RE: [Marxism] Iraqi fighters grope for battle strategy that will winbig majority of Iraqis to fight ocupation

["David McDonald" <dbmcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fred Feldman:

In sizing up this gain for the occupation, it is important to take note
of al-Zarqawi's reported call to "slaughter, slaughter, slaughter"
members of the "Iraqi military" set up by the occupation.  It should be
recalled that almost no national liberation movement (Cuba, Vietnam,
Iran -- not to mention Venezuela) has taken this stand, especially
toward troops who have an outstanding record of avoiding combat.

David:

Zarqawi is not the only nor necessarily the predominant strand among those
resistance fighters who have made destroying the Iraqi army their business.

In all the cases Fred mentions above, the armies already existed, were
trained and so forth; they were a mixture of people who joined at various
times, under different conditions. The new Iraqi army, on the contrary, is
unformed, untested, has no leaders who have come up through the ranks, is
often attacked on its first trip to camp, and in general has zero cohesion.
This is common knowledge. It is clearly and obviously a puppet army in
formation. Since it's creation is THE tactic of the US understandibly the
US, with its ability to throw any amount of money at anything, has had some
success in recruiting. But not much. And who knows who.

Is it not legitimate military strategy to attempt to stop the Iraqi army
from cohering in the first place? Why let the US get the Iraqi army into
place, i.e. between the resistance and US forces, with guns? The US is
ferociously attempting to do exactly this in advance of the elections, and
these current attacks could be seen as attempts to pry Coalition forces out
of cover, off their semi-secure bases and into Iraqi neighborhoods dispersed
all over the place and therefore prime targets on election day.

The US has staked so much on holding these elections that utterly trashing
them by, for instance, very early morning attacks all over everywhere, so
early that voters are not present and don't get hurt, but the polling places
are destroyed and whoever's security forces are engaged, could have a
Tet-like effect within the US even if significant casualties are taken by
the resistance. The resistance would not have to win a single engagement to
utterly disrupt the election and win a big political battle.

I don't even see how the US can avoid naming the targets in advance. It
looks like a nightmare coming on like a freight train to me.


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism