Slashdot Mirror
Winning (and Losing) the First Wired War
Noah Shachtman writes "The Iraq war was launched on a theory: That, with the right networking gear, American armed forces could control a country with a fraction of the troops ordinarily needed. But that equipment never made it down to the front lines, David Axe (just back from his 6th trip to Iraq) and I note in this month's Popular Science. That's a problem, because the insurgents are using throwaway cellphones and anonymous e-mail accounts to stitch together a network of their own."
... but I don't really think that was the theory the Iraq war was launched on.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Cellphones are wired now?
Jeez I must have an uber fancy one then...
From a technological, and business standpoint if you think about it.
Essentially they are an ISP onto themselves, but then if the Iraqi's or Al Quaeda are the customers, using networks to cover a larger amount of ground with less troops is exactly the same as Verizon overselling their bandwidth. It's great because most of the time, terrorist cells only activate in short bursts, similar to grandma checking webmail... But if ever multiple cells decide to work all at the same time, I fear the marines may be in for a slashdotting!
Wait, that's how terrorism is being funded. By Nigerian bankers. Damn you, Mr Obawutube - next time you send a missive asking for help getting six million dollars out of the country and offering half of it in return for someone's help, try adding a 'Are you a member of a Al Queda' Yes [ ] No [ ]' at the bottom.
I thought that signals intelligence gathering was one of the few types that the United States was really good at. I would be surprised if the NSA is not intercepting every single call on those disposable cell phones. The free e-mail accounts might take a bit more work to monitor, but surely the NSA could ask their buddies at AT&T and other backbone providers to intercept all of the emails coming out of Iraq and forward them on to the NSA for scanning into their Echelon system. If the insurgents are managing to elude our intelligence gathering efforts with disposable cell phones and hotmail then what does that say about our vaunted intelligence agencies? My tax dollars at work...or not as the case may be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerilla_warfare
This again offers the advantage of making it hard to find senior leadership while it has the disadvantage of not allowing them to utilize their assets in a centralized manner which would be far more efficient and effective.
Not that America isn't a superb nation (ignoring the current administration), but I get a bad taste in my mouth about the idea of any nation having the capacity to control another *on the cheap* over the long term on a military basis.
Still, this can be seen as more of a failed experiment than a conclusive result. When the tools are available, and less humanity necissary for the military control of a population... well, tyranny can then become something greater than a Thomas Paine pamphlet can help fight anymore.
The automated undermining of freedoms is a scary concept.
Ryan Fenton
This line sums it up ...
The Pentagon's pursuit of network-centric warfare began in the info-tech boom of the 1990s--largely influenced by, of all things, Wal-Mart.
That's a problem, because the insurgents are using throwaway cellphones and ...
One does not think their communications going down so fast was a cooincidence? I am sure the spooks and military knew just where to go to get the phone systems down PDQ.
This is kinda the sense I get about our military technology. It is often waaaay too expensive and does not get used effectively. Don't get me wrong there definately are great technologies in use today as well. It is just that overall we spend billions for things we never use or use ineffectively).
Right now it seems technology cannot crush an insurgency in the jungle or in the desert. Political solutions seem much more cost-effective as well.
Our military technology is geared to win wars of aggression versus standing armies. Not whatever we are doing right now (which is something Bush 43 himself was against while running for President in 2000). Of course, more man-power strategically sounds like a military solution. Just not a technology-based solution. But will our budget ever reflect this reality?
If you've been reading the recent slashdot articles, and seen the decisive actions governments are considering, it's only a matter of time before these terrorists are reined in. All they need to do is quickly enact legislation that, among other things:
Sheeesh, how simple can this be?
Did you mean the "First Weird War" ?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
what about all the things that are going right in iraq?
--your pal, sean hannity
You can't control a country with troops. There are three basic components to controlling masses of people. These are religion, Television/Media, and placation.
If you can get people converted to your brand of god it's easy to control them, the more people who believe in your god the more control you have. The vast majority of the worlds population believes in some god or another.
You need to be able to constant bombard the populace with your message and you need to be able to change this message subtly and continuously. In oder to do that you need television. The vast majority of the population view television every night after work. For the vast majority of people their entire waking hours are spend either at work or in front of the TV. As a bonus television makes your eyes focus on a very narrow depth of field which is surprising similar to a hypnotic state. Television is successful mostly because it puts people in a mildly hypnotic state during which they are prone to suggestions. Why do you think people spend a dollar for colored, sugared water?
Finally you need to fill their bellies to kill their ambition (apologies to Lao Tzu). You need to keep them fed and comfortable so that they don't take action against you. You will need to increase wealth till everybody can go to church and afford a TV.
Voila, you are now controlling a country and you don't need a 150,000 soldiers. The largest economy in the world, the richest country in the world with a population of over 300 million people and taking up vast almost unthinkable amount of space is controlled by a surprisingly few people. Much less then 100,000. Hell much less then 50,000.
Look at it another way. A very small cabal of neocons got their boy electected, got themselves into positions of power and took over a country and all it's natural resources with the full consent of the US population. These people (less then a 100 really) "controlled" the US population into waging a war for their beneift/profit/ideology/god.
evil is as evil does
Stopping terrorists means the Terror War funds dry up. Instead, you can spy on domestic political "enemies". Just like in the Drug War, where less drugs means less war means less funding, and you can't keep your population under surveillence.
Both those wars are unwinnable, never expected to win, designed and prosecuted by the same people, and directed against the naive American public - with foreigners as expendible props from Central Casting.
--
make install -not war
From reading the article it seems the vision is working out pretty well - for the upper levels of command, but does not yet work as well for real soldiers in the field.
