now is not the time to go wobbly. Hopefully, Bush will continue to have the patience and resolve to stay the course. We cannot afford to lose this one.
read later
This was the central fallacy of Vietnam, and Korea to a degree: that a military demonstration, to "show them", in your words, could be substituted for victory.
This line of thinking, born out of the carnage of WWII and the increase in public acceptance of rationalism, has failed again and again and again.
We do not have to convince the world's radical muslims of anything. They are already convinced that the purpose of life and the means to salvation is our destruction.
We can achieve victory by the conquest, occupation, and reconstruction of their societies.
We can also achieve victory by building a wall around global Islam and making sure all believing muslims live inside the fence.
Attempts to "show them" by bombing, or by building schools and clinics, or by hooking up electricity, shows them, all right - it shows them we do not have the will or the valor to conquer and subdue them.
Like Vietnam, in order to win, the other side has to agree.
They never will do this.
They must be beaten, or we lose.
And when the one hour was up, what would you do?
FINALLY issue a call for volunteers, mobilize the economy for war, and raise the 80-100 divisions necessary to conquer, occupy, and reconstruct Arabia, Persia, and Pakistan?
Or make a meaningless demonstration from the safety of the air, showing them again that we can talk the talk but won't walk the walk?
This is the history of our People's armed forces: We ALWAYS want to pull back the troops and use the artillery (this actually reflects well on our kindness and the value we place on human life).
Unfortunately, war is not kind, war does not value human life, and pulling back to let the big guns and big planes do the dirty work has failed again and again and again.
As it will in Arabia, and Pakistan.
God still favors the big battalions.
I don't know about the polls being BS, but in my circle of friends we have become against the way the war is being fought. Note to all of you shriekers this doesn't mean we are against or do not support the troops - quite the opposite - we support the troops and are tied of them being killed by scumbags. This war needs to go hot or we need to declare victory and come home. Which means that we will ultimately have to go "special" within 20 years. They are outbreeding us and making scumbags as fast as we are killing them. Linear attrition doesn't work - they teach you that in any war college. Funny we can't learn that lesson.
I believe you not only underestimate the Iraqis, but you put FAR TOO MUCH weight on polls. How many times do the "polls" have to prove themselves wrong before people realize they are not really "polls" but opinions of some communist anti-American.
don't know how many cards GW has to play.
Our PRESIDENT doesn't play cards, he plays chess.
But he is taking a beating in the MSM.
PRESIDENT Bush takes a beating from the LameSM by virtue of the fact that he exists. It matters not what he says, what he does, how he acts, how he speaks, how he walks ... the morons in the "media" will still despise him.
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