Raid inside Syria by US SOF huge success (Bill Roggio)

[hammelman]

"I don't give a crap who knows who.

If you're working to blow people up for any reason other than saving the lives of the innocent, you need a JDAM sandwich. Period. Simple as that. Good day."

Thats a really open ended statement Seabee. Really open.

[Clavicula_Nox]

I don't give a crap who knows who.

If you're working to blow people up for any reason other than saving the lives of the innocent, you need a JDAM sandwich. Period. Simple as that. Good day.

Yeah, no one is really arguing against that, but there is a right way and a lot of wrong ways to do a thing. If the problem was fixed by simply killing "the enemy," then we wouldn't be having much difficulty.

[meade95]

I don't give a crap who knows who.

If you're working to blow people up for any reason other than saving the lives of the innocent, you need a JDAM sandwich. Period. Simple as that. Good day.

Amen Bro!

As the saying goes "nothing is more complex than avoiding the obvious"....and I think that holds tremendously true when speaking about much within the WOT.......People talk in circles and try to make cut and dry decisions much more complicated than need be......Simply to project an image that they are the smartest person in the room. Or that the "common sense solution" is much to "simple".....

[Clavicula_Nox]

Amen Bro!

As the saying goes "nothing is more complex than avoiding the obvious"....and I think that holds tremendously true when speaking about much within the WOT.......People talk in circles and try to make cut and dry decisions much more complicated than need be......Simply to project an image that they are the smartest person in the room. Or that the "common sense solution" is much to "simple".....

Why do you believe young men turn to Jihad?

[hammelman]

I think common sense dictates that you cannot simply just kill them all. Your "simple" solutions have no grounding in reality. There's never going to be a day when they are all just dead, this is not combat mission where when you score a complete victory they all just vanish from the screen. Your arguments kind of remind me of a 15 year old's perspective on the world - "If we just kill them all then they will just go away." A dangerous and childish opinion.

[meade95]

I think common sense dictates that you cannot simply just kill them all. Your "simple" solutions have no grounding in reality. There's never going to be a day when they are all just dead, this is not combat mission where when you score a complete victory they all just vanish from the screen. Your arguments kind of remind me of a 15 year old's perspective on the world - "If we just kill them all then they will just go away." A dangerous and childish opinion.

Advice - Read in entirety before trying to say what someone elses position is (within this thread as well as its parent thread about the original U.S. strike in Syria). Only a fool could contend my position is to "kill them all" with no other concurent running policies / solutions.

My position has never been to "just kill them all".....However, those that have earned a bullet in real-time......yes, put a bullet in them..... While at the same time looking to CoOp the messages of those preaching hate and Jihad.....via different avenues....... But you're damn right I believe those who have earned a bullet should get one....while we lay the ground work for others in these countries and the youth for a real alternative to the hate they have been fed for decades now........

Via FID operations as well as civil affair type Ops (along with infastructure, healthcare, job creation, etc, etc that we have been promoting and helping the Iraqis provide for themselves).....Not to mention introducing our biggest allies in this struggle in the long run.....the very real notions of freedom and self-worth.......Helping to create an atmosphere which allows for a self-deportation away from radical Islam (not Islam, but radcial Islam).......Not a mandate or a law...but a very real movement that sees a self-deporation away from radical Islam by the tens of thousands (millions)....That is what these real beach-heads of freedom in Iraq and Stan are providing.......

The notion that I (or most others supporting this WOT) just want to kill'em all....is what is childish. Such strawman arguments are what is childish......dare I say pathetic.

I've grown sick of the arrogant, ignorant, timid, handwringing about the world by some today without the balls to roll up our sleeves and smack bad guys in the mouth.....even when that is damn difficult....or going to be a lengthly process that has backwards steps every once in a while. The world is simply too small and too mass casualty dangerous any longer to tolerate such.

I need to stop now. Catch some shut eye before early work tomorrow. I owe BigDuke a response and need to put that together as well (likely tomorrow).

Regards all....

[SFC Kuba]

Clavicula_Nox,

I too am an Iraq vet. I served in the Baghdad AO from 2004 to 2005 doing HUMINT at the task force level. I'm not a school trained intel guy, but I worked in that capacity due to my civilian job as an investigator.

I respectively disagree with you with your linkage of Sadr, Iran, and Zarqawi. During the Battle of Holy Week in 2004, we fought a hard fight against both the Shia and Sunni. I believe many people mistakenly thought that this was a coordinated effort between the two groups. What people fail to see is that the battle came about because of two seperate events: The first Battle of Fallujah and the arrest of one of Sadr's top leaders. Both the Shia and Sunni rose up at the same time...the Shia in reaction to the arrest and the Sunni in reaction to the seige of Fallujah. I heard alot of G2 types at division level try to make the argument that the Shia and Sunni actions were coordinated. I believe it was just coincidence. I wish I could elaborate more, but I don't want to violate OPSEC.