The idea is sound, it's just that equipment needs to improve to the point where it's more reliable and durable. And it will, so really what we are reading about is just the Military 0.9, with an RC not far off.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From the article: "...FBCB2 relies on a classified radio band to communicate. BFT, designed later ... uses more-open satellite transmissions; troops can share information at greater distances, but they can't get the kind of secrecy that FBCB2 provides. The Army is working on a bridge between the two systems so that they will be able to share some basic information, but for now they are mostly incompatible. Feldmayer won't be able to see where the tank is leading them, and he won't be able to use FBCB2's Instant Messenger-like tool to quickly relay commands. He won't have access to any of the communications links that increase what the Pentagon calls "situational awareness" and that ultimately power network-centric warfare. If the navigation systems were working, every vehicle could split up or speed ahead if an attack came, without getting lost. But today they will all have to follow the tank's taillights in a neat line, just as it was done in 1944."
No matter what the Pentagon eventually comes up with as far as "21st Century Warfare" goes, they're going to have to pull out a big tab from Congress' already lemon-squeezed budget to get everyone up to speed. And from then on, they're going to have to come up with some standards to keep everyone on the same page.
It shouldn't be too hard, as long as they don't start hiring people from Microsoft.
Stoned4Life
gen = new Random
Clearly, what needs to be done is for Congress to pass a "Stop Terrorism NOW" bill that bans cellphones and private email accounts. They are too dangerous if they can be used by terrorists!
Currently hooked on AMP
Disposable cell phones and anonymous email accounts should be banned. If terrorists are using them at the grassroot level, maybe the American voting population could do the same thing to throw out the current administration. Opps... I didn't meant to say that out aloud. Now Dick Cheney will be hunting me down for my RNC card. :P
Iraq's slaves^H^H^H^H^H^H^H citizens, behold the fruit of your labours! The Mobile Oppression Palace! I don't need to tell you that occupation forces are expensive. But with the Mobile Oppression Palace our dignitaries can oppress your entire country for pennies a day.
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I seem to remember the telegraph having been used extensively during the American civil war. Warfighters have used communication technology for thousands of years. Even Sun Tzu talked of using flags and drums for communication.
If by "wired war" we're talking about the use of telecommunications technologies we have to consider the telegraph. The American civil war is the first conflict I can think of where it was used as a strategic communications tool but it had been around for about 20 years by that point, so it's possible that telecommunications had been used in a major conflict prior to that.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
It is (or at least, it was) winnable, but not the way the current administration is going. You're right, you have to win their hearts. This isn't done by setting up no power puppet governments and using them only as extra bodies for fighting. It requires making Iraq a better place to live.
Take some of those billions we're spending on bombs and spend it on infrastructure- build sewers, electical plants, roads, hospitals and schools. Send in the army medics to treat at the hospitals. Send peace corp workers to teach at the schools (if you can't find enough Iraqis). Put Iraqis in charge of these things- and let them make actual decisions. Give tax breaks to a few US companies to build factories there to provide jobs.
The first Iraqi president was an old CIA lackey. Horrible choice. Worst they could have made. The correct choice would be to find someone who has some respect from the 3 factions and dump the job on him. Bonus points if he's moderately anti-US- it makes it look more realistic. Let the IRaqi government actually control Iraq, just use the US army to maintain security at the infrastructure projects. Plan a slow phase out of troops.
Faced with something like this, an insurgency wouldn't get the support of the people they need to be anything but a lunatic fringe. They'd be completely ineffective. For a fraction of what we spent on bombs and guns, we would have ended up not only with fewer deaths but with a trading partner and possible ally in the middle east. And a democratic government that would actually work without propping up by the US army.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The insurgency is still viable. Not only viable, it is growing.
If the insurgency can outlast our occupation, they have, by definition, "won".
Strategically, there are more factors than just them fighting us. There's also our huge debt and deficit. There's also the price of a gallon of gas.
We are NOT fighting this war to "win". That is obvious because we are not focusing on the strategy that will allow us to remain in Iraq long enough to outlast the insurgency. As a country, we need to start rationing and saving. Just like in WW2.
Instead, we're sending the National Guard to Iraq, and then to the Mexican border. Because we cannot afford to correctly handle either situation.
The insurgency will "win" when we leave.
And we will leave before the insurgency dies. Because we will be broke.
Terrorists have no use for the DoD's C4ISR (command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveilence, reconisance) capability. Because it generates a huge foot print, is highly sensitive to decapitation attacks, is massively centralized and is extremely dependent upon huge resources. In fact, terrorists love to disrupt just such systems. For example the central command post for disaster response, and the corresponding antennas for New York were located in and on the World Trade Center.
This is the central point of asymetric warfare. Effective insurgencies employ highly decentralized, organic and redundant C3I structures which degrade gracefully under attack. The highly centralized C4ISR structure of Iraq's Regular Army collapsed over a period of days as a result of decapitation attacks, twice. On the other hand the insurgency remains highly effective despite intensive attacks over a period of 3 years. As for intelligence, the insurgency is quite effective as evidenced by the number of ambushes, assasinations and kidnappings sucessfully pulled off. You can't fight termites with a sniper rifle.
To provide another analogy, the bane of Organized Crime is accounting. While the Mafia (which developed from a Sicilian insurgency) is often resillient to conventional procecution over their violent crimes, the need for systematic accounting and banking often proves to be their Achilles heel.
While terrorists and insurgencies can and do exploit high tech is is usually in a fashion quite different in structure of established goverments. Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" for a good example.
Is this part of the known known or possibly an unknown unknown ? I guess I just don't get american politics.
The problem is that the current generation knows that to survive at all you have to beg, borrow, steal and kill for any advantage you can get. Its not the same as safe places like (say) Jordan.
This strategy would work, but only on generations not yet born. None of the people currently alive will believe you when you say "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you". They all know its bullshit.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Summary of what I said: Terrorists would love to use our C3, but they can't, so they use ad hoc comms and a decentralized C2.
We are arguing the same thing.
So...maybe this is just rocket science, but...given the country IS in a war state, how about restricting the cell phone networks to just phones that are registered to residents, and not allowing SIM cards that aren't registered or sold in-country? Anyone who needs a phone for business purposes will have a legitimate address (home or business).
I don't know specifics, but there has got to be SOMETHING they can do to cut down on the ease of getting a cell phone. Hell, here in the US you have to get a credit check, and we're not in the midst of a civil war.
