Iraq becoming Vietnam...

[vampireuk]

Iraq insurgents snatch victory from defeat

Massive police station assault alarms locals despite retreat

Rory Carroll in Baghdad
Friday June 24, 2005
The Guardian

Dawn had yet to break and Baghdad's biggest police station, like the rest of the city, was quiet. About 80 officers dozed inside the fortress, leaving just a few sentries guarding the walls, razor wire and concrete barriers.
It started with mortars. A series of whooshes from north and south followed seconds later by explosions inside the perimeter. Figures emerged from the gloom and knelt in the middle of Hi al-Elam and Qatar Nada streets, pointing rocket launchers.

More figures materialised on rooftops overlooking the station to spray gunfire and lob grenades. Dozens of gunmen, guerrilla infantry, swarmed from houses and alleys. It was just after 5.30am and the station was surrounded.
The defenders heard engines rev and guessed what was next: suicide car bombers. Baghdad's biggest battle in months - and possibly the boldest yet by insurgents - had begun.

They struck on Monday but details of the assault on Baya'a, a vast police complex in the southern suburbs, emerged only yesterday when American and Iraqi officers opened the station to reporters. Bullet holes and debris testified to a synchronised and audacious strike by up to 100 rebels in what is supposed to be a locked-down capital.

The combination of heavy shelling, diversionary feints, infantry thrusts and suicide vehicles - the "precision-guided" equivalent of tanks - left parts of the district of Hi al-Elam a smoking ruin. If the objective was to overrun the station and free its prisoners the offensive failed. The attackers retreated after two hours, leaving dozens dead and captured. But if the objective was to send a message of power and determination it succeeded.

Residents said their confidence in the government and security forces was severely dented. A rash of graffiti has spread across the area: "We will be back." One taxi driver, a Shia who loathes the mostly Sunni Arab resistance, shrugged. "Yes, they will."

Republicans and Democrats, increasingly worried about Iraq, were due yesterday to quiz Pentagon top brass about a US exit strategy which hinges on building up Iraqi security forces.

On one level the assault at Baya'a was being presented as good news for Washington. "The enemy spent weeks, maybe months planning this," said Lt Col David Funk, a US infantry commander responsible for the area. "They failed spectacularly."

Not since April's attack on Abu Ghraib had there been such a concentration of force in the capital and yet the insurgents were repulsed thanks to the heroism of the beleaguered police officers, he said. But in Baghdad, the fact the insurgents had launched the attack at all was more indicative.

The sentries, pinned down by fire from the rooftops, did not respond when they heard the approaching suicide bombers. One vehicle exploded at the main entrance, killing at least four officers but without breaching the compound.

A nearby Iraqi army base was simultaneously targeted by mortars, gunfire and a suicide bomber, trapping the soldiers inside. Gunmen attacked the police station from four sides and came close to overrunning it. From bases in southern Baghdad US and Iraqi ground troops rushed for Baya'a only to confront insurgents at Derwesh Square and on the Doura highway tasked with slowing the relief force. At least three suicide car bombers had been held back for this purpose.

By 6.30am a police machine-gunner on the roof at Baya'a helped turn the tide, firing volleys which forced attackers to take cover and enabled his comrades to take better positions. Residents of the mixed Shia and Sunni neighbourhood made at least 55 phone calls informing the police of insurgent movements. Some fired on the attackers. An off-duty policeman was caught by insurgents, bundled into the boot of a car and later found beheaded.

The attackers retreated at around 7.30am. At least 10 were killed and 40 captured.

"It was our victory," said the Iraqi commander, Col Khaldoon. But residents, picking their way through rubble that had been homes and shops, disagreed.

Last month the government said Operation Lightning, a sweep of the capital by 40,000 troops, would choke the violence. A spate of explosions in the past two days killed more than 40 people but it was the spectacular but less bloody attack at Baya'a that showed the resistance was still in business.

Videos of the assault will almost certainly surface on the internet, the dramatic images of resistance intended to inspire would-be recruits and demoralise opponents.

