Iraq, a master stroke of military strategy

The Iraq Attack, a master stroke.


Today's Topic: Iraq, the master stroke of
military strategy by that military genius,
George Bush.


Well maybe not a master stroke, and maybe George
was not a genius but just smart enough to take his
military experts advice on how to conduct the war,
but there certainly have been some beneficial things
to come out of the Iraq invasion as it concerns Al Qaeda.

Here are some of those beneficial things that I came up
with when I made this presentation on Oct 11. These are
mostly my thoughts based on various sources, like FoxNews,
CNN, and Stratfor.

(1) It moved Al Qaeda from Afghanistan where they
are very difficult to find or fight and they have
moved operations to Iraq, where their guerrilla
strategy is much more difficult to implement and
also where they have to defeat the Shia (80%) of
Iraq, along with the US.

(2) It enlisted the help of a very good portion of
the Shia population of Islam to fight Al Qaeda for
us.

(3) It threw Al Qaeda off balance and has given
them incentive to redirect their attack against
the US, to now attacking Shiite targets in
Iraq, thus making more and more enemies among
their own Islamic world, who they had hoped to
recruit and rule.

(4) It brought about the resolve to stop the proliferation
of nuclear weapons within dangerous hands.

(5) It brought Saudi Arabia fully into the effort to
stop Al Qaeda.

(6) It gave us an operating base in the area. Before
the attack, the only country in the area that would
allow US troops to deploy from was Kuwait.

(7) Iraq has given a partial financial resource to help
finance the war. Along with getting the Shiites of
Iraq to fight Al Qaeda, some of the bill can be paid
by Iraqi oil which has been flowing for some time now
and much of this money is going to finance the new Iraqi
army and police, and these forces are becoming the front
line of the war, actually taking about 95% of the casualties.


=========================================

For today lets just look how reasons 1 thru 3 have been
implemented.


If you go back and look at what Al Qaeda is up to you
see that the Al Qaeda script planned and envisioned
the following scenario for the war. Sources for this
have been programs on the History channel, The Learning
channel and some from Stratfor. The very good book
by George Friedman, "America's Secret War" also has
some good coverage of this.
(1) USA would attack Afghanistan in response to 9-11 and
try to weed out Al Qaeda from the country.
(2) Al Qaeda would remain hidden away in remote areas
of Afghanistan and conduct a war of attrition over
many years just as they did with the Russians. This
would demonstrate to the Islamic world that Al Qaeda
was powerful and the word of God, and it would discredit
the US who would be further attacked in whatever Islamic
country they had any presence. The movement would grow
and eventually the Islamic caliphate would be reborn
under a worldwide true jihadist government.

The Al Qaeda thinking here was actually pretty good
and based on a model that had given them success
against the Russians. Afghanistan was and is a perfect
place for them to conduct the guerrilla war that they
envisioned. The terrain is so rough and hard to move
in that military movements are very difficult. There
are also thousands of natural hiding places and cover.
This cover is necessary for a guerrilla war for several
reasons. It gives a sanctuary where the guerrillas can
safely hide and just as important it gives transportation
routes that are hidden whereby supplies can be carried
to the guerrillas. This transportation network is all
important to a guerrilla war. During Afghanistan's
war with Russia, there was a constant flow of food
and munitions to the guerrillas. This amounted to
many tons of supplies daily being moved over six main
supply routes into Afghanistan. In east Afghanistan
supplies came in from Pakistan through the following points:
(1) Chitral
(2) Peshawar
(3) Parachinar
(4) Miram Shah
(5) Chaman
Supplies also came in from the south thru Girzi-Jungle
in Pakistan, and some were brought in from the west
from Pakistan when Pakistan was able to get permission
to use the eastern part of Iran.

Of the above routes the first 5 worked very well because
these were all through very rough mountains and this
cover served to hide the supply movements. The worst
supply route was the one through Girzi-Jungle that came
in over the smooth arid, open area, with little
possibility of hiding and with no early warning of attack.
Supplies coming this way were easily spotted from the air
and came under constant attack. This above background can
be found in a lot more detail in the book "Afghanistan
The Bear Trap" by Mohammad Yousaf"

The following all represents my analysis and only contains
two direct Stratfor quotes.