My other point is that Zarqawi would have never communicated with Iran or Sadr. He was a strict Wahabi who would have been completely against that. I know the old adage, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" but it doesn't apply here. Its been my experience that Wahabi's hate Shiites more than any Westerners. Also, how would Zarqawi have met or communicated with Sadr. Its not like he could walk into Sadr city unmolested or look him up in the phone book.

I do agree with you about Zarqawi's limited involvement with AQ. AQ by its own doctrine is a decentralized organization. Zarqawi didn't really come to the Western Media's attention until he started his car bombing campaign along Airport Road (RTE Irish) in the fall of 2004. An arguement could even be made that Zarqawi was a direct challege to OBL's leadership of the "global jihad".

In summary...

Zarqawi, Iran, and Sadr working in concert...no.

Zarqawi working independantly of AQ...definitely yes.

By the way, did you work for an ODA based out of RPC?

[meade95]

Clavicula_Nox,

I do agree with you about Zarqawi's limited involvement with AQ. AQ by its own doctrine is a decentralized organization. Zarqawi didn't really come to the Western Media's attention until he started his car bombing campaign along Airport Road (RTE Irish) in the fall of 2004. An arguement could even be made that Zarqawi was a direct challege to OBL's leadership of the "global jihad".

Interesting post (on the whole, thanks!). But are not your above comments contradictory too a degree - In that correctly stating AQ works out of / via a decentralized organization struture (outside of top 2 it seems all Intel organizations are seeming to confirm, those two being UBL / Zawahiri)......that within such a structure it seamlessly leads to the gurantee that Zarqawi will thus have freedom to do his work independently of some constant oversight (while still being clearly associated to AQ). That is by itself the definition of being a decentralized organization.

And there is no denying that 'AQ of Iraq' was always (and still remains) headed by non-indigenous Iraqis......people who are from outside Iraq and first and foremost AQ members. Virtually all, the vast majority of higher level commanders within AQ-Iraq likewise fall into this same exact category as well.

And what does it really have to do with the price of corn??....when the Western Media became aware (or interested in) Zarqawi. We were well aware of him prior to OIF (Military elements / CIA). His name was on lists early within Stan 01/02.

Additionally, as charismatic as Zarqawi was....With definite leadership qualities....of course there could (even would from outsiders) be speculation of a challenge to UBL's #1 position within AQ....... However, the facts are Zarqawi never asserted such....and on record spoke just the opposite....Be it in messages to the press (which could be suspect, disinfo) but more importantly in letters and records intercepted and/or found after his death........So any such premise was not / is not accurate. Zarqawi seemed commited to AQ/UBL....in his own words and writings....(that doesn't mean he always agreed or wasn't upset with leadership).

Anyway......good details / obseravtions in your post - Interesting -

[hammelman]

Meade you're right i apparently wasn't thinking when i made the above comment. My bad!

On the Iran thing, you haven't answered. If there is something that you don't agree with you either say straw man, or don't answer. I might not have the greatest rhetorical flair and might speak before thinking sometimes, but i always at least answer.

[Bigduke6]

I don't give a crap who knows who.

If you're working to blow people up for any reason other than saving the lives of the innocent, you need a JDAM sandwich. Period. Simple as that. Good day.

I understand your point, and it certainly sounds like good common sense. But as a fun exercise, let's remember we're in an insurgency in a foreign nation, not talking about some Communist/Survivalist nut in the law-abiding US of A.

In an insurgency, in that first sentence of yours, the following words are shades of gray, and different things to different people:

Working

Blow up

Saving lives

Innocent

Each of those terms, though clear to you, in an insurgency are somethng very close to situation-dictated, meaning different things to different people. To follow the policy you suggest, and again, on the face of it it's good common sense, you have to get the interpetation of every one of those terms correct, in the eyes of all the people you need to win the insurgency. Not just how you see them, but how the critical people see them - and of course what's more fun is who is critical can change over time and frome case to case.

So when you write "If you're working to blow people up for any reason other than saving the lives of the innocent, you need a JDAM sandwich."

Consider "working to blow up people." To feed your JDAM sandwich to the right person, you not only have to ask yourself -

Does working mean making a bomb? Feeding some one making a bomb? Making a phone call for some one making a bomb? Knowing some on making a bomb, but not reporting it to police? Thinking about making a bomb?

