Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "I think this commentary is nonsense."
I agree, but...
Re: "If half the army was still loyal to Saddam, the Ba'athists might have put up a respectable fight against the Americans instead of melting like butter, at least enough to save their honor, and wouldn't have to be relying on imported jihadists now."
While I doubt that half the army was loyal to Saddam, your logic doesn't follow. Even loyal troops "run away and live to fight another day", when faced with overwhelming foce.
It's stupid to let the Americans kill you in a standup battle when they're going to win no matter what, and you can instead kill far more of them by becoming a guerilla force.
It's a fact of military history that there are very few battles where a side that knows that it will lose puts up much of a fight. There are so few battles of this nature, where there is true martyrdom / heroic sacrifice / whatever you want to call it, that the battles where this extreme bravery was displayed are known to all, and are still discussed even halfway across the globe and thousands of years later.
The vast majority of the time, the side that knows it will be beaten does its best to save itself. In most battles, neither side knows (for sure) that it is doomed, and when the losers do figure it out, it is too late to avoid a lot of casualties. But despite this, most casualties are inflicted on retreating troops.
The concept of "enough to save their honor" is silly. Are you saying that the Jews are dishonorable because the majority of them did not fight Hitler (there were exceptions, and as with other examples of human bravery, these will be remembered for thousands of years) but instead quietly boarded trains that they knew would take them to their death? The fact is that the vast majority of the human population is not particularly inclined towards martyrdom, especially in the face of overwhelming force. The ones who do fight back are the heroes, but they are rare. Despite this, armies still fight on, and the still appear to be fighting on, with more US deaths since Bush declared an end to it.
-- Carl |