Please help metamoderate.
they seem to be coming with excuse after excuse as to why the war wasn't "successful." And, if they had better means of communications, they'd be relaying bad intel anyway.
Funny, "offtopic" is the exact same response the government is giving to that man's grievances!
They are too busy monitoring calls between American citizens within the United States.
George Lucas copyrighted the terms Rebels and Rebel Forces. Sorry, no one else is allowed to use them.
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-- TRUST ME! I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!
In order for it to survive, it must be able to exist outside of the US's protection.
In order to do that, it must defeat the insurgency.
So, when we leave, if the insurgency is still alive, then there is little hope that the "new Iraqi government" will survive. A government will be there. But it will be the new, new Iraqi government. And it will not ensure the Rights that we would expect of any modern Democracy.
How many of our troops have to die to install a new Theocracy in the mid-east?
The question is, how do you define "civil war"?
Bush and Co say that it isn't a "civil war" because the Iraqi army hasn't split on sectarian lines. Of course, there really isn't much of an Iraqi "army" at this point and what there is is never deployed without US "support".
Personally, the deaths of hundreds of civilians every month by opposing groups screams "civil war". Particularly when you see how many police are also being executed.
The article misses an important point, I think. It speaks about the full spectrum of US involvement in Iraq as if it were all one affair. The invasion was successful in that American forces rapidly toppled the Iraqi government and defeated those Iraqi forces that presented resistence. That was a purely military operation, and the American technology that was designed for high-intensity conflict worked quite well.
However, at the conclusion of the invasion, American forces had to switch to peacemaking activity. American units in Iraq are part of a larger civil-military effort, and regardless of whether you feel the effort will succeed in the long run or not, it clearly hasn't succeeded yet. The invasion lasted 21 days. The peacemaking effort has lasted three years. According to the Army's own manual on low-intensity conflict, peacemaking operations run into trouble if they last too long:Low-intensity insurgency/counterinsurgency operations have always been markedly different than all-out war. Technology is not the force multiplier that it is in high-intensity operations. The most important factors in the success of counterinsurgency operations are political. Troops on the ground are constantly engaged in diplomacy, as the article demonstrated. But soldiers and marines do not conduct their negotiations in a vacuum. If the larger political context is not positive, soldiers confronting insurgents are fighting an uphill battle.
In Iraq, the locals know the physical environment. They know the cultural environment intimately. They know the individuals and organizations that influence a particular area. Regardless of sectarian schisms, they share a common religion. Technology gives occupiers no advantage in dealing with these advantages enjoyed by insurgents. Getting involved with the locals and making them feel comfortable often requires taking some risks in order to demonstrate good intentions. The American approach, which emphasizes technology and force protection above all else, may actually hinder the development of trust between locals and American forces.
The larger issue is that while Saddam placed his trust in generals who only gave him news he wanted to hear, the Secretary of Defense seemed to feel that American warfighting technology would win the war and somehow obviate the need for occupation of Iraq. As we have found out, the miscalculation was enormous.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
American foriegn lanquage skills are notably crappy. Most of our farsi translators are of questionable use in counter insurgency.
Here you are. Notice the sentence about "...a Linux-based operating system, as opposed to Windows. 'Evidence shows that Linux is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to Linux-based OS,'" says the program's manager, Lt. Col. Dave Gallop".
It should be. The bottom line is that the internet and the information age are exposing US cluture to the rest of the world in a big way. It is difficult for even the US government to deal with the internet, but I think that many don't understand that for Islamic countries like Iran, Saudi, and Egypt - it is a complete and absolute culture shock. Countries like Iran and radical sects just didn't decide to lash out at us one day because we were jerks (even though the US gov hasn't been a saint). They lashed out at us because to them, their culture and belief systems are under seige by the western world. The unrestricted free flow of ideas and information is very very threatening to the power of the overloards in these cultures.
So the solution IMHO is to saturate these cultures with such an unyielding and unrelenting free flow of information, that those countering give up in exhaustion. In Iraq the information battle shouldn't be fought with the enemy, but by making sure people in Iraq have unrestricted and uninhibited information access. In addtion, contrary to popular belief, the copyright system contributes to terrorisim. A copyright media system rewards hype over substance, and creates an idea refuge for terrorists to exploit with campaigns of terror that get whipped up out of controll by media hype. By removing copyright controlls (which is the US way of controlling information), you also remove the hype that they exploit.
The parent is obviously a joke. I know I laughed when I read it. Ass.
With all due respect to all above: the brass in the Pentagon running the Viet Nam War were junior officers in WWII, which ended 20 years earlier. (I guess that doesn't guarantee they saw combat in WWII -- but wasn't Maxwell Taylor (who parachuted in with the 101st) head of the joint chiefs of staff?) And I'm not sure what ideology says put only missiles and no cannons on the jet fighters... But, perhaps the observation I'd make is that high tech has its place, but it doesn't obviate all the low tech.
Linux = Free
America = Free (well kinda sorta, in a round about way, well it's deminishing, but we can still breath without permission...but you probably shouldn't breath too much at once, someone might think your a terrorist.)
> What progress can insurgents really say they have made since the start of the war?
Quite a bit, unfortunately.
For a start, they've successfully prevented much of our reconstruction efforts. The large majority of the funds set aside for reconstruction have been allocated, but oil production, electricity generation, water, sewer systems, road networks, security, and employment are all around or below pre-war levels. Security and employment troubles are especially bad - about 1,000 civilians and police/military are being violently killed per month now, as opposed to well under a tenth of that in the last years of Hussein's regime, and unemployment is running at about 40%, making insurgency or crime look tempting to large numbers of desperate young men with nothing else to occupy their time.
If the money runs out and Iraq still hasn't been effectively rebuilt, the insurgents have scored a major victory. Without that rebuilding, it's questionable whether the democratic reforms we've started in Iraq can really take root - without jobs, security, and infrastructure, the new society will remain extremely fragile. That fragility isn't so much of a problem at the moment, since it's widely known that a great deal of time, money, and effort is being spent to rebuild Iraq. If that effort fails to bear fruit, though, the insurgents will have successfully undercut our attempt to stabilize the situation, and it's not clear that we'll give it a second try.
