"starve them out, bottle them up and smash them"/ defeating terrorists

[KoKo]

Read this Post from DU'er FIRST then go to the Kos Site...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2759230


He's absolutely correct. And we should recognize this type of warfare, we helped perfect it during our own Revolutionary War. General Washington's Continental Army used non-convention tactics and sneak attacks such as crossing the Delaware River during the dead night and winter to attack Heshen troops while they still were in their quarters. They faced a vastly superior and far more experienced force in the British Army, they had no chance in a head-to-head conflict so instead they used guerilla tactics they'd learned from the American Indians. We also pioneered counterinsurgency when we later fought and eventually won the Indian Wars and the West. How long will it be before we relearn the lesson of Custer v Sitting Bull?

We already know how to do this and "Wack a mole" isn't the way.

You take the terroritory inch by inch, house by house, town by town and you hold it. Slowly you drive you opposition out into the open, push them away from resupply routes and resources - you starve them out, bottle them up and smash them. But we haven't committed the neccesary resources or man power needed to do this - 200,000 Iraqi soldiers (with some percentage actually being loyal to the new Iraqi government and us) combined with 130,000 U.S. troops really isn't enough. And the odd thing is the lower the number of insurgents - (or more accurately counter-occupationists) - the harder the job is to do thoroughly.
The only way to "win" this war would be to institute a draft - but that shit is not going to happen.


http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2006/8/4/122229/6161/23#c23|span%20style=

[uppityperson]

1. and you kill everybody you find along the way.

Those you don't kill are not going to be very happy and will probably turn on you later, so kill them all. Right? Oh yes, you have to also hunt out all their relatives and friends and kill them too so they don't try to get revenge on you. Kill them all and there will be none left to fight you or continue the violence through another generation.


Please realize I am not advocating this.

[KoKo]

2. Knock on doors and if you like the females inside...then rape them and

get their relatives to turn over the "names of insurgents" because they will be SO IN AWE of your MIGHTY DICK!

(I know...cruel..:-(...but it's what's happening out there.)

[uppityperson]

3. I don't understand how it will help, that is my problem.

but then I am a rich librul with low moral values and all.

[KoKo]

4. I don't either...I think it creates a "Humanitarian Crisis" that only

leads to anger, resentment and retaliation. But, if the Army Manuel and Rummy have been reading this stuff and they are using it...then what are we to know?

EXCEPT that what THEY ARE DOING...IS NOT WORKING. The "little, forgotton people, rise us in anger at what's done to them, eventually and TIMES CHANGE as they work for POWER!

:shrug: I think we are at that point of "change over," in "Our Times."

[MrPrax]

5. Looking at the original piece...

The writer seems to like both Hillary and McCain. It seems sorta like a thinking Republican thing as individual actors like Chabali and Rumsfeld are charged with the crimes of failure and the US military and leadership is not only spared any real criticisms of their past actions of complete failure, but are called up to execute more of the same.

The piece really gets into trouble early when he starts using 200,000 Iraqis soldiers (who says? oh the Neo-Cons) and the insurgency's 30,000 (who says? oh the Neo-Cons) and then invokes the American Revolutionary War, which is rather mindless, as it would suggest that the insurgents are the revolutionaries (freedom fighters?) and the US is the crazed English king called George -- but he invokes it to suggest that since Americans used 'guerrilla warfare' back in the 1780s, then they should, with help from a book, be able to fight it "inch by inch, house by house, town by town".

I am thinking that Sherman's March would have provided more inspiration for this tactic or perhaps the brutal guerrilla warfare in the Kentuckies in the immediate antebellum period that degenerated into forms of cannibalism or maybe William Cantrell's noble victory over Lawerance, Kansas. Or maybe the way good patriots went "inch by inch, house by house, town by town" in Rosewood county.

But the sickening part in all this is of course this bit of bizarro thinking:

With that one question Graham hit the true failure of our policy in Iraq squarely on the head. The problems in that region are not one of manpower or of financing - it's an issue of willpower.

So the problems in Iraq have nothing ultimately to do with US policies, actions or continued occupation, but the usual infantization of the people in the Middle East lacking 'collectively' the cajones for peace. There is a character flaw in that the Arabs, inspite of all our best intentions, still refuse the conditions of peace that we impose upon them. They just don't have the 'guts', the willpower to quit.

So the Iraqis are like a sad pathetic smoker, constantly terrorized by his own addictions to irrationality and violence, and too weak to resist the temptation. That means we can kill them of course "inch by inch, house by house, town by town" because they won't ultimately respond to humane civilized western values.

Here the Freeper seems almost sad: "The only way to "win" this war would be to institute a draft - but that shit is not going to happen."

Completely delusional as well...but that won't stop him.

There does seem to be a lot more 'crank' postings of late, no?

[KoKo]

6. To my mind..your post really Nailed It! Thanks!

It was kind of hard for me to get past the paragraph with the subject line I quoted...but I did hit the links and tried to dig to get where the "OP" was coming from thinking they hit my "hot button" and I really wanted to see where they might be coming from that I was wrong in my initial reaction.

You make good points about this...and yes it did seem a post that might be questioned ...in some way or the other...and important to do it.