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

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (119908)	11/18/2003 3:34:56 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

our failing tactics: US troops launched a barrage of mortar and tank fire at targets in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit yesterday, in a new and more aggressive shift in military strategy. Troops from the US 4th infantry division early yesterday fired at buildings thought to have been used by insurgents. There were 38 coordinated attacks, including one in which troops used a 500lb satellite-guided bomb to hit a suspected guerrilla hideout. Later, the troops paraded through the streets in Abrams tanks in a rare show of force. guardian.co.uk This is the BigGun approach we used in Vietnam: big bombs, artillery, airstrikes. It amounts to random targetting and collective punishment, and it always kills far more women and children than guerillas. Anti-guerrilla armies use these tactics, when they have no idea where the enemy is. We target areas, whole towns and provinces, which become free-fire zones. All gooks are VC; all towel-heads are terrorists. If we had good intel, we could do specific targetting. If we knew where the guerrillas were, we could send Special Forces teams to go get them. The fact that we are using BigGun tactics, is an admission of failure. It is an admission that we can't find the enemy. That, in turn, is because the civilian population isn't giving us any intel. And that, in turn, is because we have totally lost the HeartsAndMinds of the civilian population on the battleground. In Iraq, our soldiers will soon be doing what Lt. Calley and the Tiger Force did in Vietnam. Not because our soldiers are evil people, but because the DraftDodgerInCharge has placed them in a position where they have to become monsters in order to survive. The only thing that will prevent this, is to CutAndRun, as quickly as possible.