That's the thing about asymmetric warfare like this: the status quo means the insurgents are winning. Our task is to create order; theirs is to maintain chaos.
We all know US troops won't be there forever, meaning every day that passes without enough order being created is a day the insurgents make progress. The greater the chaos in the country when US troops finally leave, the greater the opportunity for insurgents to move into the power vaccuum and exert greater control over the country. If this happens, they win.
Essentially, we're in a race against time - we need to make Iraq stable, safe, and prosperous before we leave - and "progress" for the insurgents is simply blocking our progress towards that goal. Every day Iraq doesn't get better fast enough - every time a pipeline is attacked, every time a hospital isn't built because security costs took up the construction budget, every time a death squad murders civilians of the "wrong group" - the insurgents make progress.
The shorter our withdrawal timetable, the more progress we have to make each day, and hence the more progress the insurgents make when we fall behind. If we truly are willing to stick this out - and remember that the average counter-insurgency of this type lasts 9 years - they have almost no chance of winning. But they're betting we won't - or can't - and it's not clear they're wrong. It's an alarming situation. I hope this is a race we win, even if it means we have to eat crow to get the manpower it takes.
If insurgents are using untraceable cell phones to plan attacks, it would seem the simple answer is to have the cellular network stop accepting calls from disposable phones. Either the number is registered to someone, or you can't make a call with it. Then we can give that NSA terrorist phone call pattern matching program a real test!
The reason we are losing in Iraq is because we are trying to have a small number of troops fight a small number of insurgents. This doesn't work because the in that environment, the insurgents get to choose when to fight.
We are never going to be successful until we have enough troops and equipment in Iraq to control transportation and communication.
paintball
> The problem is that the current generation knows that to survive at all you have to beg, borrow, steal
> and kill for any advantage you can get. Its not the same as safe places like (say) Jordan.
>
> This strategy would work, but only on generations not yet born. None of the people currently
> alive will believe you when you say "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you".
> They all know its bullshit.
Cite?
You speak as though all Iraqis are mindless automatons; it's very unlikely that is true. They're as smart as anyone else, even Americans - show 'em a government that they really can trust, and they'll start to do so. If we can start to stabilize much more chaotic states like Liberia or Sierra Leone, we can certainly do so in vastly-less-screwed-up Iraq.
because the insurgents are using throwaway cellphones and anonymous e-mail accounts to stitch together a network of their own.
For us it's a solution to fight off government and corporate(??AA, ATT, etc.) spies here at home. So networking as a weapon...No wonder the Brits, and soon the Americans, will be trying to control access to the tools of the trade.
Damn. If we aren't using the communications equipment in Iraq, shouldn't the troops be knocking down the cell towers and cutting net access so the insurgents can't use it either? Or just jam the signals to avoid having to rebuild later, and wipe out any wireless mesh. I mean, we are trying to "win", right?
It's at this point, just beyond the edge of the American network, where the guerrillas are best connected. Using disposable cellphones, anonymous e-mail addresses at public Internet cafés, and "lessons learned" Web sites that rival Cavnet, disparate guerrilla groups coordinate attacks, share tactics, hire bomb makers, and draw in fresh recruits. It's an ad hoc, constantly changing web of connections, so it's hard for U.S. spooks to know where to listen in next. It also lets the insurgents keep a loose command structure, without much hierarchy--just like the network-centric theorists call for. Even if their communications are compromised, only a small cell is exposed, not the entire insurgency. "They're more effectively networked than we are," says Hammes, the guerrilla-war expert. "They have a worldwide, secure communications network. And all it cost them was two dinars."
Very liberating this internet thing for fending off authoritarian colonists. So what stopped them from using this stuff against Saddam? They all hated him, right? It seems to me that if you want win and end this thing, you bomb them into complete submission. Take away their will to fight, and then cut 'em loose...with a nice Marshall plan of course. That's if I were a nice warmonger, instead of dragging it out like the dopey warmonger presently running the show. But in truth, we should abandon the idea of keeping the Middle East in Britain's image from the turn of the 20th century, and let them form up their countries in their own image. But I keep on forgeting, we aren't doing any of this to protect their interests.
What?
As for defeating through attrition and failed public support. Are you kidding? They got Spain to pull out, Blair got his ass kicked in recent elections and Bush ain't doing to well. Rememeber, you are not allowed to set the deadline. Until the last enemy stops fighting you can't call it a win. At best this is a stalemate.
As for creating a lawless Iraq. Define lawless. From what I know the koerds in the north seem to be in relative peace and control. The south isn't supposed to be too bad but the center is a no-mans land. What exactly do you mean by civil war? If the civilians fight other civilians?
The enemy may not have won but neither have the americans. At best the war is ongoing. A bloody stalemate. Or is it deadlock? What do you call it when two parties fight but are each unable to achieve a decisive victory?
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
> Take some of those billions we're spending on bombs and spend it on infrastructure
Some numbers on how Iraq spending has been allocated:
Total: $282B
Reconstruction: $21B
i.e., spending on reconstruction represents only 7.4% of US spending on Iraq, and even a quarter of that is security costs.
Now, security is pretty obviously a serious problem in the region and requires serious spending, but it just seems wasteful and inefficient to be spending 1600% as much on security as on actual infrastructure-building. If doubling the reconstruction budget shaved even four months off the time required to stabilize Iraq, it would pay for itself in lower troop costs, to say nothing of the lives saved.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but the relatively low level of reconstruction funding compared to troop funding seems all too much like being penny-wise and pound-foolish.
PS - This Just In: US Army Recruits Counterstrike Hackers to Develop Wallhack for Combat Sunglasses!
The general consensus in the media, popular culture, and commentary on places like slashdot seems to be that the conflict in Iraq is totally lost, but despite Bush's dumbassery, I'm still not convinced that's the case. There's an interesting article ("The Real Iraq") I was reading today by Amir Taheri, about how the realities he finds in Iraq are different from what the media portrays. He also discusses a number of signs which cause him to believe conditions in Iraq are getting progressively better (especially compared to what they were pre-war).