Lt Col Funk worried about similarities to the Tet offensive, a 1968 push by North Vietnamese forces which failed militarily but whose scale and surprise gave the impression that the US and its allies were failing. "The media got Tet wrong and they're getting Iraq wrong. We are winning but people won't know that if all they are hearing about is death and violence."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1513490,00.html

The media is going to cost the US this war just like they did with Vietnam at this rate, the terrorists are getting slaughtered over there just like the NVA were back in Vietnam, but yet the media loves to shower it from another angle.

[joltcola]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1513490,00.html

The media is going to cost the US this war just like they did with Vietnam at this rate, the terrorists are getting slaughtered over there just like the NVA were back in Vietnam, but yet the media loves to shower it from another angle.

There is more than just media that can effect the outcome of a war, and how a nation & its army responds at the various points along the way.

-- jolt

[vampireuk]

Consider Vietnam then, they were getting their asses kicked by US forces and yet everybody thinks the US lost the war. They lost the popularity contest back home.

[Riptide]

We were slaughtering the north vietnamese. No contest, they were absolutely getting trashed. 10:1 kill ratio, and that's a conservative estimate.

If Pearl Harbor happened today we would surrender. Someone might get hurt if we fight back! :rolleyes:

[XP_GUN]

This war is never going to become another vietnam its called what I like to call it, a liberal scare tactic created by media since seems to me liberals control.

[joltcola]

We were slaughtering the north vietnamese. No contest, they were absolutely getting trashed. 10:1 kill ratio, and that's a conservative estimate.

If Pearl Harbor happened today we would surrender. Someone might get hurt if we fight back! :rolleyes:

I feel that 9/11 was our Pear Harbor, and I think we've struck back pretty hard.

As for vietnam, that war was falsified from the start, and was plauged by many internal issues. Sure, we had the kill ratio, but killing everyone in sight doesn't win a war. But Vietnam was complicated and not something to be simplified or generalised.

-- jolt

[zakelwe]

Firstly forget the kill ratio argument, kill ratio's never won a war unless you did genocide on the whole population. Like I said before, in WWII the Germans had a far better kill ratio against the USSR but who won ?

Vamp that guy is wrong, the difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that in Vietnam successive south vietnamese governments were corrupt and not respected by the local population, hence the viet cong made big inroads. Here the government is more respected because a lot of the population support it.

Also, in Vietnam the viet cong mainly attacked the occupying forces, like the tet offinsive in 1968 which attacked the US embassy ( I was 2 days old when the Tet offensive started, I was not as liberal then and did not burn my bra in protest :D ) , here the militants are attacking Iraqis, that actually helps the US being still there.

They are dumb ****'s Half wit ***tards I believe is the common expression of the moment.

They'll never win like that.

There have been lots of mistakes made unfortunately but what has to happen is that the Iraq people need to think it is us against them, and to do that the US and UK and other forces have to stick to hearts and minds and engineering and let the Iraqi's deal with this so they can get some prestige.

In one way this does link back to Vietnam. Before anything else Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist not a communist, I believe the Iraq people are also nationalist rather than fundamentalist muslims who hate the west, so that is what we should be working on.

Regards
Andy

[CybrSage]

Man!

From the title, I thought I was going to find out a Tropical Jungle sprouted up inside Iraq...and the Iraqis suddently turned into Asians...

Geesh....what a letdown...

[UDawg]

Firstly forget the kill ratio argument, kill ratio's never won a war unless you did genocide on the whole population. Like I said before, in WWII the Germans had a far better kill ratio against the USSR but who won ?

Vamp that guy is wrong, the difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that in Vietnam successive south vietnamese governments were corrupt and not respected by the local population, hence the viet cong made big inroads. Here the government is more respected because a lot of the population support it.

Also, in Vietnam the viet cong mainly attacked the occupying forces, like the tet offinsive in 1968 which attacked the US embassy ( I was 2 days old when the Tet offensive started, I was not as liberal then and did not burn my bra in protest :D ) , here the militants are attacking Iraqis, that actually helps the US being still there.

They are dumb ****'s Half wit ***tards I believe is the common expression of the moment.

They'll never win like that.

There have been lots of mistakes made unfortunately but what has to happen is that the Iraq people need to think it is us against them, and to do that the US and UK and other forces have to stick to hearts and minds and engineering and let the Iraqi's deal with this so they can get some prestige.

In one way this does link back to Vietnam. Before anything else Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist not a communist, I believe the Iraq people are also nationalist rather than fundamentalist muslims who hate the west, so that is what we should be working on.