But you have to get the answer to every one of those questions 100 per cent correct, every friggen' time, or your JDAMS sandwich won't help win you the insurgency, but lose you the insurgency.

This is not really directed to you, but as a general rant, I think it's worth remembering that sometimes the answers are simple and obvious. And sometimes they are not. Frustration with the difficulty of finding the complicated answer, or inability or unwillingness to search for a complicated answer, is not justification for sticking to simple answers.

Things get even worse when the organization charged to search for the answers, is not particularly geared towards complicated thinking or academic rigor, but rather is geared towards (take your choice) killing "enemies", or very cynically providing careers to long-term service officers and NCOs.

[lucero1148]

What surprises me is that Syria does have a capable Russian AA missile defense system and it being a militarized country I find it hard to believe that 4 US helicopters could fly over into Syria without their military not knowing about it and without any defensive action taken by the Syrians. So for my money the Syrians were tipped off and looked the other way for the US to take action. The Syrians made their after action protests but its all for show.

Patrick

[LongLeftFlank]

Some background on Zarqawi, for those who are interested. Seems fairly consistent with the above discussion. This comes from a jihadi source on the MEMRI site (translates Arabic language media) and dates to about 2004. The source material is varied and is not necessarily authoritative, so season to taste:

Al-Zarqawi – birth name, Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal Al-Khalayla – was born in 1966. He and a number of friends traveled to Afghanistan but arrived too late to participate in the Jihad against the Russians.... To quote the Iraqi daily Al-Mada, Al-Zarqawi has transformed himself from extreme depravity to extreme Islamism.

When he went to Afghanistan with a group of his friends and supporters, he insisted, and the Taliban acquiesced to his demand, that he would operate his camp in Herat independently of bin Laden. During his time in Afghanistan, he, unlike all Arab Jihadists, refused to swear allegiance to bin Laden who was at that time at the zenith of his power and influence. It was in Herat, says Al-Hayat, that Al-Zarqawi established himself as a leader of his group known as Jund Al-sham, or the Army of the Sham (historically, the area known as Al-Sham covered Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine).... You may find a group with approximately 20 people and another with only seven, with a house and a guesthouse [ madafa ]. At that time Abu Mus'ab was able to gather around him 80-100 people, all Palestinians and Jordanians. They did not have a madafa of their own, but they did have a center in the town of Lougar.

Moving to Iraq had general causes and specific causes. The general causes have to do with the fact that a group of Arabs – they didn't number thousands as the Americans claimed – moved from Afghanistan to Iraq...Iran, however, put pressure on them.... Their only refuge was Iraq. This happened before the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime but those groups that had moved to Iraq did not have any contact with Saddam Hussein's regime. In fact, they tried not to disclose the presence of its members in Baghdad and they tried to avoid friction with the Iraqi authorities.

The only shelter [available] in Kurdistan for these [Arabs who left Afghanistan] was with the group of Ansar Al-Islam, formerly known as 'Jund Al-Islam.' Previously, there were many Kurds [who had participated] in the Jihad in Afghanistan. They [Al-Zarqawi's group] were in touch with certain people [in Afghanistan], and their region, Kurdistan, was a natural refuge for many of them and served as their first stepping stone to Iraq.

There was also a geographic factor that made the arrival of the Arabs easier. When the American threats first began to appear in September 2002, many companies of Ansar Al-Islam, under the command of a Syrian Jihad fighter who was later killed in battle, took control of the border region with Iran, a rugged mountain region, in order to secure the borders and to secure the passage of those coming from Iran. This was indeed a very clever move. As far as I know, Iran was concerned about it and asked them to distance themselves about 3 miles from the Iranian border so as to avoid any direct contact between its forces and the forces of Ansar Al-Islam.

These are, then, the general circumstances: the Jihad fighters started to move to Iraq from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran. However, the specific point is this… I believe that Al-Zarqawi had in Kurdistan people from Jordan, who were there from 1998 or 1999, and they had a very important role from the point of view of military experience. One of them was a professional in booby-trapping and the use of explosives. This facilitated Al-Zarqawi's [decision] to relocate first to Kurdistan and not to Baghdad....

Some of the operations of Al-Zarqawi's group in Iraq are extremely brutal: incidents of beheadings and boasting of them before the cameras in videos later distributed over the Internet, and car bombs killing dozens of civilians… These movements base themselves on a religious-theological dimension, disregarding the present reality and the nature of things. I believe that those who perpetrate this consider only themselves and do not consider the effect on those they want to address. They focus on their desire to affirm that they are strong and capable of taking revenge…

This brings us back to the basic problem, namely, that there is a confusion of strategies … [that were developed by Islamist groups] in Egypt … for the struggle against the existing regime, which they considered illegitimate. This has been going on for at least thirty years in Arab countries and in effect has not succeeded in realizing its aims… This does not suit the reality in Iraq for a simple reason: that Iraq now needs to revert back to the stage of being liberated from colonialism, [a stage] which the Arab and African nations had entered after WWII… The logic of a war of liberation is totally different from the logic of a struggle against the existing regime in one's own country.