I'm still not entirely certain I agree, but it's an interesting read nonetheless. A quote:
Since my first encounter with Iraq almost 40 years ago, I have relied on several broad measures of social and economic health to assess the countrys condition. Through good times and bad, these signs have proved remarkably accurateas accurate, that is, as is possible in human affairs. For some time now, all have been pointing in an unequivocally positive direction.
The first sign is refugees. When things have been truly desperate in Iraqin 1959, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1988, and 1990long queues of Iraqis have formed at the Turkish and Iranian frontiers, hoping to escape. In 1973, for example, when Saddam Hussein decided to expel all those whose ancestors had not been Ottoman citizens before Iraqs creation as a state, some 1.2 million Iraqis left their homes in the space of just six weeks. This was not the temporary exile of a small group of middle-class professionals and intellectuals, which is a common enough phenomenon in most Arab countries. Rather, it was a departure en masse, affecting people both in small villages and in big cities, and it was a scene regularly repeated under Saddam Hussein.
Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003, this is one highly damaging image we have not seen on our television setsand we can be sure that we would be seeing it if it were there to be shown. To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark. Many of the camps set up for fleeing Iraqis in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia since 1959 have now closed down. The oldest such center, at Ashrafiayh in southwest Iran, was formally shut when its last Iraqi guests returned home in 2004.
This is a very old trick, since the times of the Romans.
...
...
...
It is called panem et circenses (bread and circus games)
Bread was a major issue in Rome. If there was a famine in Egypt, or the boats bringing the grain were late, there were riots. One of the reasons Rome occupied Egypt was to secure the major source for grain. Cleopatra tried to fend off the Roman occupation by exporting wheat duty free, but in the end it was inevitable
MTV and all the reality shows serve the second part today
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worship a god or support or praise any damned mortal being who invokes the name of said god that ostensibly calls for or turns a blind to the invasion of a land, the murder of any number of people, whether it's a US, UK, Terrorist, terrorits, pirate, oligarch, or other kind of regime or power.
Any "God" or "god" that guturns a blind eye to this kind of activity is UNWORTHY of praise and it AND its followers or adherents ought to take a flying leap.
god of money,
god of power,
god of skin color,
god of heritage,
god of righteousness,
god of any damned thing a frail, ought-to-be-time-machine-unborn idiot humans want...
I don't expect life to be a bed of roses, but I'm SICK of assholes invoking "God" and "god" as their pilots, co-pilots and assignment writers. No decent got can allow this infinite bullshit to continue. I just wish the REAL god/God will come sweep out the murders of any ilk and perform a "history reset" for those who are tired of being dragged into morality, legal, ethical and other issues.
NO (Hu)MAN on this PLANET speaks FOR me. He/she may command, render, torture, de-limb, and do other things to make the remainder of my life miserable, but I do NOT condone bloodshed, hijacker, propagand, and all the other crap in the name "preservin' our way of life". I don't believe in or condone the use of "god" or "GOD" for acts of terrorism or Terrorism, either. But, I firmly believe in individuals doing ON THEIR OWN TURF what EVER it takes to kick out invaders. The Native Americans were apparently to docile and not being looked out for by "God"...
PLAY NICE: Be DEfensive, strong, and fair... not OFfensive, crude, murderous, and vile and contemptible
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
High election turnout and support for the resulting government are related, but not the same thing. Especially when the election was six months ago, and things have been deteriorating ever since.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
..right on, man! Another scam war for perpetual blood profits, with the added bonus of a free big brother society at home.
From TFA:
Feldmayer, a 24-year-old virgin with the smooth cheeks of a teenager, tries to straighten out a smile of excitement and nervous anticipation. He stares into the glowing touchscreen at his left elbow.
Isn't the press releasing sensitive information here? Maybe not sensitive military information, but sensitive personal information? And how did they find out he was a virgin?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
As a counter read todays NYT story about 25% of Iraq's Middle Class has left or is leaving. When the middle class leaves it is game over.
Help fight continental drift.
You've got to ask the question what are we still doing in Iraq?
The original "purpose" was to get rid of Sadam and WMD's.
Now that Sadam has gone and there were no WMD's it's time to "DUMP and RUN".
We screwed up and now its time to cut our losses.
So what if the country turns into a quagmire of internal mayhem, it's not the only one and we generally don't give a toss about the others.
Let them sort out there own problems.
Of course if they appear to pose a threat to us in the future (false or not)then we reserve the right to bomb the crap out of them again.
Insert witty sig here.
The biggest way to win Hearts and Minds in Iraq would be to hand out laptops and provide wireless access for all. Around the world people are beginning to insist on their Miranda rights due to big media influence. In other words, Law and Order did more for world wide democracy than G W Bush ever will.
News today:
r ticle548945.ece
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/a
Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale.
As a sidenote I think the argument that lack of refugees is a sign of things getting better in Iraq is pretty stupid...
I could have replied to almost anyone's post.. but yours was convenient. Their cell phone service is wayyy different than say America's. I bought a cell phone and was talking to my buddy in less than a minute, literally. Once you have a phone that can take those wtfchips, you can use most of the networks there. If you went too far south, you had to switch to one of those kuwaiti wtfchips. I had to buy cards to deposit money onto my wtfchip.. that was the worst part. I'd ask some hodgi for a $10 card and he'd say "mista, for you twenty dollas." Bah, i'm an American! i'm not use to the whole "talking the guy down thing". I'm sure he probably got some counterfitted cards for a buck and made 15X that from me. As far as "insurgents" using cell phones and the NSA/CIA listening in on them.. what's the point? it's not like they'd tell me about it. I'm the guy on the ground with a gun. My group worked on tips from locals. Most of em are criminals in some way.. so neighbors are quick to tell the IPs. Not to mention gossip. Mygod does Iraqi gossip travel fast. My group was pretty much "it" for many many miles. There wasn't any three letter agency giving us tips. I'd bet Bagdad gets monitored quite a bit, but whether the lefthand tells the righthand what's going on is a totally different issue.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Amerika is building 14 permanent bases in Iraq.+ in+Iraq/
http://www.google.com/search?q=14+permanent+bases
Your leadership is keen to hold press conferences on it, but you are there to stay.
