Just remember

[Rotku]

Yeah, and once defeated that's when you get the militants attacking

[Mikayla]

Indeed. Large, organized armies are precisely what America is good at destroying (along with 'international good will' of course). A nice, big, traditional army just screams "phay lewt and exp!" to the U.S. Military. Its those sneaky, roguish militias, terrorists, and insurgents (aka resistance fighters, freedom fighters, and patriots depending on where you come from) that we cannot seem to master. All in all, the U.S. is much better prepared to face a tank battalion than it is prepared to face a couple of pissed off civilians tired of having their neighborhood occupied by our Army.

[Grand Fromage]

Yeah, unfortunately the US military's still basically designed to protect Western Europe from a Soviet invasion. It's changing, but it takes a much longer time to change an entire military's than it takes for some guys with RPGs to switch tactics.

[mxlm]

Especially when the procurement of equipment used to protect NATO against the Warsaw PactImeancontainChinaImeanfighttheWaronTerror has been an economic flywheel for something like six decades now.

Military Keynesianism is a hard habit to break.

[Mulu]

Based on what I've read, it appears that displacing 4 million civilians by forced religious segregation can somewhat reduce violence. Are we calling that a win?

But another reason for the reduction is quite simple: "Anti-American Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has urged members of his Mahdi Army to respect his order for a six-month freeze of military activity, threatening offenders in the feared militia with expulsion." Yet another possibility is that both the US and the Iraqi govt. have a good reason to not count all the dead....

So, I'd give it thirds. One third new US strategy, 1/3 results of ethnic cleansing, 1/3 Mahdi Armi temporary stand down. It's ironic that Bush switched his focus to Iran just when he finally had something to brag about in Iraq.

[Mulu]

"I hate this road," someone says over the radio.

They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.

A bomb crater blocks one lane, so they cross to the other side, where houses are blackened by fire, shops crumbled into bricks. The remains of a car bomb serve as hideous public art. Sgt. Victor Alarcon's Humvee rolls into a vast pool of knee-high brown sewage water -- the soldiers call it Lake Havasu, after the Arizona spring-break party spot -- that seeps in the doors of the vehicle and wets his boots.

"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."

That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.

Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.

Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

While top U.S. commanders say the statistics of violence have registered a steep drop in Baghdad and elsewhere, the soldiers' experience in Sadiyah shows that numbers alone do not describe the sense of aborted normalcy -- the fear, the disrupted lives -- that still hangs over the city.

Before the war, Sadiyah was a bustling middle-class district, popular with Sunni officers in Saddam Hussein's military. It has become strategically important because it represents a fault line between militia power bases in al-Amil to the west and the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Dora to the east. U.S. commanders say the militias have made a strong push for the neighborhood in part because it lies along the main road that Shiite pilgrims travel to the southern holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

American soldiers estimate that since violence intensified this year, half of the families in Sadiyah have fled, leaving approximately 100,000 people. After they left, insurgents and militiamen used their abandoned homes to hold meetings and store weapons. The neighborhood deteriorated so quickly that many residents came to believe neither U.S. nor Iraqi security forces could stop it happening.

The descent of Sadiyah followed a now-familiar pattern in Baghdad. In response to suicide bombings blamed on Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, went from house to house killing and intimidating Sunni families. In many formerly mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad, such as al-Amil and Bayaa, Shiites have become the dominant sect, with their militias the most powerful force.

"It's just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing," said Maj. Eric Timmerman, the battalion's operations officer.

//

But in one instance about two months ago, the American soldiers heard that the Wolf Brigade planned to help resettle more than 100 Shiite families in abandoned houses in the neighborhood. When platoon leader Lt. Brian Bifulco arrived on the scene, he noticed that "abandoned houses to them meant houses that had Sunnis in them."

"What we later found out is they weren't really moving anyone in, it was a cover for the INP to go in and evict what Sunni families were left there," recalled Bifulco, 23, a West Point graduate from Huntsville, Ala. "We showed up, and there were a bunch of Sunni families just wandering around the streets with their bags, taking up refuge in a couple Sunni mosques in the area."