Regards
Andy


The NVC attacked ANYONE who helped the south and the Americans. Our soldiers would come in and find people tied to trees with their throats slit open becaue they helped the Americans.

...and again German had TWO fronts that is why they could not defeat the USSR. Kill ration is huge in fighting a war but it is not the sole determinant to winning. Don't down play what out military did in Vietnam and what the LEFT did to our country and our military in Vietnam just a they are doing to our military in Iraq today.

Ho Chi Min was a communist. A nationalist is not a economic idea communism is and he was a communist. He always wanted to meet Lenin.

[zakelwe]

Don't down play what out military did in Vietnam and what the LEFT did to our country and our military in Vietnam just a they are doing to our military in Iraq today.

Ho Chi Min was a communist. A nationalist is not a economic idea communism is and he was a communist. He always wanted to meet Lenin.

Maybe you re right on the targetting, I'd have to look more deeply into it, it might have been a rural v urban split with that sort of tactic being done in rural areas.

I am not doing down your military by saying they lost or were not brave or did not fight well, I am just saying it is stupid to say they won because they had more kills. Kills does not matter is what I am saying.

How can you say the LEFT " did to our country" in Vietnam ? There were 2 Democratic Presidents that fought in Vietnam and then the Republican government got voted in and it was they who pulled out, how can this be the LEFT who caused this ? People were complaning all through 3 terms, Democratic and Republican, so it is not a left thing, no matter how you want to paint it with the 2005 brush. It was a peace thing about a country too far away that it seemed not to matter ....

Ho Chi Minh has a communist as that was opposed to the imperialist French government of the time, but really he wanted Vietnamese to rule Vitnamese and would do anything in his power to do that. He met the CIA but they were luke warm because it was a friend in France, however, due to the cold war, China and Russia were far more receptive.

The domino effect in SE asia was just a PR campaign to frighten people into thinking they should be defeated, it is like the Muslim domino effect that is being suggested in the Middle East now IMO.

Regards
Andy

[joltcola]

Consider Vietnam then, they were getting their asses kicked by US forces and yet everybody thinks the US lost the war. They lost the popularity contest back home.

Ten years (plus or minus..) is a long time to fight a war. Alot of people died, on both sides.

-- jolt

[UDawg]

Maybe you re right on the targetting, I'd have to look more deeply into it, it might have been a rural v urban split with that sort of tactic being done in rural areas.

I am not doing down your military by saying they lost or were not brave or did not fight well, I am just saying it is stupid to say they won because they had more kills. Kills does not matter is what I am saying.

How can you say the LEFT " did to our country" in Vietnam ? There were 2 Democratic Presidents that fought in Vietnam and then the Republican government got voted in and it was they who pulled out, how can this be the LEFT who caused this ? People were complaning all through 3 terms, Democratic and Republican, so it is not a left thing, no matter how you want to paint it with the 2005 brush. It was a peace thing about a country too far away that it seemed not to matter ....

Ho Chi Minh has a communist as that was opposed to the imperialist French government of the time, but really he wanted Vietnamese to rule Vitnamese and would do anything in his power to do that. He met the CIA but they were luke warm because it was a friend in France, however, due to the cold war, China and Russia were far more receptive.

The domino effect in SE asia was just a PR campaign to frighten people into thinking they should be defeated, it is like the Muslim domino effect that is being suggested in the Middle East now IMO.

Regards
Andy
BTW I am not saying Ho Chi was not a nationalist. He most certainly was. I was just clearifying he was also a communist.

WRT to two presidents during the Vietnam war Johnson a D and Nixon a R as you knowto say that the president was the one who screwed things up is simplistic and wrong. When Nixon got into office the war was already going bad on the political front. It was politics running the war that ruined the war effort and the left who finally got pressure on democrats that started the fast slide towards a disaster. It was Johnson's war He started it and Nixon ended a bad situation.

Kennedy did not start the vietnam war. He only sent a team of military advisors there.