The US military wanted no part of trying to fight a
guerrilla war in Afghanistan if it could be avoided.
The Russian experience of 10 years had shown that it
was a loosing proposition. If the US had sent a
major army into Afghanistan, they could have got
bogged down into a long unwinnable quagmire.
Russia did and England also made the same mistake
many years earlier. Remember, this was just what Al Qaeda
wanted. Also remember, that Al Qaeda wanted these
thousands of targets provided by the US military
so that the Islamic world would unite and help
drive these "crusaders" out of Afghanistan. Remember
also that this was all part of a strategy to bring
new jihadists governments to the Islamic countries.

When the US refused to cooperate by sending thousands
of targets to Afghanistan, the jihadists really had
nothing to do but hide after Afghanistan fell to
the Northern and Western Alliance which sided with
the US to fight their hated Taliban. That is, they
had nothing to do but hide up until the US went
into Iraq.

With the US ignoring Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and
going into Iraq, Al Qaeda had to adjust their plans
if they were going to bring jihadist Islamic governments
as was their plan. So now, Al Qaeda had to leave their
hideouts and move to Iraq, if they wanted to kill American
targets and bring about the uniting of the Islamic
world. Al Qaeda's new scenario was that they would
move operations to Iraq and lead the Iraqis against
the American oppressors. They would lead this fight
and drive the Americans out, and Iraq would be their
new jihadist state. They needed one badly after
having lost their first one, Afghanistan. To add
embarrassment to losing their first jihadist state,
they had lost it while only killing 2 Americans.

So, a good portion of Al Qaeda packed up and moved
operations to Iraq. This immediately put them at
an important disadvantage compared to their original
plan. Iraq is not mountainous with lots of natural hideouts
provided by rough terrain. Supplying an Iraqi guerrilla
was more like they had to do in their southern
Afghanistan which was supplied thru Girzi-Jungle in
Pakistan. Remember, this was the worst supply route
into Afghanistan because of it being an open area
with no natural cover and supplies coming in that way
were under constant attack with little success. This
area also provided no sanctuary for guerrillas because
of lack of hiding places. Moving into Iraq, Al Qaeda
had to give up one of their most precious allies, the
really rough terrain of Afghanistan. Also this really
rough terrain of Afghanistan bordered Pakistan which
gave complete sanctuary for resting guerrilla troops
and complete sanctuary for munitions storage, very
close to the battle. They have no such perfect sanctuary
in Iraq.

Still, Al Qaeda had many American targets in Iraq,
which were lacking in Afghanistan. They also had other
Muslims there to lead against the Americans. This
really did not work out for Al Qaeda, though. The
thing that caused the next Al Qaeda failure was the
Shia population of Iraq and the Kurds. These two
groups made up the vast majority of Iraq. Together,
they probably made up 85% of Iraq. These two groups
had suffered under the former government in Iraq
and they had much incentive to want a voice in the
new government. The US was an ally that was giving
them that voice. The US was offering these people
the opportunity to set up their next government.
These people loved that idea, and they sided with
the US who was giving them this promise and overseeing
the process that gave them this new government.
Al Qaeda, and Sunni resistance did their best to
recruit their Shia and Kurdish brothers, but the
brothers did not seem interested. This led to a
rift of major proportions in the population.
With this failure of the Shia to be dictated to
by Al Qaeda in this war, Al Qaeda decided that the Shia
had to be punished. Al Qaeda started up attacks
against Shiite targets. The Sunni resistance was also
killing any Shia that sided with the US. Between
the Sunni and Al Qaeda punishment of the Shia,
95% of fatalities in Iraq quickly became Shiites.
There is long standing bad blood between Sunni
and Shiite and in final analysis, Al Qaeda could
not resist punishing the Shia for their failure
to join their jihadist movement. About a month
ago, Al Qaeda declared official war on the Shia.
Since that time the fatalities in the war have
increased for the Shia and they are now taking
about 98% of the fatalities. Just for example
take this latest one day report from Stratfor on
causalities in Iraq:

Stratfor quote from daily reports:

1115 GMT -- IRAQ -- Two suicide car bombers staged
separate attacks in Iraq on Oct. 11, killing 38
people and wounding 57. The first attack occurred
at 11 a.m. local time in the main market of Tall
Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, leaving 30
civilians dead and 45 wounded, Tall Afar's police
chief reported. The second explosion, in western
Baghdad at about noon, killed eight Iraqi troops,
and injured 11 troops and one civilian, said police
Capt. Qassim Hussein.