As the militiamen and insurgents battled it out, the bodies mounted up. U.S. troops said that earlier this year it was common for them to find at least half a dozen corpses scattered on the pavement during their daily patrols.

Militiamen in BMWs rode around the neighborhood with megaphones, demanding that residents evacuate. Mortar rounds launched from nearby Bayaa, a Mahdi Army stronghold, began crashing down regularly in Sadiyah. Three mosques in the neighborhood were rigged with explosives and destroyed.

The national police erected checkpoints outside other mosques and prevented Sunnis from attending services. The U.S. soldiers began facing ever more sophisticated armor-piercing roadside bombs known as EFPs, short for explosively formed penetrators. Some of them were linked in arrays that blasted out as many as 18 heated copper slugs.

Over time, the neighborhood became a battleground that residents fled by the thousands. Hundreds of shops shut down, schools closed, and access to basic services such as electricity, fuel and food deteriorated. "The end state was people left. They felt unsafe," said Timmerman, the operations officer.

"We were so committed to them as a partner we couldn't see it for what it was. In retrospect, I've got to think it was a coordinated effort," Timmerman said. "To this day, I don't think we truly understand how infiltrated or complicit the national police are" with the militias.

//

The Iraqi army's arrival and the emergence of the Sunni volunteers have coincided with some positive signs, the soldiers said. Some of the shops along the once-busy commercial district of Tijari Street now open for a few hours a day. The number of violent incidents has dropped, although it rose again over the past two weeks, officers said.

"This is a dangerous place," said Capt. Lee Showman, 28, a senior officer in the battalion. "People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it."

//

The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.

"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," he said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground."

link

[Nekulor]

Yeah, unfortunately the US military's still basically designed to protect Western Europe from a Soviet invasion. It's changing, but it takes a much longer time to change an entire military's than it takes for some guys with RPGs to switch tactics.

The problem is, bureaucracy is delaying the change over of US tactics to those made to combat a guerilla threat. It's vietnam all over again, but in the middle east. We didn't learn from Vietnam that to fight small, armed militias with traps and tactics. Generally, we need our lumbering bear of a military to become an agile and aggressive wolf or fox, able to strike anywhere, anytime.

[Veilan]

Generally, we need our lumbering bear of a military to become an agile and aggressive wolf or fox, able to strike anywhere, anytime.

I'm not quite sure the world needs a superpower thinking it should have the ability to strike anywhere, anytime. I'd feel threatened by that, and just guess the reaction if, say, Iran said it needs to be able to strike anywhere, anytime.

Striking is still aggression.

[mxlm]

Generally, we need our lumbering bear of a military to become an agile and aggressive wolf or fox, able to strike anywhere, anytime.

I'm not quite sure the world needs a superpower thinking it should have the ability to strike anywhere, anytime. I'd feel threatened by that, and just guess the reaction if, say, Iran said it needs to be able to strike anywhere, anytime.

Striking is still aggression.

Um, it already thinks that. Hence the 'we should be able to fight two major wars and blahblah' stuff that theoretically defines our military readiness.

[Veilan]

In that case, with what legitimacy should any other country not think the same?

[Mulu]

Because you can trust the US not to abuse its military superiority. *coughs*

[Nekulor]

I don't care how the Iran issue is resolved, so long as it is. If we can come to an agreement and not have more deaths ensue, then great. That would be preferable, less expensive, and generally better for our military, their military, their nation and their civilians. If, however, Amadenijad continues to threaten to destroy Israel and develops nuclear weapons just to threaten nations, or with the intent to use them, then we may, regrettably, need to go into Iran. I would prefer we not do this, because we are stretched thin as it is, but I'm ultimately not in charge of US foreign policy. If I was, things would be run a bit differently, and wouldn't work like a retarded version of what we did in Vietnam with a mix of pre-WWII lunacy, such as our current policy of no negotiation with "terrorist" states. Negotiation is key, whether we want to admit it or not, and if we don't negotiate, people die. Thus, it is better to try peaceful settlement before everyone breaks out the drop ships and artillery.

[mxlm]

[Nekulor]

I have left mxlm speechless. My mission in life is now complete.

[Mulu]

*claps*