Stay Great To Be A Surfer, No?

[Puerto_Rico_Surfer]

Hmmm strange, when I submitted it-- the last post didnt line up correctly, i guess cause it was a cut n paste job?


Kelly I agree with you, I am no Bush lover, but Kerry I like even less, but hey at least it wasnt Howard Dean (YEEHAW!!!!)

Alot of what Micheal Moore puts out is partial fact twisted to his opinion, alot of what he not the whole truth, but the same goes with the Republicans , and the Democrats--- all self serving bastards.

Getting back to Bush though, he will lose the election if his administration doesnt get their act together (read the article), he needs to clean house, getting rid of Rumsfeild and Wolfiwitz, too bad he cant get rid of Cheney too, (our real pres is Cheney--- my opinion), look likes Kerry will probably be our next pres, even though I cant stand him, if Bush doesnt change course in Iraq and clean house in the military and his advisors then i would be inclined to vote Kerry in Nov.

[HMARK]

A little bit more deep than I wa prepared to go but...

On a strategic level, the United States has been the victor since the Sept.
11 attacks.

Good article, PRS, but I wonder if we are truly the victor since 9/11 being on the front line ( domestically) I see more so of the paranoia aspect, of the whole pix. We got all kinds of grants and shit for protection for the next attack ---- HELLO! they aint gonna do what you fucking expect! Einsteins! Like we were not prepared for 9/11 we not going be set up for the next 1 , God forbid, it comes to us in spades, i fear that a beheading is a mere show of what the fucks can really do to us.

You know our realm of freedom invites those who disagree to have access to many types of terrors to put upon us. Shit aint hit the fan yet, so to speak, and I for one dread the next time someone wakes me up at 4 am to watch CNN.

[Puerto_Rico_Surfer]

I believe your right Hmark, in a sense I feel we all know that one day within the next ten years we will probably turn on the news and hear of some major attack (on the scale of the twin towers or greater), either nuclear, bio, or conventional. These fuckheads have time on their side and we cant anticipate everything, so the best you can do is go about your life and live everyday as though it might be the last. "Carpe Diem"

I got to go to work right now-- its 6AM so I cant write more as I wanted to make a couple more comments but Ill check back tonight.

-Lance-

[maleko]

you're never posting again?... we'll see.

I would care if a loved 1 of mine was murdered.

i'm was just saying that the "kill 'em all" post is the exact reason why so many foriegn countries hate us (America) because of our arrogant, selfish attitudes.

^^^
This coming from a man who, not but 2 months ago, said he could careless about a young haole female being lost at sea near V-land.
Maleko, you are a hypocrite.

When it's your time, it's your time. nobody deserves to be murdred.... lost at sea, murdered. being lost at sea is somewhat romantic/glamorous( not sure of the word to use) look at Eddie Aikau... lost at sea.

[Puerto_Rico_Surfer]

This is for HMARK and anyone else that wants to comment.

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
17 May 2004

Iraq: New Strategies

By George Friedman

Last week, Stratfor published an analysis, "The Edge of the
Razor," that sketched out the problems facing the United States
in Iraq. In an avalanche of responses, one important theme stood
out: Readers wanted to know what we would do, if we were in a
position to do anything. Put differently, it is easy to catalogue
problems, more difficult to provide solutions.

The point is not only absolutely true, but lies at the heart of
intelligence. Intelligence organizations should not give policy
suggestions. First, the craft of intelligence and state-craft are
very different things. Second, and far more important,
intelligence professionals should always resist the temptation to
become policy advocates because, being mostly human, intelligence
analysts want to be right -- and when they are advocates of a
strategy, they will be tempted to find evidence that proves that
policy to be correct and ignore evidence that might prove the
policy in error. Advocating policies impairs the critical
faculties. Besides, in a world in which opinions are commonplace,
there is a rare value in withholding opinions. Finally,
intelligence, as a profession, should be neutral. Now, we are far
from personally neutral in any affecting our country, but in our
professional -- as opposed to our personal lives -- our task is
look at the world through the eyes of all of the players.
Suggesting a strategy for defeating one side makes that obviously
difficult.

