A Tale of Two Wars

Posted By Froggy

It goes without saying that our military successes in Iraq have substantially increased since Abu Musab al-Zarqawi acheived room temperature.  Intelligence obtained from the very pocket of Zarqawi has led to at least 452 targeted raids yielding 104 dead terrorists and 759 terrorists in custody.  This is clearly a remarkable acheivement using any measure of success, but all the more so for another very important reason. 

Reportedly, 255 of the raids were conducted by joint US/Iraqi forces and 143 of the 452 raids were conducted by Iraqi forces acting independently.  This result demonstrates definitively that the training and development of organic Iraqi combat power has grown exponentially in the last two years.  This fact alone should be a source of immense optimism among the Iraqi people as well as Americans on  both sides of the political divide.  But those fond of comparing the Iraq War to Vietnam ought to review their history books.

Every year I attend the UDT/SEAL West Coast Reunion in Coronado, CA, and one of the best aspects of this gathering is the opportunity to spend time with the old guys from wars past- the Jurassic Frogs.  Two years ago I spent much of my time at the reunion between swilling beers interviewing Vietnam vets about their war experience in order to discredit John Kerry's fantastic claims of secret Cambodian missions.  During these conversations time and time again the vets mentioned the fact that they didn't like working with outside units because the more people who were informed about an operation, the more likely that operation was to be compromised.  The South Vietnamese military and intelligence forces were massively infilitrated by the Vietcong and NVA, and there were ARVN (S. Vietnamese Army) officers on the staffs of most US military units.  SEALs therefore went out at night and kidnapped VC leadership targets and interrogated them inhouse in order to conduct rapid follow-on operations.  Joint US/ARVN missions were routinely failures and independent ARVN operations were very often disasterous. 

The fact that the Iraqi Army has been trusted with highly sensitive AQ intelligence and further the fact that they have been very successful bodes extremely well for our counter-terror efforts.  This fact amongst many others should be heralded as a sign that the trajectory toward victory is on the upsurge and is likely to accelerate.

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A Tale of Two Wars

It goes without saying that our military successes in Iraq have substantially increased since Abu Musab al-Zarqawi acheived room temperature.  Intelligence obtained from the very pocket of Zarqawi has led to at least 452 targeted raids yielding 104 dead terrorists and 759 terrorists in custody.  This is clearly a remarkable acheivement using any measure of success, but all the more so for another very important reason. 

Reportedly, 255 of the raids were conducted by joint US/Iraqi forces and 143 of the 452 raids were conducted by Iraqi forces acting independently.  This result demonstrates definitively that the training and development of organic Iraqi combat power has grown exponentially in the last two years.  This fact alone should be a source of immense optimism among the Iraqi people as well as Americans on  both sides of the political divide.  But those fond of comparing the Iraq War to Vietnam ought to review their history books.

Every year I attend the UDT/SEAL West Coast Reunion in Coronado, CA, and one of the best aspects of this gathering is the opportunity to spend time with the old guys from wars past- the Jurassic Frogs.  Two years ago I spent much of my time at the reunion between swilling beers interviewing Vietnam vets about their war experience in order to discredit John Kerry's fantastic claims of secret Cambodian missions.  During these conversations time and time again the vets mentioned the fact that they didn't like working with outside units because the more people who were informed about an operation, the more likely that operation was to be compromised.  The South Vietnamese military and intelligence forces were massively infilitrated by the Vietcong and NVA, and there were ARVN (S. Vietnamese Army) officers on the staffs of most US military units.  SEALs therefore went out at night and kidnapped VC leadership targets and interrogated them inhouse in order to conduct rapid follow-on operations.  Joint US/ARVN missions were routinely failures and independent ARVN operations were very often disasterous. 

The fact that the Iraqi Army has been trusted with highly sensitive AQ intelligence and further the fact that they have been very successful bodes extremely well for our counter-terror efforts.  This fact amongst many others should be heralded as a sign that the trajectory toward victory is on the upsurge and is likely to accelerate.

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