There is now an analogy between Al-Zarqawi's group and the GIA (from the French acronym for Armed Islamic Group - Al-Jama'a Al-Islamiyya Al-Musallaha) in Algeria. As far as tactics, they, Al-Zarqawi's group, carry out acts that we regard as mass slaughter, and [we see] scenes of the slaughter of military personnel or civilians and the issuing of declarations boasting of these actions and counting the dead. The GIA has made these things a matter of common occurrence and subsequently they pay the price for it. Now it seems to me that the group of Al-Tawhid Wa-Al Jihad [Al-Zarqawi's group, 'Monotheism and Jihad '] have contracted the worse form of this [disease] from the GIA - namely, [mode of] operation of displaying your force and asserting your existence and maintaining continuity by choosing very easy targets, usually unarmed civilians… These methods, in my point of view, will eventually lead to the isolation of Al-Zarqawi's group....

Once an oath of allegiance to Al-Qa'ida is made public, you in fact confirm that the local commander is Jordanian, and not Iraqi, and that the core group, that includes this commander, are those known as the Afghani Arabs, and that the international leader of that organization, once such an oath of allegiance takes place, is from the Gulf region, and that the most famous personality with him is an Egyptian. So where is Iraq in this stew?… I believe that the Iraqi citizens will distance themselves from such groupings because they are not interested in Al-Qa'ida's plan.

And this last is more or less what happened starting in 2005.

[Sgt Joch]

I doubt that the Syrians gave the US the green light. That would only make sense if the Syrians also had a reason to eliminate Abu Ghadiya on their own. However if that was the case, they would have done the job themselves. The Syrian security services have never had any qualms about killing anyone who proves "troublesome" to the regime, and they usually do a very professional job.

Letting the US do their dirty work for them is not their style..its usually the other way around (i.e. rendition program ). Plus, from the US point of view, tipping off the Syrians is dangerous, if the Syrians did not agree, Abu Ghadiya would have been whisked away to safety.

The lack of response by the Syrian air defences is not determinative either. The IAF has been able to penetrate Syrian air space for years without any problems, for example when they struck the suspected Syrian nuclear site in 2007.

[Bigduke6]

From the vids, the Blackhawks came in at about 50 - 75 meters, closer to 50. Given the proximity of the Iraqi border, US jamming capacity, and the people the US wanted killed were just over the border, I doubt the Syrians had any idea something happened before the Americans were back in Iraq. Even the Americans take 15 - 30 minutes to get a fighter jet somewhere, you gotta bet the Syrians would take a whole lot longer.

So I would vote for unilateral US action without Syrian complicity.

[LongLeftFlank]

Oh, and the idea that Zarqawi had anything to do with the Badrists is unsupportable. A few quotes from this delightful human being on the topics of apostasy, democracy and blowing up innocent Muslims (again, courtesy of MEMRI).

I am reminded of the famous Patton quote from 1945 at the Ohrdruf KZ. "I am told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now however, he will know what he is fighting against."

The Shi'a (usually also referred to by Zarqawi as Rafidha, or "renegades") as are "the most evil of mankind." They are "the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom." They have been "a sect of treachery and betrayal throughout history." Echoing the fourteenth century Sheikh ibn Taymiyya, whose writings are considered the fountainhead of Wahhabism and Salafi Islam, Al-Zarqawi says: "Beware of [the Shi'a]. Fight them. By God, they lie." Their crime is "patent polytheism, worshipping at graves, and circumambulating shrines."

January 23 2005. Al-Zarqawi presents seven aspects of the heretical nature of democracy:

* In a democracy, legislative authority is performed by representatives who act as proxies for the people. As such, man must be obeyed, not Allah – which is "the very essence of heresy, polytheism, and error."

* Democracy allows freedom of religion, including the conversion to another religion. According to Islam, "if a Muslim apostatizes from Islam to heresy, he should be killed." He added that "One may not make a [peace] treaty with an apostate, nor grant him safe passage or protection."

* Democracy renders the people the ultimate source of sovereignty and the ultimate arbiter on conflicts. In Islam, Allah is the ultimate arbiter. Allah said: "And in whatever thing you disagree, the judgment thereof belongs to Allah [Koran 42:10]."

