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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: quehubo who wrote (36057)	8/6/2002 3:02:25 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi quehubo; Re: "Interesting Bigbull, I remember before the Gulf War we were cautioned that the Iraqi's were hardened fighters from the Iran / Iraq war. Also OBL and all of the warriors in Afghanistan were supposed to be hardened skilled fighters who defeated USSR." In both these cases, the US attacked countries that had been at war for many years in the immediate past. Iraq in 1990 and Afghanistan in 2001 were not "battle hardened", they were "battle weary". People in combat tend to shoot first at the people who are shooting back at them. The ones that hide in the trenches and do the minimum for their country are the ones that survive the longest. Consequently, armies become "battle weary" by the losses taken by the more gung ho players. By the time 10 years are gone there are no more fighters left, just hiders. Eventually a new generation comes along and the fighters are replaced with new fighters. Meanwhile, the hiders (and runners) go on to civilian occupations. At this time, Iraq has not been in significant conflict for 10 years. That means a whole new generation of cannon fodder has grown up there. They are not "battle weary". Re: "I wonder if the typical soldier in Iraq has any real idea what it was like to be on the receiving end of the type of treatment Al Qaeda caught in Afghanistan?" He doesn't, but unless Iraq makes the mistake of trying to defend empty patches of desert (because they have no support in the cities as in Afghanistan or Kuwait), he won't have to experience the bombing that the others did. He will quickly learn that precision guided munitions are only used on significant targets, and so long as he stays away from stuff like tanks and even jeeps he will be safe from them. As in the Gulf War, the Iraqis will figure this out quickly, but being in cities, their will be places to hide where antipersonnel weapons would result in too high civilian casualties. -- Carl