The point of an insurgency is to blend with the population and strike when you can cause a little successful damage. Controlling real estate simply invites what we are seeing in Fallujah. I stand by my assessment that the insurgents in Iraq are appallingly stupid tactically, which is the ONLY thing saving our bacon. You need to consider the following:
1) They are very willing to die.
2) We stand out like sore thumbs in the population.
3) The population by and large does not love us, so will not help protect us.
4) To date, the insurgents like big bangs and lots of auto weapons fire (head down, gun pointed around a corner as near as I can tell).
The ratio of explosives used to casualties is very high. Most of the bomb size/deaths must exceed 50lbs/person and the ratio of bombers/victims is also high. If you are willing to die and have weapons, you can do much much better than that. I think many people attribute this to good US military tactics. I don't. I attribute it to the blessing of a confused enemy. It is possible, that people willing to die so easily, shut down mentally, i.e. they just focus on dying for Allah and want to go out with a bang.
In southern Africa I remember that insurgents used to use fire, gas on tires tossed around your neck. In Iraq, where they have oil and we want it, they behead people. I would rather be beheaded then burned to death. Look at the US outrage over those Fallujah contractor deaths. What will happen if isolated cases all over Iraq start popping up with US soldiers getting five gallons of gas tossed on them along with a match? Does that require control of territory? Does it require weapons? Hell no, just gas and the willingness to die and the smarts to take one or two US guys with you. AFAIK, they have two out of three of those elements. Thank God they seem to lack the third. We would never win that war! |
