By Ted Weaver

7/28/2003

I don’t believe for one moment, that this is an unjust war in Iraq of any sorts. I do believe that this war on terrorism must be fought by taking the war to them, and not on our shores like what happened on 9/11/2001. Which cost 3000 innocent American lives and damage to our economic infrastructure. Of which the latter, I truly believe was intended to be a result of the terrorist actions, as well the accompanying negative psychological impact that it had on the country, which seemed to have deviated in severity and occurrence, depending on the geographical locations and personal mental health conditions of each individual. Our people are just not use to foreign invaders attacking us from within our own borders. That is what terrorism does, creates an intended devastating impact on the human psyche.

I personally have no doubt in my mind that Saddam did have WMD prior to and up into the war. I also personally believe that the tyrant Saddam and his tyrannical party of mass murderers, with their terrorist supporting operations which included proven financial support to terrorist in other countries, deserved no less than complete and radical regime change. Don’t anyone think for a millisecond, that Saddam and his bloodthirsty regime would have stepped down or relinquished power in some form of moderate fashion. Because that just wasn’t going to happen. Saddam’s response to the question posed to him about going into exile was, “I was born here-I will die here” that was his answer. So much for the possibility of him and his entire regime stepping down peacefully.

I can just imagine what some of those service men and women think to themselves and then sometimes aloud when they hear our political leaders squabble and position themselves for an upcoming election. Using harsh rhetoric, demeaning the reason for being in Iraq or spewing forth the worthless allegations against the President of the U.S. (Commander in Chief) by insinuating and outright charging that we went to war on false reasons. I think that is disgraceful and morale busting to those who willingly defend us with their lives for our freedom. Especially when Congress voted overwhelmingly to grant the president the power to do so. I’d say the debate is a little late.

Then there are some in the media, that no doubt fuel the flames of dissent for political gain reasons and on behalf of their politician allies, taking it from the point of reasonable discussion to the point of maniacal hysteria. All of which potentially could cause a negative psychological impact on the psyche of those who defend the nation and our freedom that are living a under life threatening stress, minute to minute. They may be the best trained and outfitted military power in the world, but they are human too. What they don’t need is power hungry politicians along with their media accomplices causing them to believe they are over there getting shot at and killed for allegory and false reasons. That does have a negative impact on some. 

The capture and elimination of Uday and Qusay Hussein was a huge accomplishment recently. But, as giant of a positive step as that was, there is certainly much more work to do. 

Dismantling and catching up with a well funded murderess regime that killed tens of thousands Iraqi’s will be extremely dangerous and will take some time. Saddam may prove to be elusive for awhile. But the sooner we get him or confirm his status, the better the overall picture will become. However, I do not think this will totally end the low intensity guerilla style operations against the coalition forces. I believe it will cut the number of attacks substantially, but we will still be dealing with remnants of the terroristic Fedayeen, a small number of (paid) mercenaries from other countries, there will be a small number of foreign mujahideen fighters who feel they have to defend their Muslim brothers who view their mission in life as Allahs traveling soldiers who go from one conflict to another. There will be a large number of diehard Baath party loyalist who probably won’t give up the fight ever (don’t like losing power) . 

While most of these groups that I mention are capable of using guerilla style tactics, they also have the adaptive ability to blend into their surroundings by infiltrating into the general population to seem as ordinary looking people with the intent to reemerge as a loosely knit group later to run terrorist and guerilla style operations.

Putin and Russian forces in Chechnya have a situation somewhat similar nature in relation to the type of terrorist/guerilla combatants. In as much, they made a big mess out of it. 

Their military operation created large numbers of civilian deaths and their troops committed many numerous human rights violations, some of which includes mass executions of prisoners, the use of torture and rape on civilians of which some has been duly recorded by human rights groups. 

Some of their problems stem from renegade Russian officers and soldiers, some of which were not paid for months on end, if not over a year in many cases as well as being poorly trained and equipped. Some forces turned to outright looting, setting up businesses and shipping the booty back home on trains, trucks and even some officers, by air. 

Overall, the lack of discipline and the lack of battlefield leadership were the main factors contributing to the gross human rights violations committed by Russian troops. Instead of pacifying the populations, they created just as many enemies as they annihilated. The end result of all of this has been a marked decrease of active military operations inside Chechnya, but an increase of terrorism within Russia’s own borders. An end result that Vladimir Putin did not even anticipate.

Drawing out the enemy is as much of an art as it is a craft. Ingenious stings set up should prove to be productive. Obviously, the loosely formed command and control features of the enemies at this point demonstrates that this is the time to take control of a situation before the different guerilla type fighters coalesce around a somewhat like formed central point. But again, the key is not to make more enemies which I think is as equally important as eliminating the combatants. Why push one button only to have five more pop up? 

These daily attacks against coalition forces are by design. I believe these intitial actions are intended to carry a psychological impact on the coalition forces. It works like this. If you can have a almost daily attack (guerilla style) on the coalition forces of which takes lives, sooner or later the actions will have a nerve rattling and stressful negative effect on the morale and psyche of the coalition forces - which includes the command and control structure (not to mention the political opposition at home). If allowed to continue unabated, ultimately the coalition forces will then become understandably more aggressive and less sensitive to the innocents. Further, this will give more confidence and entice the radicals to further aggression. 

We must remember, its the population as a whole who that we must win over for their hearts, minds and souls. As they are the ones who will get fed up and then take charge and combat the remnants and allies of the former tyrannical regime and say to themselves, never again - and we must give them every reason to.