American?s War Really Isn?t Going Well, Not Well At All
Mar 25, 2003
By Bruce Kennedy, Jihad Unspun
US and British warplanes, with the help of Special Forces soldiers on the ground, wielded an intense bombardment of Republican Guard bunkers outside Baghdad last night in preparation for an assault on the Iraqi capital however all is not going well for coalition forces.
Troops from the US army 5th Corps have formed a small frontline just north of Kerbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad. Vast convoys of tanks and ground forces were to race up racing up from Kuwait to join them for the battle that will ultimately decide the war in Iraq however these troops are being delayed in several guerilla-style battles in southern Iraq. Ahead of them are 36,000 elite Iraqi soldiers, from three divisions, who represent half of the total Republican Guard force. Protected in sprawling bunkers 30 miles outside Baghdad, the armored divisions are equipped with the best weapons in the Iraqi military, including 300 fighter jets, Russian-built T-72 tanks and heavy artillery.
The war isn?t going well and George Bush and his warmongers are whining.
On Monday, the ?dynamic duo? told reporters that the Iraqis were not ?playing by the rules? of engagement. It is this hypocrisy that makes the real reasons for this conflict transparent. Accusing Iraqi soldiers of ?criminal warfare? is unbelievable. What do you call 2000 daisy cutters and cluster bombs that kill for years? These weapons are outlawed by the Geneva Convention. What do you call grabbing the Iraq?s financial assets saying that they are no longer a country? And what do you call taking out water and food supplies of the population with humanitarian aid no where in sight - liberation? And need we remember, the war is illegal under the UN charter to begin with.
Bush has promised retribution for all of the ?wrongdoings? through war crimes trials. Too bad America doesn?t recognize the official International War Crimes Tribunal. And America has no right to waive the Geneva Convention at any one ? we are the worse violators and Camp X Ray is a living breathing example of that.
The war strategy isn?t going well either. Even at home, military planners are coming under fire for the obvious holes in the war plan. Rumors have it that Tommy Franks will be the fall guy. Either way, it comes back to the ?Commander and Chief? who should know better than to race through a hostile zone without neutralizing the enemy. They are now in the position where enemy forces are behind them, their supply lines are under fire, the flow of troops to cover their flank is seriously slowed and worse yet, and they could potentially be surrounded.
And what was Bush?s comment on how the war is going? ?The war is going well ? we have the oil in Southern Iraq don?t we?? he said beaming from ear to ear on live international television. There in lies the objective. Too bad Monday, firefighters discovered that several wells are out of control in the South and in fact, coalition forces only control a small portion of the assets there. Further, it will be difficult to get the wells producing even once the fires are out without the Iraqi know-how of the systems.
The propaganda war isn?t going well either. CNN has been turfed out of Iraq which puts Arab media in control. Good thing considering what was poised to be a rallying of home viewers supporting the war turned ugly when live report contradicted the Pentagon and caught them with their pants down. The picture of dead US soldiers, POWs that the Pentagon previously denied doesn?t play well and since then ?embeds? are under tight wraps, al-Jazeera is being discredited by US media for insensitive behavior and there are no live Iraqi TV reports that may show the reality of the coalitions dubious position. Saddam has played his media strategy very effectively so far and Arab media has stepped up its coverage which is helping to gain support from the Arab street, considering its accounts are still live and therefore more considered more credible. All things being equal, international media will soak this up which is likely to further undermine the credibility of Western press and frankly has them fuming.
And the war really isn?t going well for the livelihood of many - as casualties mount on both sides. At press time, Basra, the ?friendly town that welcomed US solders? and that the US said it took without resistance on Day One of the war has just been elevated to a coalition military target, now scheduled for bombing.