That said, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
We normally try to figure out what is going to happen, what other
people are going to do -- whether they know it or not -- and
explain the actions of others. At times, people confuse
Stratfor's analysis for our political position. This time -- this
once -- we will write for ourselves -- or more precisely, for
myself, since at Stratfor our views on the war range even wider
than those among the general public.


The Mission

The United States' invasion of Iraq was not a great idea. Its
only virtue was that it was the best available idea among a
series of even worse ideas. In the spring of 2003, the United
States had no way to engage or defeat al Qaeda. The only way to
achieve that was to force Saudi Arabia -- and lesser enabling
countries such as Iran and Syria -- to change their policies on
al Qaeda and crack down on its financial and logistical systems.
In order to do that, the United States needed two things. First,
it had to demonstrate its will and competence in waging war --
something seriously doubted by many in the Islamic world and
elsewhere. Second, it had to be in a position to threaten follow-
on actions in the region.

There were many drawbacks to the invasion, ranging from the need
to occupy a large and complex country to the difficulty of
gathering intelligence. Unlike many, we expected extended
resistance in Iraq, although we did not expect the complexity of
the guerrilla war that emerged. Moreover, we understood that the
invasion would generate hostility toward the United States within
the Islamic world, but we felt this would be compensated by
dramatic shifts in the behavior of governments in the region. All
of this has happened.

The essential point is that the invasion of Iraq was not and
never should have been thought of as an end in itself. Iraq's
only importance was its geographic location: It is the most
strategically located country between the Mediterranean and the
Hindu Kush. The United States needed it as a base of operations
and a lever against the Saudis and others, but it had no interest
-- or should have had no interest -- in the internal governance
of Iraq.

This is the critical point on which the mission became complex,
and the worst conceivable thing in a military operation took
place: mission creep. Rather than focus on the follow-on
operations that had to be undertaken against al Qaeda, the Bush
administration created a new goal: the occupation and
administration of Iraq by the United States, with most of the
burden falling on the U.S. military. More important, the United
States also dismantled the Iraqi government bureaucracy and
military under the principle that de-Baathification had to be
accomplished. Over time, this evolved to a new mission: the
creation of democracy in Iraq.

Under the best of circumstances, this was not something the
United States had the resources to achieve. Iraq is a complex and
multi-layered society with many competing interests. The idea
that the United States would be able to effectively preside over
this society, shepherding it to democracy, was difficult to
conceive even in the best of circumstances. Under the
circumstances that began to emerge only days after the fall of
Baghdad, it was an unachievable goal and an impossible mission.
The creation of a viable democracy in the midst of a civil war,
even if Iraqi society were amenable to copying American
institutions, was an impossibility. The one thing that should
have been learned in Vietnam was that the evolution of political
institutions in the midst of a sustained guerrilla war is
impossible.

The administration pursued this goal for a single reason: From
the beginning, it consistently underestimated the Iraqis'
capability to resist the United States. It underestimated the
tenacity, courage and cleverness of the Sunni guerrillas. It
underestimated the political sophistication of the Shiite
leadership. It underestimated the forms of military and political
resistance that would limit what the United States could achieve.
In my view, the underestimation of the enemy in Iraq is the
greatest failure of this administration, and the one for which
the media rarely hold it accountable.

This miscalculation drew the U.S. Army into the two types of
warfare for which it is least suited.

First, it drew the Army into the cities, where the work of
reconstruction -- physical and political -- had to be carried
out. Having dismantled Iraqi military and police institutions,
the Army found itself in the role of policing the cities. This
would have been difficult enough had there not been a guerrilla
war. With a guerrilla war -- much of it concentrated in heavily
urbanized areas and the roads connecting cities -- the Army found
itself trapped in low-intensity urban warfare in which its
technical advantages dissolved and the political consequences of
successful counterattacks outweighed the value of defeating the
guerrillas. Destroying three blocks of Baghdad to take out a
guerrilla squad made military sense, but no political sense. The
Army could neither act effectively nor withdraw.