Notice in the above news release, no dead Americans.

The training of Iraqis for the new military and
police continues successfully, and the number of
volunteers increases as time goes on. The ploy
of the insurgents to kill Iraqis cooperating with
the US is not working. More and more Iraqis are
joining the US side. In time, the strategy is for
the US to pull back troop levels and leave the
fighting 100% Iraqis against jihadists.
So not only have we avoided the unfavorable terrain
of Afghanistan, we have gained a Shiite army to
take most of the casualties in this fight. In a
short time, if things continue as at present, the
Iraqis will be doing 100% of the fighting just as
the new Afghanistan government is doing about
100% of the fighting in Afghanistan against the
now banished Taliban and Al Qaeda.

As I said, Iraq was a master stroke from a military
point of view. We avoided a war in potentially
unwinnable environment and have effectively recruited
an army from among those that the enemy thought was
on their side. All this was done while simultaneously
reducing the fear of a future nuclear attack. It
doesn't get much better than this.

Now, how come you don't hear Bush bragging about these
facts on the news?

When Kerry made the charge, "The US should have sent
an army into Afghanistan and got bin Laden", why did
Bush not counter with the fact that his military staff
told him that fighting in Afghanistan is not a good
strategy."

When Kerry said that the attack into Iraq has brought
about thousands of terrorists to go there and fight.
how come Bush didn't say, "An invasion into Afghanistan
would have brought thousands of terrorists to Afghanistan
to fight us?" "How come Kerry overlooks that point
when he says we should have sent an army into a
Afghanistan" "Why does he insist that we fight
the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan where they have ideal
conditions for guerrilla warfare, and he hates
the idea of us baiting them into Iraq, where
conditions favor us and we can recruit an Iraqi
force that is highly motivated to defeat Al Qaeda
in order to set up their own government?" Not only
are Iraqis helping the US against jihadists, they
are taking control of their country. Not only are
these thousands of new Iraqi police and army fighting
the jihadists, their pay is coming from Iraqi oil that
is being pumped, and at the same time Iraq is getting
their own government picked by the people. This is a
total win-win situation.

Bush did not point any of this out because it would
have worked against us. Just imagine if Bush went on
CNN and said, "My plan is to get the Iraqis to
take on Al Qaeda in the deserts and towns of
Iraq." Every Al jazeera news broadcast would have
carried the news that Iraq is just a pawn of the
Christian west. They would have broadcast replays
of Bush saying that his strategy was to get Islamic
against Islamic. You can imagine how inflammatory
this could be to the Islamic world. It would also have
given many more jihadist volunteers.

On the other hand Bush can say, "Lets bring democracy to
Iraq." This doesn't bring much support from the US
public, but it does give Al Qaeda motivation to stop the
US right here and now before Iraq is just another
puppet of the US. That is how Al Qaeda sees it. As Al
Qaeda takes on this challenge they see their whole strategy
slipping away if they see democracy coming instead of their
jihadist government to their second country involved in their
jihad. Bush's message "bring democracy to Iraq" was probably
put forth to the world, more for the Jihadist's sake than
for gaining support among the public. Jihadist's basic
strategy is to bring true Jihadist government to Islamic
countries, not democracy. For the Jihadist to succeed,
they must bring true jihadist government, not democracy.
This goal of the US, democracy, has effectively baited
the jihadists into Iraq.

As long as the jihadists perceive that a coming democracy
in Iraq equates to their total failure, they will keep
doing everything in their power to pull off their
victory, even if it includes the incredibly stupid
idea of getting 85% of Iraq as well as the US opposed to
them. They have walked into a trap, and just as the
American public hasn't figured this out, Al Qaeda haven't
seemed to figure it out either.

Failure in Iraq, will be a major blow to Al Qaeda credibility.
They started out wanting to defeat the US and appear to be
ending up defeated by Muslims in Iraq.

Bush does not point out the success of his strategy for
fear of endangering it, but yet it is a further extension
of his main strategy to get the Muslims of the area to
clean up their own act.

In actual fact, a primary purpose in Iraq was
denial of nuclear weapons to this regime, but
in addition, a major windfall has come about
that has side tracked Al Qaeda from their original
script and now has them pitted against Iraqi
Shiites.

Now go back and read reasons 1 through 3 of how
these reasons have proven to be favorable to our effort.

Maybe next time I will go into some of the other
reasons of how attack into Iraq has worked for us.