It is the only choice they have because there simply is no base for a US friendly regime in Iraq.
To keep control over their oil you will need military presence
Dumb analysis alert. Oil is fungible. If it's coming out of the ground it doesn't matter who gets it.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Man.. it would just be too much money to bring an American Interpreter over there anyways. We had a few interpreters from the local town and paid each a good amount. You get a lot more than interpretation skills with locals too. They know the streets and who's who and blah. Not to mention they know when someone is straight up lying to you. Though you do run into issues of trust when dealing with local interpreters, but we're wily Americans and find ways around such things. Actually, i think the name of the group that supplies most of the "certified safe" interpreters in Iraq is called Titan. Ah, and google says yes.. Here's a quick peek at what the interpreters are expected to know, if anyone cares at all. A quote from the link: Linguists are required to work 12-hour shifts and in excess of 60-hour weeks in order to provide continuous contract linguist support that this 24 x 7 operation requires. Linguists must be available for worldwide deployment as the mission dictates.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Hey! I've found the perfect candidate.
Mr Saddam Hussein, this is your big chance!
Only problem is that he's never been very anti-American. But I guess we can cover that up.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Loss does not depend on who many troops are lost - then UK would have lost the second world war before Hitler went into The Soviet Union.
Loss depend on not getting the objectives you want. And therefore the US has lost (remember - the cakewalk? Did that happen?)
Freedom or George Bush
Our training of the Iraqi National Army so they can stand up to the insurgents when we leave.
I've often wondered why people assume the Iraqi National Army is in some way loyal to the U.S.; why would they help the U.S. army hunt down their own countrymen? Not to mention the fact that the INA is probably thoroughly infiltrated by insurgents; it's not like there's a way to distinguish between civilians and insurgents. Another thing to remember is that although occupying armies can operate in a country against the inhabitants will, insurgents cannot exist without the support of the locals; therefore a portion of the Iraqi people are actively resisting the U.S. occupation!
I think this had to be said, because sometimes people talk about the insurgents as if they were some Al-Qaeda cell that have nothing to do with Iraqis.
Increasingly that accounting and banking uses hard to trace electronic transfer and takes place in what, for want of a better word, could be called rogue states. The EU has a depressingly large number of states which depend on dodgy banking - The Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar to name a few. One thing the US obligingly does in invading places like Iraq is to arrange for a supply of dollars so that terrorist funds can circulate efficiently, while the accumulating assets are stored electronically elsewhere. Paradoxically, one thing that would affect terrorists and drug dealers is a large scale shift to the Euro as the world currency - because the physical cash flows built up over so many years would have to change and this would create new patterns detectable by data mining.
Pining for the fjords
Was that a Canon camera, or perhaps a Canon scanner. Pity Canon don't make cannons hey ? :-)
that's freedom of truth for you
>I would hardly call the Iraq war a loss.
The article to which this person is replkying did not refer to the Iraq war as a loss.
>pick up a history book.
Condescension, and irrelevant. The theories behind the tactics of Operation Iraqi Freedom are a matter of current events and not yet of history books.
>Put down the anti-Americanism
The article to which this person is replying was neither pro- nor anti-American.
It's a little more like this:
...
Rumsfeld: We're invading Iraq to take their oil...I mean, destroy their WMDs!
Shinseki: Okay, that'll take several hundred thousand men.
Rumsfeld: Nonsense! It'll take six Special Forces guys armed with bananas!
Shinseki: No, it'll take several hundred thousand men.
Rumsfeld: Who's the expert here soldier? You with your decades of hands-on military experience or me with my |337 Risk skillz?
Shinseki:
Rumsfeld: Okay, just to make you feel better, we'll send Rambo as backup.
Shinseki: [shakes head in disbelief] Sir, Rambo is a fictional character.
Rumsfeld: YOU'RE A FICTIONAL CHARACTER!
Shinseki: Calm down, sir. After we beat the Iraqi Army, "Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers...would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground- force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this." Again, that's several hundred thousand pairs of boots on the ground!
Rumsfeld: Boots...why didn't you say so in the first place! Here's the plan: six heavily banana-laden Special Forces guys (backed by Rambo with a big, pointy knife) will fly in with cargo blimps and pummel Iraq with hundreds of thousands of brand new boots until they surrender their oil.
Shinski: There's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin.
Rumsfeld: Maybe you're right. Forget new boots, just get the boots from the Marines after they complete basic training. Nice and stinky--that'll show the Iranians!
Shinseki: You mean Iraqis.
Rumsfeld: Well, for now at least.
Shinseki: Exactly how many countries is this administration planning on invading? We don't have enough troops! Iraq alone will require several hundred thousand men!
Shinseki: What is your fascination with "several hundred thousand men?" Are you gay? I'll bet that's it. You just told me you're gay, so under "Don't ask, don't tell" you told, so you're fired!
Shinseki: [resists urge to strangle jabbering senile old fool]Sir, I don't know what world you live on, but it isn't the same one as the rest of us. Reality isn't subjective. Iraq will require several hundred thousand troops.
Rumsfeld: [pouts]Haven't you heard? We're all postmodernists in this administration. Reality is what we say it is, so if I say six soldiers armed with bananas (supported by Rambo and a big pointy knife) can successfully secure Iraq's vast oil wealth by dropping several hundred thousand pairs of stinky boots from cargo blimps, then by God that's what will happen or my name isn't Queen Elizabeth the Great!
Quote taken from wikipedia from exchange between Senator Levin and General Shinseki before the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
If you reduce things to numbers, we won vietnam.
But we didnt.
Never underestimate the determination of a foe with nothing to lose and everything to win.
Thing is see, the iraq insurgency can't retreat. That means that guerilla warfare will play out its infernal logic. An undergeared but plenty staffed resistance will one at a time pick off our boys until it becomes clear that some wars simply cant be won.
