WRONG!
Last night I was searching for information on the 4th Battalion of the 64th Armored Regiment of the 4th Brigade of the Third Infantry Division. One of my wife's godsons (ina-anak) is a member of that unit and returned to Iraq for a second tour of duty. The Third ID was among the first to cross into Iraq back in spring of 2003.
Anyway while hunting around on the Internet I found this interesting piece by Alexander Cockburn.
The most laughable quote is:
Optimists suggest that the US Third Infantry Division will soon engage and destroy the Iraqi Medina division and the road to Baghdad will lie open. A less sanguine assessment is that the two divisions will bog down in a First World War-style confrontation, with the US disadvantage of those stretched communications. The third scenario is that the Medina division will outflank the Third ID, take it in the rear and overwhelm it. Then the exultant Arab street will erupt in the humiliation of the Great Satan.
The optimists were correct. I have no idea why he even believed the WWI style confrontation would occur. The guy forgets the wonders of air power. The third scenario IMO was nothing but wishful thinking on the Author's part.
I recall when this was all going down and our forces were stopped at the gates of Baghdad. Within a day or two of the stop the critics were screaming quagmire. They were talking how the plans (if any were made) were going awry, how our lines of communication were stretched too thin, how the Iraqis were starting to fight more tenaciously etc etc etc. Do you recall when the final push to Baghdad started? IIRC (and I do recall looking specifically into this) it was the night of the new moon, that is our forces stood down, rested, consolidated, supplied up and when the night was the darkest our forces resumed the attack! Recall our forces are adept at night fighting our enemies are much less so.
In fact the NYT-Discovery channel has a show that talks about the campaign. The soldiers stated they rolled into the Airport at night completely unopposed. But when it started to become light, then all of a sudden Iraqi defenders started appearing out of nowhere. The Iraqis couldn't fight at night and when they discovered they had to fight they could only fight as isolated pockets and not as a cohesive force.
Why do people continue to take the left seriously?
Anyway while hunting around on the Internet I found this interesting piece by Alexander Cockburn.
The most laughable quote is:
Optimists suggest that the US Third Infantry Division will soon engage and destroy the Iraqi Medina division and the road to Baghdad will lie open. A less sanguine assessment is that the two divisions will bog down in a First World War-style confrontation, with the US disadvantage of those stretched communications. The third scenario is that the Medina division will outflank the Third ID, take it in the rear and overwhelm it. Then the exultant Arab street will erupt in the humiliation of the Great Satan.
The optimists were correct. I have no idea why he even believed the WWI style confrontation would occur. The guy forgets the wonders of air power. The third scenario IMO was nothing but wishful thinking on the Author's part.
I recall when this was all going down and our forces were stopped at the gates of Baghdad. Within a day or two of the stop the critics were screaming quagmire. They were talking how the plans (if any were made) were going awry, how our lines of communication were stretched too thin, how the Iraqis were starting to fight more tenaciously etc etc etc. Do you recall when the final push to Baghdad started? IIRC (and I do recall looking specifically into this) it was the night of the new moon, that is our forces stood down, rested, consolidated, supplied up and when the night was the darkest our forces resumed the attack! Recall our forces are adept at night fighting our enemies are much less so.
In fact the NYT-Discovery channel has a show that talks about the campaign. The soldiers stated they rolled into the Airport at night completely unopposed. But when it started to become light, then all of a sudden Iraqi defenders started appearing out of nowhere. The Iraqis couldn't fight at night and when they discovered they had to fight they could only fight as isolated pockets and not as a cohesive force.
Why do people continue to take the left seriously?
posted by Marcus Aurelius at 12:33 PM
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