[Riptide]

Firstly forget the kill ratio argument, kill ratio's never won a war unless you did genocide on the whole population. Like I said before, in WWII the Germans had a far better kill ratio against the USSR but who won ?Ofcourse kill ratio means something in a war. We came out on top in nearly every engagement. I am quite confident that if you look back on history the winner in the majority of wars had the kill ratio on their side once things were over. There are exceptions, but they are probably not the rule. The kill ratio was overwhelmingly on our side in Vietnam.

[vampireuk]

In modern conflicts kill ratios mean everything, if you are coming out of a battle losing 10 men for every 1 enemy kill you cannot keep up with those losses.

[Riptide]

Unless the enemy has 100x the manpower you do. That's about the only way you can sustain losses like that and come out on top. It's debatable whether the north vietnamese had the manpower, assuming we had thrown everything we had at them, to prevail in that sort of war of attrition. I highly doubt it.

[vampireuk]

Even with superior manpower you are obviously outgunned and outmatched by a smaller force with those numbers. Look what happened with Israel, a small well armed and well trained force can anhilate huge forces.

[UDawg]

We were outmanned in Iraq when we went in.

[oldsk00l]

We were outmanned in Iraq when we went in.
And we managed to annihilate the Saddam Fedayeen fighters (Iraq's elite ground troop forces) in what, two days???

[Sazar]

Ofcourse kill ratio means something in a war. We came out on top in nearly every engagement. I am quite confident that if you look back on history the winner in the majority of wars had the kill ratio on their side once things were over. There are exceptions, but they are probably not the rule. The kill ratio was overwhelmingly on our side in Vietnam.

Could we have won in Vietnam?

We could kill as many as we wanted but could we have won?

WRT k:d ratio's I'll bring up a famous example. Hannibal decimated the Roman army, he defeated their greatest generals and he slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their best men. He was the best general for much of the duration of the 2nd punic war. And yet he lost. K:d is important but not the ultimate determining factor.

Iraq != Vietnam. Stakes are higher, the coverage is different and the outcome determines too much. The decision making, as with Vietnam, has been similarly bad in many stages. This much is shared between the 2 conflicts, that and the fact we should have been in neither place to begin with.

At the end of the day the irony really should not be lost that in a conservative controlled country with a conservative president, conservative senate and house, conservative majority in the nation and a strong conservative presence in our media that the bad planning and insufficient understanding of the enemy is not to blame. Oh no, it cannot possibly be that. No, it has to be the left-wing fanatics who have no power in this country who are going to lead to the quagmire continuing.

Accountability truly has been lost in this great country of ours.

[joltcola]

Accountability truly has been lost in this great country of ours.

:clap2:

-- jolt

[Son Goku]

And we managed to annihilate the Saddam Fedayeen fighters (Iraq's elite ground troop forces) in what, two days???

Should this really be a surprise, or something to consider an accomplishment? Iraq's "elite" ground troops weren't an issue in that country for a long time, and there is no way that Iraq's military could have put up the same fight they had back in 1991...

Given the defeat they were already handed back in 1991, 10+ years of ecconomic sanctions, weapon inspections, and the dismantling of their fighting force; the official "elite forces" had not remained much to squack about...

I wouldn't compare the actual fighting against Iraq's own military, with what was to come with the insurgents... The elite fighting forces, didn't even have a prayer to offer up any resistence, even near to the degree they had in 1991...

WRT k:d ratio's I'll bring up a famous example. Hannibal decimated the Roman army, he defeated their greatest generals and he slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their best men. He was the best general for much of the duration of the 2nd punic war. And yet he lost. K:d is important but not the ultimate determining factor.

Or one can bring up another such example where "conventional wisdom" might not always hold. Ghanges Khan and the Mongolian's actions wrt Europe. By many accounts the Europeans were the more advanced fighting force, had the technical advantage (or at least they thought), and had the "home front" advantage, aka knowledge of the terrain as well...

Ganges Khan decimated Europe and struck terror in the minds of many of the heads of state at the time... As I remember, the Mongolians might have had the advantage in numbers then, however by some more conventional lines some considered Europe to have the superior fighting forces... But Ganges also was somewhat of a fore runner for psychological warfare, and didn't necessarily engage them in the form of warfare they were expecting to go up against. He convinced the people of Europe that he was the judgement of God, and sent to punish them for their many sins, or something to that effect as I remember...