Not to get side tracked here but as long as we
looked at the Iraqi casualties lets look at Afghanistan
also:

Stratfor quote from daily reports:

1107 GMT -- AFGHANISTAN -- Nineteen police officers,
including a deputy provincial police chief, were
killed late Oct. 10 during an ambush by suspected
Taliban guerrillas in southern Afghanistan. An Interior
Ministry spokesman said an attack by dozens of
jihadist insurgents against a convoy of some 150
police officers on a dirt road in Helmand province
sparked a gun battle that lasted into the early hours.

The balance of stratfor reports can be read on www.stratfor.com
by subscribing

Again, no dead Americans, in Afghanistan attacks. The
strategy in Afghanistan is holding well as it also
seems to be taking hold well in Iraq.

It seems that finding American targets for Al Qaeda
is getting more difficult all the time.

[edit on 11-5-2005 by Springer]

Majorcee

I have to disagree with your premise that President Bush and the military wanted to fight Al-Queda in Iraq rather than Afghanistan, and that the war effort was planned to go the way it is. Let me address just a few of your points regarding this...

1: Al-Queda and the Taliban were actually easier to find and fight in Afghanistan than Iraq. Afghanistan is a sparsely populated country, with small villages rather than large cities. This made it easier for the conventional military units to force the enemy out of population centers and into the country side where they could use their superior firepower to full effect. Iraq on the other hand is a different story. As we see everyday on the news, Al-Queda is able to blend in among the population of the cities of Iraq, and attack US and Iraqi forces using guerilla tactics such as car bombs and IEDs. The use of these tactics, "levels the playing field" so to speak, as it negates the US's superior firepower advantage. In Afghanistan, the Al-queda positions could be "found and fixed" and then leveled with air strikes and artillery. In Iraq, they must be routed out by house to house searches and raids, and the use of America's awesome airpower is severely limited.
Population density maps:
Afghanistan
Iraq

2: While there is indeed a number of Shia (and Sunni) Iraqi's helping the US to fight against Al-Queda and the insurgents, there are also portions of those groups who are working together to expel the US and the British from their country. Not only that, but in Afghanistan a very large portion of the populace wanted the Taliban and Al-Queda gone. Furthermore, there was already a well trained and experienced fighting force that opposed Al-Queda and their Taliban protectors, called the Northern Alliance. The N.A. proved invaluable in telling friend from foe, and also helped to give the US forces legitimacy with the Afghani people. In Iraq, the opposite is true. For while the Iraqi police and military are courageous they lack the training and experience to effectively fight the Al-Queda and insurgent forces on their own. And, even once they are trained, there will always be those who see them as the nothing more than the "puppet police" doing America's bidding.

3:I agree that the attacks against Iraqi civilians is hurting Al-Queda politically in Iraq. However I would have to argue that it is hurting the US as well. In the eye's of the Iraqi people, the US is the occupying force and is therefore responsible for their safety. Thus every successful terror attack against civilians is a failure of the US's duty to protect them.

To say that the US military didn't want to fight Al-Queda in Afghanistan because of the failure of the 1979 Russian invasion is to ignore the major differences between those conflicts. Al-Queda and the Taliban could not fight a guerilla war like the one the mujahadeen fought against the Soviets as the majority of the population did not support them and would not hide and supply them. Further, as I mentioned before, the US unlike the Soviets, had the advantage of fighting alongside a large contingent of Afghanis in the Northern Alliance. This fact alone, makes any comparison between the Soviet invasion and Operation Enduring Freedom futile.

One other major difference is the technological leaps that have been made in the 20+ years since the Soviet's failed invasion. GPS, Laser guided precision weapons, reconnaissance satellites, and UAV's are just some of the developments that allowed the US forces to engage the enemy at long range rather than fighting close combat in difficult terrain. Thus the terrain became more of an advantage to the US rather than the hinderance it was to the Soviets.

-Cypher

Cypher,

When you said that my premise was that we planned Iraq
in order to get an attack from Al Qaeda into Irag, you exposed
the fact that you had not properly read or understood my
post.

