Break out the big pants 'cause it's HammerTime. - A little less than a happy high — LiveJournal

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			A little less than a happy high




			01:37 pm November 14th, 2003

komos


	Break out the big pants 'cause it's HammerTime.
	The most recent military operation in Iraq, designed as a reprisal to the escalating number and sophistication of the guerilla attacks in a reportedly pacified territory, has been given the operational code name, “Iron Hammer.” This may be a fitting name. So far, it does appear to be a blunt and rather clumsy instrument being used in a situation where precision is required. Nothing new there. My question is why we have a proper military code name for this operation? (It certainly lacks the grandeur of “Overlord,” but that’s to be expected...) By contrast, the name of the operation while we were actually at war was the clumsy “Iraqi Freedom,” which appears to have been the best that the spin doctors of the Bush administration could come up with to convince the American public that we were doing “good work.” The ironic thing is that somehow, the two do work together. Since the Iraqis don’t seem too keen to accept the kind of freedom that Dubya’s selling, we now will move to beat them into submission. It’s for their own good, after all.

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			Thread started by I don't have time to explain it. Just read more.

	From: canonfire	Date: November 14th, 2003 10:45 am (UTC)		(Link)

no one seems to have mentioned the words "scalpel" or "incision" or "tactical" recently.

it seems that they think the blunt, clumsy hammer is the way to go. i guess they don't want to engage on the insurgents' terms: that of tactical and well-placed attacks.

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	From: komos	Date: November 14th, 2003 11:29 am (UTC)		(Link)

I think it would help our precision if an enemy were actually identified. Depending on who is speaking, our enemy has been identified as variously Saddam loyalists, Iraqi terrorists, or foreign terrorists somehow being imported from Iran and Syria. The only clear statement the administration has offered is that they are “bad men” who “do not want to see a prosperous Iraq.” I still contend that we’re ultimately fighting 2/3 of the Iraqi populace, and that the latter should be changed to “do not want to see the US prosper in Iraq.”

Our strategy for dealing with the problem appears to take a page straight out of Vietnam – rely on local informants to provide intelligence about equipment caches, personnel concentrations, etc., follow every lead, and when a promising target is chosen, unleash every piece of ordinance you can think of into it. Our weaponry has improved, but our thinking seems to be sloshing in the mud.

With the return of Reagan’s old guard, we’ve seen a return to what many consider outmoded maneuver and attrition warfare. It has its place, but we’re not fighting the German army in the hedgerows of France any longer. This is something entirely different. We won the part of the war in which this doctrine was designed to prosper. Now we’re on police duty, controlling a hostile occupied territory. If we can’t manage to win over the populace (unlikely since the numbers of civilian deaths continue to mount and the action we’re taking can only serve to alienate more), we will continue win every engagement through our superior firepower and yet ultimately lose the war.

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			Thread started by Psalm 23:5

	From: c_m_i	Date: November 14th, 2003 12:32 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I eagerly await "Operation Mithril Hammer +2"

How can the Iraqis stand up to that? IT'S FRIGGAN ENCHANTED!!!

-ia.

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	From: komos	Date: November 14th, 2003 12:56 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Maybe they've got Cloaks of Elvenkind?

I just hope that I get to hear a battlefield report where someone says, "I just rolled a 20... is that good?"

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