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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (59466)	1/26/2005 2:01:13 PM
From: energyplay	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Jay - The US Army has enough sense to place bases where there are wells or oasis, and to control immediate upstream areas. Note that I can't comment on US Air Force ;-) Troops do need water, but tanks and aircraft relatively little. Water can be trucked in, maybe from a secure area near the Tigris or Euphartes. Say an area occupied by "Marsh Arabs" that Saddam used poison gas on, then cut off their water. Western Iraq looks like Nevada, but flatter. Not quiet as bad as the worst of Austrailia's outback in West Australia. Convoys can come from Kuwait or Jordan, and bypass population centers. So no encounters with local population. There is enough area that using land mines is not likely to be effective - too much ground to cover, and too much surveilance. When the base is 20, 30, 40 miles from population centers, I don't see the incentive for Iraqis to to drive out towards the base, encounter helicopters firing warning shots before thay are half way there, and get blown to bits if the keep going. Depending on "people power" will have a hard time working if the bases minimize interaction with the local population (they might deal with Kuwuatis) and maintain distance and surveillence. I'm sure one of the secondary goals of the US Army will be to demonstrate that "people power" amd national liberation movements don't work well in a desert against an adversary with huge advantages in technology and resources. This sounds like refighting the Viet Nam war but this time in the desert. I expect this is a major motivator at many levels. Also, I expect the US Army to be ruthless in pursuing this objective, and to control the press reporting at almost any cost. Strategicaly, a US presence for a few years will incline more Arab states to see things the way Quadaffi does. Action for the troops will be supporting air operations, special ops, and recon. After a year or so, they should have satellite TV. Note that the people of Iraq don't get a vote on the remote US bases, and it will be many years before they will be allowed to have military forces which could dislodge these bases. In a few years I expect there will be a vote on US presence in population centers, and the US will "leave" so that 98% of Iraqis will never see a US solider again. I would expect that Iraq may be paid for this, just like the Phillipines was paid for the Subic Naval base. Anyway, in the next few years we will get to see the outcome.