In my post one paragraph was the following:
============================
In actual fact, a primary purpose in Iraq was
denial of nuclear weapons to this regime, but
in addition, a major windfall has come about
that has side tracked Al Qaeda from their original
script and now has them pitted against Iraqi
Shiites.
============================


So if want to disagree with me, at least get it
right what I said. Also I am intimately familiar
with the facts of the Afghanistan/Russian conflict
as well as ours. There are many important
differences between the two, but there was
no shortcoming on understanding the nature
of the conflict on the US side. The shortcoming
was on Al Qaeda's side and it is a very interesting
subject,and I might go into it sometime in this thread,
but at present that is not my purpose, and to
do it justice takes more than a sentence or
paragraph, something I'm not up to right at
this time. If I do go further into the advantages
of the Iraq invasion there are more interesting
and areas just in my original list that I started off
with.



[edit on 31-10-2005 by MajorCee]

[edit on 31-10-2005 by MajorCee]

[edit on 31-10-2005 by MajorCee]

MajorCee,

I dont know that what you say is true, but its a clever point of view. After all, everything you mention may actualy have been part of the plan. Was it? Umm...maybe maybe not, but very possibly. Good observations anyways.

I guess if you are a fan of the current administration, this would be something you could believe and get behind.

I can't believe people still think invading Iraq was about stopping terror. It's all about making money. Ideology is a just a romantic masquerade.

I think the successful attacks on 7/7 & the failed attempts on 21/7 in the UK prove the notion that terrorist attacks are now only confined to Iraq and the general ME area risible.

(oh and don't forget Bali or any of the other places)

[edit on 31-10-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

1. It is not about making money.
2. It is not about oil, we saw that this summer in the US with 4.00 a gallon.
3. It is about establsihing a foothold in the region. They can fight on multiple fronts.

This is a nice perspective, and not far fetched. NIce post.

1. It is not about making money.

Pretty much everything is about making money.

2. It is not about oil, we saw that this summer in the US with 4.00 a gallon.

Which doesn't seem to be hurting big oil's profits one tiny little bit.
And I'd say their interests are far closer to the heart of the current administration than those of American consumers.

3. It is about establsihing a foothold in the region. They can fight on multiple fronts.

Any why establish a foothold in the region? Because there is oil there.

I think the war (major combat phase) was well-executed.
Unfortunately I think the war, especially the lack of preparedness for the postwar situation, was politically a strategic disaster for the US.

Much of the US's infantry strength is now bogged down in an unending counter-insurgency campaign. The US's "soft power" is the lowest it's been since WW2. The war is costing huge amounts of money with no ROI in sight.

I've said it before, before this war the US was seen by much of the world as a guarantor of stability. Now we are seen as a purveyor of instability. And it's going to cost us, for decades.

As noted in my original post reasons 1 thru 3 were
covered of how Iraq has proven to be beneficial.

Also I have previously pointed out how reason 4 was
an original factor for going into Iraq, although I
have not again covered that in this thread. For
your review reason 4 was:

(4) It brought about the resolve to stop the proliferation
of nuclear weapons within dangerous Islamic hands.

Today's subject brings us to reason 5.

(5) It brought Saudi Arabia fully into the effort to
stop Al Qaeda.

As stated, one positive effect of attacking Iraq was a
complete change in attitude in Saudi Arabia. To those
that paid attention during the early days of the Al
Qaeda attack on WTC one fact that came to the forefront
was the massive aid given to Al Qaeda by Saudi Arabia.
This was in the news often. Many in Saudi were giving
large contributions to Al Qaeda. This was actually a
holdover from when Al Qaeda was the Mujahideen in
Afghanistan. During the war with Russia, Saudi furnished
fully half the money to support the Mujahideen and the
CIA furnished half. After the war, the CIA pulled all
aid, but the Saudi connection remained alive and well.
It was Saudi money keeping Al Qaeda fed and equipped.
American efforts to stop this proved useless. Saudi
would do nothing to stop the Al Qaeda support. Saudi
actually had more fear of Al Qaeda than they did of
the US taking action against them.

Saudi would not let the US operate out of there for
action against Afghanistan. Also Turkey and Pakistan
would not let us operate from their soil, although
aircraft overflight was allowed. The fact that Saudi
was funding Al Qaeda, through various groups at home
was in the news often, and this fact incited many to
suggest military action against Saudi Arabia. In
fact the ties to Saudi were very deep, with many in
Al Qaeda coming from the Wahabi population of Saudi,
Osama Bin Ladin being one of them. Saudi figured
to be a large part of Al Qaeda plans. Along with
getting most of their money from Saudi, they envisioned
at some point replacing the Saudi government with
their own model of jihadist government along the
Taliban lines. They did not actually want to destroy
any of Saudi's oil pumping and selling capacity to
do this though. Remember they were receiving much
of their funding from this oil pumping and selling
and this money was their life blood. So, they envisioned
replacing the Saudi government, but holding down
any military activity so as not to destroy what they
foresaw as their cash cow which would fund their
future efforts at global expansion. Al Qaeda was
prepared to take their time in Saudi and put their
attention to replacing leadership their with their
like thinking people.

