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Subject: Insurgents Weakening
Tommi Atkins    6/23/2006 9:56:25 PM
insurgency in Iraq in "bleak" shape http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2083361 Anyone know of the full transcript of the documents?
 
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Herodotus    RE:Insurgents Weakening   6/23/2006 10:15:17 PM
Boy I'd hate to see them in good shape then. Nothing new, we've heard the "insurgents are weakening" argument for oh about 3 years now. If the insurgents were weakening the Iraqi government would not be discussing an amnesty deal. Also AQI hardly constitutes the insurgency, and they certianly are not in bad shape given the recent spate of violence. Both Baghdad and Basra are locked down in yet another set of state of emergencies, and the suicide bombers still get through.
 
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FJV    Maybe this?   6/24/2006 6:58:54 AM
 
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jastayme3       9/25/2006 10:35:10 PM

Boy I'd hate to see them in good shape then. Nothing new, we've heard the "insurgents are weakening" argument for oh about 3 years now. If the insurgents were weakening the Iraqi government would not be discussing an amnesty deal. Also AQI hardly constitutes the insurgency, and they certianly are not in bad shape given the recent spate of violence. Both Baghdad and Basra are locked down in yet another set of state of emergencies, and the suicide bombers still get through.

Having "spates of violence" not necessarily a bad thing. We are to used to looking down with an Olympian gaze on the mere mortals who are merrily killing each other. That is fine for a neutral. However as a beligerant we must sometimes have a different-and rather predatory-mindset. Saying things like, "fierce fighting has broken out" sounds like we are talking about weather. Often we want fierce fighting to "break out" and will go out of our way to arrange that because when there is fierce fighting going on, terrorists are being killed at a very fast rate.
And offering amnesty deals is classic counterinsurgency theory and is usually done.
And of course suicide bombers still get through. It would be nice to invent a way to fight a war where the enemy never succeeds in causing damage but no one has managed that yet.
Besides suicide bombers don't get back.
 
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eu4ea       9/26/2006 6:34:16 PM

The interesting bit is how rarely you hear "Insurgents are strengthening" from government sources.

Given that the insurgents are now significantly stronger than in 2003, it stands to reason that during a good portion of the elapsed time (say, half or more) they were strengthening rather than weakening.  Yet you very rarely hear that; it's almost always "Insurgents strengthened during period "x" in the past, but *now* they are weakening".  What gives?

eu4e
 
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jastayme3       9/27/2006 1:04:34 PM


The interesting bit is how rarely you hear "Insurgents are strengthening" from government sources.

Given that the insurgents are now significantly stronger than in 2003, it stands to reason that during a good portion of the elapsed time (say, half or more) they were strengthening rather than weakening.  Yet you very rarely hear that; it's almost always "Insurgents strengthened during period "x" in the past, but *now* they are weakening".  What gives?

eu4e
No, but you do hear "insurgents are strengthening" from the insurgents, and from the opposition. You can't expect a spinmeister to go against his own faction. Finding evil conspiracies violates Occam's Razor. Just accept that spinmeisters will be spinmeisters.
The fact is in an insurgency you really can't tell who has won until it is over-often not until several years after it is over.

 
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Plutarch       9/27/2006 1:19:46 PM



What gives?

eu4e

No, but you do hear "insurgents are
strengthening" from the insurgents, and from the opposition. You can't
expect a spinmeister to go against his own faction. Finding evil
conspiracies violates Occam's Razor. Just accept that spinmeisters will
be spinmeisters.

The fact is in an insurgency you really can't tell who has won until it is over-often not until several years after it is over.


You can pretty mmuch tell when the insurgency wins since nine times out of ten they either take over the government (Algeria, French Indochina, Indonesia, Rhodesia) or they force a withdrawal of foreign troops (Cyprus, Cameroun)/ Obviously this hasn't happened in Iraq, but neither have the insurgents been beaten by the Americans or government troops.
 
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jastayme3       9/27/2006 1:22:29 PM






What gives?

eu4e


No, but you do hear "insurgents are
strengthening" from the insurgents, and from the opposition. You can't
expect a spinmeister to go against his own faction. Finding evil
conspiracies violates Occam's Razor. Just accept that spinmeisters will
be spinmeisters.

The fact is in an insurgency you really can't tell who has won until it is over-often not until several years after it is over.



