Dispatch from the Front III

In this dispatch, I'll look at some of my correspondent's thoughts on the nature of the enemy. What is it like to fight an enemy that is not arrayed in traditional battle lines, but blends in and hides among a civilian population, a population that often supports the enemy? How does this interaction between insurgents, terrorists, and population play out?

I think too many have the will to fight and they think they can get away with it... There are 4 main groups we are fighting. The foreigners-less than 5% BUT they are the ones doing suicide bombings. All iraqis agree on this, they are disgusted by this. Moreover and good for us and iraq is that many people have become outraged with the attacks targeting iraqis...

Then there are the various other sunni tribes, religico sponsered groups like sadr, and regular nationalists and criminal mafia gangs. It amazes me how the media just blindly lumps all sunni and shia as monolithic entities.

My theory is journalists are a bunch of clowns who couldn't pass any other major in college so they took what was left. That's why they write such boneheaded articles with such an obvious lack of a clue that you would think they would be embarassed to broadcast their ignorance.

The divisions are more like the catholic protetestant wars of the middle ages(not as violent any more, usually-although pakistan is the exception).

The key is the tribal groups, family affiliation, home town or region, ethnicity. and how that all interacts at the denominational level is a true wonder.

The complexity of all of religious divisions so often escapes most media. At times the enemy of my enemy thing comes into play but in reality fundamentalist sunnis like binladen think of shias as blaspemous apostates and hate them at times near as much as any other infidel.

Furthermore, arabs among others are ancient enemies of the persians(who have had like, what, 7 or 8 major empires?) and are not going to swear allegiance to such a figure as a persian ayatollah. And almost as important is the shia denomination. As I am sure you know and are well aware, persia is majority shia but the majority of islam is sunni. For that alone it would have been impossible to gain much foothold.

Anyway, the gist of all of that comes down to good old media bashing. they are complete idiots. They foolishly lump everyone into these monolithic shia, sunni, kurd entities. What hogwash. It's much much much much more complicated than that. Those distinctions are important, however, clan, kinship, tribe, home region etc are major factors in this game and that is lost on so many even now.

I am telling you, NOTHING goes on here, in any town or neighborhood without everyone knowing what's going on. You can't get away with it. You stand out. Your accent, your manners, etc... Everyone knows who are the muj and who are the foreign jihados.

Much of this goes on under our noses and they run circles around us. (oversimplification) But, we don't speak the languages, know customs etc much less the locals in enough detail. The problem is most of the tribesman arent going to rat on their cousins, or they are active/passive sympathizers. They are cowed/intimidated/ or already had someone killed as a warning or collaboration etc.
This place is insane. The sunnis deserve a brutal dictator who gives them nothing but poverty and misery.

Often, though, the enemy uses brutal tactics to intimidate the local populations into not opposing them.

In some respects, I must hand it to the guys running their shadow campaign. They are well organized and funded and armed and they are waging an effective war here. Weekly as of late they are whacking all the right targets and suppressing any dissent of the insurgents/political campaigning/any type of percieved colaboration with the us forces and their widely percieved stooges under allawis govt. More of the potential good guys assasinated today/yesterday/the past week. Amazing.

They are very well organized. They know what they are doing. They have many home turf advantages. Hhave you noticed all the talk about an election but miraculously there is zero campaigning here! Of course, it's obvious why, you would invite death. Or at least tempt it severely.

The Iraqi police are taking it in the teeth-some are infiltrated and provide advance sabotage or begin the negotiating process-everyone leave now or my buddies will kill you when they arrive in 5 minutes. Result-abandoned stations. Known weak areas are bolstered by us troops and they stay only since we are there.

The intimidation process began awhile back and it has been remarkably effective. Look at the hundreds assasinated at all levels of civil institutions and the highly organized kidnapping gangs. Key leaders in towns have been killed-now, do you think the next guy who stepped up to the plate has not cut his deal to survive? It's happening. How to defeat that kind of power?

Or look at the extended threats to distant family, but family nontheless in this clannish society.

I heard the bbc idiot the other night asking why his family didn't have security? duh, EVERYONE cannot be guarded! duh! Who, How, $?! Someone will always be vulnerable unless you gather hundreds of your trusted friends and family into fortified compounds. (it happens) But the less palatable reality is that huge swaths of the population have been cowed and co-opted.

We are fighting against some very powerful hometurf advantages. I have already noted some of our obvious weakest nodes. our dependence on informers for intel and reliance on local nationals for translation. Find and kill these 2 key personnel and that unit is ineffective (since virtually none of us troops speak the language, operations grind to standstills since we wouldnt know where to go, what to target etc). Well, guess what, the insurgency tries very hard to exploit that for its gain!

Howdy. Don't really know about the clerics assasination. There are so many factions, competing interests, feuds, tribal squables, extremest religious wackos with you name it we got it animosities, blah blah blah etc.

Each and every faction, tribe and ethnic group has (always) had their agents, saboters, provacatuers, spies, etc. The kurds know who is who. Any town, village, neighborhood is continually watched. Everyone knows what the other is up to. A product of a police state I might imagine. Or just the suspicious arab mentality. Or simple human nature for that matter.

A few thoughts on the enemy fighters:

See, all the stupid ones are killed off over the course of the past year, darwinian selection has culled the smarter ones into our current oppo. So instead of goofs going after the whole tank with an ak like last year now they are gunning for the guys sticking their heads out hatches.

Enemy isn't stupid. One can see which vehicles are which and which ones have less or more protection. They often know what we know. This also why they have targeted those civilian semi delivery trucks, sometimes driven by foreingers, because they have no armor and won't get any either from the us.

