Iraq war question

This may be the stupidest post ever made but i'm just abit confused about something, can someone clear it up for me?

I was just wondering how America, with the strongest millitary in the world, is having such a tough time in Iraq. Why can't they easily brush them off, and have as many casualties as they do?
We hear conspiracy theories and reports of America developing amazing military weapons, surveillance equipment etc.
I think what i may be getting at is what would happen in a REAL war against say China or Russia, if they find it so hard to do battle with Iraq?

I may have overlooked alot of things, any criticism is welcome.

I think the main reason would be the same as the reason they didn't do too well in Vietnam either. American soliders aren't equipped to fight guerilla warfare. I'm no military expert so I'm sure someone will come up with a better idea. But yeah, I think it's hard for ANY military to kill people that just blow themselves up anyway....or run away....or whatever....

Anyway, I'm interested to see other peoples opinions on this now....got me intrigued.

Remove the reporters, lawyers and politicians, and let the soldiers do what they do best, and we would have probably been out of that hell hole a long time ago.

The only way the U.S. is going to win in Iraq is if they wipe every single person in there.

Why? Because our occupation of Iraq is creating more "insurgents"

No one wants to be occupied.

It also got me thinking, damn there must be a hell of alot of insurgents for them to be causing so much trouble for the US. It's like a huge percentage of the population are insurgents. Or is it that gureilla warfare is so effective that they dont need such large numbers?

Originally posted by Shortness
The only way the U.S. is going to win in Iraq is if they wipe every single person in there.

Why? Because our occupation of Iraq is creating more "insurgents"

No one wants to be occupied.

yea, those dam syrians and chechen rebels want "their" country back

U.S. is definately getting zerged. We have around 200,000 troops in iraq ( correct me if i'm wrong on that ) and the Iraqi population is a little more than 26 million, and if we just assume 1 percent of the population is an insurgency you have 260,000.

Iraq is a much much different theatre than any other conventional conflict, even vietnam. It is almost 100% guerrilla warfare at this point. However, our soldiers are much better equipped to fight guerrila warfare these days. What makes you think we're doing so bad in Iraq anyways? The casualties? Im almost certain that more than half of them were due to IEDs and convoy ambushes. You see, whenever the insurgents try to stand up and fight, they get completely obliterated. It is very rare for the US to lose soldiers in firefights, so the insurgents rely almost completely on IEDs and "suprise" attacks. The best way to counter roadsibe bombs is persistence. Let the enemy know you are persistent as stone. Show no signs of weakness and dont give him the idea you are even considering leaving or giving up. And for convoy ambushes, with the now standard up-armored humvees, its now very hard for them to "score" any kills in an ambush with just RPKs and AK47s. RPGs still remain the 2nd biggest threat, until this is deployed.

Insurgents drive no tanks and fly no planes, so most of our high tech weaponry that we've been developing in the 20th century is pretty much worthless.

[edit on 20-4-2006 by Animalmother]

Yeah it probably is just a case of alot of hit and run, dispersed guerilla warfare tactics that are keeping them going. I agree it doesn't sound like they do to well in conventional fire fights.

Even so, it still amazes me that these insurgents can put up such a fight against the US. Can't surveillance detect their hidey holes? Can't boundaries be put up in secured areas, increasing that area day by day?

I just find it funny how many trillions of $$ are spent on military, and this is the outcome of a war with iraq.

I just find it funny how many trillions of $$ are spent on military, and this is the outcome of a war with iraq.

We spend billions so that we have a military that can defeat any other in the world, not so that they can rebuild any country in the world. We are trying to rebuild Iraq, we already defeated their army in 2 weeks. Occupation is different than the actual war, keep the two separate.

Yeah defeat any military in the world.... yet you cant win against rebels as has been proven in 3 wars: Afghanistan (still fighting), Iraq, Vietnam, SHOOT EVEN KOREA KICKED YOU OUT AFTER CHINA ROLLED ON IN AFTER THE FIGHT WAS ALMOST OVER. The US military ONLY has a chance in a HEAD ON ATTACK, they will NEVER survive gurilla, or other such attacks. The US military is still trained to expect an enemy to be at point A not point B, and what happens when they show up at point C? They get butchered and wind up having their read handed to them. I know this is going to freak out all the bu#es and luvs muh gun people but I dont care.
Americas army woops BUSHES army or the ELITES army has never been able to win a single war if the enemy refuses to fight by THEIR rules.

Originally posted by C0le
Remove the reporters, lawyers and politicians, and let the soldiers do what they do best, and we would have probably been out of that hell hole a long time ago.

From a purely military standpoint, this is absolutely dead on correct. If the U.S. military were to ignore all public access to information, disregard public opinion entirely and were left to operate "unhindered", the war in Iraq would have an entirely different face today.

Of course, this would mean that torture would be used in interrogation, indiscriminate bombing would be the norm, napalm would rear it's ugly head once more and mass confinement of "displaced" individuals or entire civic populations would take place. Then it would be possible for the military to entirely contain the Iraqi situation.

Of course, this would mean going against some basic principles that Americans find sacrosanct. This is not to mention that the military would go against even the broadest interpretation of the Geneva Accord as it would probably be necessary to avoid taking live prisoners to effect the rapid and total de-escalation of the war without the continued threat of renewed guerilla warfare. Furthermore, "secret" incursions into foreign countries (much like what happened in Vietnam when the U.S. troops went into Cambodia) to eliminate insurgent training camps and arms caches would be necessary.

Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. could win this war quickly and decisively. However, the cost in innocent lives would be genocidal in nature and the lines between justice and evil would be, perhaps irretrievably, blurred.

