Where We Are

3:08 pm EST August 26th, 2005 | News | 9 Comments

It amazes me that we’ve put these brave guys in these situations when they could be out and about killing terrorists that actually threaten us.

Insurgents in Anbar province, the center of guerrilla resistance in Iraq, have fought the U.S. military to a stalemate.

After repeated major combat offensives in Fallujah and Ramadi, and after losing hundreds of soldiers and Marines in Anbar during the past two years – including 75 since June 1 – many American officers and enlisted men assigned to Anbar have stopped talking about winning a military victory in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland. Instead, they’re trying to hold on to a handful of population centers and hit smaller towns in a series of quick-strike operations designed to disrupt insurgent activities temporarily.

“I don’t think of this in terms of winning,” said Col. Stephen Davis, who commands a task force of about 5,000 Marines in an area of some 24,000 square miles in the western portion of Anbar. Instead, he said, his Marines are fighting a war of attrition. “The frustrating part for the (American) audience, if you will, is they want finality. They want a fight for the town and in the end the guy with the white hat wins.”

That’s unlikely in Anbar, Davis said. He expects the insurgency to last for years, hitting American and Iraqi forces with quick ambushes, bombs and mines. Roadside bombs have hit vehicles Davis was riding in three times this year already.

“We understand counter-insurgency … we paid for these lessons in blood in Vietnam,” Davis said. “You’ll get killed on a nice day when everything is quiet.”

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9 Responses to “Where We Are”

  1. nawoods says:
    August 26, 2005 at 3:08 pm

    You know, until you tell me where those terrorists are that are threatening us, and what we are actually supposed to do about them, I’m going to write you off as a Deocratic partisan hack smear machine. Because unless you are advocating that the US military invade Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the Phillipeans, Iran, and Chechneya all at the same time, you are just full of hot air. We are facing home-grown bad guys as well as foriegn fighters in Iraq. Whether it was part of the strategy to begin with or just something that was thought of after the fact is irrelalvent at this point, but we are fighting AQ and various other Islamofacists in Iraq right now. We are killing terrorists who want us dead in Iraq right now.

  2. nawoods says:
    August 26, 2005 at 3:08 pm

    Read:

    http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/

  3. nawoods says:
    August 26, 2005 at 4:08 pm

    The poll is quite a non sequiter, and has nothing to do with whether we are “killing terrorists” or not. Which was, you know, the whole point of this post. And you can count me as at least one person who is not a right-wing “kool-aid” drinker who blindly trusts Bush, so your point is noted and rejected.

  4. johnnyprogressive says:
    August 26, 2005 at 4:08 pm

    You can stomp your feet and scream how being in Iraq is making us safer, but only you and the other kool-aid drinkers are listening….

    From a fresh AP-Ipsos poll:

    4. Has the military action in Iraq …

    (Results from April 2004 in parentheses)

     Increased the threat of terrorism in the world, 50 percent (47)

     Decreased the threat of terrorism in the world, 20 percent (25 percent)

     Had no effect on the threat of terrorism, 28 percent (25 percent)

     Not sure, 3 percent (3 percent)

  5. johnnyprogressive says:
    August 26, 2005 at 4:08 pm

    Surely you are not citing a poll as proof of anything.

    Im citing a poll to demonstrate how those who still believe this war is making us safer are the farthest of the far right, who blindly trust Bush despite his continuous failings because they, like I have said, are Kool-Aid drinkers.

    And a poll that discusses worldwide instead of US conditions.

    Hasn’t Iraq been constantly referred to as part of the “GLOBAL War on Terror”?

    Fact of the matter is that we have not had a major terrorist incident on our shores since 9-11.

    So by your definition, Clinton was just as effective at fighting terrorism, since the there were no additional attacks during his term after the original WTC bombing in 93. If you agree to that, I also agree that Bush is effective in fighting terror. But you can’t have it both ways.

    Next?

  6. Dugger says:
    August 26, 2005 at 4:08 pm

    jp,

    Surely you are not citing a poll as proof of anything. And a poll that discusses worldwide instead of US conditions. Fact of the matter is that we have not had a major terrorist incident on our shores since 9-11. Don’t need a poll for that. Who knows if Iraq has made us safer here, but so far we can’t argue that it hasn’t.

    Dugger

  7. johnnyprogressive says:
    August 26, 2005 at 5:08 pm

    The poll is quite a non sequiter, and has nothing to do with whether we are  killing terrorists or not. Which was, you know, the whole point of this post.

    Your wouldnt be writing off the poll just because it doesnt work in your favor, right? I never said it serves as proof of anything- like I said in my prior comment, it shows that a vast majority of Americans dont believe were safer because of this war, and there has to be some reason for this- be it the fact that our presence is a recruiting tool for terrorist orginizations, or that the current draft of the Iraqi constitution forbids any law that goes against Islam. So the poll does offer something to the debate- you just dont like what you see.

    And you can count me as at least one person who is not a right-wing  kool-aid drinker who blindly trusts Bush, so your point is noted and rejected.

    The wingnuts on this blog all have a common tendency to shun their label, yet embrace it at the same time in their screeds.

  8. Dugger says:
    August 26, 2005 at 5:08 pm

    jp

    I have never said Clinton was good or bad on T. My point has been that it was and is unfair to blame Clinton for what he didn’t prevent, likewise Bush. I don’t buy the 20-20 hind sight argument on either. Both may have made erros (or not) but either would have stopped T attacks if he could have – no matter what Cynthia McKinney believes.

    As to the global war on terror, Bush is accountable to the American people and this country. That is his first duty – not the world per se.

    And exactly would one’s belief Iraq has made us safer from Ts (which I don’t know that I actually believe – but the facts speak) makes me or anyone else a rabid right winger? Do all leftists believe it has not made us safer? All of them? Despite no home soil attacks. Not one any place?

    Dugger, Hydrophobic and Proud of it

  9. Oliver says:
    August 26, 2005 at 5:08 pm

    The terrorists are in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and in America — for starters.