At the end of the day the irony really should not be lost that in a conservative controlled country with a conservative president, conservative senate and house, conservative majority in the nation and a strong conservative presence in our media that the bad planning and insufficient understanding of the enemy is not to blame. Oh no, it cannot possibly be that. No, it has to be the left-wing fanatics who have no power in this country who are going to lead to the quagmire continuing.

Accountability truly has been lost in this great country of ours.

I see much the same as you do, but am not ready to give up hope. As long as there is time and life, it's possible for things to turn towards a more positive "end"...

[Riptide]

Could we have won in Vietnam?
Yeah probably. At least we probably could've assured the continued existence of South Vietnam. Completely take over the North? Probably, but not likely have held onto it unless the populace was supportive of removing the existing power base. Which I don't think they were. They probably would've turned on us. That is, unless the gloves really came off (ie, nuclear weapons).
We could kill as many as we wanted but could we have won?Sooner or later they would've sued for peace.
And yet he lost. K:d is important but not the ultimate determining factor.
You guys are probably right in that it isn't necessarily the only factor at play, just one important one.
Iraq != Vietnam. Stakes are higher, the coverage is different and the outcome determines too much.
How is the coverage different?
that and the fact we should have been in neither place to begin with.Open for debate. Perhaps another thread. :)
No, it has to be the left-wing fanatics who have no power in this country who are going to lead to the quagmire continuing.Anyone, even the administration, who believed this would be a piece of cake and didn't expect continued resistance after major combat was over - they were fooling themselves. I know I wasn't really that surprised by it. Whether it's a quagmire or not - that's also open for debate. Guess that depends on your definition of the word here.

[UDawg]

CNo, it has to be the left-wing fanatics who have no power in this country who are going to lead to the quagmire continuing.

No it is the left that has wanted us to lose ever since we first started talking about this. It is the left that has been trying to undermine our effort over there. Things don't go perfect and you guys want to cut and run. If things don't got exactly tot he T that the administration says you guys want to impeach or blast them.

IT IS YOU ON THE LEFT that is doing this TIME AND TIME AGAIN! I am SICK and tired of your subversive anti-US BS! I TRUELY dispise the left and everything you guys stand for...but that is just it, what do you stand for? More affermative action? Open borders? Besides more government what is it that you believe, everything is relative except conservative ideas? Of course that's it.

This is a WAR in case you forgot. What ever happened to "politics stops at the water's edge during a war"? Remember that? It was the Clinton administration that said that before we went into Kosovo and we on the right DID THAT! YOU ****ING HIPOCRITS!

[oldsk00l]

Accountability truly has been lost in this great country of ours.
First of all don't say "ours" Mr. "I have no intention of discussing my citizenship".

Secondly, the accountability lost is when self-aggrandizing power mongers attack a wartime president for their own self agendas whilst considering nothing to do with the people or security.

Accountability went out the window when the UN was permitted to become the sloggoth that it is, and when people like Bill Clinton get elected while lying his ass off to people. Accountability is lost when people believed Kerry's flagpole of BS.

Accountability goes out the window each time you post your miserable drivel about why this country is going down the drain yet you are just a leech/mooch who's homeland obviously couldn't cut it economically.

That's where accountability goes down the drain, every time a damned bleeding heart liberal/socialist thinks healthcare ought to be FREE to the masses without considering WHY our medicine is THE STANDARD FOR THE WORLD technologically and in practice ethics.

Accountability goes down the drain when people start saying that Haliburton is screwing things up despite operating in a WARZONE.

Accountability goes out the window when an incident happens in Baghdad and it gets plastered as some kind of global tragedy yet far worse incidents happen in Cleveland on a daily basis (ie, murder, robberies, looting, etc etc).

Yes, to a point, accountability is leaving this nation, thanks to all the miserable liberals and democrats who don't want to be accountable for ANYTHING. Yes, for all the sociologists who want to point to external sources of problems for the murderer and why we should rehabilitate our criminals yet only spend a tenth of those resources on the victim's/family recuperation. Every time a miserable politician tries to gain a few extra votes from poor people by saying "HEY LET'S GET FREE HEALTHCARE GOING".

gah, Saz, sometimes you sicken me, and this is one of those times.

[CybrSage]

In the mind of a liberal, if you do not agree with the liberal you are close minded and probably want to emulate nazis...