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Signs of the Times for Tue, 11 Apr 2006
Signs Editorial:
Is Doomsday Coming For U.S. Forces In Iraq?
Magus
March 27, 2006 Updated April 8, 2006
Signs of the Times Having many cherished friends, from many walks
of life, a good listener hears many different voices from many
different sources. Let this listener share with you those things he
has been told of late from many whom he dearly loves and does not
want to lose. They, all those human beings who dare to Be and to
Love, in this brief whirl of endless doubts we think of as life, are
precious, and the Shadow now falling over far too many of them on the
blood soaked sands of Iraq seems very dark and dire.
It is not yet possible to provide enough hard data to fully
support the following speculations. It is all told by way of
"scuttlebutt" from rank and file, military-on-the-job rumors, and old
fashioned soldiers' and sailors' gossip and intuitions. It is offered
in that "for what it's worth" category, in the hopes that it will
make a few more folks think about the hell on Earth that is the day
to day reality for U.S. "boots on the ground" in Iraq.
In general, my experiences over many years of close friendships
with honorable, career military and National Guard members, from
among both officers and non-commissioned personnel, have proven that
the "scuttlebutt" is often more accurate than the official line being
handed out from the current CentCom. That was certainly true in
Vietnam, and the similarities between Iraq and "The Nam" are abundant.
Remember, however, this is only "scuttlebutt." Do not take it as
fact but as food for thought, and perhaps as a warning.
In Iraq, many, perhaps most, of the American forces in the
forward operations areas are essentially pinned down. They stay
huddled for safety within their small, fortified (as best possible)
bunkers and camps, both rural and urban, emerging only upon direct
commands, to conduct their assigned patrols and sweeps while looking
first and ever more exclusively to their own survival in all regards.
They are literally stressed and terrified out of their minds, and
most of them are also physically ill, many seriously so, from the
effects of Depleted Uranium poisoning. Many of them, especially with
their psychopathic "leaders" giving them almost carte blanche to do
such, have taken on a "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" modus
operendi, at all times and in all circumstances when they're outside
of their bunkers.
The truth of this "scuttlebutt" is now being born out by numerous
Iraqi eyewitnesses and by the latest statements and sworn testimony
coming from members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and in a
Canadian courtroom where an American army deserter is pleading for
political asylum to keep from returning for another tour of duty in
Iraq. Those soldiers who do still have empathy and conscience alive
within themselves post Iraq War will suffer hell's own psychological
and spiritual torments for the rest of their lives, as have a
majority of Vietnam combat veterans. Their having either engaged in
or witnessed daily massacres of civilians, including women and
children, will leave them broken for life in the deepest parts of
themselves. But, their having been driven to the point of unflinching
barbarity in Iraq is also very understandable, just as it was among
combat troops in Vietnam where the "kill 'em all" sobriquet
originated.
These days, the areas they "patrol and sweep" are growing
smaller, and their unit actions becoming shorter and more perilous,
as they go about the impossible task of "clearing" each day's
designated areas of IEDs and "insurgents." The conditions of their
daily lives are deplorable. The rate of suicides among them is
astronomical, setting an all time record for any U.S. military
deployments, in any war or other combat action ever. Some of the
oldest among National Guard members now in Iraq were forced back into
active duty after having been retired for years. Their ages go up to
and include some members who are in their fifties and even a few
field medics and nurses in their early sixties. Thus some now in Iraq
were there, in The Nam. They know of what they speak, and they say it
is even worse in Iraq now than it was in Vietnam in the months before
the end.
In many of the Forward Operations Bases or Camps, American
soldiers do not dependably receive enough daily drinking water, let
alone water enough for washing, and for many there are still no
regular showers. For the most remote locations, there are no showers
at all, not even with the foul, recycled and often unsafe "yellow
water" that has become notorious among U.S. troops' Iraq war tales.
Many bivouacs have no air conditioning and most are in areas where
there is no electricity for most of the time, which is true
throughout nearly all of Iraq outside of the Green Zone.
Having their own generators doesn't help them much when the fuel
supplies can't and often don't get through the heavy fields of fire
and explosives from the Iraqi resistence. Some U.S. troops in Iraq
even lack for adequate supplies of MREs episodically, let alone of
fresh foods. They are sometimes left hungry at the end of their long,
desperate days, an awful insult added to all the other dangers and
deprivations of their days and nights. They are often without laundry
facilities, without real beds as opposed to cots, and even without
flush toilets in some isolated camps.
They are supposedly rotated out of the grueling forward positions
to the large, new bases already finished, (almost 8 of them now)
every two to four weeks, but the operative phrase on that is always
"if possible." Their successful rotation to more tolerable conditions
largely depends on the current "heat" of the resistence around a
particular forward base. Some units deployed, especially in the more
remote and heavily resistence dominated areas, have now been virtual
prisoners, out in the deserts, for several months.
