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ORIGINAL: slaveMastery

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ORIGINAL: LotusSong

The best way I heard to combat gang graffiti is to get a stencil that reads "sucks!" and every time you see a gang name on the wall or whatever..spay paint the stencil over it :)

I'd love to see how many times you managed to do that in urban Baghdad and live to tell about it.

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ORIGINAL: LotusSong

Live on your feet or die on your knees, I say

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ORIGINAL: LotusSong

psst.. I did but it's in arabic:  بله, المعتوه, اّحمق, المغفل  (they don't have a word for "sucks".. so I had to use "idiot"

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ORIGINAL: sleazy

As I understand it, the situation over there is not gang warfare in the sense a resident of LA South Central would understand it. There are no "gangs" as such, just religous sects, families, other groups all trying to get control and the methods used are more akin to gang warfare than "traditional" warfare.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

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ORIGINAL: sleazy

As I understand it, the situation over there is not gang warfare in the sense a resident of LA South Central would understand it. There are no "gangs" as such, just religous sects, families, other groups all trying to get control and the methods used are more akin to gang warfare than "traditional" warfare.

Guerrilla warfare is a more applicable term than gang violence, would you not agree? Factionalism based on cultural traits such as religion, ethnicity, and language does not equate to gangism. Kidnappings in South America, revolutionaries, and whatnot does not a gang make. Saddam himself was a member of a Sunni group that became predominant and that was how he attained power, he was a "gang" member too I suppose.
At the risk of adding fuel to the fire, I personally regard guerrilla warfare as being an organised, or at least semi organised group, often not militarly trained, fighting using non-traditional tactics against a traditionally organised army/government with a political/religous motiviation. Vietnam would be the first example of this that springs to mind. In Iraq there are/were 3 predominant groups, organised on mainly religous grounds, now there are hundreds, even thousand little groups with allegiences to individuals rather than higher ideals. Much as if the rule of law withdrew from south central for a month or two then the national guard went in to try restore order.


It negates what is going on over there to dismiss it as a street gang problem, it is much more systemic than that. It is not a civil war, it is a street gang problem, it seems to me a rather myopic view of the situation. It reminds me of calling Iraqis "insurgents" instead of rebels or guerrillas. It is all newspeak. How many Iraqis have to die in this conflict before we call it what it is?
I do not think it is a civil war, yankees v confederates, americans v brits, these were civil wars, one group trying to wrest control of a nation from another. These people are not trying to control a nation, but their own street, block, neighbourhood, village. There are very few with a vision for their country, more a vision for their own greed and power. No matter what kind of conflict it may be, no matter what label is given to the combatants, the OP's source came up with a very good description "gang warfare" that best describes how the conflict is fought to Joe Public who has only Fox/CNN as an information source. I shall not answer how many more must die as it is sure to create nothing but a flame war.

Gangs are indicative of underworld crime and they usually operate outside of the governmental structures and laws... if there is no substantive governmental body to oversee the populace then how can we label these groups "gangs"? The lack of civil society in and of itself would seem to contradict that label.... but that is just my opinion.
Tribal warlords as in Afghanistan could perhaps be a better label? There is a government body, there are police officers, and there is a domestic army, all "supported" by foriegn powers. Again I say it is not necessarily a gang problem, but described as being like a gang problem, a very good description imho.

BTW I wonder what separates gangs from  police forces that cannot be trusted to serve and protect? Some of the organized government sanctioned police in Iraq have been some of the worst human rights violaters... are they gang bangers too?
I did comment earlier that in many cases the police officers were as often as not the worst culprits, merely sanctioned bullies with a badge and legal gun. Many are illiterate, some signed up with altruistic motives, many simply to further their own ends. To continue along the gang lines, red hat, black jeans, blue top, shiny badge, what difference does it make what the gang colours are?

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ORIGINAL: LotusSong
Isn't it Glenn that is stressing we need more body armor?  That the Iraqis are inept?  Where we can train our troops in 6 weeks.. and in how many YEARS now they STILL haven't "gotten it"?  There is no need.. we are fighting FOR them.  The Colonel sort of blows holes in all of Bush's hysteria he spews using Beck's  program.  If I ever meet Beck..I'll have to ask him what Bush's ass tastes like.