Originally I had placed in this section a synopsis
of material that I got from some Stratfor reports.
Essentially it detailed how the US had been the
protector of Saudi since they discovered oil in
1946. Also it pointed out that Iran had been
complicit with the US in getting the US to
attack in Iraq in order to bring about the
downfall of the Iraqi regime. It laid out the
blow by blow of how Saudi had to help the US
or carry on with fears of Iran gaining strength
through out the region. Although I had done
a synopsis of this report in my words, it worried
the staff here enough that they don't want to
print it.

So to condense this down as small as I can the
chain of events was this.

Saudi had to side with the US and give help in
routing out Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. They had
to do this because the US was siding with Iran,
and Iran was feared to be a danger if the US
was backing them. Therefore Saudi tried to
regain favor with the US by taking care of the
Al Qaeda problem.

If you want to read more on this subject there
is good coverage in Stratfor reports and also
in Friedman's book, "Americas Secret War"
Unless you read those though I guess you will
just have to trust me, since my synopsis of it
raised some fears in the boards staff here.


And as time has gone on, Saudi has started active operations
against Al Qaeda. Police raids with the killing of Al Qaeda
have taken place and effort to take down Al Qaeda has
been applied in Saudi and support has been cut off. In
the latest letter from Al Qaeda to top al Qaeda leader
al-Zarqawi in Iraq, for example, Al Qaeda was asking for money,
since they are now out of it. This is a new thing. They
use to supply money to subordinate units.

So there you have it. Invasion of Iraq, brought about the
change of Saudi behavior and eliminated Saudi as an Al
Qaeda supporter. Without this invasion, you might possibly
have had to invade Saudi, in order to stop Al Qaeda support.
So eliminating Iraq as a possible nuclear threat had the
bonus dividend of stopping Al Qaeda's largest financial
supporter.

The Bush strategy of getting the local governments of
the area to oppose Al Qaeda continues, and now Saudi
has taken to the fight. This is much preferred over
having the US go into Saudi to do it, just as it was
much preferred that the Afghanistan Northern and Western
Alliances did the ground fighting in Afghanistan.

US invasion was believed necessary in Iraq, only because
of the belief that Iraq was hiding a nuclear program
that could eventually be revived if not taken care of.
Even in Iraq, though the strategy is effectively getting
the Shia and Kurds of that area to clean that up.


[edit on 11-5-2005 by Springer]

Brilliant!

You have voted MajorCee for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

It all makes sense now! Hope you post more. I'll read it with great interested. Before when people asked me if I supported the war, my answer was "I don't see what the people in Washington see", but this is a big help.

Now if you can tell me what what's going on with China and North Korea, I'll give you the title "Complete Strategist"

I'd hate to play Axis & Allies with you MajorCee -



And thank you for dispelling rumors like this one:

I can't believe people still think invading Iraq was about stopping terror. It's all about making money. Ideology is a just a romantic masquerade.

This also means that Bush's motivations were what they said they were (unless he didn't actually believe there were WMD's there), just that he told us the bare-minimum necessary for the support.

P.S. Don't you think you couldn't gone a little easier on Cypher? I though s/he brought some valid points and am still trying to comprehend all that you're saying.

Pray, train, study,
God bless.

[edit on 1-11-2005 by saint4God]

War is the biggest money making racket going. If you want to put dollars in the pockets of your industry buddies....go to war!

Christ, if it weren't for the "War On Terror", Cheney's Halliburton would be up pooey creek with no paddle.

Why do people still romanticise about war as if its some kind of noble raison d'etre for human beings. Beavers build dams, humans go to war.

[edit on 2-11-2005 by uknumpty]

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
I think the successful attacks on 7/7 & the failed attempts on 21/7 in the UK prove the notion that terrorist attacks are now only confined to Iraq and the general ME area risible.