Depends on how you fight an effective guerilla war. The U.S. for example fought the insurgency in the Phillipines which cost in lives and resources and won. Its usually the politicians that cares more about their careers than about winning. They pull troops out if they believe they win more votes.

Originally posted by T0by
Yeah it probably is just a case of alot of hit and run, dispersed guerilla warfare tactics that are keeping them going. I agree it doesn't sound like they do to well in conventional fire fights.

Even so, it still amazes me that these insurgents can put up such a fight against the US. Can't surveillance detect their hidey holes? Can't boundaries be put up in secured areas, increasing that area day by day?

I just find it funny how many trillions of $$ are spent on military, and this is the outcome of a war with iraq.

they do, but they can only do so much, I think that they locate and destory 40% of IEDs.

OK, one point that might answer the original question.

I was just wondering how America, with the strongest millitary in the world, is having such a tough time in Iraq. Why can't they easily brush them off, and have as many casualties as they do?

Lets just imagine a scenario of, say, 200 people in a bustling market place. There are 50 soldiers on patrol at this market place. The soldiers are on the look out for any 'terrorist' suspects.

How many do you think they could spot among the 200 people?
None. The reason being is ,you, nor i, knows what a terrorist looks like. The soldiers have no chance against a suicide bomber/terrorist. They are fighting an unseen force, hence the amount of casualties taken by the US forces.

We can define the word 'terrorist' but we cannot define what one looks like.

The fact is, a conventional military can not defeat an insurgency. Even our Special Forces couldnt win if we had enough of them to fight the war with just special forces. We found this out in Vietnam when our special forces were decimated. Its just the nature of conflict, for every move there is a countermove. There is always a way to counter something.

another good point, is that the us is effective at putting out propaganda. Alot of people think the US is the best military in the world, is it? who knows. Its been along time since WW2, and we won that one with help, and a couple nukes. Me, I believe there is alot of hype in the air. Small countries (bombed out and war torn), do not an effective test of a military make.

Dont believe the hype. See with you're own eyes.

I'm pretty sure if the US government really took off the gloves she could probably gain a victory(maybe). But to understand the problems you have to look at it from many military perspectives. I'm not a military expert but this is what I see.

1. Guerilla war is centuries old, you could look up ancient and middle age wars and probably find effective guerilla warfare. It's always been difficult and at times impossible to fight.

2. Picking on the US does no good, this government is not the only government with superior tech that has lost to major inferior forces. Russia lost in Afghanistan. Israel lost in Lebanon, today Lebanon is a hostile territory to the north. They occupied but they lost. I even heard(and someone can confirm this) that the allies had a hard time intially occuppying Germany after WW2. Of course this is not to say its impossible to win, but you can just as easily lose these kinds of wars.

3. People get addicted to powerful tech, but IMO warfare always has a level of difficulty if the people your fighting put up serious resistence. It's always easier if the oneside is willing to give in when defeated. If you study war more closely you'll see this. It is true that the more powerful do win most of the time, but it can be after serious difficulty. Example is the British and the Zulus.

4. Iraq has a history of serious resistence to foreign occupation. It's not impossible to permanently occupy and take over that country, but its hard. As a matter of fact according to Iraqis there is no major evidence of sectarian conflict throughout its history and the people there have usually been united against foreign occupiers so the current sectarian conflict is unique.

We can see this throughout the history, for instance the British occupation after WW I had to deal with serious resistence. I've read there was one famous battle where 8,000 Iraqis and 2,000 British troops were killed, the British decided to drop Sarin Gas on the country. The Mongolians caught hell in that country despite delivering severe military blows, they couldn't quell the resistence, and I believe they occupied it for three years before leaving. The US has so far been there for three years.

The Iranians couldn't conquer Iraq and Iraqi's couldn't Conquer Iran. The Ottomans dealt with resistence though they successfully occupied the country. I don't think the resistence to them was as serious. The modern country has borders drawn by Britain and has at many times had to be held down with an iron fist, especially because of the Kurds. What did you think the US would get when they got there. The problem is we all were intially into the hype.

Plus the occupation is even more difficult when you have other global military responsiblities. The US is a global military power, it can't just use all of its force in one country. Even the Mongolians had been spread out quite far by the time they occupied Iraq.

5. The US invaded 2 Muslim countries with a history of serious resistence to foreign occupation, Iraq and Afghanistan. I kind of makes me the think the US is caught between Iraq and a hard place.

6. US could be more destructive hoping for a victory that way, but then the way the US invaded makes such actions difficult politically. Our government had to sell this war to the world, but specifically the Muslim world and more improtantly the middle eastern countries. The way we attacked, was based on help from the countries in the area. We didn't just invade the middle east until we hit Iraq, or conduct a war directly on Iraq from the sea. This means eyes are watching, and governments are frantic and worry about their stability. Destroying Iraq could exasperate that instabilty causing wider regional problems. I presume someone will disagree with this.

7. Finally theres evidence of poor planning, with the we thought the chips were going to fall into place mentality.

Originally posted by C0le
Remove the reporters, lawyers and politicians, and let the soldiers do what they do best, and we would have probably been out of that hell hole a long time ago.

Yeah the politicians are making sure the money is going to their friends and black projects to insure the future supremacy of american power and letting them soldiers fight with secondhand stuff...

Which side are you on?? the generals who want to get rid of this government or .......

[edit on 21-4-2006 by motionknight]

America has the best weapons, and a huge army, but that doesn't mean they have the best army, they don't, but going into full battle is one thing, but when there doing there patrols, and the Iraqi's, are hiding and sneaking around they don't know who's enemy and who's not as they get, a lot of civvies in on the action in the name of Allah. Its a bit hard to look good without killing a majority of the Iraqi's ,..


MIKE