I admire you Rich.. you are going down fighting like the little trooper that you are.

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ORIGINAL: sleazy

At the risk of adding fuel to the fire, I personally regard guerrilla warfare as being an organised, or at least semi organised group, often not militarly trained, fighting using non-traditional tactics against a traditionally organised army/government with a political/religous motiviation.
 

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

Our relative, the army Colonal is on leave from Iraq, here for two weeks. We had a wonderful party for him ... everyone who is anyone in our family was there.

Late in the evening, when all the wives, etc ... were off talking about whatever they talk about, I sat with the men and listened as they discussed the war. They let me stay ... I was wearing a tight top.

Some casual observations, directly from a man at the front (and certainly not a Republican man, rest assured). All these points are what was presented by the Colonal.

The men on the ground still have a lot of faith in the mission, don't think we are losing the war, and want to stay.

You never see any media outside the green zone. The troops laugh at the stories we are being given by the press, because they are so obviously bullshit, so as to be laughable.

There are two types of IED's. One is the home made type and is really not a threat. It might blow of a tire or mess up a transmission, but isn't a real danger to men inside armored hummers. As a side note, the Colonal insisted that unarmored hummers are not allowed outside the green zone. The second type of IED is imported from Iran and is very dangerous. Most of the cobat casualties are from these types.

The troops are glad that Rummy is gone, and believe it or not, are pretty much glad that the Democrats are in control of Congres, because they believe this will lead to more troops. These troops would be used to secure the Iran/Iraq border and drastically cut down on the very dangerous imported IED's.

This part baffled me, and to be honest, I'm having a hard time buying it ... but this post is about raw data, not anyone's opinion (other than the Colonal's, of course). Only about half of the American casualties are from combat operations. About 20% are training accidents that would happen even if these troops were not in Iraq. 10% are just stupidity, like driving around in a hummer with the windows down (this seems like a combatl casualty to me, but again, this is just presentation of information). 15% are troops engaging in things they shouldn't be doing ... the Colonal mentioned there were a lot of "Kelly's Hero's" in Iraq. 5% were suicides, which I find most distressing.

There is no civil war in Iraq, according to the Colonal, and if the press would get out in harms way, they would know this. He says what is going on is strictly urban gang warfare, much like the Crips and Bloods. Again, I'm not sure I buy this, but the information is, what it is.

Iraqi troops torture just about any prisoner they capture. American troops try to stop it, but all that does is make the Iraqi troops not bring them in. I'm making the assumption that the same applies to British troops, but that was never mentioned in the discussion.

American civilians are making mad jack in Iraq, and that is really pissing off our troops. The Colonal mentioned that many of his support staff was being used as combat troops and that civilians were taking their place.

He said that there have been no instances of Iraqi's using children as terrorist bombers. Iraqi's have a lot of love for their children and he doubts that children will ever be used to attack soldiers. Not so for women. He said that women very rarely know they are going to be bombers. They are told to take the car to the market and end up being in an explosive vehicle.

A long topic of discussion was corruption within the Iraqi forces. He categorized them as very brave, but very porly trained and very corrupt. He is dead set against pushing them towards quick self governing, and he insists that they are not even close to ready.

He said the lack of body armor is complete bullshit and always has been ... period. He said that most of the letters home bitching about body armor, were guys trying to get out and finding almost anything to gripe about. He said that the press keeps counting guys inside tanks, not wearing body armor when they make their calculations, and that nobody wears body armor in a tank.

That's about all that I can remember before the Crown took hold. It was an interesting night.

As a disclaimer, I'm sure some will flame away ... but to repeat, this is a presentation of information taken from a conversation from someone that is actually there, and in no way a presentation of anyone's opinion on any of this ... especially mine.

I'm sure I'll get flamed anyway.

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ORIGINAL: stef

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ORIGINAL: LotusSong

Live on your feet or die on your knees, I say

Why do I get the feeling that saying it is all you'll do?  When you actually put that master plan into practice, be sure and let us know.  By the way, who is the Rhodes Scholar who told you this was the "best way" to combat gang graffiti?

~stef