* "Freedom of expression" in democracy would allow the use of language that might be hurting and reviling the Divine Being [i.e., Allah]

* The principle of separation between religion and state means secularism and the restricting of Allah only to places of worship

* The principle of freedom of association ought to be rejected because it could allow membership in a heretical parties, which implies acquiescence in heresy

* The principle of the rule of majority is "totally wrong and void because truth according to Islam is that which is in accordance with the Koran and the Sunna [i.e., the tradition of the Prophet], whether its supporters are few or many."

May 18 2005. Al-Zarqawi provided the legitimacy for the collateral killing of Muslims in the act of killing the infidels. "The [collateral killing] is justified under the principle of dharura [overriding necessity], due to the fact that it is impossible to avoid them and to distinguish between them and those infidels against whom war is being waged and who are the intended targets. Admittedly, the killing of a number of Muslims whom it is forbidden to kill is undoubtedly a grave evil; however, it is permissible to commit this evil – indeed, it is even required – in order to ward off a greater evil, namely, the evil of suspending Jihad.... Islamic law states that the Islamic faith is more important than life, honor, property."

September 16, 2005

(MEMRI) Zarqawi: "This is a call to all the Sunnis in Iraq: Awaken from your slumber, and arise from your apathy.... the organization has decided to declare a total war against the Rafidite Shi'ites throughout Iraq, wherever they may be.... whoever is proven to belong to the Pagan [National] Guard, to the police, or to the army, or whoever is proven to be a Crusader collaborator or spy – he shall be killed.... we warn the tribes that any tribe, party, or association that has been proven to collaborate with the Crusaders and their apostate lackeys – by God, we will target them just like we target the Crusaders, we will eradicate them and disperse them to the winds.

August 2005. Persecution of Sufis by AQIZ. The leader of a takia in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi was abducted and killed this month; a bomb exploded in a takia in Kirkuk earlier this year; gunmen beat Sufi worshipers at a mosque in Ramadi in January; a bomb exploded in the kitchen of a takia in Ramadi last September and a bomb in April 2004 destroyed an entire takia in the same city.

And the reaction of the Iraqi population, "honourable resistance" included:

Aug. 14, 2005 (WPost) Rising up against insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city, Sunni leaders and Shiite residents said. Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi's guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said. The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi. The postings ordered Ramadi's roughly 3,000 Shiites to leave the city within 48 hours in retaliation for expulsions of Sunnis in southern Iraq.

"We have had enough of his nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, leader of the Albu Ali clan, referring to Zarqawi. "We don't accept that a non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of their sect -- whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds.'' At midday Saturday, men with grenade launchers and AK-47s still could be seen in Ramadi's two contested neighborhoods, Sejarriyah and Tameem.

Dec 9 2005. The number three terrorist on the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (28th Infantry Division) High Value Individual list was detained today in the provincial capital of Ar Ramadi. Amir Khalaf Fanus, an al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorist in the Ramadi area, was wanted for criminal activities including murder and kidnapping. Today, local Iraqi citizens brought him to an Iraqi and U.S. Forces military base in Ramadi. Fanus, also known in Ramadi by his Iraqi moniker, “the Butcher”, was well-known for his crimes against the local populace. He is the highest ranking al Qaeda in Iraq member to be turned in to Iraqi and U.S. officials by local citizens.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq became the dominant jihad group in the country - a fact which generated resentment in the local Sunni jihad groups. The tension between the sides mounted prior to the Iraqi elections on December 15, 2005, as Al-Qaeda used violence and threats in attempt to prevent the Sunnis from voting.

The Iraqi Al-Zaman paper reported that "sheikhs of the tribes in Al-Ramadi said that the explosion that harmed the [police] volunteers was not the main reason for the battles that broke out between the city residents and Al-Zarqawi's men, because the disagreement with the Al-Qaeda members had been getting steadily worse since the [December 15, 2005] elections, after the Al-Qaeda organization saw whoever voted in the elections as a traitor who must be killed. According to [the sheikhs], Al-Zarqawi's men sent threats to those who participated [in the elections], and then came the kidnappings and murders that led to the death of some Al-Ramadi residents. "These sheikhs noted that the activity of tribes’ leaders began to pick up speed after the extremist groups issued many various fatwas. They stressed that the city's residents were determined to liberate their city from the Al-Qaeda supporters."

Jan 15 2006.