Personally I think we are in deep shit over there.
Another thing, one little tip an army friend pointed out;- "Dont trust wireless. Unless you can see those wires, you cant visually see that the link is secure."
Based on my own take that wireless net is a fantastic, but flakey , tech, while I might trust my day-to-day to it, I'd certainly not trust my life to it. At least not until someone can explain to me why my trusty old microwave oven, despite a perfect faraday cage enclosure can completely jam any wireless networking within a 100m range of it.
Now some wireless tech is pretty trusty. A microwave link with clear line of sight is rock solid. But a hell of alot of wireless AINT trusty.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
I differ.
"Loss depend on not getting the objectives you want. And therefore the US has lost (remember - the cakewalk? Did that happen?)"
The objective was not to achieve "a cakewalk" - the objective of the US and allied military was to toss out the Saddam backed government and replace it with a government that would not threaten the US and that would be more open and more democratic. And to do so with the minimum use of force needed.
So looking at the facts, it is a success. The new government and parliament were seated today, the result of a series of plebicitess, constitutional votes and generla elections, nationwide. And the combat fatality count of US & Allied troops due to enemy action (exclude heart attacks, accidents, etc) is historically amazingly low for such a large scale operation.
Before the mods go ape on me for being a "Bushie" - observe that the goal and achievement were at question - and thats what I'm looking at, as clearly as looking at whether Napoleon acheived his victory at Waterloo (he didn't - losing his bid to split the allied armies into 2 parts and defeat each in detail, ensuring the survival of his Imperial reign), or the Germans achieved their goals in the Franco Prussian wars (they did with the awarding of Alsace-Lorraine, etc).
This isnt to say the goal and its acheivement was "right" or "just" or "proper" - those involve judging the *reasons* for that goal - those judgements are a different thing altogether, and highly debatable.
So did the US military achieve its goal, as set forth by the politicians, in Iraq?
SO far, "yes" is the resonable answer.
As to is it WHY they went after that goal, thats a debate for elsehwere - its a different question.
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Call me crazy... But did you say wired and cell phones? I think a better title might have been "Winning the Information War."
On another note, how long do you think these throw away cell phones will be legal? How long before congress passes a bill saying that you have to register them and provide ID,etc to buy one? I'd bet this technology won't be around long.
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Faced with something like this, an insurgency wouldn't get the support of the people they need to be anything but a lunatic fringe. They'd be completely ineffective. For a fraction of what we spent on bombs and guns, we would have ended up not only with fewer deaths but with a trading partner and possible ally in the middle east. And a democratic government that would actually work without propping up by the US army.
The US Military has been building schools and such ever since they toppled the Iraqi government. I'm not sure it shows up under the Reconstruction budget. The insurgents are the ones blowing up the power plants, water mains, etc.
My thought is that the United States isn't doing a good enough job conveying the message that life sucks mainly due to the insurgents.
And life in Iraq is heavily biased by the military. A friend of mine is an officer in the marines. A reporter from CBS came out and wanted to get footage of people being shot in the head, and wanted to see the dangerous areas. He told her that really wasn't a good idea for her safety, and set up a tour instead of some of the good things his unit has done (schools, etc.), and she didn't even bother showing up. He had 20 guys sweltering in the desert waiting for her too.
When was the last time you heard a story like this in the media? Ever?
When was the last time you heard a story like this in the media? Ever?
We said it (and heard it) all the time during the Viet Nam war. It was true, too - but only part of the story. The rest of the story was that we were spending much more, and working harder to defoliate and destroy the county's infrastructure. For every school we built, we bombed and strafed 10. No reason that it should be any different in Iraq. We spend most of our money (1600% more according to another post) on sophisticated firepower (see the original article) that is completely inappropriate for doing anything constructive.
My thought is that the United States isn't doing a good enough job conveying the message that life sucks mainly due to the insurgents.
Same thing we said about the Viet Cong. Same Song, Second Verse.
What fucking planet are you living on? Fox News?
Why did this poll show almost 3/4's of Iraqi's view us as occupiers. And almost half advocate killing US troops.
And you think they want us there?
Except here we're building schools and the insurgents are blowing them up.
Or are you actually claiming we're building schools and then bulldozing them the next day?
> realities he finds in Iraq are different from what the media portrays. He also discusses a number
> of signs which cause him to believe conditions in Iraq are getting progressively better
> (especially compared to what they were pre-war).
This article indeed paints a very different picture of Iraq than the one we usually hear about, but some of its claims cite little or no corroborating evidence. It motivated me to a little digging on my own, though, to see what the situation is. Unfortunately, the reports I could find often contradict the article. For example, the article asserts:
"To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark."
By contrast, in December 2005 the UN Refugee Agency noted:
"Some 20,500 refugees returned from Iran and Saudi Arabia with the support of UNHCR. Parallel to the organized return movements, the Iraqi Ministry of Trade recorded the spontaneous return of some 270,000 refugees to Iraq after May 2003."
That's only about 300,000 rather than 1,200,000. In fact, that same UN article states:
"UNHCR estimates that nearly one million Iraqis (of whom some 98,000 are registered refugees) are living in the countries immediately surrounding Iraq, and a further 350,000 Iraqis (of whom 166,000 are registered refugees) are living further afield."
Even assuming that doesn't count the 300,000 already returned, that's only a total of 1.65 million Iraqis residing or formerly residing abroad, of whom the article asserts 75% have returned to Iraq by "the most conservative estimate".
More importantly, though, that doesn't even take into account the reportedly-vast numbers of Iraqis fleeing Iraq. From a report entitled "Iraqi Refugees Overwhelm Syria":
"Syrian officials say 700,000 Iraqis from various ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds have arrived since the U.S.-led invasion, far more than in any other country in the region."
There are several other highly-questionable assertions in the article (e.g., Iraq is again a major oil exporter that will fulfill its OPEC quota of 2.8Mbpd by the end of 2006; the US Department of Energy reports that Iraq doesn't even have an OPEC quota, and is producing at best 2.0Mbpd as of May 2006) and enough politicization and bias that, much as I'd like to believe what the author is saying, "The Real Iraq" is not a credible piece.