You can pretty mmuch tell when the insurgency wins since nine times out of ten they either take over the government (Algeria, French Indochina, Indonesia, Rhodesia) or they force a withdrawal of foreign troops (Cyprus, Cameroun)/ Obviously this hasn't happened in Iraq, but neither have the insurgents been beaten by the Americans or government troops.

point taken

 
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mustavaris       9/27/2006 2:38:55 PM
Insurgents have been put down in many many cases... They definately do not win in 9 cases out of 10. The central point in COIN warfare is that it takes 5-10 years to put down the resistance if you are determined to win (Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraina... Chechnya after the WWII...boer wars, many Latin american rebellions, in Kosovo UCK got its ass whacked before the NATO joined the party, et cetera...). There are two conditions that must be met if one wants to suppress insurgency: cut off the supplies and be prepared for 5 - 10 years of fighting. When talking about Iraq, the war has lasted `just` three and half years and while the supply routes have been less significant than eg. in Vietnam, they are not yet suppressed... but the Syrian and Iranian support is limited and the Iraqi resistance is set out to die in if the coalition stays firm and the revuilding of Iraq continues (although democracy could fail).

When talking about casualties... if three and half years of war fighting results in little more than 23 000 casualties (2900 KIA) from whom aprox. 11 000 have actually returned to duty in 3 within three days after being hit it really is our problem. Actually a very disturbing problem. How we are supposed to fight an enemy that can sustain thousands of KIAs while we whine when we have lost less than in many battles in our past which we still glorify? That is the central weakness we have. That is the heel of Achilles and that together with the fact that we fight with velvet gloves with our right hand tied behind our back, those are things that will bring us very dear reminders in the future if not our fall.

Iraq in 2013 is not necesserily a pleasent place but if the coalition stays firm and pays attention to Iraqi progress, it will be much better place than during the saddamite rule... Somehow South Africa comes to my mind.
 
 
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Plutarch       9/27/2006 3:06:13 PM

“Insurgents have been put down in many many cases... They definately do not win in 9 cases out of 10. The central point in COIN warfare is that it takes 5-10 years to put down the resistance if you are determined to win (Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraina... Chechnya after the WWII...boer wars, many Latin american rebellions, in Kosovo UCK got its ass whacked before the NATO joined the party, et cetera...). There are two conditions that must be met if one wants to suppress insurgency: cut off the supplies and be prepared for 5 - 10 years of fighting. When talking about Iraq, the war has lasted `just` three and half years and while the supply routes have been less significant than eg. in Vietnam, they are not yet suppressed... but the Syrian and Iranian support is limited and the Iraqi resistance is set out to die in if the coalition stays firm and the revuilding of Iraq continues (although democracy could fail). “

 

I never said the insurgency wins in 9 out of 10 cases, I said when in those instances they do win, 9 times out of 10 they take over the government or foreign troops withdraw.  That is how you can tell the insurgents win.  Understand? 

 

COIN operations can last up to 30 years (see Northern Ireland).  Not all insurgencies receive external support (Sri Lanka, Malaya, Indonesia, Mau Mau, etc.) and I think the external support that Iraq receives is minimal.  Remember we are fighting the remnants of a Baathist regime that held power for forty years, they are resourceful, and hid their money in a lot of places.

”When talking about casualties... if three and half years of war fighting results in little more than 23 000 casualties (2900 KIA) from whom aprox. 11 000 have actually returned to duty in 3 within three days after being hit it really is our problem. Actually a very disturbing problem. How we are supposed to fight an enemy that can sustain thousands of KIAs while we whine when we have lost less than in many battles in our past which we still glorify? That is the central weakness we have. That is the heel of Achilles and that together with the fact that we fight with velvet gloves with our right hand tied behind our back, those are things that will bring us very dear reminders in the future if not our fall. “

 

Well that is the nature of fighting an insurgency; they will take ten times as many casualties as we will, and they are prepared to take that many.  All they have to do is break the political will of the American people, if the people get weary of throwing hundreds of billions of dollars away on reconstruction projects that just get blown up, and tired of hearing news stories of dead American soldiers then we will be forced to withdraw.



”Iraq in 2013 is not necesserily a pleasent place but if the coalition stays firm and pays attention to Iraqi progress, it will be much better place than during the saddamite rule...”
 

Well we have a long long way to go. Quote    Reply


mustavaris       9/27/2006 5:04:55 PM


 

"I never said the insurgency wins in 9 out of 10 cases, I said when in those instances they do win, 9 times out of 10 they take over the government or foreign troops withdraw.  That is how you can tell the insurgents win.  Understand? "

 My bad. Reading too fast, thinking too little.

"COIN operations can last up to 30 years (see Remember we are fighting the remnants of a Baathist regime that held power for forty years, they are resourceful, and hid their money in a lot of places. "

That money won´t last that long without supplies and Baathists werent very popular during the last decade or two.. the hard core nationalists are far more essential in the long term.

 


South Africa I mentioned because you can have both somewhat functionaling nation/democracy and high levels of violence and other crap-


 


 
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