War Death Perspectives

[Danimal16]

Originally Posted by DARISC

Hey, Dan! Good to hear from you. You probably know that my question has its very real roots in history. In WWII, many G.I.s in the trenches slept with their helmets protecting that which they most feared losing!

Dave,

Fortunately I generally sleep in a well protected place, well if they lob one over the top my helmet won't help much.

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by Danimal16

Rika,......

Many of the thoughts and experiences expressed on this board I see as well. The "kinetic" phase of this war (That is the new term for head knocking) is actually for the most part over. This is not to say that engagements are going on, but the nature of those engagements are, at least in my opinion, related to the politics of Iraq and the region as they currently are at this time.

That does appear to the case, I believe. I think that reinforces the arguement of those who maintain that, as they see it, our troops are, at this stage, caught in the middle of what has become Iraq's civil war and are put in the untenable position of having to decide which faction to give support to at any given time in a highly unstable political (Iraqi) scenario.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that this has resulted in our forces being, often unwittingly, "used" by one facton or another. I in no way mean this as a deprecating comment. The Iraqi cultural issues are so complex, and we are so unprepared in terms of truly understanding them from our Western, democratic point of view, that it seems inevitable, to me, that we have found ourselves in a state of perplexity concerning exactly what is the right thing to do, the right faction to support, at any given time in a such a disorderly and dynamic set of circumstances.

Many discussions center around the "phase four" part of the conflict. This is the part of the war that is for our exit. I have, and much to my dismay, come to the conclusion that this plan is nonexistent.

Few will disagree with that, I'll bet. Debating whether or not we should be in Iraq in the first place aside, I think that, given that we are, that is the major problem we have to deal with now.

That is not to say that we, the US and Iraq are not moving in the right direction, but the big push is to do the deliberate planning as we are executing the plan. The alignment of effort that is currently going on is moving in the right direction but it has been due in large part to the hard work of many folks, Iraqi and CF, to do the heavy lifting. The lack of that plan just means the recovery phase of the Iraqi economy will take longer than it should have, had we had a plan. This phase of the war is an engineer's war but it also is the rule of law (stability) and the economists as well.

An engineer's war for sure as I know that you well know (being a Seebee, the baddest ass badasses of all hardhats! ). Regarding rules of law, there is the sticking point that we are stuck on until Iraqi rules of law are agreed upon and enforceable - by the Iraqis. The economists, it seems to me, are more or less hamstrung trying to make much progress until their gov't stabilizes to a much greater degree than it has.

I also believe after being here two months that the agriculture is very very essential in the immediate next phase for putting the country back on its feet. This is something that I did not expect or even imagine, but reality has a way of screaming at you and the obvious is sometimes as simple as listening and looking at things for what they are, not what we preconceive. The engineered facilities here are equal to that of the west. The many years of war and economic sanctions have taken a heavy heavy tole. It is sad as the systems at least in the water area are well thought out but so much in disrepair. The economic sanctions have inflicted such a heavy tole on Iraq's ability to sustain itself.

The economic sanctions, while seemingly a reasonable, non-violent way of dealing with Saddam's truculence, unfortunately didn't fully take into account his cruel willingness to simply pass on the hardships to the Iraqi people while he ripped off the money, built palaces, etc. - the wiley bastard probably had an evil grin on his face, thinking "I'll show them!" Yes, it's good he's gone. And so sad the shattered infrastructure he left behind.

I have personally seen these systems and met the operators and engineers and am very impressed. The Tigres and Euphrates river works, when you look at them in schematic are impressive. The one thing that really stuck out in my mind is that the are nearly identical in many ways to the State Water Project in California.

Well I have much to share and a large part is in response to DARSIC's earlier post so I will save them for that.

I'll hazard a guess that that may pertain (at least in part) to differences of opinion we may have regarding descent aiding and abetting the enemy. That is a controversial issue and, as all issues do, has more than one viewpoint.

While the last thing I want to do is give aid and comfort to the enemy, the next to last thing I want to do is not speak out against a military action that I don't agree with if I believe many more lives will be lost if it (seeing the issue being fought over as militarily unwinnable) continues.

These exchanges are stimulating but some of the reality I have experienced as compared to what in retrospect could have been have caused me some disappointment in what I would expect from our nation.

I'm sincerely looking forward to your thoughts on that.

But do not, I implore you, take my disappointment as condemnation of our nation, but rather as lessons learned for us all on listening to the Iraq experience and shaping our resolve and strategic planning in a manner that is complete. I still think we are NOW doing the right thing but as far as going to war, hell I think it was inevitable just based on the threat to the world and Iraq's location of the center of gravity as it comes to the GWOT.

We may differ on that last point as well. But hey, I know that you won't condemn me for that!

But we need to be more realistic about the conflict the world faces at this time, and there is a threat and there are operations going on by our enemies who know full well they are at war with us.

I fully agree. While I don't want to get into comparing Iraq with Viet Nam, they do have in common that the enemy is extremely hard to identify and track down, a fact that won't change in this relatively new era of terrorism

The shift in our thought is to get rid of the cold war mentality and plan for the war as it is and not as we think it is. This is happening but as usual the timing has been behind.

That is another point well taken. Terrorist groups have an advantage in that they have no centralized gov't body to prevent them from acting quickly and spontaneously - which fact is, in itself, terrorizing - and they fully realize it.

Anyway let me read on and enjoy all of your thoughts.

SEABEES can do

And do do. (hmm,...that didn't come out sounding like what I meant ).

Dan

Originally Posted by Danimal16

Rika,

My experience with IA (Iraqi Army) is limited. But the GCE (Ground Combat Element) that our engineering cell works with have generally optimism at least as they relay to me. The security forces seem to be sorting themselves out the police are still in there infancy. We have seen this directly. SO what does this mean? Time will tell. In some of our operations we are seeing an eagerness for the IA to engage, but that is second hand.

The time element is what frustrates so many who want you guys back home. The rest of what you say is encouraging, even if second hand.

Let me express some observations on the recent uprising in Basra. I don't want to go into how this happened, at least how the situation was allowed to fester but in a nut shell this was due to some stupid policy by the CF based on politics.

Some interesting observations is first, the IA engaged in the main fighting. Yes you have heard the stories regarding some IA units that are said to refuse to go in and take the fight to the enemy, but the vast majority of the IA fully engaged. Now think about who sought the cease fire? It was the Mahdi forces not the IA. This is cause for contemplation. First of all it is usually the side getting the shellacking that presses for the ceasefire. So I think and this is my opinion at this time is there is a high probability that the IA was kicking the crap out of the Mahdi Shia Forces.

That is definitely encouraging, if you are right.

The other take away is that this was Shia vs. Shia. This leads me to consider that the message in this is that both Maliki and Mahdi desire an Iraq. They are both Iraqi. Otherwise Mahdi would be pressing Iran to take over the south. Just food for thought, time will tell. But it does illustrate the complexity of the situations for westerners to understand.

Your last sentence goes to the crux of the controversy regarding Iraq and the West's dealings with the ME in general.

..

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by DARISC

'The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq.", said Santorum. What is that info that "proved" it?

"Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent."

Whether that falls under the WMD definition that gave us justification to attack is contentious.

How so?

Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;
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