A wave of violent rebellion against what they call 'the salafiya and takfir organizations' that they are accusing of murder; [those murdered] include clerics who have supporters amongst the Sunnis, such as Sheikh Iyad Al-'Azi, Sheikh Hamza Al-'Isawi, and, recently, Sheikh Abd Al-Ghaphoor Al-Rawi, who was murdered yesterday [January 15, 2006] by unknown men in the Al-Tamim neighborhood east of Al-Ramadi, just as he left the Imam Al-Shafi'i mosque in the city. This incident [i.e. the murder] followed warnings sent by Al-Zarqawi in the past to the Islamic Party, to which Al-Rawi belonged, and an attack against the Sunni volunteer police that that caused the killing of dozens of Al-Ramadi's young people...

After being chided openly by Bin Laden and others, Zarqawi realizes he has overreached and tries to put the toothpaste back in the tube:

April 2006.

Al-Zarqawi realized that this process was isolating him more and more, and that, consequently, the threat to his life was increasing. This realization led him to react in a contradictory, almost hysterical manner, repeatedly alternating between threats and pleas.

"I hereby declare to the nation the establishment of the Shura Council of the Jihad Fighters in Iraq...." At the same time, Al-Zarqawi did not remain indifferent to the dissatisfaction of the local jihad groups. In order to mitigate the mounting resentment caused by the dominance of Al-Qaeda and appease the local jihad groups, Al-Zarqawi created the Shura Council of the Jihad Fighters in Iraq, which comprised several Sunni groups and was presented as an umbrella organization that included Al-Qaeda but was not headed by it. An Iraqi mujahid, Abdallah Rashud Al-Baghdadi, was appointed to head the council, while Al-Qaeda, and Al-Zarqawi himself, were given no special status, in the hope that this would enable additional Sunni Iraqi jihad groups to join the organization.

He pleads: "Where are the lions of the Al-Anbar province? Where are the lions of the Salah Al-Din province? Where are the men of Baghdad? Where are the knights of Nineveh and the heroes of Al-Diyala? Where are the heroes of Kurdistan? Where are you, lions of monotheism, oh descendents of Khaled and Al-Muthana, of Sa'd, Al-Miqdad, and Salah Al-Din? Where are the muhajirun? Where are the ansar? Where are the people of surat Al-Tuba and surat Al-Anfal, of the Koranic chapters of conquest and fighting? Oh, vanguard of the nation - who will help the bereaved mothers? Who will help the women in the prisons of the Crusaders? Who will help the pure women in the prisons of the hatred-filled Rafidite Shi'ites? By Allah, there is no life except the life of the world to come."

"Beware not to lay down your weapons, for your lot will be sorrow, regret, shame, and humiliation in this world and in the world to come. You used to pray day and night for Allah to open before you the path of jihad for the sake of Allah in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and elsewhere. Then Allah made ready for you the jihad deal in your own land. He opened the gates of Paradise for you, and wanted your own good - beware, oh mujahidoon, not to close these gates by your sins."

Too late. He got his JDAM sandwich on June 7 2006.

[Sgt Joch]

I've grown sick of the arrogant, ignorant, timid, handwringing about the world by some today without the balls to roll up our sleeves and smack bad guys in the mouth.....even when that is damn difficult....or going to be a lengthly process that has backwards steps every once in a while. The world is simply too small and too mass casualty dangerous any longer to tolerate such.

And your point is?

Do you really think that people who play tactical wargames and hang around a wargaming forum do not believe that war is a legitimate foreign policy tool?

I doubt anyone around here is losing sleep over the fact that Saddam Hussein or Abu Ghadiya eventually got what they deserve.

However, if there is anything history has taught us, it is that war is a tool which should be very carefully wielded. If the ultimate result of the Iraq War is yet another anti-american regime in Baghdad, I doubt anyone will say it was a success.

[Pak_43]

I've grown sick of the arrogant, ignorant, timid, handwringing about the world by some today without the balls to roll up our sleeves and smack bad guys in the mouth.....even when that is damn difficult....or going to be a lengthly process that has backwards steps every once in a while. The world is simply too small and too mass casualty dangerous any longer to tolerate such.

Oh please, if Saddam had WMD's and completely given them up, the Western democracies would have cheerfully let him stay in power, smacking bad guys in the mouth had nothing to do with GWII and it is disingenous to ascribe that motive after the fact...

[meade95]

And your point is?

However, if there is anything history has taught us, it is that war is a tool which should be very carefully wielded. If the ultimate result of the Iraq War is yet another anti-american regime in Baghdad, I doubt anyone will say it was a success.

The world allowed Saddam for 12 years not to abide by any of the guidelines / agreements which brought an end (or pause) in the First Gulf war. WMDs and the legitmate questions surrounding his WMD programs or lack of....was merely one item within a list of questions......(and at the end of the day, that question has now been solved. A Saddam regime will never threaten the world with WMDs again.....bluffing or not........and lets also be clear, as has been pointed out before with the coffee analogy..... If you find, coffee grounds, coffee filters, cream, sugar and coffee pots........ While there may not be actual "coffee" there.....it isn't to crazy to assume coffee was made their prior or that the ability to make more in the future was being kept around.....)

