another al quada leader bites it

[Pete]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/1...ling/index.html

 

....and that previous scumbag was al libby

 

 

for those of you scoring at home:

http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/terroristscorecard/

[Chilly]

The sad part is in the end I fear this doesn't really matter - the organization is too equipped and too ready to replace all of their leaders to feel any big effects from all these losses.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

The sad part is in the end I fear this doesn't really matter - the organization is too equipped and too ready to replace all of their leaders to feel any big effects from all these losses.

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Nice to meet you Neville.

[Ghost of BiB]

The sad part is in the end I fear this doesn't really matter - the organization is too equipped and too ready to replace all of their leaders to feel any big effects from all these losses.

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They are feeling trmendous effect. In fact, they are reeling. It took a long time for them to organize themselves, and gain experience. Those coming up from within are coming off the bench. Thet are down to a few B team members and basically into the C team. The coach is hiding in a cave somewhere on dialysis eating goat on a stick. They are still a great danger, because of their decentralized planning and execution abilities...but much less of a danger than they were.

[Kelly the Dog]

They are feeling trmendous effect. In fact, they are reeling. It took a long time for them to organize themselves, and gain experience. Those coming up from within are coming off the bench. Thet are down to a few B team members and basically into the C team. The coach is hiding in a cave somewhere on dialysis eating goat on a stick. They are still a great danger, because of their decentralized planning and execution abilities...but much less of a danger than they were.

336432[/snapback]

While that is likely true, terrorism is up. And this is what I have always feared in Iraq, particularly the last paragraph:

WASHINGTON — American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves.

 

The insurgents in Iraq are showing little interest in winning hearts and minds among the majority of Iraqis, in building international legitimacy, or in articulating a governing program or even a unified ideology or cause beyond expelling the Americans. They have put forward no single charismatic leader, developed no alternative government or political wing, displayed no intention of amassing territory to govern now.

 

Rather than employing the classic rebel tactic of provoking the foreign forces to use clumsy and excessive force and kill civilians, they are cutting out the middleman and killing civilians indiscriminately themselves, in addition to more predictable targets like officials of the new government. Bombings have escalated in the last two weeks, and on Thursday a bomb went off in heavy traffic in Baghdad, killing 21 people.

 

This surge in the killing of civilians reflects how mysterious the long-term strategy remains - and how the rebels' seeming indifference to the past patterns of insurgency is not necessarily good news for anyone.

 

It is not surprising that reporters, and evidently American intelligence agents, have had great difficulty penetrating this insurgency. What is surprising is that the fighters have made so little effort to advertise unified goals.

 

Counter-insurgency experts are baffled, wondering if the world is seeing the birth of a new kind of insurgency; if, as in China in the 1930's or Vietnam in the 1940's, it is taking insurgents a few years to organize themselves; or if, as some suspect, there is a simpler explanation.

 

"Instead of saying, 'What's the logic here, we don't see it,' you could speculate, there is no logic here," said Anthony James Joes, a professor of political science at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and the author of several books on the history of guerrilla warfare. The attacks now look like "wanton violence," he continued. "And there's a name for these guys: Losers."

 

"The insurgents are doing everything wrong now," he said. "Or, anyway, I don't understand why they're doing what they're doing."

 

Steven Metz, of the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, said the insurgency could still be sorting itself out. Yet, he said, "It really is significant that even two years in there hasn't been anything like any kind of political ideology or political spokesman or political wing emerging. It really is a nihilistic insurgency."

 

He warned that this hydra-headed quality could make the insurgents hard to crush, even as the lack of unity makes it unlikely they will rule Iraq. "It makes it harder to eradicate the insurgency, but it also makes it more difficult for insurgents to gain their ultimate objective - if that is to control the country," he said.

 

That no one knows if that is the objective is, by historical standards, one of several remarkable, perplexing features of this fight.

 

A clear cause - one with broad support - is usually taken for granted by experts as a prerequisite for successful insurgency.