War on drugs: Be carefull what you wish for CaffineAddict2001! The evil coffee bean has been banned more than once.
BTW: The problem is not liberals, conservatives or even rastafarians. It is individuals with the self-righteous idea that political power exists to forcefully impose one set of "correct" morals that will allegedly make the world "a better place" (even if they have to execute those who do not comply). eg: Taliban and kite flying, war on social problem X, war on resource rich country Y, coporate welfare,....
Oh what the hell, pass the bong and lock up those trouble-making fucks who call themselves "coffee drinkers".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
>>> the job on him. Bonus points if he's moderately anti-US- it makes it look more realistic.
>
> Hey! I've found the perfect candidate.
>
> Mr Saddam Hussein, this is your big chance!
I've heard that suggested, and only half-jokingly.
The thing is, we could do rather worse than having someone like Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq. If nothing else, he was rational---he was interested in maintaining his own power---and hence was easy to deal with in the traditional "mess with us and we'll stomp you" way. Sure, he was cranky at the US, but he knew he'd lose his power if he ever did anything serious to the outside world---and he actually cared about that---so he was pretty well contained.
Contrast that kind of rational behavior with the kind of irrational fervor we see from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or even some members of Iran's government. If people like that come to power in a post-US Iraq, we've traded ourselves a toothless tiger for one maddened by rabies. There are people who don't consider the prospect of losing power---or life---in a way we would consider rational, and hence we have much less leverage against them, and vastly more reason to be concerned that they might actually launch some kind of serious---even WMD---strike against us.
Do you really think Hussein would have used WMD against us if he'd had them and we'd left him alone? Not a chance - he knew he'd be signing his own death warrant, and was rational enough to not want that.
But Zarqawi? Or bin Laden? Or even Ahmadinejad? I'm a whole lot less sure about that, and hence a whole lot more worried.
Forget that we've made Iraq a terrorist training ground that's even better for that than Afghanistan was. Forget that we've shown the US army can be practically stalemated by determined jihadists with smallarms and IEDs. Forget that we've tied our hands if a real threat comes along that actually requires military attention.
We may have provided the opportunity to turn a non-threatening nation that could be reasoned with into a violent, irrational one that we cannot predict. With radioactive materials that vanished in the wake of the invasion.
You don't have to be a Democrat or a peacenik to be disgusted with the way this Iraq mess has been handled.
Naah - of course the marines don't bulldoze them - they blow them up with ordinance. That's what they're trained to do. And not just schools, but homes and mosques. Ask your Marine friend who is going to teach in the school he built? And what takes precedence when the fighting blows up? If he can't take a reporter on a tour of his area of operations, he doesn't really have time to be building schools. We're not spending all this money on the wired and wireless battlefield to put computers with Ubuntu in libraries and schools. As in Viet Nam - we don't speak the language - so we're not much good at schools.
Today's CNN report on the fighting in Ramadi is a case in point. The marines will drop their hammers, pick up their weapons and wondrous webgear and go blow up some more infrastructure and probably kill and arrest a lot of innocent people. The "insurgents" are seen by Iraqis as patriots fighting off the occupier - just as the Viet Cong were. And just as Americans patriots would be if the U.S. were occupied. They want us out - just as the majority of the Vietnamese wanted us out. It is the nature of warfare that you destroy much more than you have time to build.
As someone who spent a lot of time in the streets fighting *against* 'Nam, and who has several close friends who are ex-Marines who volunteered to go, let me point out the ultimate immorality of the invasion and conquest of Iraq - there is no difference between Iraq and 'Nam. The US government made up, out of whole cloth, the reasons for the invasion; the US set up a puppet government (no one who won't toady for us need apply for positions of power).
We're the ones running the war... and the people get *nothing*. Try reading things like the Baghdad "girl blogger", or any of the other people sources, and you'll find the the US media *vastly* UNDERPLAY how bad it is for ordinary Iraqis.
Getting past that, do you really think that a few technogadgets will "overcome" the Mujahadeem, who broke the Red Army? Why should this be any different? That's *exactly* the same as the Air Force attitude, that you can "bomb a people into submission". The RW truth is, of course, as I've read so many times, both in opinion and in history, that the only way is with boots on the ground... and whatever gadgets you come up with, if they don't want you there, they'll find ways to use your gadgets against you. Think of the Rodney King video, or the disposable cell phone.
mark, *very* tired of folks who can't believe that
"their" government are crooks and war criminals
I just finished reading Black Hawk Down, (I'd seen the movie and documentary years ago) and it amazed me that it seems that such low-tech items as maps and FRS radios (or similar) could have saved many lives.
Mesh networks and video feeds seem cool, but just being able to figure out that you're 50' from friendlies based on a map and radio contact might be a good first step.
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When a single untrainned person can walk up to a group of trained people and kill or wound them all; Should cause one to sit up and notice. To win, one must make the enemy die, not the other way around. To let the enemy live is to allow the reason for the enemy's existance to live. This enemy's existance, in this case, is a grave issue.
The truth of the matter is that in war numbers will matter far more than advanced technology. When our government starts putting soldiers in exoskeletons that have full armor, allow them to fly, and have super strength among other features things might start to change. But when you are searching from room to room, house to house, or building by building and there are simply numerous places to hide super advanced wireless communication technology will not help you out that much. It is better to have it than not have it of course, but numbers will stay an important issue for quite a while. Personally, I don't think we should have ever went to Iraq. There are far too many other important issues that should be addresed among other reasons. But lets say hypothetically we went into Iraq and wanted to win. To win the war we should have not dispersed the standing Iraqi military. They were the ones that knew the lay of the land, where the weapon depos were located, who would probably resist, and so fourth. If you could bribe them with fat paychecks and assurance that if things went badly in Iraq they would have a place to live in the USA then they would surly have been helping out.
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Agreed... When I say it was never going to happen, I meant for this particular war. The tech is too advanced and it's an unequal battle any way - it wasn't needed to win.