Frankie Says Relax
In early 1945, as the Russians closed in on Berlin from the east and the Anglo-American armies enlarged their bridgehead on the Rhine, Hitler gave The Loser’s Order to his Armaments Minister, Albert Speer.
What I call “The Loser’s Order” is the last gasp of any failed dictator — scorched earth. Hitler decreed that every factory in Germany, every bridge, every rail station, every mine, and every thing still standing of any possible value was to be destroyed. Farms would burn, homes would tumble, civilians would die in the hundreds of thousands.
Why? Just so Hitler would get the last laugh over his enemies, no matter the cost to his so-called “master race.”
At great personal risk to himself, Speer made sure Hitler’s order wasn’t carried out. Speer
was especially opposed to Hitler
In the interest of full disclosure:
The Soviets, however, did follow a scorched Earth policy and turned back the German Army within a stones throw of Moscow.
But let’s not kid ourselves, there was plenty of industry on the western edge of Russia to be denied the Germans. This is not the case in Iraq, where the most the government can do is destroy the oil well heads which can easily repaired and replaced.
Besides, if you’re going to burn down your countryside, you need to have somewhere else to put your factories or your enemy need only wait out your economic implosion. The Soviets started building heavy industry in the east in 1928. In 1940 and 1941, Stalin started deporting millions of civilans to these new towns in 1940, 2 years before Hitler invaded. (Some western towns being depopulated by 90%, especially in the Ukraine.) Obviousally, Iraq does not have this luxery.
Also the German supply lines were much longer, and therefore easier to disrupt.
I’m not sure how this turned into this diatribe, but… to put it short… Scorched Earth can be effective if you have enough land to move your industry far enough out of harms way that you can sustain yourself while giving your enemy nothing of value and stretching his supply lines beyond their sustainable limits. This is not a viable option for Iraq.
Enough top officers may fear Iraqi lynch mobs (especially if their are clan, Sunni/Shiite issues involved) or post-war tribunals to the point that they want to go down with the ship rather than face such wrath and retribution. They probably couldn’t have risen very high without some complicity with Saddam’s repression. Your reassurance is not so reassuring, unless you have other ideas. Perhaps Bush will try to make sure ahead of time that there will be some sort of Amnesty for higher-ups who go quietly without a fight.
One of the operations going on now is the dropping of leaflets over iraqi army installations with the name, address and phone number of each command office at the station. This send of pretty clear mesasge of ” We know who you are, we know where you live and hey boys! any of you guys ever heard of a place called nuremburg”?
Rumor has it that late in the evening phone calls are being placed to members of the iraqi officer corp by our intelligence guys to make sure that when the bell starts to ring, that the big dogs stay on the porch.
given the fact that iraqi air defence has been shooting for 10 years at our aircraft and havent hit one of them yet, I’d say our chances of getting the Iraqi army to stand down at the right time are pretty high.
There will be cash under the table, quiet offers of amnesty, and most of all — speed.
Most anything of value will be in US/UK/UN possession before half the Iraqi army knows the war has started in earnest.
I’ve been thinking about this alot lately. Im pretty sure that the iraq thing is going to be much closer to the Panama invasion back during “Bush I”, than it is to the first gulf war.
If saddam can be isolated or eliminated right away, either in fact or by deception, from the rest of his command structure, as was done in panama, then I think things will move rather quickly.
In all honesty, I also have to say that I think that Iran wil fall before Iraq will, and that when it does happen it will happen very quickly as well.
On to North Korea!
Saddam Hussein pulled out all the stops at his disposal last time around . . . nerve agent and chemical attacks against US troops and Israel, burning the oilfields . . . and his army officers were the ones who executed the orders. Why do you think things will be any different this time around?
Paul Woodford
Paul,
Last time around the Iraqis were burning down someone else’s house. This time they would be burning down the house they live in.
And if they do that, they really don’t have us to blame for it, do they? I mean, it’s not as if they have anything we truly need. Including the oil. Saddam can set fire to all of his own oil wells for all I care.
Oddly enough, the Left has conveniently forgotten the pollution last time he did that. If he does it again it’ll make last time look like a campfire in comparison.
I strongly doubt this stuff about Saddam destroying Iraq as his farewell. Israel, the USA, and any Arab country that hosts US forces will surely be the targets.