Rumor has it that upwards of 5,500 U.S. combat troops have walked
out of Iraq, into adjacent countries such as Turkey, Iran and Syria,
and have kept on going from there to places in Europe and elsewhere.
They were largely from among those units stuck in the farthest, most
isolated positions, and the scuttlebutt says that the Iraqi
resistence fighters have even helped some of them to get across the
borders and have provided them with food, water, contacts and money
for the journey. On several occassions, by the time the transport
helicopters came in to take them out to one of the big new bases for
a break, the entire unit was gone but for one or two die hards.
It was the U.S. occupation's own "back" that really got broken at
Fallujah. Please note the steadily shrinking sizes and numbers of
cleverly named U.S. military assaults and initiatives that have taken
place since then. The annihilation of Fallujah, and the U.S.'s
massive slaughter of innocent civilians there, increased support for
the resistence to almost 100% among the Iraqi people. It is most
accurate to say that the American combat forces in Iraq are now
largely fighting a defensive war. Those with a knowledge of military
tactics and history will recognize that to be the worst possible
position an invading and then occupying army can get into. To have
that be the case this long after the initial invasion, when neither
the troops nor their equipment are able to operate at anywhere near
to peak condition and efficiency, is even worse.
In addition to the other shortages the troops on the front lines
face in these bases, they are also short on ammunition. Despite all
of the Bush administration's propganda to the contrary, the
resistence owns the highways and roads of Iraq, with the possible
exceptions of a very few and very shaky stretches in and around the
"Green Zone" and, maybe, maybe not, the main airport road out of
Baghdad. The military's ability to resupply its forward troops is
rapidly approaching nil. The remote troops are being kept alive by
air drops delivering almost everything that does reach them now.
Unfortunately, the anti-aircraft fire from the resistence, always
present and heavy, from at least small arms, surrounds the U.S.
forward bases and is especially strong near the most remote and
smallest ones. For that reason, the drops of supplies to forward
combat units are not as precise as they need to be in order to keep
supply levels adequate, and some things like diesel fuel, gasoline
and ammunition cannot be air dropped regularly or at all. Again,
despite the official reports, the recent increases in helicopter
"crashes" shows the growing prowess of the Iraqi fighters in bringing
them down.
Note too that, except for numerous and frequently fatal vehicular
"accidents," there has been scant media or press mention lately of
the U.S. military's huge convoys of transport trucks that were
formerly hauling supplies to the U.S. troops from the depots and
distribution centers in Kuwait and at the Baghdad airport and the new
air bases. They have not been rolling very reliably since just after
Fallujah. The U.S. troop and supply convoys cannot safely travel in
Iraq these days, nor keep any kind of a regular schedule, partly due
to the increasing resistence skills in stopping them by causing roll
overs and other "accidents," and partly because the vehicles
themselves are worn out beyond any safe usage.
The military's equipment is all used up, and there is not a
steady stream of replacement materiels coming in, quite the contrary.
While the mercenary companies have grown richer than Croesius, the
National Guard, Reserves and regular military have gone broke. In
person-power, weapons, vehicles, tanks, ammunition, body armor,
ordinance, and all else, the U.S. military is drained dry and used
up, even to being short on replacement uniforms for active duty
combat troops. U.S. soldiers are often caught on camera these days in
heavily patched uniforms. Close scrutiny of the next cable or network
news clips of frontline soldiers may prove quite revealing.
Much of what is air-dropped in for the most remote U.S. troops is
promptly grabbed up by the Iraqi resistance fighters surrounding
their encampments. Thus, CentCom, which is well aware of this
precarious situation, often does not dare to air drop ammunition,
ordinance, replacement weapons or parts, and much else. The troops
are being gradually deprived of even their most basic capacity for
self-defence against the increasingly numerous, better armed, better
organized and often cleaner and better fed "insurgency."
It is an intolerable situation for any soldier to live in, day
after day, for weeks and months on end, and it is not going to get
better. The conditions currently being denied by the brass and
stoically, depressively endured, with no hope of a say in the matter,
by the "grunts" in the forward operations zones, is not unlike that
faced by soldiers in the trenches of WW I. In fact, if the U.S. does
not soon withdraw its forces, it may have very few left to withdraw.
Of course, this too may be far from coincidental. Only such a massive
and "unforeseen" troop loss will avoid the full, horrible truth from
eventually reaching the American public. Most of the U.S. military
personnel who have done duty in Iraq are now so radioactive, from
their constant and ultimately lethal exposures to the DU, Depleted
Uranium, present in all of the U.S. munitions, and the heavy armored
assault vehicles in use in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well, that they
really cannot be safely returned to home soil in large numbers.
