"Welcom to Iraq-Nam," says columnist Gwynne Dwyer

Speaking of the attacks on US troops in Iraq Dwyer says....

However, the videos claiming responsibility for the attacks that are delivered almost daily to Arabic-language satellite TV channels attest that most of them are actually being made by radical Islamist groups within the Sunni Arab population. These are precisely the religious extremists who were suppressed by Saddam’s resolutely secular Baath Party:

Salafists and other radicals who long for a ‘pure’ Iraq purged of corrupting non-Islamic influences. Now they are free to act at last, and their first goal is to purify Iraq of American occupation troops. Drop a grenade on a Humvee from an overpass, walk up behind an American soldier in a market and blow his brains out, plant a radio-controlled mine in the road: it’s easy in a country awash with weapons, and meanwhile, the Americans push the population into your arms with endless heavy-handed raids in search of Saddam Hussein, as if he mattered. “When in doubt, do something” is a sound tactical axiom on the battlefield, but a rotten guide to strategy.

<snip>

Since Syria is a much softer target than Iran, it is quite likely to be invaded and occupied by American forces before November, 2004. If there is another major terrorist attack on American soil, that likelihood becomes a near certainty.

Bush probably will be re-elected next year, only to go under a couple of years later as military and economic troubles overwhelm his second administration. That would leave radical Islamists in power in Iraq (or at least in the Arabic-speaking parts of Iraq, if the country breaks up in the process). If the US has also invaded Syria in the meantime, the eventual pull-out would bring the same sort of people to power in Damascus – and in such a general retreat American troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan too, allowing the Taliban back into power there.

www.barbadosadvocate.com/NewViewNewsleft.cfm?Record=14523

Mr Dwyer looking into his crystal ball predicts Bush will stage an invasion of Syria and/or Iran in 2004 to help win the 2004 elections. As Dwyer sees it, This will have disastrous long term consequences for the region and for US foreign policy. However, he appears to gloss over how the US forces as currently constituted would find the manpower to invade and occupy Syria while at the same time having to use a major portion of their forces to keep a lid on things in Iraq.

Even if Rummy is allowed to replace the top level generals with neo-con ass kissers as he appears intent on doing, do they have the number of troops necessary to support another invasion and occupation in the Middle East while occupying Iraq? I guess my worry would be that this might give these neo-con nutjobs the excuse to use their tactical nukes they have wet dreams about each night.

And about the probability of an invasion of Syria.
Otherwise right on.

Read it and weep:


The result, by around 2006-07, would be a solid bloc of radical Islamist states from the western
borders of Pakistan to the eastern borders of Israel.

However, not to worry: Paul Bremer, the US proconsul in Iraq, has it under control. ?We are going to
fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture or...kill them until we have imposed law and
order on this country. We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country.?
General Westmoreland could not have put it better.

Re. your assesment of Shrubenfuhrer's chances in 2004. However, knowing how desperate these criminals are going to be not to loose the power and advantages they have lied, cheated and stolen to gain over the years, I would not put anything past them in their attempts to win in 2004.

As to my other point about the US forces being overstretched if expected to carry out further invasions, I came across this article today on imperial overstretch on the Janes defense publications web site.


On imperial overstretch: can the USA afford to send its troops here, there and everywhere?


The official view from the Pentagon is that all is going well in Iraq and that the US forces are more than ready to continue the global war against terrorism. And yet, as the army commanders and planners in the Pentagon know only too well, this is a mere diplomatic smokescreen. The reality is that US forces are now severely overstretched and the number of their military commitments worldwide is increasing by the day.

The USA remains the biggest military power in the world, but it is beginning to experience the classic symptoms of imperial fatigue.

<snip>

However, this is only part of the story. Twenty-one of the US Army's 33 regular combat brigades are already on active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea and the Balkans, amounting to roughly 250,000 fighting men and women. And this does not include a substantial number of US troops regularly stationed in Germany, Britain, Italy and Japan, or smaller contingents now scattered around the world. A traditional calculation assumes that for every soldier deployed on an active mission, two more are required to be kept in reserve, either in order to rotate those in action or to prepare for that rotation. Under this assumption, the USA has already reached its limit today. But, to the frustration of the Pentagon, neither US diplomatic priorities nor the sheer pace of international developments appears to take this into account

Officially, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appears unruffled by these developments, yet behind the scenes he is facing an increasingly strident chorus of disapproval from his military commanders.

Logisitics preparations not even begun.
We can bomb the shit out of most anyplace on short notice,
but invasion is another deal entirely.

They dodged a bullet in Iraq as it is when the Iraqi military
(wisely) allowed themselves to be bribed. But Syria is, from a
military point of view, much more competent than Saddam's Iraq.

And, as Jane's points out, we are already beyond sustainable
levels of commitment, and Rumdum is in denial about it so it will
get worse before it gets better.

The election? Who knows for sure. I don't think the sort of
police state power that one worries about is available in the
USA today, I mean the apparatus, they have a few jackbooted thugs
handy, but not nearly enough, and I don't think they will be allowed
to construct it. But with the right sort of external attack and
the usual spinelessness of most of our political classes, one can
never be sure.

I do think there is a 'gathering storm" of political revolt, tied as
much to economic issues as anything else, but the timing of the
cloudburst is not clear. Dean is the one clear manifestation of
that, and lots of little ones like DU. The terms of the political
debate in this country, kept under close control these last twenty
years, are breaking outside the designated rhetorical fences once more.

Then there is Iraq. The sanest thing they can do is leave, and that
will just kill them politically with their "base". If they stay,
they will bleed and bleed and bleed, and the sharks are already
circling and they already smell the blood..

the FIX is in.

The way I understand it, pretty much anybody can hack in and
"modify" election results.

Republicans did NOT invent fixing elections in the USA.
:-)