How Many Would You Like?
How many troops would it take to pacify Iraq? We have somewhere between 120-130,000 US troops in Iraq now and many a pundit are demanding more troops to "finish" the job. Were it so easy. Indeed the very question exposes many transparent responses from Democrats and even Republicans regarding how to govern Baghdad and its environs and in many cases we get a lot of doubletalk to both leave Iraq en masse and to increase the number of troops to end the "insurgency" once and for all. So, what shall it be? More or less troops?
We know from history that when America was fighting in Vietnam we had at one point a half a million troops fighting both Viet Cong and conventional troops of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). And yet, the communist hordes kept coming. We could have had a MILLION man army in South Vietnam and that would not have ended the war that Hanoi had started in their alleged quest of "uniting" their communist nation with the South. In a sense, the Iraqi occupation today does resemble Vietnam: We have not taken the ground war over the border. In other words, to end Hanoi's evil pretensions upon Saigon, we needed to invade North Vietnam and occupy their country. Obviously, this might have expanded the war for a short time, but if we were indeed serious enough to wage war against the Chinese then we would have been victorious over Hanoi. We know this from history as it is the offense that ends wars not the defense. Will we repeat that mistake in this current War on Terror?
The Soviets in Afghanistan also became embroiled in their own kind of "Vietnam" war only because they decided not to invade Pakistan from whence the Mujahadeen had received training, troops and logistical support to wage a guerilla campaign against the Russians. I want to repeat however, that the Russions did NOT lose the Afghan War. They simply failed to expand the war to Islamabad in order to break the will of their opposing Afghan enemies. And like America before her, Russia squandered precious time and material including the lives of their brave young men for ten long years before they decided to pack up and leave the deserts and highlands of the Hindu Kush. Make no mistake my friends, the Russians were not "defeated" in any classical sense of military defeat but politically and militarily THEY refused to move forward into Pakistan to break the stalemate in Kabul. And I suspect the Russians have learned their lesson well.
So, the question arises how many troops does it take to pacify Iraq? Well, first things first. The Arab and Persian armies are paper tigers. Nothing more. Their training and materials for war were all borrowed from the Soviet Union and the Russians are no match against Western Armies including the German Wehrmacht of World War II. In the Persian Gulf War of 1991, America was overly cautious in regards to Iraq's army because we had not had a large war with an Arab army ever in our history. So, we mustered nearly 500,000 troops in Saudi Arabia and then went on a devasting aerial bombing campaign for 60 days! Then finally, we got the order to move against the pathetic Iraqi army in Kuwait and the country fell into our hands within 72 hours! Once again, we failed to expand the war into Iraq proper and take Baghdad in 1991 and the rest is history. Frankly, Operation Desert Storm in 1991 was sheer overkill. We didn't need 500,000 troops to take on an Arab army and we didn't need to bomb the crap out of them for as long as we did.
With that in mind, Operation Iraqi Freedom was conducted on a "smaller" scale than in 1991 in both the number of troops and the number of sorties conducted by our magnificent Air Force. We defeated Saddam and his pathetic army in 3 weeks. Mission Accomplished, in fact and deed. However, like Korea, Vietnam and the First Gulf War, we did not/have not expanded the war to other countries and as a result we have an ongoing insurgency that is killing American troops one drop at a time. Where are the insurgents coming from and who is funding them?
In order to pacify Iraq we are going to have to expand the war into Iran and Syria and finally smash this evil and degenerate intifada against our glorious armies in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan. Now if this requires more troops then I'm all for mustering additional divisions into Iraq as a jumping off point into said name countries. Otherwise, we are going to have to wait for the Iraqi army divisions to come online before we leave. And actually, we are not going to fully leave Iraq because it is an ideal location to conduct military/political operations against our enemies in the Middle East. This is a long war much like the Cold War which lasted over 40 years. We had a "cold" war in Europe and we had a "hot" war in Asia during this 40 year contest. We prevailed in some areas and failed in others. Europe is free today and most of Asia is imprisoned in a communist coccoon.
