Iraq - Far Graver Than Vietnam
POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Saturday, March 14, 2026 00:54
VIEWED: 4771
PAGE 1 of 4
Far Graver Than Vietnam
By Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian - UK
9-16-4
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1305360,00.html
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday. But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."
Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong." Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."
W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.
"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view." After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base.
"If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of angels and the Prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and emanating wonderful scents." "I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."
General Odom said: "This is far graver t
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*bump*
Because someone was so pissed about comparing Vietnam to Iraq. Well, here is the proof and I didn't even have to leave this site!
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Not as shameful as this icon of worship.
or...
boohoo
Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
*bump*
Because someone was so pissed about comparing Vietnam to Iraq. Well, here is the proof and I didn't even have to leave this site!
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Wow Jasonzzz what a wonderful piece of critical thinking. You take an article that quotes the senior commanders on scene in Iraq as stating the war is a quagmire and you rebutt it with three photoshop sour grapes. What a critical genius you are.
What are you going to do for an encore? Issue a scientific explanation for the magic bullet?
I really, really hope you are of draft age.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
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Did you ever wonder what why Ghoulma dragged this post back up? Did you read his 2nd post. Did you understand what he meant? If not, then you got fooled by Ghoulma. He dragged this stupid-ass post that's already been trolled around else where on the internet and completely rebuffed up because seconds ago on another thread he was shot to pieces. Now he ran to this post to make himself yet an ass again. I am simply helping him a bit in his illustration on him being an ass.
Please click on Ghoulman and read his other posts on all of his other troll threads and then comment again.
In either case, if you must know, I have served already thru the first Gulf War. I am much too old to be drafted by now. I am somewhat ambivalent about an actual draft since it might introduce subgeniuses with the ilks of Ghouma. But at the same time, I believe that every single physically able citizen of their respective state should give to their country some sort of public service. It doesn't have to be in the Armed forces. Some sort of peace corp or other rural projects work like the CCC back in the old days would work wonderfully.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
Wow Jasonzzz what a wonderful piece of critical thinking. You take an article that quotes the senior commanders on scene in Iraq as stating the war is a quagmire and you rebutt it with three photoshop sour grapes. What a critical genius you are.
What are you going to do for an encore? Issue a scientific explanation for the magic bullet?
I really, really hope you are of draft age.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
Like Fireflyfans.net?
Haken needs a new development system. Donate.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=5&t=3283
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
In either case, if you must know, I have served already thru the first Gulf War. I am much too old to be drafted by now.
Hmm, don't be so sure about that. My sister can be called back up at any time until she is 55. Fortunately the Army doesn't need many JAG officers to prosecute the war in Iraq.
I understand males can be called back until age 65. The mere thought of this brings up the Volkscorp at the end of Nazi German, composed of schoolboys and grandfathers.
Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
But at the same time, I believe that every single physically able citizen of their respective state should give to their country some sort of public service. It doesn't have to be in the Armed forces. Some sort of peace corp or other rural projects work like the CCC back in the old days would work wonderfully.
I agree with this idea in principle. There are huge costs involved to mobilize this sort of manpower. However, if the government wanted to do something like this all it would have to do is forgive a percentage of student loans in lieu of pay.
Even paying the entire entering workforce a minimum wage would be a huge expenditure of cash. Anybody know how many seniors leave high school every year? Even if their term of service in a CCC organization was one year mulitply graduating classes by $5.10 by 2080 and it's got to be a whopper of a number.
I don't see how everyone could be enrolled in this. I don't think it is practical.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
In either case, if you must know, I have served already thru the first Gulf War. I am much too old to be drafted by now.
Hmm, don't be so sure about that. My sister can be called back up at any time until she is 55. Fortunately the Army doesn't need many JAG officers to prosecute the war in Iraq.
I understand males can be called back until age 65. The mere thought of this brings up the Volkscorp at the end of Nazi German, composed of schoolboys and grandfathers.
hmmm... couple of things going on here.
Even with a draft in effect, with the current rules, the lottery is done for men between 18 - 26. Now speculations abound that the upper end should be extended to 35, but even if they boost it up to 45. I'm still too much of a fuddyduddy for that. Besides, folks who have already served a term are not eligible for the draft.
