SECURITY EXPERT SAYS IRAQ 'WORSE THAN VIETNAM'

You know this war so far has outlasted WW2. Worse than our fathers war...

Let me count the ways...well...it's gonna take a few years to count that high.

You can't restore law and order when the very people you have trained and depend on are killing you and one and other.

This is "CIVIL WAR" to even an untrained observer. Better yet it s a tribal holy war with no obvious winner

lets cut the bullshit and speak the truth, the reason for the terrible miscalculation is due to RACISM. Zionist by very definition consider brown people inferior and stupid.
For them to properly prepare to face this enemy would be an admission that they are a foe to be reckoned with.
The Iraqi Republican Guard is following the EXACT SAME BLUEPRINT the Vietnamese did to drive out the French and then us. In a racist mind the reality that mongrel races can out strategize and outlast them is inconceivable.

lets cut the bullshit and speak the truth, the reason for the terrible miscalculation is due to RACISM. Zionist by very definition consider brown people inferior and stupid.----


lOTS of truth there.Plus the need to grab other countries assets PLUS RELIGIOUS BELIEFS as the greatest killer on the planet. Put them all together and WALLAH IRAQ.

What does that other place have?--HEROIN

He says that will result in further chaos and a protracted civil war.

Exactly.
So why does everyone think this is the better option?
Pulling out will ultimately be worse for everyone.

thus is the bitter taste of demise

Worse than Vietnam?

Worse how?

To date, < 10% of our forces KIA vs. Vietnam.

Extrapolate for same length of time as Vietnam and KIA will still be < 25%.

The death tally of our beloved fighting force is the only thing I can think of as being "worse" in a war, all the rest that comes with war is the same and has been since the beginning of time.

True, also this war will need to go on about 10 more years to be comparable.

But it's good for Israel!

And after all, isn't that what REALLY matters?

Worse than Vietnam because the USA was not driven out of Vietnam by civil war. The Vietnamese people were united after the USA left. Not so the Iraqis. Apparently you do not think Iraqi lives important

i recently fitted a lock to my door

quite a professional job

does this make me a security expert?

considering 911 happened, does america have a security expert?

When are people going to learn, war is obsolete. Its old fashioned and its no longer viable to solve problems. Grow up for crying out loud and smell the change.

Every time an american soldier dies, I celebrate. Glad to get rid of the filth. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that matter s is the deaths of the innocent Iraqi's who never asked for an evil nation like the US to invade their country and steal their resources and murder their people.

It's worse than Vietnam for the simple strategic reason of the oil resources in Iraq. Pulling out won't be so inconsequential as in Vietnam. But I think we should pull out anyway, it'll be a good opportunity to wean ourselves off oil.

if we leave it will be worse situation than before when we went in

I knew this was going to happen. For my whole life i knew this was going to happen. The human race painted itself into a corner and now we are damned if we do and damned if we dont. This is not good folks. This is not good at all. I have a feeling Iraq is the beginning of the end.

im reall sorry about your soldiers but it has been lot worst for irakis: well some say 150000 deads un says 250000 eihter arent so few. think about it where the biggest terrorists

So Did I , at this time feeling regret emtyness

What a way to start the new millennium, get stuck in another war where victory can not be clearly defined. If there is no military solution, then why are the troops there? If it is going to get worse before its gets better, having a occupying force there will just keep the criminals united, while those who do good are kept constantly busy, clearing up the mess and trying to provide a example of peace, while they are undermined by all the violence, unemployment, inflation and lack of security. While the occupiers remain, those who specialize in chaos and revel in war will have a excuse to remain. This is why the Iraq war continues, to act like a training ground to train up terrorists, so they get to know U.S tactics and they get know U.S equipment and it's capabilities. Know thy enemy is the name of the game, and while U.S forces remain committed to Iraq, they are offering a proving ground over there, so that inter-national terrorists will know what to do and how to train up a hidden army to keep a nation in a state of perpetual chaos, so that when they eventually make it to the U.S homeland, they will know how to train up the disaffected, the poor and the criminal gangs to go about waging a perpetual war from the shadows.

Thank-you all for your posts. It goes without saying that I would not have started this thread had I not found the content very disturbing and very worrying.

I have now found the transcript of an interview which Professor Robert O'neill gave just prior to making his speech at the Lowy Institute in Sydney last night.