I have seen no evidence on what the 21/7 events were meant to be. One of the defendents claimed he had a rucksack full of flour.

In this original post I had done a synopsis of
of a George Friedman report on Stratfor. I had done
this because I was not allowed to copy the
copywrited material to this board. It was judged
by the board here that I should have given more
credit to George Friedman even though I had mentioned
him by name in a direct quote.

As things have turned out I don't need to rewrite it
since Springer has directed to a very similar report
that was made by George Friedman in another place
and even has additional information.
Here is that report in the words of George Friedman
who does it much better than me anywaywww.gillespieresearch.com...=192 courtesy of Gillespie Research.





[edit on 11-5-2005 by Springer]

I think it's a mistake to assume that the pieces have just been moved from one area of the board to another.

In fact, only 4 to 10 percent of insurgents are foreign fighters, largely from Syria and Algeria. So it's not as if Al Qaeda all scurried down to Iraq from Afghanistan.


abcnews.go.com...

I also believe it would be a mistake to assume that Al Qaeda
have all scurried to Iraq, and I'm glad I have not made
that mistake. Osama for example is not believed to be
there, but to be hidden quite possibly in Pakistan.
It would also be a mistake to believe that
Al Qaeda has not, in fact, moved their primary focus to
Iraq. This has been shown to be true in a number of ways, not
the least of which is their claiming of responsibility for
various actions there. It is also a fact that Al Qaeda
is a multi national organization, made up of individuals
from various countries. And yes it is a fact that Al Qaeda
is only a very small percentage of the insurgency in
Iraq. That does not change the fact they are there
focused on operations, and that this has been favorable
from our standpoint in gaining forces to counter them.
The fact that they are a small percentage of fighters
there is also to our advantage, in so far as Al
Qaeda is concerned. The fact that even the other insurgents
really don't like them much is also in our favor. The
majority of insurgents are remnants of the Sunni ruling
regime. These guys want back the ruling Bath party.
This also makes them enemies of Al Qaeda who are trying
to pull off a victory for jihad and Islam. These facts
all add up to give Al Qaeda major problems. The
odds that they will pull off a success in Iraq is very
near zero.

Hey MajorCee,

Saint4God isn't the only one that enjoys your posts. I love reading your posts. They're very well written, easily understood, and dispel alot of the myths, and rumors that are thrown around as solid fact. Your posts also give an alternate detailed analysis towards the current situation in Iraq. Great work, keep it up. W.A.T.S. for sure.

You have already voted for MajorCee this month.

What's this crap? *click click click* I can only vote once per person per month? I want my money back.

Ah well. Anyway, can you go into some detail as why Iran was totally with us and now they're giving us the middle finger? I think I got a glossing over, that it had to do with the elected parties, but wouldn't it be more to their advantage to either A.) Make friends with us as planned, then sack Iraq when we leave by propogating a "good government gone bad"? or B.) Attempt an economic victory/influence by first appealing for aid for the sake of diversity, producing and selling goods, then buying weapons? (like some other countries we know are doing?)

Maybe I'm missing something. Help please?

[edit on 3-11-2005 by saint4God]

Saint4God said,

"can you go into some detail as why Iran was totally
with us and now they're giving us the middle finger?"


I suspect that Iran had the idea that it would be
easier to control the outcome of the new government
in Iraq than it has proven to be. You can bet that
Iran will be trying to project influence, as much
as possible into the new government and this could
include strategy like you point out. How successful
they will be, only time will tell. Also you have to say
that they have succeeded pretty well so far, by just
getting Saddam removed.

[edit on 3-11-2005 by MajorCee]

*scribble scribble* *looks up* *nods* *scribble scribble*. *raise hand* Oooh! Oooh! MajorCee! Do you think Iran's "sabre rattling" was an attempt to get Iraq to elect a miltaristic regime into office? Also, do you think Iran is trying to imply to Iraq that if they war over Israel, the new Iraq would either have to join in the fight or get trampled on the crusade-march to their Israeli target?

Hey! You got other threads. I need to check them out too...

[edit on 3-11-2005 by saint4God]

Very interesting thread, A thoroughly enjoyable read. Thank you MajorCee
for such a thought provoking article and followups. As you said all we can do now is wait and see how current affairs play out. One thing is for certain, Iran's sabor rattling has a clear purpose. One must only ask, Why now? to see that there is an alterior motive here! Very interesting indeed!