Now, with prior service folks, there are two things going on. First with enlisted folks. Every one who enlists regardless of their length of active service, they owe a total of 8 years. So if you enlisted for 4 years of active service, you still have another 4 years of either in the real reserves or something call IRR (Individual Ready Reserves). Which means that if you served 4 years active duty, then got out but didn't join the real Reserves. You are still assigned to a IRR unit, but you don't do anything. You just go about your everyday normal live until the 4 years are up. This is what everyone is up in arms right now. Because if the real Army and the real Reserves are really short, then they can call up the folks who are in the IRR obligations. For some odd reason, people thinks that they are "drafting" these guys. No, they signed up for 8 years no matter what.
There is also something called "stop loss". It's when they hold you from leaving the service eventhough your enlistment is up. But this only happens during a major conflict. I was held in stop loss during the first Gulf War.
Now with Commissioned Officers, the story is more different. Once Commissioned, you are recognized by the Congress of the US that you will serve the country. There isn't any such thing as resigning your commission. Once you are in, you are in, and they can call you up at anytime.
I don't think only Germany had a Volkscorp. Any country that had been engaged in an all out war have had similar measures. And the US had done it during the Revolutionary War and Civil War. Other countries like, China, Japan, Phillipines, France, Taiwan, have also done it in some part of their history.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
But at the same time, I believe that every single physically able citizen of their respective state should give to their country some sort of public service. It doesn't have to be in the Armed forces. Some sort of peace corp or other rural projects work like the CCC back in the old days would work wonderfully.
I agree with this idea in principle. There are huge costs involved to mobilize this sort of manpower. However, if the government wanted to do something like this all it would have to do is forgive a percentage of student loans in lieu of pay.
Even paying the entire entering workforce a minimum wage would be a huge expenditure of cash. Anybody know how many seniors leave high school every year? Even if their term of service in a CCC organization was one year mulitply graduating classes by $5.10 by 2080 and it's got to be a whopper of a number.
I don't see how everyone could be enrolled in this. I don't think it is practical.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
Like Fireflyfans.net?
Haken needs a new development system. Donate.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=5&t=3283
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
Did you ever wonder what why Ghoulma dragged this post back up? Did you read his 2nd post. Did you understand what he meant? If not, then you got fooled by Ghoulma.
Oh yes, I'm a one man foolie factory.
Quote:
He dragged this stupid-ass post that's already been trolled around else where on the internet and completely rebuffed up because seconds ago on another thread he was shot to pieces.
Then post it. Let's see.
Quote:
Now he ran to this post to make himself yet an ass again. I am simply helping him a bit in his illustration on him being an ass.
Well, maybe I've been ass like sometimes.
Quote:
Please click on Ghoulman and read his other posts on all of his other troll threads and then comment again.
Troll threads? It's a news article! This from the guy who posts giant obnoxious pictures in threads he doesn't like. At least they are funny these days, the old ones he posted were really rude.
Quote:
In either case, if you must know, I have served already thru the first Gulf War.
In the other thread you claimed you served in Vietnam too. Wow, you must be Americas oldest soldier!
Quote:
I am much too old to be drafted by now.
Your how old?
Quote:
I am somewhat ambivalent about an actual draft since it might introduce subgeniuses with the ilks of Ghouma.
How old?
I noticed you purposely mispelled my username... I wonder why? lol!
Quote:
But at the same time, I believe that every single physically able citizen of their respective state should give to their country some sort of public service. It doesn't have to be in the Armed forces. Some sort of peace corp or other rural projects work like the CCC back in the old days would work wonderfully.
George W. pushed this idea after the 200 election if I recall.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
Wow Jasonzzz what a wonderful piece of critical thinking. You take an article that quotes the senior commanders on scene in Iraq as stating the war is a quagmire and you rebutt it with three photoshop sour grapes. What a critical genius you are.
What are you going to do for an encore? Issue a scientific explanation for the magic bullet?
I really, really hope you are of draft age.
He is.
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Ghoul, I will believe something out of the friggin Guardian 10 minutes after hell freezes over. They are an openly obvious America hating British rag sheet, and have hardly any credibility at all. Give it up. I tend to lurk rather than post here, but this is getting pathetic.
By the way, the only draft proposal in congress was proposed by Democrats, and purely as a scare tactic, but if you are stupid enough to believe, who am I to argue?
Never argue with a fool, it make sit hard to tell which is which.
-Scorp
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The Guardian is one of Britians most respected newspapers. Bash it all ya like. I'll await the Brits to come along and tell you themselves.
And it's hard to say this article has any "America Hating" in it as it quotes American Generals and American military experts.
Don't you respect the opinions of those who actually have to go out and die for you? Support the troops... that's what this is about.
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