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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, August 24, 2007

Picture of the Day - 3






Every once in awhile, I find myself thinking back to the much hyped release of The National Strategy for Victory in Iraq in November 2005.

(All of these sets are from late 2005 when signage was the currency for maintaining war support.)


posted by mikevotes at 3:17 PM

11 Comments:

  • The bigger the sign the bigger the victory I guess.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:50 PM  

  • At the time.

    I'll be curious how Gillespie tries to package this push.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:45 PM  

  • I'm thinking something like "Security and Reconciliation" but maybe that sounds too geared towards the Iraqis. The GOP base still wants some kind of win I think.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:31 PM  

  • I don't think they mention reconciliation at all as it's the biggest problem.

    Maybe referring to security as "a good start." (And some sort of relaunch/restart of the government.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:02 PM  

  • 'Security and Progress'.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:53 PM  

  • There's that magic word.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:00 PM  

  • Americans sometimes forget that several years before the invasion, Saddam and the Iraqui forces began planning the resistance. (Actually this was reported by the cia to the pentagon, who ignored the warning, thinking that Iraq would be "easy")
    The mainstay of their plan was to be the use of roadside bombs. 50 dollar technology that would destroy 5 million dollar tanks.
    They calculated that whilst being unable to confront the americans on conventional terms, a slow, grinding, costly war would destroy both the will and the finances of the american state.
    Seems like the Iraquis got it right, unfortunately, there still seems to be sufficient americans willing to fund and serve the engines of war.

    By Blogger landsker, at 7:15 AM  

  • Really. I 'd be really curious if you have a mainstream citation.

    I know the idea of the dispersed arms bunkers was to try and get around US airpower so as to allow local units to resupply themselves like a guerilla force, and I know that some of the actions of the invasion showed a plan to melt back then reemerge from the population to attack the flanks, but I hadn't ever heard of roadside bombs(not landmines) as part of the plan.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:52 PM  

  • Perhaps I should have said "Improvised explosive device".
    However, there seems to be references to an Iraqui group called M-14.
    Here is one link, which isn`t really mainstream, but you could start from there...

    http://www.geocities.com/iraqiambush/

    Another, american this time...

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040429-saddam-plan.htm

    Probably the targets and techniques have evolved since the occupation began, but as you say, the stockpiles of munitions were stored away before the americans crossed the border.
    Peace.

    By Blogger landsker, at 5:28 PM  

  • Cool. Thanks.

    I'll take a look.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 6:49 AM  

  • You are more than welcome.
    It will be interesting to read the reports from Crocker and Petraeus;... not that the remaining "neocons" will pay the slightest attention, but there you go.
    By the way, I just found a more "mainstream" report.
    This was filed by Scott Ritter, the Weapons Inspector, in June 1996, but was ignored, because he was being paid to find nuclear weaponry, not crudely improvised bombs.

    In his report, he refers to the group as M-21, other than that, it seems like the welcome party was planned before George W. started reading about pet goats.
    Peace.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1110/p09s02-coop.html

    By Blogger landsker, at 7:29 AM  

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