More importantly I find it amazing how so many were willing to give Saddam (one of the most brutal and reckless dictators of the past 50 years) more time...and more time....After 12 years of not living up to what was agreed upon to begin with......Yet, the newly established Governments of Iraq and Stan get less than a third that time without people suggesting everything should be rainbows and butterflys........Crazy to me.

But back to your main question/premise above.......

I woudl say.....What if it turns out just the opposite of your description. In the heart of the ME (and within Stan as well). Well then, we've helped to change the world. And events like such don't happen all that often.....maybe once in peoples life times does the world actually change......... And this will be a clear change for the better. An undeniable change for the better.

[meade95]

This is not really directed to you, but as a general rant, I think it's worth remembering that sometimes the answers are simple and obvious. And sometimes they are not. Frustration with the difficulty of finding the complicated answer, or inability or unwillingness to search for a complicated answer, is not justification for sticking to simple answers.

Damn. Try saying that 5 times in a row! Ha. But on the whole here I completely agree with you here 9 times out of 10.

Also, plan to get back with you on your longer post - But bro, that was like an interrogation post......with so many questions......But definitely plan to get back with you with some time. Plenty of good questions.

[abdecken5]

I agree meade95 some have earned a bullet and should get one.

But perhaps it would make more sense to start with closer targets first, such as the Christian/Zionist religious extremists in America. I also agree that a bullet is only one solution, for example, freezing assets would limit their ability to support mass suffering, ethnic cleansing and terrorism.

However, as Bigduke6 was saying, there are so many shades of gray. Do you go after those who have use theology to support politics and believe that Israel must not return illegally occupied territories in the interest of peace or negotiate, those who directly supported the establishment of terrorist states and acts of terrorism or those who favor and influence an unjustified war-mongering, hawkish foreign policy becuase of intolerant fundamentalist beliefs?

forgive me for playing devils advocate, but remember one man's terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

[theFightingSeabee]

Wow, I didn't realize we had so many lawyers here.

The trick here is to figure out the difference between right and wrong without using religion. It's called ethics. Use your brain, not some religious zealots brain, to figure out if something is right or wrong.

If you figure that something is right and is worth dying for, then go for it. If the "other guy" has the exact opposite view, then let the games begin and let the right one (according to my ethical standards) win.

If someone is 'working' to 'blow up' 'innocents', in my opinion, they are 'knowingly' facilitating 'negative occurrances' on human beings whom otherwise are trying to go about their daily lives, which may include 'working' for money in order to sustain, protect, or otherwise benefit human life, ie 'innocent' people.

http://dictionary.reference.com/

We could almost argue both sides of any point, but my ethical values are all I've got, and if someone wants to kill me over that, then I'm going to fight for my life. Many of our enemies are infact hometown heroes, who love their countries and are proud warriors. But there are also crazy people out there who want to see death. They are even willing to die extremely dishonorable deaths in order to see us cry. That's what 911 was all about. They relished seeing us cry and jumped for joy in the streets. I would die for that not to happen again. Even if it means having to feed a lot of people JDAM sandwiches.

[Bigduke6]

That's an excellent case in point. The people that "relishes seeing us cry and jumped for joy in the streets" are, if you want to be specific, Palestinian citizens of Gaza, one of the most densely-populated places on earth, a really nasty place to live, and site of - at least from the Gazan point of view - repeated Israeli invasions. A great many of the Gazans don't even have homes, they are living in temporary housing because where they used to lived, somewhere else in what they call Palestine, the Israelis kicked them or their parents out. The Israelis therefore are a heriditary enemy, and if the Gazans aren't going to lie down and surrender, then they have to fight. The problem is that their heriditary enemy is a regional military superpower, and financed heavily by the US to boot. These people to fight Israel have, basically, rocks and bombs. And guess what? The Israelis and the Americans say fighting against civilians with tanks and fighter jets is morally ok, but fighting against civilians with bombs is morally wrong. So if the Americans get hit with an attack basically fitting into the same means of retaliation, as the only fighting option the Palestinians have against the Israelis, many Palestinians saw that as a win for the good guys, and that is why some of them were out in the street cheering after the US got hit with they saw as the first real counterattack by Islamic people against America; although quite naturally moral Americans and Israelis saw it as a terrorist attack. What the West saw as cowardly and crazy and unethical, at least some in the Muslim world saw as heroic and brave and extremely ethical.