They themselves are literally toxic. The very cells of their
bodies are heavily, permanently contaminated with ceramic uranium
oxide gases and particulates that can and will spread from their own
flesh into everything and everyone they touch, breathe upon or even
stand near to, from other human beings to plants, soil, buildings,
furnishings and onward. This is not a rumor but a tragic, brutal fact.
A strong and persistent rumor, told by Iraqi civilians and a few
old Iraqi soldiers as well, has it that a comprehensive,
post-invasion military strategy was designed and implemented well
before the U.S. and "coalition" forces ever arrived. With years of
advanced planning by the best military minds of Saddam Hussein's
armed forces and intelligence services, the Iraqis were well prepared
for Bush's war when it came. Remember that George W. Bush had openly
stated his wishes, and his PNAC friends had widely published their
"scholarly" position papers, which included plans to re-invade Iraq,
well before the 2000 "election." From the December 12, 2000
appointment of Bush to the presidency until the Iraq invasion began,
the planning and implementation went into high gear in both Iraq's
career military and in its civilian high command. They made
preparations for just such an invasion as did occur in March of 2003.
In fact they planned for a much larger invasion force than was
deployed, having anticipated some 300,000 to 500,000 U.S. troops.
Much of Iraq has been honeycombed with miles upon miles of
fortified tunnels, virtual super highways and cities built deep
underground, shielded against electronic and aerial detection, with
hospitals, support staff, dormitories, kitchens, and several years
worth of supplies. The plan, then and now, was to lure the American
command, by using huge initial successes against token military
resistence as bait, into spreading the U.S. troops throughout Iraq,
and thereafter breaking them up into ever smaller, less unified
groups, sub groups and so on over a period of several years.
Eventually, without their ever having noticed it was happening,
by the artful use of an "insurgency" constantly stinging at the U.S.
forces like wasps, they would gradually be drawn awry and herded,
stationed here, there and everywhere, willy nilly, in Baghdad, at
their brand new but largely unmanned military and air bases, around
the oil fields and the pipelines, in their fortified city and rural
bunkers, in a helter-skelter pattern of troop concentrations all
widely separated from each other. And that is exactly how it now is
with the positional deployments of the majority of American and other
coalition forces in Iraq. They are now, worst of all, very far
removed from the means to withdraw them quickly if they should become
overwhelmed by a superior force. Just as the large transport
helicopters and cargo planes cannot dependably get in to keep them
well supplied, they cannot dependably get in to bring the troops out
either.
This was the Iraqi strategy from the start. Once they got the
U.S. forces sufficiently scattered and pinned down, they could, and
will, at the time of their choosing, close the traps, bring the still
unaccounted for majority of the pre-invasion Iraqi army out of
hiding, and wipe out or capture the American forces in a very brief
and total sweep.
Let us now consider some of the facts and matters of record
closely related to this "hypothesis" of the pre-war Iraqi planning
for the defeat of the U.S. invasion and occupation.
No post invasion censuses, nor any other registrations of Iraqis,
were ever conducted, and such dared not to be conducted in order to
hide the massive numbers of civilian deaths and wanton massacres.
There was no orderly, immediate U.S. take over and no exercise at all
of any necessary civil control. Any such would have stifled the
rampant graft and pillaging planned and done by the Coalition
Provisional Authority. There still is no broad and stable civil order
in Iraq today, except in the delusions and propaganda of the Bush
administration, and in the desperate attempts to keep up appearances
being provided by the very carefully selected Iraqi "government" and
its puppets. Not even the corporate media and press is, for the most
part, any longer able to pretend that Iraq has a functional and
effective civil control structure in place, not anywhere.
There is literally no record at all of where Iraq's huge, pre-war
standing army, nor its equipment and materiels really went. Whatever
truly did become of them, the U.S. command and the Bush government
have no idea of it, not one way or the other. All they have ever had,
told and sold as "facts," were their own irrational assumptions,
fixed ideas, wishful thinking and deceitful PR, to put it bluntly,
their own wild and not very bright guesses and stories for a gullible
public and a compliant media and press. The possibilities shared here
are based on a good deal more reason and fact than all of that,
having at least good, solid "scuttlebutt" behind it.
Remember too that there were vast caches of UN-sealed
conventional weapons that the U.S. troops opened and then left
abandoned and unguarded when they went tearing through Iraq in a
patently chaotic fashion, during and immediately after the invasion.
All of those massive caches of arms, ordinance, tanks, missiles,
aircraft yet unaccounted for, high yield conventional explosives,
detonators and tons upon tons of ammunition, ALL of the munitions
caches, got emptied out by the same unknown, faceless, trackless
hoardes of Iraqi men who also stripped every last Iraqi military base
bare, right down to the concrete blocks, the windows and frames, the
electrical wiring, the lamps, the plumbing fixtures and even the
pipes. To have been executed so quickly and thoroughly, that task
alone had to have been well planned, in great detail and in advance.
