Reflections on the War in Iraq

'06 was around the beginning of hearts and minds, less "kinetic" actions, more partner action, more...idk...diplomacy...

By 07 the Sunni groups were regrouping and building, specifically in Anbar, Marines were still getting killed left and right, and the IA was still sloppy as the bad guys in a Chuck Norris movie.

We as a combined arms (INF/AR) Batt did few raids in 07 except when we had hot intel on such and such JAM guy or AQ torture house somewhere in Mansour. If anything, given hindsight, this article's premise is some sort of fallacy.

Revisionist History. Get used to it.
 
DA SWO said:
LOL, guy who wrote this appears to be Canadian, and associated with the University of Toronto.
Fucking expert.
Click to expand...

Journalist who was embedded in both Afghanistan and Iraq, he's been there. Did he have a gun? No he had a pencil. Wrote a book on Pech Valley. The Hardest Place by Wesley Morgan: 9780812985221 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Really doesn't matter if he's Canadian either. Now, does he have a liberal slant? Normally. Aren't most of the Military Shill Media liberals these days anyway?
 
ThunderHorse said:
Journalist who was embedded in both Afghanistan and Iraq, he's been there. Did he have a gun? No he had a pencil. Wrote a book on Pech Valley. The Hardest Place by Wesley Morgan: 9780812985221 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Really doesn't matter if he's Canadian either. Now, does he have a liberal slant? Normally. Aren't most of the Military Shill Media liberals these days anyway?
Click to expand...
I believe he was talking about the author of the research article.

Education B.Sc., Stanford M.S., Stanford Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jon R. Lindsay Associate Professor Interim Director, Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict and Justice Biography A political scientist with a background in computer science and military service, Jon Lindsay’s research examines the impact of technology on global security. His publications include China and Cybersecurity: Espionage, Strategy, and Politics in the Digital Domain (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-edited with Tai Ming Cheung and Derek Reveron, and articles in International Security, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Technology and Culture, and the Journal of Cybersecurity. He is completing a book, Shifting the Fog of War: Information Technology and the Politics of Control, and working on a multi-institutional research project on deterrence theory. Professor Lindsay holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Computer Science and B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. He has served in the U.S. Navy with operational assignments in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Click to expand...
Faculty
 
Marauder06 said:
It's interesting that the author said that we didn't need to be doing raids in 2007. He must have been in a different part of Iraq than I was, or more accurately where the units I was supporting were. I remember it being... sporty.
Click to expand...
It's a complicated topic. I was in Baghdad in 2006 and it was a fairly dynamic place. 85% of my platoon came home with at least one Purple Heart. That said I remember SOF doing a lot of pointless raids against low-level nobodies. We had a platoon come in one night with minimal coordination and accidentally hit a baby with a flashbang. Somehow this became my problem to deal with the next morning.
 
Marauder06 said:
image-8.png
Click to expand...

Literally what I had in mind when choosing my screen name.

Sounded better than "Smoke shooting up".
 
Iraq 03-05 made sense at the time looking for Muqtada Al Sadr. Working with SFODA 515 and 561 and some Marine recon fellers we had good times and some bad, but we all came home.

So, Iraq, it was a win.

Fuck what became of it after we left.
 
Bypass said:
Iraq 03-05 made sense at the time looking for Muqtada Al Sadr. Working with SFODA 515 and 561 and some Marine recon fellers we had good times and some bad, but we all came home.

So, Iraq, it was a win.

Fuck what became of it after we left.
Click to expand...
I was in Iraq in 2004 with 5th Group. I commanded the GSC on that deployment. We spent a lot of time looking for MAS... and then we were told not to.

Somewhere in my basement I still have a poster of Sadr from that deployment.
 
Marauder06 said:
I was in Iraq in 2004 with 5th Group. I commanded the GSC on that deployment. We spent a lot of time looking for MAS... and then we were told not to.

Somewhere in my basement I still have a poster of Sadr from that deployment.
Click to expand...
Awesome!!!! You weren't in Al Kut were you?
 
Bypass said:
Awesome!!!! You weren't in Al Kut were you?
Click to expand...
I was out of Balad all three times. Once with 5th Group and twice with the Task Force.

I made it down to Basra’s and Baghdad and up to Mosul but not to Al Kut, except for maybe a short stopover on a flight back to Balad once.
 

Similar threads

AWP
Review Death Waits in the Dark by Greg Coker/ George Hand IV
Replies
3
Views
635
Kaldak
Kaldak
RackMaster
British departure means uncertain future for Alberta's massive Suffield military base
Replies
0
Views
106
RackMaster
RackMaster
R.Caerbannog
Distortion of History
2
Replies
32
Views
748
R.Caerbannog
R.Caerbannog
R.Caerbannog
Economic shifts in Central America and China
2
Replies
28
Views
2K
R.Caerbannog
R.Caerbannog
K
Recent NREMT-P firefighter paramedic-18X
Replies
11
Views
381
TLDR20
TLDR20
Back
Top