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The Siege of Baghdad
By Glenn David Cox
06/13/07 "ICH" -- -- - It’s funny, in a sad sick almost perverse
sort of way, but it seems the only people who listen to George
Bush and take him seriously anymore is the insurgency. Several
months after his royal hind ass made his now famous “bring em
on” statement the insurgency issued their own proclamation
saying in affect, we have brought it on do you have anything
else you wish to say to us?
The on going political battle over Bushes insane surge, like
Custer wishing for ten more men or Westmoreland’s asking for
500,000 more. It belies someone’s ignorance and inability to
understand tactic’s and by thinking that what is needed is just
more warm bodies to storm the enemy trenches they create a
recipe for a blood bath and the certainty of defeat in Iraq.
The siege strategy was used during the crusades against the
middle-aged castles of Acre the ultimate irony is the
insurgencies battle plan was once used by Saladin the great, it
was used by the Russians at Stalingrad and by McArthur in the
South Pacific and by the Afghans against the Russians etc. You
isolate your enemy and cut him off from resupply or make
resupply so difficult that he has to use a disproportionate
amount of troops to guaranty his supply lines.
The American forces in Baghdad’s Green zone have no airstrip and
are fourteen miles from the airport through Baghdad’s winding
ancient narrow roads. General Von Paulus in Stalingrad was
promised the Lufftewaffe would keep him supplied but it was an
idle boast. The Americans have a more powerful air force to be
sure but also a greater dependence on fuel and commodities. The
high tech war machine like all war machines is only as good as
it’s supply and there is another possibility to consider.
Suspected Sunni insurgents bombed and badly damaged a span over
the main north-south highway leading from Baghdad on Tuesday -
the third bridge attack in as many days. The attack occurred 35
miles south of Baghdad and just six miles south of a bridge
brought down on Sunday by what was believed to be a suicide
truck bomber.
On Monday, a parked truck bomb destroyed a bridge carrying
traffic over the Diyala River in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of
Baghdad. There were no casualties, but vehicles were being
forced to detour to a road running through insurgent controlled
territory to reach important nearby cities.
Earlier in the month a bomb attack heavily damaged the Sarhart
Bridge, a key crossing 90 miles north of the Capital
In March and April, three of Baghdad's 13 bridges over the
Tigris River were bombed. The attacks were blamed on Sunni
insurgent or attempts to divide the city's predominantly Shiite
east bank from the mostly Sunni western side of the river but
far more likely it was an attempt to negate the American
strength in armored vehicles
Is the campaign against the bridges an attempt to lay siege to
Baghdad? Or like Khe San a generation before an elaborate ruse
to draw attention away prior to a larger coming Tet style
offensive. In either case the surge has begun but it has been
the insurgents who have surged rather than the US.
At Stalingrad the German panzers became almost useless in the
narrow streets, this army like the Americans had been designed
for lighting war not for urban street fighting. A thousand eyes
kept the Russian army aware of every German move and allowed
Russian snipers the choicest targets.
As the occupying power in Iraq the US is responsible for keeping
the residents of Baghdad fed and watered. The millions of
Baghdad will create just one more burden on US forces already
overburdened. Thus the American surge is already defeated
without the ability to move freely the already over stretched
forces will become unable to support it’s outposts. They will
fall one by one just like the firebases around Khe San and the
crusaders castles in Lebanon.
At Khe San the US decided to use the massive force of B52
attacks but the focus had already shifted away from victory to
self-defense. The enemy had captured something far more precious
than a firebase they had taken away from the Americans the
certainty of victory. As the North Vietnamese army slipped away
and the US forces emerged from their bunkers to claim a hollow
victory, a sucker holding the bag on a snipe hunt slowly
realizing he has been had. To spend huge amounts of blood and
treasure to defend a muddy hill top not for a victory but only
to stave off defeat.
The American surge is the latest in an attempt to stave off
defeat; the moral battle was lost long ago. The political battle
a stalemate, between the forces of timid stupidity verses the
forces of entrenched insanity. The greatest megalomaniac’s of
the 20th century had drawn up battle plans for the conquest of
England and one of the cornerstones of operation sea lion was in
avoiding London. Even a madman knew a large metropolis would
swallow an army, and as the tide turned at Stalingrad the mad
man began to cashier his own generals.
For in his madness it could only be the generals who were not
following his orders not the fatal flaw in his own tactics. The
mad man brooded over his scale model of the new Berlin much like
the current mad man broods over his scale model of what the
Iraqi’s call Bush’s palace, the Vatican city sized embassy in
Baghdad which will probably never be occupied or at best be used
a last redoubt.
Von Paulus pleaded for permission to withdraw and was advised
that where a German foot stood a German foot stayed. The
politics of cut and run verses the personal pride of the leader,
the madness of leadership who view military tactic’s as personal
affronts. As Nathan Bedford Forrest succinctly observed "getting
there firstest with the mostest." In regards to our own current
surge without the firstest the mostest becomes a mute point the
mostest with the latest is a pointless exercise.
As the siege continues the US forces will become more dependant
on helicopters for re-supply and will begin to lose them in
greater numbers like Von Paulus they will assume a defensive
position more interested in holding positions rather than
taking. Will the US then call in B52 strikes on Baghdad to try
and break the siege? Or will it try sending a reinforcing column
to break the siege or will they finally admit the inevitable and
withdraw?
A new and perhaps last chapter has begun, new in the names and
places but as old as war itself. The military is well aware of
the coming checkmate and are fired for their candor in saying so
only the media and the madman soldier on. Fighting on not to
achieve victory or even to forestall defeat but to sacrifice the
blood of innocents on all sides but to preserve protect and
defend the fragile ego of the leader.
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