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Al Qaeda is Losing
By Charlie
They say so themselves in their latest batch of intercepted messages. (Thanks to CENTCOM for the link, by the way)
There is a clear absence of organization among the groups of the brothers in Baghdad, whether at the leadership level in Baghdad, the brigade leaders, or their groups therein. Coordination among them is very difficult, which appears clearly when the group undertake a join operations.[...]
At the same time, the Americans and the Government were able to absorb our painful blows, sustain them, compensate their losses with new replacements, and follow strategic plans which allowed them in the past few years to take control of Baghdad as well as other areas one after the other. That is why every year is worse than the previous year as far as the Mujahidin’s control and influence over Baghdad.
[...]
First, their media power is presented by their special radio and TV stations as the sole Sunni information source, coupled with our weak media which is confined mainly to the Internet, without a flyer or newspaper to present these events.
Second, in the course of their control of the majority of the speakers at mosques who convert right into wrong and wrong into right, and present Islam in a sinful manner and sins in a Muslim manner. At the same time we did not have any positive impact or benefits from our operations.
Well, there obviously is gross mismanagement of the Iraq strategy here, and I think the best way to handle the situation is for all the leaders to admit there mistakes, and accept Zarqawi’s resignation. Al Qaeda based their entire strategy on lies and “cherry picking” of intelligence to present the picture that AQ forces were winning and accomplishing noble goals in Iraq. Now they seem to be paying the price of a flawed foreign policy, with hundreds (?) of their fighters dying every month (if you believe the inaccurate press reports coming out of the region).
Continuing, now with snarkiness off, AQ has made several huge mistakes in the recent months, like trying to change their strategy from low-level terror attacks to company-level assaults on coalition troops. Zarq probably didn’t finish his CGSC rotation, but an essential tenet of irregular warfare is being successful at operating at the terrorist level, gain civilian support, and then move up to the guerilla level of warfare. Going from zero to 100 mph in war, pitting untrained mujahedeen against war vet American troops seasoned by combat, just isn’t a good strategy. Not to mention the Fire Support, Air, and Intelligence advantages the coalition and the Iraqi Army have over the insurgents.
IEDs and suicide bombings play to terrorist strengths and coalition weaknesses. Actual company-sized assaults are what American troops (and thus Iraqis) train on from day one. The “insurgent” terrorists lack the basic infantry training America enjoys, as well as body armor, equipment, weapons, air support, fire support, designated marksmen, armor, and other sustainment advantages. If they want to continue large scale attacks, more terrorists will die, and that is a net gain for America.
Additionally, Zarq’s errors seem to be getting more and more attention, especially the video of him fumbling with a SAW. Martial skills are a symbol of manhood and honor in the Arab world, and even though it seems like an overstatement, that video of Z-man failing to grasp the concept of a charging rod hurt his street cred.
AQ in Iraq is hitting the wall, and they are looking for places to “strategically re-deploy.” Sudan is one such place, so is Gaza, so is Pakistan. All we have to do is hold the line on this. Victory is in sight.
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» The Al-Qaeda Letter & The Silence Of Our MSM from Flopping Aces
You know why. Because then the MSM and the left would have to admit that we are doing a good job over there, and that things are considerable brighter then they would admit. All so they can win a few political points over Bush. What a pathetic bunch... [Read More]
Comments
The LLL’s response will be more of the same. Expect the call to pull troops back home will get insanely loud in the coming months for two reasons.
1) They know its getting close anyway so by screaming such they can in their world (were their constituents live and the Media propagandizes as reality to the general population) they forced the move and are responsible for saving the day.
2) So when Iraq does become obviously calm and prosperous they can claim it was all a result of their wisdom in pulling out the troops.
Now of course to all of US people who have been paying attention this will be obviously BS and even comical. But the Media will support this propaganda and the unfortunate Americans who don’t do the blogospere and only get what the Media gives them will be suckered in.
Hattip to Counterrrism blog for this audio message translation and analysis.
