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Old 02-25-2006, 01:07 AM   #4
tw
Read? I only know how to write.
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
Another aspect of an insurgency playbook (gameplan) comes right out of nationalist Vietnam strategies. For example, insurgents don't confront the superior western forces. They strike and run. They leave traps, mines, and other ambushes to maim regular troops.

Also important is the attitude of local residents. Tactical purpose of a battle is to control the land. In Vietnam, S Vietnamese never controlled the land. Peasants were treated better by the VC and therefore favored the VC - despite propaganda provided by Time Magazine, et al. This week's Frontline on PBS entitled The Insurgency makes this point blantantly. Michael Ware had followed some insurgents. He noted how they would setup mortars and attack nearby military bases. Neighbors walked right past these insurgents. No one would turn these insurgents into authorities. Just like in Nam, when VC controlled the land even though VC was driven from the battlefield. In Iraq, insurgents control the land no matter how strong that American military presence is. Americans don't leave the Green zones without massive security convoys.

It remains a basic military doctrine; in Iraq as it was in Vietnam. He who controls the land after a battle has won a tactical victory. Conventional military forces often have trouble learning if they have won or lost due to how insurgencies are conducted - in Vietnam then as in Iraq now. This Iraqi insurgency is quite good and is winning once we look through the spin.

Real symptoms of how successful insurgent are include the lowest levels of electricity production was last month. Lowest production of oil was last month. That after America spend how many $tens of billions on both systems? Only a bean counter would look at the money spent and call that a victory. And yet the symptoms so parallel Vietnam - where free elections and a constitution were also touted as an American victory.

Anybody see a light at the end of this tunnel?
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