Point being, ethics and the concept of what is right and wrong - in a particular case do not just come out of whole cloth, they come from a social and historical context. Generally every one agrees killing is bad, but people and cultures differ on when exactly an exception to that basic human value is ok. Failure to acknowledge that reality, that different human societies will view right and wrong differently, and to deal with it somehow, almost inevitably condemns you to enforcing your morals in ignorance on some one who will resist you, fired by his own belief in morals.

Changing peoples' values and so morals is not easy, but it is possible. For instance, after WW2, the US and its allies had an opportunity to enforce a vicious peace on Germany and Japan, but the victors wisely chose to enforce a gentle peace, but with the pre-condition that this militarism and state racism; that must go. And that shifted two nations that had been invading their neighbors almost without break for the last century of so, to nations generally playing by international rules and not really threatening any one at all.

So, one option for America of course is to invade every place that produces civilians willing to try and terrorize us, and convert them into nice people and proper citizens of the world.

But if that result is beyond our abilities, we only have two other options: suck it up and deal, somehow, with these people who don't believe what we believe, or attack them with the foreknowledge it's a losing proposition, we lack the will and wealth to defeat them.

Sometimes, lawyering is just obfuscation of the truth. But sometimes, a close analysis of an issue is called "lawyering" by a person unwilling to look at an unpleasant side of the truth.

[JonS]

Generally every one agrees killing is bad, but people and cultures differ on when exactly an exception to that basic human value is ok.

If I can expand on that point just a bit.

Generally, everyone* agrees that killing is bad. However everyone also agrees** that in some circumstances killing is not only ok, it is the right, proper, moral, ethical, and laudable thing to do.

Everyone.

That is you, me, the US, Russia, Botswana, the Army, the LAPD, Scotland Yard, The Times of London, the medical profession, and so on.

Everyone.

The only real difference is which circumstances are right, proper, moral, ethical, and laudable. And that is different for everyone.

Regards

Jon

* 'one' being nations, organisations, groups, individuals, etc.

** a very few religions and conscientious objectors excepted.

[meade95]

Wow, I didn't realize we had so many lawyers here.

The trick here is to figure out the difference between right and wrong without using religion. It's called ethics. Use your brain, not some religious zealots brain, to figure out if something is right or wrong.

If you figure that something is right and is worth dying for, then go for it. If the "other guy" has the exact opposite view, then let the games begin and let the right one (according to my ethical standards) win.

If someone is 'working' to 'blow up' 'innocents', in my opinion, they are 'knowingly' facilitating 'negative occurrances' on human beings whom otherwise are trying to go about their daily lives, which may include 'working' for money in order to sustain, protect, or otherwise benefit human life, ie 'innocent' people.

http://dictionary.reference.com/

We could almost argue both sides of any point, but my ethical values are all I've got, and if someone wants to kill me over that, then I'm going to fight for my life. Many of our enemies are infact hometown heroes, who love their countries and are proud warriors. But there are also crazy people out there who want to see death. They are even willing to die extremely dishonorable deaths in order to see us cry. That's what 911 was all about. They relished seeing us cry and jumped for joy in the streets. I would die for that not to happen again. Even if it means having to feed a lot of people JDAM sandwiches.

I couldn't agree more with your overall premise here - Spot on -

[Sgt Joch]

this thread seems to be all over the place and I am not sure what we are arguing about anymore...

...now back to Iraq...

But back to your main question/premise above.......

I woudl say.....What if it turns out just the opposite of your description. In the heart of the ME (and within Stan as well). Well then, we've helped to change the world. And events like such don't happen all that often.....maybe once in peoples life times does the world actually change......... And this will be a clear change for the better. An undeniable change for the better.

If that turns out to be the case, I will be the first one to admit I was wrong...but let us look at Iraq in november 2008...

The government is controlled by a majority of Shia parties which are closely allied with or made up of the same Shiite militias which were responsible for the bulk of the atrocities committed against the Sunni population since 2003.

The same politicians have very close relations with Iran; they share the same religion, many spent their years in exile from the Hussein regime in Iran and Iran has done all it can to cultivate friendly relations with them.

This is not going to change since the US is doing all it can to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible. It has been handing control of the provinces and of the Sunni militias back to the Iraqi government.

Based on those facts, you are looking at:

best case scenario: semi-democratic Iraq, dominated by Shiites, with close relations with Iran;

middle case scenario: Iraqi islamist republic, dominated by Iran;

worst case scenario: full scale civil war between the Shiiites and the Sunnis.

However, as I have said before, I tend to be a pessimist which is not surprising since I am a lawyer in RL and therefore tend to see the worst in people.

If someone can argue a different result based on actual facts, then lets hear it...