Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (89831)	4/4/2003 12:24:45 AM
From: paul_philp	Respond to of 281500

To buy into "the CIA did it all" theories is just another method of buying into Arab victimology. The CIA may fish in troubled waters, but it isn't that powerful or effective. Nor does it answer the question of how the US is supposed to be responsible for all the other Arab regimes. If the CIA was nearly as powerful as some suggest I would expect very different behavior from the Arab leaders over the past 50 years. They don't act like the CIA could kill them at any moment. Paul

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (89831)	4/4/2003 12:52:46 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

> This kind of de facto alliance is a long, long way from saying that the CIA "installed" the Ba'ath regime. If by "install" you mean they sent their own hitman to do the job, then no they did not. More likely what they did do was to provide "guidance", money, protection before the coup, and perhaps most importantly an assurance to the perpetrators that if they were to succeed USA would support them and will have no problems with them. Often times this is enough. > To buy into "the CIA did it all" theories is just another method of buying into Arab victimology. You have not heard some of my debates with Arabs then. I blame them very much for what happens to them. They think I am brainwashed by US propaganda! But the fact remains that CIA is not some ignorant, clumsy, timid institute. They are very much alive and kicking and in a region like the middle east they work hard in protecting US interests. So yes, they are involved in every major event that goes on. The problem is, that controlling and foreseeing human affairs is even harder than beating the stock market 10 years in a row. Fund managers in general are not uneducated, stupid, without resources, or lazy. And yet the dynamics of human behavior in stock market makes is near impossible for 99% of them to beat it years in a row. So you can imagine how much harder it must be for CIA to successfully control every political and economic current. This is why I prefer a more hands off approach. Think of it as the political equivalent of indexing and passive management. ST

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (89831)	4/4/2003 4:06:48 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If we do end up in "House to House," in Baghdad, lets hope they have listened to the Israelis and have some armored Bulldozers ready. "New York Times" >>>>> In Nablus, the Israeli Defense Force achieved its most remarkable success, taking control of the city's casbah, a densely populated maze of narrow alleys and old stone buildings, in just a few days. Israeli forces used no artillery, and despite estimates predicting dozens of casualties, sustained just four. The key to success was a sort of "planned unpredictability." Instead of using conventional linear tactics, taking the outskirts of the town first, then systematically clearing every house, Israeli forces simultaneously attacked from many directions. They used a technique known in military jargon as swarming, in which many small units, moving in zigzag patterns and other seemingly random formations, infiltrate to the middle of the city and attack from the inside out. Units constantly disappeared, only to re-appear in completely different places, attacking from new angles that kept the defenders disoriented and unable to dig in. The swarming tactic, of course, isn't a magic cure for the problems associated with urban combat. It is a nightmare for the staff officers trying to coordinate the various units, and it is extremely difficult for the fighters themselves to keep abreast of the big picture. Yet American forces, which have more communications technology than even the Israelis, are surely capable of engaging in unconventional fighting tactics. Furthermore, Iraqi forces are not well coordinated and, long out of contact with the outside world and recent military history, would likely be hard pressed to understand what a swarming force is trying to accomplish, let alone confront it. Israeli experience, as well as Marine Corps studies since 1996 of war games based on urban combat, also shows that most casualties in urban fighting occur when soldiers move along the city streets, exposed to enemy fire. Therefore when Israel took the casbah in Nablus, soldiers moved through holes they cut or blasted in the walls between attached houses. Israeli snipers positioned themselves in the tallest buildings and worked closely with troops at the street level to identify targets and confound their enemies' expectations. As one Palestinian fighter said afterward: "The Israelis were everywhere: behind, on the sides, on the right and on the left. How can you fight that way?" There are also important lessons to be learned from Israel's battle in the Jenin refugee camp. That part of the operation made worldwide headlines after the Palestinians gave reports of 500 of their own dead and indiscriminate Israeli destruction, claims that the United Nations has since dismissed. Ironically, it was Israel's reluctance to storm Jenin in full force, as well as its commitment to protecting Palestinian lives and property at almost any cost, that resulted in more Israeli and Palestinian deaths and more destruction of property than would otherwise have occurred. In an effort to avoid civilian casualties and bad publicity, Israel refrained at first from using bulldozers and tanks in the camp. Only after 13 of its soldiers were killed in an ambush did the defense forces put bulldozers to widespread use. Since the battle was already under way, however, this was much less precise and far more ruinous than had the Israelis gone into battle full-force from the outset.<<<<< REST AT: nytimes.com