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/05/interview_with_cofounder_of_al_1.php
Heres the actual letter go read its very interesting.
http://www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/0506/shiningstar0506.pdf
For all those people who think the “fly paper theory” is BS and we are not bleeding the enemy with devastating effectiveness should read this. He tries hard to put a decent spin on it but imagine yourself a young Jihadi gotta be pretty dam discouraging. I mean if your sole goal is commit suicide by an infidel’s hand it makes sense but if you expect to win and ring in the Caliphate must just make you wonder. I mean if in the propaganda messages everyone is dying around you and your achievements are not getting caught here and escaping this assault here running like dogs from here to their until your number gets punched dam that just sucks.
One thing I found interesting was the “musk” odors not sure the religious aspect of this maybe has something to do with Muslims thing with being clean. These guys always smell a “musk” on the dead even after days even sometimes on those before they even die so they know what’s coming. I wonder if maybe some Cyops would be in order for this little tidbit maybe drop some helatious stink bombs with air strikes on Jihadi’s or just drop stink bombs on areas were the Jihadis are known operating but not sure exactly what house. Hell drop a strong musk odor in areas before attack scaring the hell out of the Jihads because they know its martyr time.
Ummm... if things are going so swimmingly, why _shouldn't_ we be bringing troops back?
Yeah legion, why are the troops not back from Germany and Italy? You cannot be taken seriously, and your snotty little post is evidence of your inherant unseriousness.
re: "if things are going so swimmingly"
If they continue to rotate troops out of theatre as scheduled but reduce the deployments into Iraq, would that count?
On account of that's what I saw in the new last week.
Dave,
Have you seen the Army's current plans? They _are_ bringing troops back from Germany and Italy now that they're not needed to stave off a Soviet invasion. Go ask around places like Ft Hood and Ft Stewart about the expansion plans there and elsewhere to garrison those units and their families.
And save your 'snotty little post' business for someone who's likely to be intimidated by an undereducated blowhard.
And Jim,
I had not seen that info. It might just count, at that - it certainly sounds promising.
Sounds damn good. *If* that is more general and not just a depressed letter from frontline Baghdad.
There are signs of desperation there, but hey, so it was with Tet.
Legion
The Soviets fell in 91’ bro.
I now my uneducated self and all, but I think that was around 15years ago. On top of that I believe that withdraw you speak of is a force restructuring not a full withdrawl.
Keeping the major air bases, hospital, and command center but pulling out the heavy divisions replacing with a smaller mobile force with less numbers. Also I think we are pushing eastward to Romanian and Polish bases that are more strategic to today’s possible areas of operation.
Nice to hear that after 60years we can finally begin to draw down in Germany thou.
One more thing legion contrary to tinfoil LLL logic the plan always has been to stand down as the Iraqi’s stood up since the very beginning. It’s a sad day in politics when a major party becomes so partisan that their own partisan gain is put above the good of the very nation they are supposed to serve. Any way you look at it once we engaged it was their duty to do all they could to support victory. The outright rooting for defeat for partisan gain is sick and disgraceful.
Good point, legion.
And it only took 60 years since the end of WWII to do it.
I guess, your point (whatever it is) ignores this elephant.
This post absolutely made my day, although I agree with your first poster: the Left will never go for it. Not that it matters, mind you. The delusional will peddle garbage until the cows come home and not be called on it, except by sane people.
Legion...
My son is a Marine. His Squadron just returned from Iraq on rotation.
They aren't scheduled to go back.
Does that count?.....I'm betting not, at least in your world.....
Rudy Carrera,
I too love the first post. The Angry Left is fully vested in the "Iraq is a quagmire" and "Iraq is a failure" thesis'. They are simply unwilling to accept American (read: Bush) success.
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the U.S. commander in charge of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, is telling his troops: "We have to understand that the way we treat Iraqis has a direct effect on the number of insurgents that we are fighting. For every one that I kill, I create almost 10 more.
Hey Reality-based Observer,
Please try to make sense. "We have to understand that the way we treat Iraqis has a direct effect on the number of insurgents that we are fighting. For every one that I kill, I create almost 10 more".
