Well after the little blogging hiatus, I have been called upon to provide some fresh content. Here goes.
I’m currently reading a book called “In The Company Of Soldiers”, written by Washington Post journalist Rick Atkinson. It’s an interesting look at the days leading up to the war in Iraq, and the weeks following.
Atkinson was embedded with the command of the 101st Airborne Division (a very famous division in World War 2, along with the 82nd Airborne). He was able to witness first hand the actions of General David Petraeus, the man who has since been promoted and is currently commanding all US Forces in Iraq. In between these posts he spent time in America writing the counterinsurgency manual for the US Army.
The vagaries of battle are very interesting. The Iraqis expected the US to be of very little substance, knowing they would attract criticism for bombing civilian institutions. As such, when defending the city of Najaf, they used the local school system to store their weapons - in fact, every single school in the whole city had a weapons cache.
The Americans quickly dropped their rules about civilian institutions - so long as there was no civilians actually in them - and just restricted their fire from religious sites. (Which they do to this day - they will only ever attack a mosque if directly fired upon from that mosque.)
A company (the military kind) had set themselves up in a soda factory, and the soldiers apparently went silly drinking the soft drink available. But get this:
They kept a note of what was taken, and then located the owner of the soda factory, compensating him in market value for the drinks to the tune of $12,600.
THAT is why we’re winning the war in Iraq. One side kept their scruples, the other one didn’t… and now they’re getting smashed for it.
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