Of all the lies that have been told by George W. Bush, including the multitude of lies that led to the aggressive invasion of Iraq that has become a full blown, out of control, civil war; nothing can compare with the one he told when he said recently, "We are winning the war in Iraq." To say this in the face of the huge number of casualties suffered by the US Military this month is beyond incredible.
My sources tell me the only soil we control in Iraq is that on which our Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) set. The Insurgency forces control the towns and the countryside and are making life miserable even for those inside the Green Zone. The Sadr Brigade alone is now estimated to number over 100,000 and they are just one of the many militant forces active in Iraq. How long ago was it now that we were told the Insurgency was only a few diehards numbering less than 12,000?
William Lind has written eloquently and with great knowledge of Fourth Generation War (4GW). 4GW is the preferred tactic of our opposing forces both in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as it was in Vietnam. The United States Military bases its strategy on a theory known as, Victory Through Superior Firepower; simply said, this is bringing concentrated and overwhelming firepower to the point of attack. Our Military Industrial Complex (MIC) mandates this battlefield philosophy. High-tech weapons and weapons systems require trillions of dollars to develop and produce. These trillions of taxpayer dollars line the pockets of those who lobby the government for war. Many of our career politicians rotate between leadership of MIC companies and positions in the government. Career Colonels and Generals find high-paying positions in the MIC when they leave military service. This money-eating merry-go-round is not only bankrupting our country but also systematically leads to the deaths of our soldiers on the 4GW field of battle.
The Victory Through Superior Firepower strategy works when state-led armies meet on the field of battle. Our opposing forces know they cannot compete in this arena, so they employ guerilla tactics (4GW). The tactics and strategy now being employed against our forces in Southwest Asia have never been defeated in the history of this planet. These tactics have previously delivered crushing blows to massive state-sponsored militaries in the past: the US in Vietnam and the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan and recently to Israeli forces in Lebanon. 4GW forces believe they will prevail by employing the "death by a thousand cuts" philosophy. They will gladly sacrifice several soldiers to destroy a Stryker, Bradley or Abrams tank. Soldiers to them are a renewable resource, while the losses of equipment costing millions of dollars cannot be sustained in a prolonged war by aggressor forces. To the forces employing 4GW, victory is not necessarily won on the field of battle.
Armies using superior firepower strategy actually empower their 4GW enemies because of the tremendous number of non-combatant casualties attendant with air bombardment and often-inaccurate artillery fire. The Battle of Fallujah is a prime example. Relatives and friends of those who are killed and maimed and those who have lost their homes quickly become opponents of the occupiers who, in their eyes, are the originators of the horrors they are experiencing. In time, many others tire of seeing foreigners carrying weapons in their country, terrorizing and disrupting their lives.
All factions in Iraq — Shia, Sunni, Kurd or Ba’athist — are moving openly or secretly toward the same goal: expelling foreign aggressors from their soil. The old adage of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is in effect.
Today’s military is a far cry from what used to be. Our present military is nothing but an extension of the welfare mindset. While an experimental playground for all forms of social experiments, it is expected to compete in the military world of this planet — depending of course on the aforementioned high-tech weaponry. In the 4GW world it just can’t match up.
Almost 16% of today’s military is female. While females still cannot have a combat military occupational specialty (MOS), in 4GW, which has no defined "front line," everyone is technically in a combat zone. A look at the female casualties from Iraq reveals the great majority to have been killed as a result of hostile action. What can be said of a nation that sends its mothers, sisters and daughters into war?
The tactics and strategy needed by US forces to compete with, and perhaps defeat, the Insurgency, light infantry tactics, have long since been removed from the training regimens of our military forces. The training needed in this vital area has been replaced with diversity and sensitivity training to facilitate the feminization of our military. Our military is now subject to the god of political correctness and is being controlled by single mothers and radical feminists.
Pregnant military personnel are immediately removed from the theater of operations in our bogus war on terror. While the Pentagon refuses to release the number of these personnel, the Navy reports 20% of its female personnel get pregnant annually. The late Colonel David Hackworth said of the Defense Department, “They treat pregnancy stats with a higher classification than the number of nukes in their arsenals.”
Many male military personnel believe females get pregnant intentionally to get out of the war zone. True or not, this creates morale problems and requires many of those remaining to double their efforts to replace the trained female who is no longer there. A contact told me that in the run-up to the war he was stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas. When preparations were being made there to deploy to the Iraq Theater, a great number of female soldiers became pregnant before the actual date to deploy. While a female can get pregnant and be removed from Iraq or Afghanistan, a male who intentionally injures himself in order to be taken off the line, is prosecuted, given a dishonorable discharge and often sent to a military prison.
The combination of increasing resistance to our presence and a deteriorating military is a recipe for disaster. To believe, or to even vocalize, that we are winning in such an environment are the thoughts and ranting of a madman.