That the Bush administration called it "looting" is ludicrous. It was
far too systematic and well organised to have been mere looting.
It is impossible to forget the bizarre scene that appeared on the
televisions of the world, in the live, real time broadcasts coming
from the Iraq war, on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, BBC, etc., et
al, immediately after the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces. For three,
entire, mind bending days the cameras revealed, from dawn until dark,
the sight of thousands, upon tens of thousands, upon literally
uncountable numbers of unarmed, unburdened Iraqi men, all able bodied
and roughly of military age, all clean and in civilian clothing, all
walking casually in an endless stream down the main highway of Iraq,
from North to South.
They were many miles out in the middle of nowhere, without so
much as a backpack on their shoulders or a hobo's bindlestiff in
their hands, heading South. That is all we really ever knew for sure
of their destination, just South, despite the speculations of
reporters that they were going home to Baghdad, and all we ever
really knew for sure of their origin was that they had mysteriously
appeared from the North. They were miles from any town or city when
the first TV camera crews spotted them. All we really heard about
them was the speculation from the cable and network news reporters.
Not one U.S. military unit came to question them, nor did the
media do so effectively. The few questions asked got smiling,
friendly replies in suspiciously "broken" English, utterances of
"going home" or "no more fighting now" which were devoid of real
factual content, and skillfully so. No slightest attempt was made to
stop or detain any of them, and it was obvious, at least to this
viewer, that they were behaving in a planned and very orderly manner.
Smiling and cheerful, as if on some kind of a grand, holiday lark of
a walkabout, they walked on and on and on in their countless
thousands, an endless stream. The oddest part of all was that no one
detected any noticeable influx of tens of thousands of men, or more,
into Baghdad during the 3 days that the march continued. Although
network camera crews in Baghdad and other cities to the south of the
march had been alerted to watch for their arrivals, and did so, they
were never seen.
They just vanished into the sands of Iraq, somewhere, in the
middle of nowhere, after staging a masssively distracting march down
the main highway between Tikrit and Baghdad for three days, days in
which that single distraction might well have hidden many another
action from view. Countless Iraqi males of the right ages and fitness
to have been soldiers simply disappeared at points unasked then and
unknown still.
They vanished overnight. Come the dawn of day four, the highway
was empty. Not so much as a scrap of paper marked their passing. Not
so much as a shoe, or a rag, or a food wrapper had been left behind.
Oddly, one reporter and camera crew, from CNN, briefly went into the
desert for a few yards on either side of the highway that strange,
silent, fourth dawn, and could find not one set of tracks leading
away from the highway that had, as of dark the night before, been
covered by an endless file of walking men.
Bear in mind that Iraq's standing army at the time of the Bush
invasion was over 2.5 million strong. Make no mistake, they were not
delighted to have the U.S. armed forces invade their country and take
control of it away from Saddam Hussein. Let's face it, with males
above the age of 10 in Iraq being allowed to own an unlimited number
of guns of all kinds if they so chose, had the domestic opposition to
Saddam ever been even so high as a full 50% of the Iraqi people,
especially had it been so among the Iraqi military forces and men,
then Saddam would have been long gone. He wasn't. That alone should
have given any reasonable person the idea that there was much more to
the political situation in Iraq than the extremely simplistic picture
of an intolerably oppressive and despotic regime as was promoted by
Bush Sr., the Clinton administration, Bush Jr., the neocons of the
PNAC and the corporate media and press.
Now is that terrible circumstance and time when the U.S. troops
themselves, somehow sensing that they have all been long since
written off as expendable, must continue to hunker down in terror,
abandoned by a government of, by and for their pathologically
selfish, greedy, amoral, psychopathic rulers. A war that had no
justifiable cause for its beginning may very possibly, and very soon,
have a very well justified ending imposed upon it.
But, again, the true price will not be paid by those who created
that war for their own selfish gains in power, prestige and wealth.
The only ones who'll pay for it, in the highest measures of all, are
those American soldiers who were either idealistic enough, foolish
enough, obedient enough, or all three, to have gone to the faraway
land of Iraq and fought in it, and those Iraqis who have either been
killed by the U.S. invaders or forced to fight them to the death so
that their nation and people could again live in freedom from
occupation by foreign forces, and hopefully, someday, in peace.
The ultimate truth about all wars, on all sides, for all those
who fight in them, for all those who love the fighters as friends and
kin, and for all those civilians who are the innocent victims of
"collateral damage" is that there are no real winners, and the losers
are always the maimed, the dead, and the bereaved.
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