As if the daily news from Iraq weren’t downbeat enough, there is this: Insurgents are blowing things up with "dirty bombs" involving chlorine gas. Explosions of a truck bomb on Wednesday and a chlorine tanker on Tuesday sent 200 or so to hospitals for respiratory, skin and eye problems. Fortunately, U.S. troops were able to quickly raid an operation near Baghdad with five buildings full of propane tanks and ordinary chemicals believed to be for bomb making.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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14 Comments
And we are surprised why?
For years I have been concerned about similar dangers here. Consider: a stick of dynamite, about what you would use to blow up a stump. Strapped to the side of a railcar of chlorine gas …
When an overwhelmed force feels they are in a fight-or-die situation, they will result to whatever means necessary to attack their enemies.There will never be an end to the use of terror tactics because of this.
What army in the world can fight a conventional war against the USA? We have the greatest military in the world and those who oppose the US for whatever reason know that. Anytime we attempt to use force, the response will be guerilla, including terrorism.That is why it is so important that we as a nation do whatever we can to find a diplomatic solution to our conflicts.
brian – and I would add that we need the population on our side. Then we can get intel.
brian,
Indeed. The paradox of being the sole superpower is that the only conflicts in which one becomes entangled are precisely those which a superpower is least suited to fight: asymmetrical wars against non-state actors.
Ben Huie,
As per Petraeus’ counter-insurgency manual, yes. But the U.S., quite literally, has no chance whatever of enlisting local populations in Iraq against other local populations. And without that, no human intelligence is obtainable.
This is the weakness of our counter-insurgency strategy which, to my mind, is so generic as to be virtually worthless. Our interests only incidentally coincide with those of the various factions in Iraq. Their alliances with us will only ever be tactical; someday we’ll leave, and they’ll still be there.
Vary good point CF – which was really my point too. We can only be successful when we have general population support. When we don’t we really should be asking why (a) we don’t ahve that support and (b) why we are there where we are not wanted.
They used a chemical weapon? A dirty bomb?Bush and the republicans were right!WMD!!!!
(sarcasm off)
Any Bushies want to comment?
Yet it was okay when we used phosophorus on the Iraqi people.
Double standard?
Hell, it was OK when our agents used our phosphorus on the Lebanese people!
Of course, Ben, because we are the U.S.A.!!
/sarcasm
I have to admit I was stumped for awhile, every time there were a major death toll from a insurgent attack upon the general populace. The anger seemed so miss place at it being against the U.S., till I read about a plan that Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia had of attacking the largest Mosque in Mecca. The goal was to inflame the general populace against the royal family. The thinking being that if it is the duty of the royal family to protect this mosque and it was destroyed the people would blame the house of Saudi.
That thinking seem to work in Iraq as well, also in a warped logic until the capture of Saddam some resisted joining the insurgency fearing that if the insurgency was able to drive the invaders out. Saddam would once again be in power, but now that Saddam is gone. They are free to join and aid the insurgency to drive the U.S. out. Oh what a tar baby!
Right now the chlorine bombs are ineffectual, but the history of insurgancy is that they adapt.
Already, we’re seeing a new lethal anti-helicopter attack strategy.
Time is not on our side . . .
All of this is starting to take on the same shade as USSR – Afghanistan circa 1988.
writerdog,
When did you come to that conclusion? I’ve been saying it for at least a year.
The insurgents aren’t stupid. They’re fighting the most powerful, modern fighting force in the world, and they have to do it with whatever they have at hand and their wits. How better to turn the people against the U.S. than to bomb and kill their own, knowing that the people know (or even believe) that if the U.S. wasn’t there, these things wouldn’t be happening?
Good psychology, if you ask me.