[lit-ideas] Re: How the US is losing in Iraq
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 11:07:38 -0700
Andreas? Which Andreas? Is this the same Andreas who just yesterday wrote:
What are all of those "150 million" committed Jihadists doing?
- Once every six or nine months, four or six Muslims try to blow up a bus or
whatever. Occassionally they do it, but mostly, they get caught.
- A few thousand are in Iraq, along with several tens of thousands of Iraqi
Shiites and Sunni who are fighting a civil war with each other and
occassionally take shots at Americans.
- They burn effigies whenever a Dane draws another cartoon.
That's their level of commitment? They can get all upset over the USA, but
that doesn't even lead to action. And because they have no infrastructure,
they can't do anything that takes longer than a few days.
This can't be the same Andreas! For if he scoffs at the Jihadists as a
fictitious enemy one day, how can he claim the they are defeating us the
next?
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 9:27 AM
To: Lit-Ideas
Subject: [lit-ideas] How the US is losing in Iraq
A good set of articles in today's Washington Post on how IEDs have become
the major weapon against the US military in Iraq. Here are some quotes.
----------------
"We all drank the Kool-Aid," said a retired Army officer who worked on
counter-IED issues for three years. "We believed (...) because the United
States was the technology powerhouse, the solution to this problem would
come from science. That attitude was 'All we have to do is throw technology
at it and the problem will go away.' The day we lose a war, it will be to
guys with spears and loincloths, because they're not tied to technology. And
we're kind of close to being there."
More than 81,000 IED attacks have occurred in Iraq, including 25,000 so far
this year, according to U.S. military sources.
Bombs detonated by radio-controlled triggers, which had become the most
prominent killer of U.S. forces, today amount to only 10 percent of all IEDs
in Iraq after the deployment of 30,000 jammers, with more on the way.
The 100 or so daily IED "events" -- bombs that blow up, as well as those
discovered before they detonate -- have doubled since the 50 per day typical
in January 2006. The 3,229 IEDs recorded in March of this year put the
monthly total in Iraq above 3,000 for the first time, a threshold also
exceeded in May and June. "The numbers," one Army colonel said, "are
astonishing."
Each week, the cat-and-mouse game expanded. When coalition convoys routinely
began stopping 300 yards from a suspected IED, insurgents planted easily
spotted hoax bombs to halt traffic, then detonated explosives that had been
hidden where a convoy would most likely pull over.
--------------
How did this happen? Miscalculation. The US military is built to carry out
mechanized land war. They had no preparation to deal with a guerilla
insurgency. The Iraqi, unable to carry out a land war, developed a new
strategy based on low-level technology and local infrastructure.
As long as the US continues to drive around in vehicles, the Iraqi will use
more IEDs. The US has spent $15 billion to stop IEDs, yet the number of IED
continues to grow. The Iraqi can modify the devices faster than the US can
come up with solutions, and they can deploy these in overwhelming numbers.
How to deal with this? Change the game.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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