"Capturing Sadam may be important, but
Ba'athism is a whole ideological system, so it may not work to 'cut the head' off the organization
to kill it. By now the resistance has figured out how to operate in a less top down way, and it is
part of the broader movement to resist the foreign occupation, regardless of political ideology."
You need to do some pretty basic homework on the particular variation of "Ba'athism" practiced by Saddam Hussein. A good place to start would be "Republic of Fear" by Samir al-Khalil, published by Pantheon Press.
Saddam's "allegiance" to Ba'athism was based solely on personal gain, as evidenced by the number of Ba'athis he personally killed in his quest for power. Ba'athism's three fundamental priorities are "Freedom, Unity and Socialism". I look forward to reading any attempts to demonstrate that these principles apply in any shape or form to Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Saddam spent nearly every waking moment devoting himself to defending his power from "the threat". Every single policy implemented was a response to the "threats", internal and external, real or perceived, from Iran, America, Britain, Israel and the Kurds. By the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than one person in three in Iraq was "under arms", either military, paramilitary, Ba'athist militia, the Amn (State Internal Security), the Estikhbarat, (Military Intelligence), the Mukhabarat (Party Intelligence) and the Iraqi police. The children were indoctrinated to rat out their own parents if they uttered even one word against the "Great Leader"
All sources of intelligence and institutions of violence were under either the direct control of Saddam Hussein or his son Qusay. At the first sign of initiative or thinking for one's self, the perpetrator was tortured to confession, shot, and his family was billed for the bullet that killed him.
Of primary importance to the point attempted here, that the capture of Saddam will not have appreciable effect on the resistance, is the control of Iraq's oil profits which was Saddam's sole domain.
Fill in the blanks: "Amateurs discuss -------, and professionals address ---------", and consider the effect of killing the cash cow. The trickle down will allow resistance to continue at most three to six months, after that, continued significant attacks will indicate alternative funding, most likely of Iranian and Syrian origins, with some petty cash coming in from AQ.
"When a Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan sent coordinates through a satelite to target a cruise missle that was launched hundreds of miles away, he was able to do that because Clinton/Gore bought fewer warships and heavy tanks (for which they were savaged by the dumb right), and spent military budget on advanced communications equipment and smart weapons. In the invasion of Afghanistan, spotting a target to making it go boom could take less than 30 minutes, during Bush I's Gulf War, that process took more like three days."
In this assertion, you are at direct odds with General Charles Horner (Ret.), acting DCINC and CINCCENTAF during Desert Storm. The primary bottleneck in generating the ATO's (Air Tasking Orders) was computing power. In 1990, state of the art desktop units utilized Intel 486 DX-33 processors, while the same standard in 2003 had exploded to two gigahertz Pentium 4's, a nominal increase(ignoring threading and caching techniques plus buss improvements) of a sixty-fold gain in processing horsepower.
Again, some basic research is in order before making proclamations involving ATO turn-around time, perhaps beginning with "Every Man A Tiger", written by General Horner and Tom Clancy, published by Berkley Books.
"The only overt action from Reagan was the bombing of Libya. Of course, at the same time they
were arming muslim militants in Afghanistan and a certain mustached dictator in Iraq. "
Reagan armed Hussein? Can't wait to find out where Ronnie got his hands on all those AK-47's, T-55's, T-72's, Mig-29's, Su-21's, F-1's, SA-2's, SA-6's, SA-10's, SA-11's, Frogs and Scuds. Thought those were Russian and French.
Matter of fact, I thought Saddam's air defense network in DS1 was named "Kari" because that was how the French who built it for him spelled "Irak" backwards. Or perhaps you meant to imply that Reagan sold Saddam his new fiber optic air defense network after we dismantled Kari. The one named "Tiger Song". Of course the Chinese claimed they invented that name and that system, but hey, I again can't wait to find out how Reagan was the middle man.
(yeah, I'm laughing here....
"...we aren't likely to be fighting any massive armor battles..."
Yet again (the pattern is becoming obvious) basic research is in order. Perhaps your "briefers" at Google might cough up some relevant data if you input "TOE", "OOB" and "North Korea".
"Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded by Clinton's military"
Indeed. The military that, under the Clinton administration had our premier armored units at Fort Hood, Texas were marching about in small groups on FTX, making tank noises with their mouths, because they didn't have fuel for...err...more formal training. That also explains why I spent several weeks trying to calm a DIA friend (not a Bush fan either) between Afghanistan and Iraq, flipping out daily because "we do not have the ass to pull this off."
Girls. What do they know about war? Even defense intelligence interrogators... We did just fine, no shortages of armor....although....seems to me like some folks claimed there was midway through. That was pretty funny too. A "pause to allow log trains to 'run the gauntlet' from the rear areas to the front lines".
A little basic research here, into the published and well documented Shock and Awe doctrine, authored by General Fred Franks (Ret.), Commander 7th Corps in DS1 and subsequently rewarded with the position of commander of TRADOC (Training and Doctrine), which clearly states that "log stores are organic and embedded in front line units under Shock and Awe", might have allowed the naysayers to understand some simple 21st century realities.
To wit: A dispersed and dug in armored or mechanized opposing force can withstand substantial air attack, even in the face of friendly air supremacy, unless it first be forced to defend strategic objectives, and in the process there-of, be fixed by friendly armor.
In simpler terms, the RGFC dispersed and dug in prior to Iraqi Freedom, coalition commanders then noisily drove our armor up to just short of in their face, forcing them to mass or relinquish Baghdad, said armor took a week off while the air force made the Republican Guards disappear, then rolled into Baghdad unopposed.
"The C/G administration created the national stockpile of counter-chemical weapon drugs and the national supply of smallpox vaccine."
Spin, pure and simple.
On 9/12/2001 the United States had less than 1 million doses of smallpox vaccine, and was able to purchase an additional 40 million doses from the UK in 2002. It might be true to say that Clinton and Gore created the initial "stockpile" but the whole truth of the matter exposes both the attempt and intent of such a statement.
"The administration was told about the threat that Al Qaeda posed by outgoing members of the Clinton administration, and even kept on several key people (who were largely ignored). It wasn't merely the case that the change of administration caused a sort of 'gap in coverage.' It was the case that the Bush II administration just didn't get the severity of the threat that was out there (they thought that the Clintonites were 'obsessive' about ObL) and they dropped the ball until Sept. 11th. "
Speaking of dropping the ball, why did the Clinton Administration refuse when the House of Saud had Bin Laden in custody and offered him to the United States to stand trial for the terrorist acts he had committed? Nice try.
"The Reagan and Bush I administrations certainly did start the funding of a lot of the smart weapons development. But it was during the 8 years of the Clinton/Gore administration that these systems were deployed and the military restructured to take advantage of them."
Utter bullshit.
As this page:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/index.html
clearly details, of 25 guided weapons systems currently in the US arsenal, 17 of them achieved IOC (Initial Operational Capability, the date the first field units received the weapons and were certified for combat) during the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. administrations, compared to 8 during the Clinton administration.
17 to 8, kind of gives lie to the statement, "it was during the 8 years of the Clinton/Gore administration that these systems were deployed", doesn't it?.
I have no objections to a discussion based on facts, but I do have a problem with half truths, spin, and outright lies.