Second, the Army was lured into counterinsurgency warfare. No
subject has been studied more extensively by the U.S. Army, and
no subject remains as opaque. The guerrilla seeks to embed
himself among the general population. Distinguishing him is
virtually impossible, particularly for a 20-year-old soldier or
Marine who speaks not a word of the language nor understands the
social cues that might guide him. In this circumstance, the
soldier is simply a target, a casualty waiting to happen.

The usual solution is to raise an indigenous force to fight the
guerrillas. The problem is that the most eager recruits for this
force are the guerrillas themselves: They not only get great
intelligence, but weapons, ammunition and three square meals a
day. Sometimes, pre-existing militias are used, via a political
arrangement. But these militias have very different agendas than
those of the occupying force, and frequently maneuver the
occupier into doing their job for them.

Strategies

The United States must begin by recognizing that it cannot
possibly pacify Iraq with the force available or, for that
matter, with a larger military force. It can continue to patrol,
it can continue to question people, it can continue to take
casualties. However, it can never permanently defeat the
guerrilla forces in the Sunni triangle using this strategy. It
certainly cannot displace the power and authority of the Shiite
leadership in the south. Urban warfare and counterinsurgency in
the Iraqi environment cannot be successful.

This means the goal of reshaping Iraqi society is beyond the
reach of the United States. Iraq is what it is. The United
States, having performed the service of removing Saddam Hussein
from power, cannot reshape a society that has millennia of
layers. The attempt to do so will generate resistance -- while
that resistance can be endured, it cannot be suppressed.

The United States must recall its original mission, which was to
occupy Iraq in order to prosecute the war against al Qaeda. If
that mission is remembered, and the mission creep of reshaping
Iraq forgotten, some obvious strategic solutions re-emerge. The
first, and most important, is that the United States has no
national interest in the nature of Iraqi government or society.
Except for not supporting al Qaeda, Iraq's government does not
matter. Since the Iraqi Shia have an inherent aversion to Wahabbi
al Qaeda, the political path on that is fairly clear.

The United States now cannot withdraw from Iraq. We can wonder
about the wisdom of the invasion, but a withdrawal under pressure
would be used by al Qaeda and radical Islamists as demonstration
of their core point: that the United States is inherently weak
and, like the Soviet Union, ripe for defeat. Having gone in,
withdrawal in the near term is not an option.

That does not mean U.S. forces must be positioned in and near
urban areas. There is a major repositioning under way to reduce
the size of the U.S. presence in the cities, but there is,
nevertheless, a more fundamental shift to be made. The United
States undertook responsibility for security in Iraq after its
invasion. It cannot carry out this mission. Therefore, it has to
abandon the mission. Some might argue this would leave a vacuum.
We would argue there already is a vacuum, filled only with
American and coalition targets. It is not a question of creating
anarchy; anarchy already exists. It is a question of whether the
United States wishes to lose soldiers in an anarchic situation.

The geography of Iraq provides a solution.

Click here to see Potential U.S. Basing Locations in the BLUE ZONE

http://www.stratfor.com/iraq_map.neo

The bulk of Iraq's population lives in the Tigris and Euphrates
valleys. To the south and west of the Euphrates River, there is a
vast and relatively flat uninhabited region of Iraq -- not very hospitable,
but with less shooting than in the valley regions. The western half of
Iraq borders Saudi Arabia and Syria, two of the countries about
which the United States harbors the most concern. A withdrawal
from the river basins would allow the United States to carry out
its primary mission -- maintaining regional pressure -- without
engaging in an impossible war. Moreover, in the Kurdish regions
of the northeast, where U.S. Special Forces have operated for a
very long time, U.S. forces could be based -- and supplied -- in
order to maintain a presence on the Iranian border.

Iraq should then be encouraged to develop a Shiite-dominated
government, the best guarantor against al Qaeda and the greatest
incentive for the Iranians not to destabilize the situation. The
fate of the Sunnis will rest in the deal they can negotiate with
the Shia and Kurds -- and, as they say, that is their problem.

