Al Sadre may not be planning this as he seems to be an opportunist,but I don’t think he is fully in control,which accounts for the tergiversation that is occuring.

“To be honest, I think our forces have found a new, or at least smarter, way to fight in the 21st century. I don’t believe earlier methods for measuring success apply.”

You are half right.

One of the big disconnects between the conduct of this war and what our perceptions of it are is that we’ve unmistakably gone back to ‘earlier methods’ for measuring success…and media is still holding out for a return to the Vietnam model. Most of the late-Vietnam era and post-Vietnam decade was marked by U.S. unwillingness to confront an enemy on the ground; too many images of broken men buying a loss from the evening news in our minds allowed us to forget that even winning efforts involve broken men.

Declining to confront just means that our dead die needlessly. Fighting without an objective is not much better, if any. But fighting aggressively, seeking out the enemy to destroy him, taking and holding ground then pushing forward relentlessly to the next objective IS the ‘earlier method’ that works in winning wars.

The media perks up only when helicopters or Spectres get called in. I am here to tell you that the private soldier in the Sadr militia carrying a rifle thinks about those animals a long, long second place after the possibility they are under observation by our infantry. Sadr’s thugs get their pictures in the news and get a big islamo stiffy for carrying AK’s and chanting ‘death to the infidel!’ but all they get from the Marines, Army, and ING troops in front of them is a single shot from out to 800 yards. The gunships are called in when mortars or strongpoints are located. The retail killing by aimed rifle fire goes on around the clock.

I cannot imagine the psychological state of the Mooks. That’s o.k., that’s not a necessary component to dealing with them. This round in Najaf has gone on for two weeks. The cordon around the shrine has been sealed for over a week and by all accounts the perimeter creeps in by a few hundred yards per day. They longer the Mooks fight, the fewer suiciders, bomb planters, and foreign fighters there will be to deal with down the road. Our troops have been trained to kill, not to examine their navels, and our media and the enemy are both seemingly incapable of dealing with the fact we aren’t pulling back.

Will we change their minds? Maybe. Eventually they’ll surrender, or they’ll die. As soon as we finish this election cycle the bad guys will know how serious we are about finishing what we started. Then we can get to the really heavy lifting.

LOL. I will remember…distance!

Terrye-

LOL. I will assume they have ‘em. I’ll go with “Trust Without Verification” on this particular issue.

I never saw Frank in concert. I have always felt there are certain types of people how are far more fascinating at a distance. Zappa was one of those people.

Knucklehead-

The high school years were years of achievement for me. I won both the official “Class Clown” award and the unofficial “Class Asshole” award my senior year. Who knows, if Roger starts handing out annual awards here some day, I may be able to revisit past triumphs…

Why Sandy P?

Of course, everyone knows he’s an empty suit. Without a doubt I can say that everyone but the French and Germans know he’s as exciting as a common rock in a rather large rock pile. Of course that includes the pundits’ analysis that even with the hard-on cocktail of two Viagras and a three Levitras with a tequila back he’s still a zero. And yes, that includes that very special camouflage ‘hat.’

But why do you think divorce Sandy? Is he truly that dumb to kill the cash cow? And yes, of course, I did indeed mean cow.

The mosqe at Najaf stuff is, IMO, one of those things we’re gonna have to wait a while to know enough about to understand. There is no doubt we could do a Grohzny on it any time we want. So why don’t we? That’s one I feel needs to be left to the folks on the scene to understand and, some day, ‘splain. Saving a dozen or so US lives by wasting everything that moves in or near it today may, possibly, be the sort of action that costs a hundred lives over following weeks due to lunatic fringers joining an insurrection later. It could also be that that they are using it to work the Iraqi forces into shape. Or because they need to take it intact to show that Sadr looted it. Or some combination of those things and, maybe, others we can’t even guess at.

To be honest, I think our forces have found a new, or at least smarter, way to fight in the 21st century. I don’t believe earlier methods for measuring success apply. If, in fact, they have changed the way wars like this are fought, or at least how we go about fighting them, I imagine there are some botches along the way. It seems to me the last thing we want is Chechnya – the reasons for that might be obvious, but then again, maybe not.

“What I’ve heard from colleagues is that people feel it probably has had too long a life,” said Frank James, a Chicago Tribune reporter. “We wish someone would put a stake in this vampire.”

Ah, okay. You don’t cover it for over a week, then you spend a few days trying to destroy the Swiftboat veterans credibility and now you wish it would just go away. Great stuff. What muppets.

http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=25081

http://qando.net/archives/003894.htm

via CaptainQuarters