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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (85003)	11/9/2004 5:35:48 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793822

THE WEAPONS Machines of War Grope in the Dust and Shadows By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. - NYT FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 8 - The Americans had tanks and bombs. The insurgents had the shadows. Hours after American troops captured the peninsula just across the Euphrates from downtown Falluja early Monday morning, outgunned insurgents continuing shooting, and taking constant fire from the Americans' far more powerful weapons. On the peninsula, the Americans had tanks, Bradleys, .50-caliber machine guns, long-range sniper rifles and a new type of Humvee-mounted Gatling gun that soldiers say can fire up to 2,000 7.62-millimeter rounds per minute. Overhead, Cobra helicopter gunships and jets swooped in to shoot missiles and drop bombs. The insurgents' weapons were comparatively timid: mortars, Kalashnikov rifles with their firecracker-like pop, and rocket-propelled grenades with a 400-meter effective range. The Americans were 500 meters to 600 meters away - close enough for the insurgents to strike, but only with a high trajectory, and luck. But the insurgents had another ally: the dark crevices and shadows of the two- and three-story buildings along the eastern edge of the Euphrates that they used to cloak themselves from American shooters and tank crews. Insurgent snipers hiding in the back of rooms facing the river still have "height and coverage from the building, where it's hard to see the muzzle flash," said Sgt. Maj. Lee Hatfield of the Marines. "Because he doesn't come up close to the window, he's got some standoff from the window, so it's really hard in a darkened room to see him." Lt. Col. Steve Dinauer of the Marines, whose troops had seized control of the two Falluja bridges across the Euphrates around midnight, said it was often hard to target the insurgents, even with the advanced thermal-imaging technology his troops possess. "You got a whole urban frontage, and they just stand back from the window maybe five feet in the shadows and it's very hard to pick them up," he said. But an insurgent who reveals himself may have made his last mistake. An insurgent allowed himself to be spotted by the crew manning the Humvee-mounted Gatling gun after his grenade-launcher kicked up enough dust to allow them to see his silhouette in the building. The Americans' high-speed gun fired. "It cut him apart," said a soldier who witnessed the exchange. The insurgents across the river appeared to be shuttling from building to building, allowing them to dodge some of the heaviest doses of American fire. "I would estimate from the volume and different types of fire and the different points along here that we may have 10 guys" firing at them, Colonel Dinauer said. By Monday morning, Colonel Dinauer's troops had secured the entire peninsula just south of downtown Falluja, where troops had set up a checkpoint to prevent people from leaving or from entering the city, he said. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

To: LindyBill who wrote (85003)	11/9/2004 6:29:28 AM
From: Sig	Respond to of 793822

<<What the Mullahs Learned From the Neighbors>> Not much. 1. Is the world a better and safer place if every country develops nuclear weapons ? Ans No 2. Only powerful miltary force prevented the Taliban and OBl, and Saddam from achieving nuclear capability. 3. Who gets to decide which country will or will not be permitted nuclear weapons.? The UN has no enforcement powers and sanctions are not enough. 4. What could or should have been done in the case of India, Algeria, Pakistan, or N Korea.? When present nuclear powers like France, Algeria, and China are selling them components to build weapons. 5. So it is obvious that present powerful Nations are not serious about nuclear non-proliferation. Just ineffective talk so far except for what the US has done in Pakistan and Iraq. 6 The centrifuges are in place, the yellow- cake is being refined, the missiles are being tested. Is there any leader or organization on the world stage who can stop this insanity? Sig

To: LindyBill who wrote (85003)	11/9/2004 9:15:22 AM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 793822

Pollack participated in an Atlantic Monthly wargame on Iran, in this month's Atlantic. Interesting reading. The conclusion: we have no feasible military options to stop the mullahs from getting the bomb, and neither does Israel. Derek

To: LindyBill who wrote (85003)	11/9/2004 9:08:33 PM
From: Bridge Player	Respond to of 793822

Excuse me, but does anyone else think that Pollack is full of crap? This "OP-ED" piece is so full of self-contradictory nonsense that it makes me want to puke. A few simple examples should suffice: ....A multilateral approach can produce results where a unilateral course may fail. ....The problem came over the next decade, as these countries repeatedly broke ranks with America and Britain and the pressure on Baghdad abated ....It's worth recalling that over the past 15 years we have seen Iran back down in the face of the threat of multilateral sanctions ....(Not surprisingly, once the European threat faded, the program was restarted immediately.) ....One of the goals of a balanced approach should be to convince Iran to accept a robust inspection program with a legitimate threat of sanctions to back it up. ....After that, the international inspectors and the security services of many countries repeatedly caught the Iraqis cheating, lying, smuggling prohibited goods, undermining the sanctions and otherwise violating their pledges time and again. But we were never again able to come to any agreement at the Security Council to sanction Iraq - let alone those countries that were violating the resolutions on Iraq. In other words, the multilateral approach with Iraq failed. But the only solution to the Iran problem is a multilateral approach. Blecchhh. Pollack doesn't have a clue. For this worthless garbage the Brookings Institution probably pays him handsomely.

To: LindyBill who wrote (85003)	11/13/2004 9:22:22 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793822

As usual, Pollack has worthwhile things to say, though many people won’t like them, and thus will not listen to them. This is something I’ve been saying for months: …we do not have a realistic military option there. Our troops are spread thin, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards could mount a far more potent military insurgency than the rebels in Iraq. Nor do strategic air strikes on nuclear targets seem like a viable alternative. One lesson Iran learned from Iraq was to widely disperse its nuclear facilities, duplicate them, hide them and harden them. Today we do not know enough about Iran's nuclear network to know if a widespread air campaign could even set it back significantly There are other factors the Pollack doesn’t mention: the size, topography, and population of Iran would combine to make occupation virtually impossible, and while many Iranians do not much care for their current government, it is also a country with a long history of energetic nationalism. Invasion is far more likely to rally people behind their government than to convince them to rise up against it. This, I think, is an excursion into fantasy: One of the goals of a balanced approach should be to convince Iran to accept a robust inspection program with a legitimate threat of sanctions to back it up. It’s a great idea, but it just won’t work. The only sanction that would mean anything would be a boycott of Iran’s oil exports, and the current supply/demand equation in the oil market makes that impractical, to say the least. It’s going to be damned near impossible to build any kind of consensus behind pulling over 4M bpd off the market, and even if we do, the sanctions would push prices and demand so high that they would only be enforceable by physical blockade. The reality, hard though it may be, is that if the mullah’s put on a reasonable show of cooperation, they can probably get away with doing whatever they want – including what the N. Koreans have already done.