Former intelligence officer criticises Australian war effort in Iraq - Transcript of interview with Professor Robert O'neill


ABC News (PM Radio)
Monday, 27 November, 2006 (18:35:00 AEDT)
Reporter: Mark Colvin

[link to www.abc.net.au]


MARK COLVIN: Iraq is a "morass", a "folly" and "worse than Vietnam".

Those are the words of one of Australia's most respected military historians and strategic thinkers, Professor Robert O'Neill, who's giving a major speech at the Lowy Institute in Sydney tonight.

Professor O'Neill has been director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford, Chairman of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and is now the acting Chief Executive of the new United States Studies Centre at Sydney University.

He also fought in Vietnam as an intelligence officer in the Australian Army.

In his speech, Robert O'Neill brings all these perspectives to bear, to reach the conclusion that the Iraq war has brought the developed world to a very testing time indeed, with no happy end assured.

It's fair to say that the tone of the speech is one of deep foreboding, with an appeal for clear and tough thinking before it's too late.

I asked him about his conclusions in an interview at the Lowy Institute this afternoon

ROBERT O'NEILL: We're in a very serious situation, because we've blundered into a much bigger war in Iraq than we thought possible, and there's no prospect in the short-term of a victory.

The military resources of the United States are very thinly stretched, there's nothing much in reserve. And there are other problems in Iran and North Korea coming up, and the only thing we have to resort to there is diplomacy. And I think the North Koreans and the Iranians are just going to tell us to go to hell.

MARK COLVIN: Now, you, in the speech, look at it from a remarkable number of perspectives because you can. You start off from your perspective as a former soldier in Vietnam, and you say this is worse than Vietnam.

ROBERT O'NEILL: It's much worse than Vietnam, because at least Vietnam was a unified nation, and there was a communist government in Hanoi. When the United States withdrew it could just hand it all over, and there was a government to run it.

If the United States withdraws from Iraq, there's no one to hand over to, it's just going to be a hideous mess.

Iraq, for thousands of years, has not been a unified country other than under someone else's heal.

People who've known a bit of history would have first of all expected the place to blow up mightily once Saddam's authority was removed, and second that it was going to take a lot more than 150,000 troops to restore law and order. It was going to take probably twice that or more.

MARK COLVIN: Is that the principal conclusion you reach as a historian of war, as a former professor of the History of War at Oxford?

ROBERT O'NEILL: That's one. The second conclusion I draw from history is that the United States Army is not good at counter-insurgency. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not capable of learning on the job, it's learnt a lot in the past three years, and I've taught some of the people who have made big advances there. They were my graduate students at Oxford early in the 90s.

But, the culture of the United States Army as a whole is not about moving very delicately, understanding the cultures of the country that you're in. It's about firepower and controlling the situation. Destruction is a very big part of it. It was in Vietnam. And for a counter-insurgency operation, that's terribly counter-productive.

MARK COLVIN: Now, you've also been a strategist. What does this mean in terms of future strategy for the Middle East and indeed for the rest of the world?

You've already alluded to Iran and North Korea, what's the big picture?

ROBERT O'NEILL: The big picture is an international class war.

Once the bipolar structure of the Cold War was broken down, and you're left with one dominant power and a group of its friends and a lot of other states who are distressed in various ways or feeling disgruntled, or having groups in them that threaten their stability, you have to address the needs and requirements of all those other causes. And we did not do that until suddenly 9/11 happened. The dramatic blow to say "we're here, we're going to take you on".

And this has moved forwards now to the point where the Americans are fearful of someone using nuclear weapons against them. Nuclear weapons in the meantime have proliferated and they look like continuing to proliferate. And if in the cause of prevention of global warming we find nuclear power stations being built all over the world, we're going to find that there'll be a lot more countries who are capable of producing fissile material, and therefore nuclear weapons.

You add that to globalisation, the international trade that's carried around in cargo containers, and you have a hideous problem from the perspective of the target nation.

MARK COLVIN: The picture you paint is pretty catastrophic, and at its heart is a series of blunders by the United States.

Were we wrong to be so close to the United States, and should we continue to be so close to the United States?

ROBERT O'NEILL: I don't think we're wrong to be close to the United States. The Unites States is not only the strongest power in the world, but it's a power of great values that we share. I think we need to be generally close to the United States.