It's hard to describe the vast difference between an educated, disciplined professional 21st century soldier and them. They truly are in the dark ages. It's not night and day. It's they are in the 8th friggin dimension.

Notice that many of the dead have the 'wahabbi' beard, a sure marker among iraqis since most are clean shaven or saddam mustached. In fact, if we see anyone wearing the dishdasha mandress we automatically assume a potential fundamentalist islamist who may (or may not) be a threat. Anyone more progressive doesn't wear those traditional clothes. But that's not a hard fast rule. Most are the underclass, uneducated and very poor. Easily manipulated by clerics.

I suspect the latest attacks were from some foreign wannabe jihadis who either wanted some action or to be 'martyred' (which is a huge element of their twisted
ideology/motivation/psychology). Well, it appears they met their match. Anytime they confront our firepower they whither. Number one reason I would say is we can accomplish precision aimed fire. Those clowns think weapon sights are merely a suggestion.

The terrorists are not fighting according to the "rules of war"...

Had some kids throwing stuff at us the other day. mindful of now and numerous other wars where so called kids are supposedly innocent throw all manner of deadly things at troops, ...oh, it's just rocks, some idiot armchair qb says in safety and comfort ten thousand miles away. Hmm, you got but few scant seconds before a grenade detonates and so it's a little too late to identify a grenade or a rock when seconds count and your safety and buddies lives hang in the balance. Just ask my buddy, shot at some kid a few months back who was throwing what turned out to be a grenade.

This war, like many others, has lots of issues in it that don't fit some neat, orderly definition of so called civilized rules of war. At times, I wonder how someone can discuss rules about something so illogical as war is beyond me. For starters, I would like to point out that it is illegal for insurgents to be using places of worship, education or medicine to fight from or within. Uh-oh!

In addition, it is illegal for insurgents to fake surrender, death or injury with the intent to kill or harm their captor or rescuer and place traps or explosives on corpses or the wounded. Looks like they didnt read the 'rule book' once again.

It is also illegal for insurgents make carbombs that attack and murder civilians, kidnap civilians for ransom or use them for protection, and most of all murder any one captured under the tender care of their brand of islam to include soldiers and civilians!

If you haven't been paying attention all of that and more has been perpetrated by the enemy we are now and have been fighting. Several us soldiers have been killed the past week (and many others in prior months) by insurgents using such underhanded methods and ruses. Now, knowing this you might begin to understand in some small way just how viscious, nasty and brutal this business is.

Neat little scenarios like in the movies aren't reality. blackhawk down and saving private ryan capture the absolute friggin chaos and confusion. When bullets are flying things go to heck real quick, the us military is simply much better adapting to and overcoming such fraileties)

Those clowns have/do use any/every means possible (this has been known for a long time), a favorite has been using a mosque, school and hospital for weapons storage and fighting position.

After having seen the utter and complete savagery of the worst kinds of evil, I cannot fathom how any other response but to resort to brutal tactics can in any other way complete this task. These idiots are not playing by marquis of queensberry rules. much less the modern laws of land warfare.

The terrorists are blowing up kids for goodness sake. Can you imagine that?!! What monsters of satans demons could ever possess someone to do such a thing? I have the normal reaction of denial and say, I can't believe it. But it's real. Every day here.
Can you imagine what ends of the earth you would go to if someone killed your precious innocent children?

I am completely stunned at the barbarians we oppose here. Duping has been done here as well. It would be hard to track the frequency but it's known some are told to 'drop this off' and someone follows behind and poof. Othertimes, a guy under duress is forced to do it or his family gets killed. It's unbelievable at times the level of medieval savagery that can exist here.

How can an opposing force combat an enemy like this? My correspondent has some thoughts:

Bottom line folks, there are alot of violent wack jobs in the extreme muslim fringe who are, have and will cause more violence here, in europe and america and elsewhere.

The only way you can oppose them is to kill them or jail them. If you believe otherwise, just visit Iraq and try to reason with them. I am sure you will regret it later when your head is cut off.

Perhaps it's not too late to dig us out of the mirey morass-like abyss we dug for ourselves. In my optomistic moments (like today for instance) I feel good about the future prospects... We took the gloves off and pounded najaf and samarra and those clowns are scared in falooja. How to tell an arab is scared and knows he is in imminent likelihood of losing? They want to call of any current offensives for "negotiations".

The best way to "negotiate" with the terrorists is: 1. with survivors, 2. barrel in his ear, boot on head, 3. just kill them all and impose your dominance on whatever's left.

I've said it a hundred times, talk is cheap here, it's seen as weakness, power is respected. If not at least that, you must beat down your enemy so much so that they are utterly weary of further resistance. It's the law of the jungle played out in modern times.

My historical model that i think accurately describes the mentality of at least some of the current enemy/threats is suicidal/kamikaze japanese. Tthere was no way to negotiate with that type of soldier like could say be done with a german. The only way to deal with that was killing.

People who fly planes into buildings looking to destroy a civilization (and just as if not more importantly the ones who send them on such missions) cannot be won over at some treaty/council/tea party like some kerryesque fantasy would have us believe.

Remember a more sensitive war? Perhaps he was referring to a broader issue but the fact remains you don't talk down a mad dog, the only option is to kill it. Enough of all this talk of killing. I think I shall go play some mozart and dream of a happy, peaceful far off land.

In the next dispatch, we'll take a look at some thoughts from around last year's Presidential election.

Dispatch from the Front I
Dispatch from the Front II