American Dunkirk 1940

[ls317]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0613-24.htm

Is the badly outnumbered American expeditionary force in Iraq in trouble? Is it in danger of being trapped? With all our firepower, are we looking at the possibility of some kind of a military defeat?
As the bad news continues to seep in, debates about exit strategies are going out of date. Another year like the last three and the deteriorating military situation will have us debating what tactics will be necessary to extract our people with a minimum of loss.

We could be moving toward an American Dunkirk. In 1940 the defeated British Army in Belgium was driven back by the Germans to the French seacoast city of Dunkirk, where it had to abandon its equipment and escape across the English Channel on a fleet of civilian vessels, fishing smacks, yachts, small boats, anything and everything that could float and carry the defeated and wounded army to safety.

Obviously, our forces in Iraq will not be defeated in open battle by an opposing army as happened in 1940, but there is more than one way to stumble into a military disaster. Fragmented reports out of Iraq suggest we may be on our way to finding one of them. Defeat can come from overused troops. It does not help that one by one, the remaining members of the Coalition of the Willing give every appearance of sneaking out of town.

[Redstone]

1. A better example would be Dien Bien Phu.

Redstone

[long_green]

7. not yet. When the insurgents get heavy weapons and

anti-aircraft, then it will time to dust off Hell In a Very Small Place, by Bernard Fall.

[tocqueville]

8. naah the US troops are not encircled in a valley

and sitting ducks because of lack of air power due to bad weather which was very determining at that time. If the weather had been good, the combined French/US air power would have taken out the Viet artillery. The US intervened already and otherwise borrowed material to the French. Some US generals wanted to nuke the Viets but both the French and Eisenhower refused.

[rzemanfl]

2. I have long thought that American troops will have to do a

fighting withdrawal to get out of Iraq.

[GrumpyGreg]

3. Dunkirk is a poor comparison IMHO.

[sweetheart]

4. Afganistan more likely

And perhaps more like the soviets in the 1980's, bankrupted by imperial arrogance.

Iraq is more a viet nam, a fall of saigon scenario, and will the helicopters
be pushed off the roof of the new giant embassy, like last time round.

[MadMaddie]

5. I am afraid that our soldiers are sitting in the middle of a desert

(somewhat like the cleared out jungles of Vietnam) and honestly the green zone makes them sitting ducks....From what we know the Green zone hasn't been hit yet?

Tet Offensive anyone?

[tocqueville]

6. Dunkirk is a bad comparison, the fall of Saigon somewhat better

The difference with Dunkirk is that the US Army would still have overwhelming air power. Of course a possible scenario is that because of a general upprising and the seize of power by an Islamic group, the new power in force would ask for an immediate departure. Then maybe a negotiated withdrawal would be possible.

I think it takes two months to retrieve all troops from Iraq in an ordered manner. If under attack, the probable way of doing is to gather everybody in trucks and open a corridor to Kuwait and to Baghdad airport if the surroundings can be controlled though air power. Enormous amounts of material would have to be sabotaged and left behind.

Remember that under the fall of Saigon most of the US forces had already been withdrawn peacefully. The Saigon pictures are only about the fall of an Embassy complicated by the arrival of masses of Vietnamese wanting to be eavacuated.

In the Vietnam case it has to be reminded that the South Vietnamese Army (that was a far much bigger and better equipped force than the Iraqi one) turned their firepower AGAINST the US, because they felt betrayed. In Iraq it won't happen, because except for a few they don't feel loyal. They are just waiting for the occasion. To believe otherwise is to be completely delusional. The US generals in Iraq know that, that's why they haven't been really arming the Iraqi Army.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Algeria would seem to be a better comparison

An imperial power trying to hang on while several groups attack them and each other, vying for eventual power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War_of_Independence

[mmonk]

10. I'm thinking there's a possibility

of something happening to us similar to the fall of the Soviet Union, especially after Afghanistan.