Top American generals make shock admission

[133724]

Top American generals make shock admission as Iraq leader pleads with neighbouring countries to seal off their borders

The US army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically in a war that senior officers say is the biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago.

The gloomy assessment at a conference in America last week came as senior US and Iraqi officials sat down yesterday with officials from Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad to persuade Iraq's neighbours to help seal its borders against fighters, arms and money flowing in. During the conference the US, Iranian and Syrian delegations were reported to have had a 'lively exchange'.

In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.

In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2031172,00.html

[GreenZoneLT]

1. Overstating it a bit.

The U.S. was politically defeated in Vietnam, not beaten militarily. The Vietnamese didn't start having battlefield success until we reversed the escalation and started "Vietnamizing" the war.

Same thing in Iraq. The insurgents don't win any battles, but the steady trickle of casualties they cause are winning the war for them politically. If we gave a crap, we could stay in Iraq indefinitely; the casualty rate is only about double the normal peacetime rate of death from accidents, illness and suicide.

[Selatius]

2. A guerrilla fighter would only need a political victory to beat the US.

At this point, the US is losing the test of wills, and I doubt Americans are willing to stomach another 10-year military occupation that yields no discernible results except a growing supply of coffins and smashed bodies. Iraq, for all intents and purposes, is going to burn despite the 21,000 extra troops. Those troops--they figure--can't stay there forever.

[POAS]

7. I cannot think of a single

case in history where the occupiers didn't lose a test of wills with an occupying military force.

Even for as long as the "colonial era" lasted eventually it came to an end and was celebrated in those former colonies like the United States for example! Of course the Native Americans might quibble with me but the final chapter isn't written here either!

[Bucky]

11. The Philippines in 1899-1902

That occupation came as a surprise to Emiliano Aguinaldo, who titled himself "president" of the Philippine Islands and thought the Americans had liberated his country from Spanish control. Ha-ha, joke was on him. After the Americans captured him in 1902 he was executed and that more or less broke the back of the Filipino insurrection.

Iraq is, of course, nothing like that.

[POAS]

13. Your correct

Iraq is nothing like that!

[ngant17]

3. all military defeats are also political defeats

The US could not have won a sustained war in SE Asia. They might have decimated vast sections of the civilian population by using atomic bombs on Vietnam but it would have produced unforseen consequences wrt Soviet Union and the PRC. You can't not save the village by destroying it.

The US lost militarily and politically in Vietnam. It could not win in Korea, either. It was a war based on a fraud to begin with.

The US has already lost militarily Iraq. It only remains for a political acceptance of that military defeat. There will be no 'peace with honor' this time.

[leveymg]

4. US losses in the airwar were staggering. We lost >3,000 fixed-wing aircraft

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

United States Air Force
All told, the U.S. Air Force flew 5.25 million sorties over South Vietnam, North Vietnam, northern and southern Laos, and Cambodia, losing 2,251 aircraft, 1,737 because of hostile action and 514 for operational reasons.

United States Navy
Twenty-one aircraft carriers conducted 86 war cruises and operated 9,178 total days on the line in the Gulf of Tonkin. 530 aircraft were lost in combat and 329 more in operational accidents, causing the deaths of 377 naval aviators, with 64 others reported missing

North Vietnamese aircraft

Fixed-wing losses (air to air combat only)


An-2 4 claimed
MiG-17 Fresco 100 (110 claimed)
MiG-19 Farmer 80 claimed
MiG-21 Fishbed 16 (90 claimed)

People's Republic of

This isn't to imply that N Vietnam "won" the air war, but to give a number to the scale of American losses.

[ReadTomPaine]

5. "That is true. It is also irrelevant."

I'm sure I don't need to tell where that quote is from, Lieutenant.

[POAS]

6. What are you comparing here:

"the casualty rate is only about double the normal peacetime rate of death from accidents, illness and suicide."

Double the rate in what population group when compared to what other population group? That makes a good soumd bite but is meaningless without context.

[133724]

8. Are you saying we should leave Iraq in order to win the war in Iraq???

Because your comment sure sounds like it. "The Vietnamese didn't start having battlefield success until we reversed the escalation and started "Vietnamizing" the war."

[GreenZoneLT]

9. That's not a bad idea.

Oh, there are tons of historical examples of occupiers outlasting resistance movements. The Romans in Gaul, for example, or the English in Wales, northern Ireland and Scotland. It takes a level of ruthlessness that you don't see from most modern governments, though, and certainly not from democracies.

The U.S. ideally would emulate the Brits in Malaysia, or our own example in the Philippines. Strongly support the government militarily, but don't maintain a large occupying presence. Eventually, the anti-government forces run out of steam.

Should have said the NORTH Vietnamese didn't start having battlefield success until we started Vietnamizing the war. In other words, they got their asses handed to them when they prematurely tried to do standup fights against the U.S. (e.g. Khe Sanh, where Vietnamese losses were horrific, and they eventually quit and left the battlefield). But they did just fine against the South Vietnamese.

The U.S. leaving Iraq might have a similar effect, although there are very few parallels between the various splintered Iraqi resistance forces and the tightly unified North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. I'm not sure whether the corrupt, ill-led Iraqi government could hold together well enough to fight the Sunni resistance, because the pro-Iranian Shiites will be busy undermining them. But they're currently better armed than the Sunnis, and getting more capable every day.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. ...

:spray:

[ReadTomPaine]

10. Kick