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| No Contest | |
Fox News
reports today:
An estimated 600 to 1,000 Iraqi troops were killed during the operation, said
Col. David Perkins. "We had a lot of suicide attackers today," he said. "These
guys are going to die in droves ... They keep trying to ram the tanks with car
bombs." Earlier in the war, US
forces appeared to be struggling against waves of brave, if misguided, soldiers
attacking their supply lines. As one soldier put it 'this is not the enemy
we war-gamed against'. However at Baghdad, the Republican Guard have taken
on the US forces head to head and this Jihad is making the US soldiers think that
all their Christmases have come at once. Thousands of years ago when enemy clans ran at each other with club or
swords and hacked at each other, bravery was critical. But a culture of bravado is no match
for a modern military
machine. A car bomb will simply not take out a US tank. These people are
throwing away their lives. They would actually do more good for their cause if they lay in front of
the tanks and let themselves be crushed. The military impact would be the same,
and the psychological impact (from being televised around the world) would be a
thousand times of times greater. The strongest image of the 1980s was a picture of a single man standing in
front of a tank on the Avenue of Eternal Peace after the massacre at Tienanmen Square. One
man who was willing to come out in the light of day, to challenge those who had
stolen his right to his liberty - to cut him down for the whole world to
see. He didn't win his liberty, but he kept his life, and won his dignity in a
nation of exploitation and repression. The image of ten men, praying for peace while being crushed by an
American tank, beamed into a billion homes around the world, would stop the
war. The most formidable fighting machines in history cannot roll over 300
kilos of soft, yeilding pacifist flesh. The resulting shock and awe would force
the Americans to stop the advance on Baghdad, and to negotiate a truce. But Saddam's men won't do that. That strategy doesn't feature in a mind-set
obsessed by bravado, force
and repression. They will run into a battle screaming for another's blood, and
the entire world will be thankful for their deaths.
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