 

But insurgents in Iraq appear to be fighting for varying causes: Baath Party members are fighting for some sort of restoration of the old regime; Sunni Muslims are presumably fighting to prevent domination by the Shiite majority; nationalists are fighting to drive out the Americans; and foreign fighters want to turn Iraq into a battlefield of a global religious struggle. Some men are said to fight for money; organized crime may play a role.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Some day soon we will live in a nice tidy world where there are no bad guys to hurt me... I will be able to walk through life skipping and jumping without a care in the world!

 

Bush good!

 

[Ghost of BiB]

While that is likely true, terrorism is up. And this is what I have always feared in Iraq, particularly the last paragraph:

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The last paragraph hits the nail on the head. that's what makes this such a nightmare.

[RkFast]

Some day soon we will live in a nice tidy world where there are no bad guys to hurt me... I will be able to walk through life skipping and jumping without a care in the world!

 

Bush good!

 

 

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Thats the LIBERAL way of thinking, silly....that we can bury our head in the sand, sign Koombaya, click our heels and the world will be a better place.

 

Status Quo...no need to take action...hope for the best...thats how YOU guys think.

 

Nice try, though.

[Dan Gross]

So, in your professional opinion, Mr. Ghost, do you think that was a Tomahawk missle they fired from the UAV? Was it loaded up with blood agents?

[Ghost of BiB]

So, in your professional opinion, Mr. Ghost, do you think that was a Tomahawk missle they fired from the UAV?  Was it loaded up with blood agents? 

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No man, blood agents make the wings fall off man.

[Chilly]

Don't get me wrong - I agree they are feeling the effects of it and tis a great thing we are doing it. We need to attack the environment fostering this terrorism more (do better in the psychological war) to stop groups like AQ, as there are many, many (unfortunately) smart people (terrorist wise) willing to take the spots over. It might be their "C" team, but as long as they get the financing its not as if they are bad terrorists, its pretty easy tos trap a bomb to your chest and blow something up.

[Pete]

Don't get me wrong - I agree they are feeling the effects of it and tis a great thing we are doing it.  We need to attack the environment fostering this terrorism more (do better in the psychological war) to stop groups like AQ,  as there are many, many (unfortunately) smart people (terrorist wise) willing to take the spots over.  It might be their "C" team, but as long as they get the financing its not as if they are bad terrorists, its pretty easy tos trap a bomb to your chest and blow something up.

336929[/snapback]

there is noway to prevent that but that is not al quadas MO. They like to have simultaneus spectaular strikes in 3 or more locations. They like to destroy infrastucture and symbolic targetss. If al quada is resigned to suicide backpackers we are winning the war on terrorism.

[Thurman's Helmet]

Don't get me wrong - I agree they are feeling the effects of it and tis a great thing we are doing it.  We need to attack the environment fostering this terrorism more (do better in the psychological war) to stop groups like AQ,  as there are many, many (unfortunately) smart people (terrorist wise) willing to take the spots over.  It might be their "C" team, but as long as they get the financing its not as if they are bad terrorists, its pretty easy tos trap a bomb to your chest and blow something up.

336929[/snapback]

 

 

So are you implying that we should go after the Saudis, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Yemenis, the Qatarians (?) and all the other countries that sponsor terrorism?

 

Iraq sponsored terrorism and look at how divided this war is.

[Chilly]

So are you implying that we should go after the Saudis, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Yemenis, the Qatarians (?) and all the other countries that sponsor terrorism?

 

Iraq sponsored terrorism and look at how divided this war is.

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Nah, I'm saying it should be fought more as a psychological war then a war for freedom. Otherwise there will always be people to take the place of someone that we capture.

[Ghost of BiB]

Nah, I'm saying it should be fought more as a psychological war then a war for freedom.  Otherwise there will always be people to take the place of someone that we capture.

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The problem is that this is a true conflict of cultures. There is almost nothing that can be done short term with psyops that's going to make one hoot.