But I think we would have played a much more helpful role as an ally if, once we knew the US was bent on going into Iraq, we could have said, do you really know what you're going to do? And have you really got the forces to take it on?

We have got some expertise in these sorts of wars, and if the United States had listened to us and then said well we're going to go ahead and do it anyway, we could have said well, ok, be it on your own shoulders, we love you dearly, you're great friends of ours, but we're not going to be with you in this kind of folly.

Now, we didn't of course do that at all. I don't think that our government had any idea of the morass that it was about the set foot into.

MARK COLVIN: And for the future, what should we be telling them, particularly if America goes into one of its cycles of isolationism?

ROBERT O'NEILL: It may sound strange to say it. I think we need to stay in Iraq. I think we need to work out different ways of trying to control the situation. We should try and send bigger forces there, and we should operate in a much more sophisticated counter-insurgency way in the hope that the Iraqis are, over the next couple of years, able to strengthen their government and take proper control of their own affairs.

But what I worry about is that after a couple of years that still won't have happened, and then I think we have to face the situation there'll be a new United States President, American public opinion will have become increasingly fed-up with this war, as it was of the Vietnam War and say, "we're out! Go to hell!" And then we face a much worse problem. With Iraq in chaos it’s going to be a marvellous seabed for international terrorism, and there'll be money because of the oil trade, just as we've discovered that the insurgency in Iraq is financially self-sustaining now. There's going to be a lot more money if the Government collapses and the Unites States goes home.

And so Iraqi terrorism will make itself felt in other parts of the Middle East, and the Iranians are going to see this as partly a problem and partly and opportunity. They have money, they have people, they have strong regional ambitions. The Iranian shadow over the Middle East is going to lengthen.

MARK COLVIN: Professor Robert O'Neill on the major speech he's giving at the Lowy Institute this evening.

Another fucking moron who talks lies out of their ass.

Over a million South Vietnamese were executed by the NVA when we cut and ran.

No one was united except with their ancestors. It was a damn blood bath.

You're right 60206, Colvin and O'neill are both f*cking morons. They haven't a clue.

Could this be one of the reasons Saddam governed the way he did with such harshness?

Appears to me that what is going on in Iraq at this time has been fueling for a while. What America has done is basically provided these mad men a venue to carry out this terror upon its own country men. I would like to know if this response was possibly taken into account before the invasion. To me this alone is a war crime. The people are worst off than they have ever been and their country is completely destroyed. Or, was this just an impulsive notion to save the oil for our SUV’s?

Some one did not do their homework on this one… Those in high places responsible for this should be held accountable.

in Vietnam only half the people were trying to kill us

Just a stupid question.

If Iraq were broken into 3 or more states and segregated by opposition, could that bring peace or would one or more groups think it necessary to kill off those they disagree with anyhow?

I keep hearing that this war has lasted longer than WW2 , funny my grandfather was over there fighting from 1939 to 1945, came home in 1946. What WW2 are you talking about.

"He says the coalition invaded Iraq with a flawed strategy, insufficient troops to do the job, and no policy in place for responding to the insurgency and chaos that would follow the toppling of Saddam Hussein."

What NEEDS to be done is this. Put in 400.000 more troops AT LEAST. Lock the country down by intensive border patrols, round the clock border sorties by Apache helicopters and F14's. This will help minimize the insurgency. Once the borders are closed we can begin to clean up the towns.
Put soldiers on every street in every major city,we can then begin to build-up an Iraki police force, army and government without having to worry that new recruits are blown up all the time. Then after about a year, when everything is in place....LEAVE. Now there's an exit strategy for ya.

It aint gonna be cheap, but with the country in lock-down, we can resume the oil exports to help pay for the endeavor.

Peace.

I don't think its worse than veit, but its very similar. What people don't know is this region cannot be helped , look up this fact 51% of arabs of islam marry their 1st cousins. Now do that over 800 years , mix islam into it and you get wack jobs that want women stoned , high level of man boy rape, dictorships.These people cannot be helped , this was about oil, only and poor america kids had to die so GW and his lizzard friends could get filthy rich off the over inflated gas prices.
Pull out and use the nuke and maybe it might be a good idea to stop immagration from these counties , just a thought

Genocide is not an option. Seek help.