Operation WARTS (War Against Rogue & Terror States) will take a long time. It will be methodical and deliberate. At times it will be cold and others it will be hot. In the end, the West will be victorious regardless of the number of troops sent to Iraq and other places in the Umma.
We know from history that when America was fighting in Vietnam we had at one point a half a million troops fighting both Viet Cong and conventional troops of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). And yet, the communist hordes kept coming. We could have had a MILLION man army in South Vietnam and that would not have ended the war that Hanoi had started in their alleged quest of "uniting" their communist nation with the South. In a sense, the Iraqi occupation today does resemble Vietnam: We have not taken the ground war over the border. In other words, to end Hanoi's evil pretensions upon Saigon, we needed to invade North Vietnam and occupy their country. Obviously, this might have expanded the war for a short time, but if we were indeed serious enough to wage war against the Chinese then we would have been victorious over Hanoi. We know this from history as it is the offense that ends wars not the defense. Will we repeat that mistake in this current War on Terror?
The Soviets in Afghanistan also became embroiled in their own kind of "Vietnam" war only because they decided not to invade Pakistan from whence the Mujahadeen had received training, troops and logistical support to wage a guerilla campaign against the Russians. I want to repeat however, that the Russions did NOT lose the Afghan War. They simply failed to expand the war to Islamabad in order to break the will of their opposing Afghan enemies. And like America before her, Russia squandered precious time and material including the lives of their brave young men for ten long years before they decided to pack up and leave the deserts and highlands of the Hindu Kush. Make no mistake my friends, the Russians were not "defeated" in any classical sense of military defeat but politically and militarily THEY refused to move forward into Pakistan to break the stalemate in Kabul. And I suspect the Russians have learned their lesson well.
So, the question arises how many troops does it take to pacify Iraq? Well, first things first. The Arab and Persian armies are paper tigers. Nothing more. Their training and materials for war were all borrowed from the Soviet Union and the Russians are no match against Western Armies including the German Wehrmacht of World War II. In the Persian Gulf War of 1991, America was overly cautious in regards to Iraq's army because we had not had a large war with an Arab army ever in our history. So, we mustered nearly 500,000 troops in Saudi Arabia and then went on a devasting aerial bombing campaign for 60 days! Then finally, we got the order to move against the pathetic Iraqi army in Kuwait and the country fell into our hands within 72 hours! Once again, we failed to expand the war into Iraq proper and take Baghdad in 1991 and the rest is history. Frankly, Operation Desert Storm in 1991 was sheer overkill. We didn't need 500,000 troops to take on an Arab army and we didn't need to bomb the crap out of them for as long as we did.
With that in mind, Operation Iraqi Freedom was conducted on a "smaller" scale than in 1991 in both the number of troops and the number of sorties conducted by our magnificent Air Force. We defeated Saddam and his pathetic army in 3 weeks. Mission Accomplished, in fact and deed. However, like Korea, Vietnam and the First Gulf War, we did not/have not expanded the war to other countries and as a result we have an ongoing insurgency that is killing American troops one drop at a time. Where are the insurgents coming from and who is funding them?
In order to pacify Iraq we are going to have to expand the war into Iran and Syria and finally smash this evil and degenerate intifada against our glorious armies in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan. Now if this requires more troops then I'm all for mustering additional divisions into Iraq as a jumping off point into said name countries. Otherwise, we are going to have to wait for the Iraqi army divisions to come online before we leave. And actually, we are not going to fully leave Iraq because it is an ideal location to conduct military/political operations against our enemies in the Middle East. This is a long war much like the Cold War which lasted over 40 years. We had a "cold" war in Europe and we had a "hot" war in Asia during this 40 year contest. We prevailed in some areas and failed in others. Europe is free today and most of Asia is imprisoned in a communist coccoon.
Operation WARTS (War Against Rogue & Terror States) will take a long time. It will be methodical and deliberate. At times it will be cold and others it will be hot. In the end, the West will be victorious regardless of the number of troops sent to Iraq and other places in the Umma.
posted by Bruce R. McConnell | 3:40 PM
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