The United States could supply the forces in western and southern
Iraq from Kuwait, without the fear that convoy routes would be
cut in urban areas. In the relatively uninhabited regions,
distinguishing guerrillas from rocks would be somewhat easier
than distinguishing them from innocent bystanders. The force
could, if it chose, execute a broad crescent around Iraq,
touching all the borders but not the populations.

The Iraqi government might demand at some point that the United
States withdraw, but they would have no way to impose their
demand, as they would if U.S. forces could continue to be picked
off with improvised explosive devices and sniper fire. The
geographical move would help to insulate U.S. forces from even
this demand, assuming political arrangements could not be made.
Certainly the land is inhospitable, and serious engineering and
logistical efforts would be required to accommodate basing for
large numbers of troops. However, large numbers of troops might
not be necessary -- and the engineering and logistical problems
certainly will not make headlines around the world.

Cutting Losses

Certainly, as a psychological matter, there is a retreat. The
United States would be cutting losses. But it has no choice. It
will not be able to defeat the insurgencies it faces without
heavy casualties and creating chaos in Iraqi society. Moreover, a
victory in this war would not provide the United States with
anything that is in its national interest. Unless you are an
ideologue -- which I am not -- who believes bringing American-
style democracy to the world is a holy mission, it follows that
the nature of the Iraqi government -- or chaos -- does not affect
me.

What does affect me is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is trying to kill me.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia permitted al Qaeda to flourish.
The presence of a couple of U.S. armored divisions along the
kingdom's northern border has been a very sobering thought. That
pressure cannot be removed. Whatever chaos there is in Saudi
Arabia, that is the key to breaking al Qaeda -- not Baghdad.

The key to al Qaeda is in Riyadh and in Islamabad. The invasion
of Iraq was a stepping-stone toward policy change in Riyadh, and
it worked. The pressure must be maintained and now extended to
Islamabad. However, the war was never about Baghdad, and
certainly never about Al Fallujah and An Najaf. Muqtada al-Sadr's
relationship to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the makeup of
the elders in Al Fallujah are matters of utter and absolute
indifference to the United States. Getting drawn into those
fights is in fact the quagmire -- a word we use carefully and
deliberately.

But in the desert west and south of the Euphrates, the United
States can carry out the real mission for which it came. And if
the arc of responsibility extends along the Turkish frontier to
Kurdistan, that is a manageable mission creep. The United States
should not get out of Iraq. It must get out of Baghdad, Al
Fallujah, An Najaf and the other sinkholes into which the
administration's policies have thrown U.S. soldiers.

Again, this differs from our normal analysis in offering policy
prescriptions. This is, of course, a very high-level sketch of a
solution to an extraordinarily complex situation. Nevertheless,
sometimes the solution to complex situations is to simplify them.

[HMARK]

The key to al Qaeda is in Riyadh and in Islamabad. The invasion
of Iraq was a stepping-stone toward policy change in Riyadh, and
it worked. The pressure must be maintained and now extended to
Islamabad. However, the war was never about Baghdad, and
certainly never about Al Fallujah and An Najaf. Muqtada al-Sadr's
relationship to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the makeup of
the elders in Al Fallujah are matters of utter and absolute
indifference to the United States. Getting drawn into those
fights is in fact the quagmire -- a word we use carefully and
deliberately

Urgh. I am not sure where in the hell to go on this one - The spiel is correct on the problem IS Al Q. We cannot retreat - that will be seen as loss #2 to the world, VNam being #1 - USA can go out and cut its losses by remaing as a strategic force of police pwers ( but the USA dont wanna be seen like dat) even if it is true.

I do believe we are in a quagmire in Iraq - unfortunately for all the boys who joined looking for a positive way to spend some years and get some GI $ to go to school - then we got the reserve factor - the guys that wanted to spend a weekend here and there and get PX bennies -got the vrey real fact of going to WAR. -

Dont curse me out - I give these guys ALL THE CREDIT IN THE WORLD - It aint for me - but I respect 'em to do this for US- Those who would only be willing to fight at our own front door - (me)...

Good theories abound everywhere - hope the right ones get picked - or aas usual - the innocent will suffer -

Ouch.