Bedlam In Baghdad

[HARDCORE]

SCOUT et al-

Comments on a "FEW" of your suggestions:

1- Train more indigenous personnel for policing - is that not being done even as we speak? It is a needed step, but indepth security checks on recruits are also essential (opinion)! I realize that time is of the essence, but unless we want to breed yet another Saddam, we must learn who we are dealing with! Remember when we backed Noriega etc?

2- Fight propaganda with propaganda! "Great Idea", propaganda (according to Webster) being a systematic effort to persuade a body of people to support or adopt a particular opinion, attitude or course of action!

4- Quoting you: "Refuse to believe the lie "that most of the people I see want to kill me, since there is no proof of this statement?"

I believe that the almost daily deaths, woundings and attacks against our forces, along with returning body bags after Bush declared this war over(?), disproves this analogy, as did the bloodthirsty (CBR) action against the Kurds and the war (also employing CBR) against Iran, who themselves are now suspect!

Besides, the goodly numbers of those so engaged against us by this determined enemy is sufficient to intensify the need for protective paranoia (opinion)

I once had a man of your rank Scout, working with the Senate, tell me (his words) that : "THERE WERE NO REAL FRIENDLIES!" Of course, people like Neville Chamberlain and the Pope would attempt to convince you otherwise!?

Granted, not "ALL" people are "ALL" bad, neither, however, are they "ALL GOOD!" Are we willing to risk the lives of our troops on a judgement call, "WE DO YOU KNOW", and many a man has returned home in mid-tour to a flurry of rifle fire and an early grave!

In Germany, and even in France and Italy, during World War II, and in a few other wars as well, how many bad guys (percentage-wise), attempting to end one's life did it take to garner real concern?!

Granted, everyone in Germany was not a Nazis, and trusting in the fact that most were not out to do you dirt was noble indeed! Attempting in haste, however, to separate the good from the bad, and on the spur of the moment at that, often proved fatal!

5- 6 Free enterprise and the upgrade of Iraq's oil industry is truly great and essential if we do not want to support these people infinitum! But we must also insure that this race, a race that has been at war with virtually everything within arm's reach (including themselves) since they have inhabited the region, never again uses oil revenue to advance their aggression and ambition.

And I still believe that in the beginning of this Iraqi reconstruction program, a portion of that oil revenue should go for war reparations! If not, then we (USA TAXPAYERS) stand to eat the entire (or close to it) cost for this whole war that was (mainly) geared to elininate Saddam and crew!

7- This is an absolute must!

8 & 9 - I have no problems at all with these two suggestions made by you!!

VERITAS

[SuperScout]

Thanks for the implied vote of confidence! Not having my personal boots on the ground, I can oly surmise that some if not all of the previous suggestions are being implemented, and am fully cognizant of the time-line of vetting locals, training locals, and instillinig locals that sense of urgency requisite to meet our expectations.

If you will reflect on the total population of Iraq, and then bounce that number against the reported attacks against friendly forces, it hardly comes to the dire percentages as you fear. Not to be naive, but well informed and more than well armed, I would still walk softly, carry a locked-and-loaded CAR 15 and 9mm, and go about my business. Even here in good ol' USofA, people have to deserve my trust, and some of them have failed, irrespective of their citizenship. And then remember who it was that gassed the Kurds and the Iranis: it was the evil regime we just toppled, not the Iraqi people themselves, but a very select group of criminals who make the SS seem like Sunday School teachers. For me, their deaths cannot come soon enough, and I could care less how painless. Excuse me, that's the Tanker in me talking, not the professed Christian! Frankly, I wouldn't trust a man like Neville Chamberlain or the Pope to tell me much of anything.

[HARDCORE]

Amen!

[Seascamp]

In perspective, 0.2% of the current Iraqi population is trying to restore order and rebuild a horribly neglected infrastructure. In comparison what if the city of Los Angeles were to loose all law enforcement, all National Guard, courts, jobs, all municipal infrastructure, and transportation. Easy answer, the place would still be burning and the thugs would rule and a 24/7-gun battle would be at hand. I compare that scenario to what is happening in Baghdad and wonder what force is restraining complete anarchy and social collapse. My guess is that the vast majority of Iraqis see something better on the horizon and the need to keep moving forward. And sure, I can?t name a single country in the region that has a vested interest in a successful Iraq. Equality and some sense of personal freedom is very infectious and that scares the pee out of all the dictatorship and monarchies in the area. So I see them working overtime to maintain an unstable Iraq, regardless of what the lying sand crabs have to say.

And no, I ain?t looking through rose colored glasses and know a pig when I see one. But on the other hand I?ve spent a lot of time in the mid east, know how volatile those people can be and the usual cops to robbers ratio. There are fewer US troops in Iraq then there were former Iraqi Cops and that?s a fact. Now figure in the former security bunch and the former Iraqi military and the numbers come out as US forces being about 1/20th of previous Iraqi forces just barely keeping lid nailed on. And frankly, if some media type tells me the sun is shining, I?ll go have a look for myself before I take anything they have to say to the bank. There are success stories happening in Iraq but I guess those kinds of things don?t appeal to our biased and spiteful media. I guess they don?t know what it takes to get a wrecked base load power plant back on line, let alone several of them. I know some tech reps that are busting their ass making things come alive and if I were a cruel person I?d send them some of these e-mails so they would know how fucked up things really are. But they don?t think so and I?ll have to go with what they report.

After inflation, that?s my ten bucks worth.

Scamp

[BLUEHAWK]

I believe everything is gonna work out pretty good okay in Iraq... from useful reports "things" are better than broadcast-reported in nearly all areas, with some notable exceptions (e.g. supply/quartermaster and CHARGING A WOUNDED GI FOR HIS G-D D----D FOOD IN A GERMAN HOSPITAL!).

Non-conventional military forces are stepping up the effort against a non-conventional enemy. Whether the UN or NATO ever does join up with our guys may become immaterial. The die was cast when the war was declared global.

It is unsettling, because we have yet to see/hear the other shoes drop about Syria, North Korea and Iran, etc.

It is vital to keep Iraq and Afghanistan from reverting to terrorist-controlled muslim nations, and to compel Dubya's Think Tank groupies to get outa the way and "allow" those two countries to build THEIR OWN forms of democracy.

I suggest again, reinstitute the draft, immediately, or find some other more expedient way in which to gather more trained and committed military units.

In Iraq, if there is a deficiency, it would be amongst engineer and police types who need rapid reinforcement. Stick also rightly suggested some more teachers.

The problem will not be the monster who was defeated, but rather the monster who has probably been created.

Long supply lines, as Hitler and Napolean discovered, do not bode well.

[HARDCORE]

Some good thoughts on the subject, Scamp & Mike!