What does this quote mean? For every IRAQI that Chiarelli kills he creates 10 more INSURGENTS....or....do you mean for every INSURGENT that he kills he creates 10 IRAQIS? And what does killing INSURGENTS have to do with treating law abiding IRAQIS? Of course we treat law abiding IRAQIS properly.
In fact, we liberate them, we assist them in establishing a democratic, self-determining goverment and we (temporarily) defend them from INSURGENTS trying (in vain) to derail the entire process.
It's hardly inconcievable, and perhaps quite likely that big media in a vacuum overestimates its impact on reality.
Reality-based Observer (what a oxymoron to begin with like the communist/totalitarian rebels who love to call themselves Democratic-Revolutionary-X 3rd world nation)
OK so I guess you are also saying that every time terrorist do a bomb run against the local market or gathering of innocent Iraq’s that every person they kill or maim results in 10 new Iraqi recruits ready to fight them? Every time the Mainstream Media propagandize the all is lost with these daily bomb stories that’s what I see more Muslim families who now know what we Americans also learned the hard way the true face of terrorism and why they must be fought and defeated.
But I guess that your one-way type of logic only applies to the real threat Bushitler and those evil imperialist Americans. Which I love the Imperialist American angle does the whole LLL leadership have no knowledge of who after WW2 could have become the mythical one world government in one declaration since no other powers were left short Britain & Russia one family the other easily corrected with some Nukes that only X-nation had for no less than what 10yrs. History is Reality not mythical LLL conspiracies.
Dude. Do you people seriously believe that the US forces in Germany, Italy, and other parts of Europe are still there because of WWII? To keep the Nazia and Fascists from rising to power again? That's asinine. Eve since at least 1950, they've been there to guard Europe from the very real threat of a Soviet invasion.
And yes, the USSR collapsed in the early 90s. And it took a few years for the situation to settle down after that. _Now_, after 50+ years of cold war, major units are returning stateside. But you'll notice that those units are full-up heavy divisions that have had the _permanent, garrison bases_ in Europe for decades. The units in Iraq? Not permanent stations. If you want to equate the permanent re-basing of units garrisoned in Germany since the '40s with the return home of units deployed to an active combat zone since 2003, you're smoking crack.
If units are returning and not rotating back - I think that's great. But until I see someone in my chain of command get up and say "we're reducing our troop levels", I'm not gonna hold my breath.
And just looking back at the first comment, despite Brent's assertion that it's "the left" that won't allow any discussion about this topic, I've still got my original question - If we're beating down AQ, _why not_ bring back a significant number of troops? Some folks have mentioned that individual units are coming back, but I haven't heard any formal plans to actually reduce the number of US personnel in the area.
My opinion: drawing down troops significantly at this point, when we are apparently making very strong progress in eroding AQ viability in Iraq would merely drag the conflict out.
Our military has been very good about lessons learned, and it's accurate to say they are inclined to fit to win and achieve their goals, and a drawn out tie isn't either of those.
Legion I hate to break the news to ya but I would guess that until this Iran thing comes to a head or in some way stabilizes it’s a holding pattern. This outcome I believe will decide containment option well self explanatory on troop levels there, open invasion again self explanatory, or other a mix of both air strikes with containment maybe some revolution support who knows it could go a thousand ways from full withdraw to cold war 2 to emergency draft time will tell.
Simply put after 9-11 we engaged in the WOT and Iraq, like Afghanistan is but a phase in a wider conflict. The wider conflict will determine the deployment structure.
I would agree after the early to mid 50’s the rise of the Nazi’s was over and our EU deployments were about Soviet forces and keeping our influence strong to counter the communist influence.
We are wellocme to it's configuration.
Wellcome to the real world.
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I just tried to talke to a leftist buddy about this -- Nope! Disallowed! The left has worked hard for defeat in Iraq. Defeat has been officially declared, and the left is taking it to the bank in '06 and '08. No discussion is allowed.