48 hours in and...............all is going as planned?

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday March 22, 2003 01:32 by Killian Forde - personal view

Some questions and observations on this increasingly disturbing imperialist adventure

48 hours in and reading between the lines and deciphering the bullshit, the following trends have emerged.

The 'war of liberation' is looking like it will be a ever increasingly difficult justification to sell. The US/UK media and troops have been unable to provide any of those much needed welcoming the 'liberators of Iraq' pictures. These are the ones of the newly 'emancipated' citizens throwing flowers (or rice) at the tanks of the 'allies' - has not happened. Think of the pics from, e.g. Kosova or Afghanistan

The mass surrender and defection of Iraqi soldiers has not occured. Some have surrendered but looking at the news reports over the past 24 hours it appears that it took US/UK forces over 16 hours to take small border port (Umm Qasr). This is despite the fact that the town was, according to military mapping of Iraq, being defended only by the regular (conscripted) army units.

The North of Iraq is looking like it could turn out to be an awful mess. Turkey tonight has stated it will send it troops in first, a move which could turn the US Kurdish 'allies' against a member fo Nato and kick off a war crossing back into Turkey itself.

I think that the direction this war will take is that the US/UK will lay siege (probably call it containing) to Baghdad and the media will spin stories about Saddam troops refusing to let anyone leave and shoting desertors blah blah. In that way the world can watch and blame Saddam for the disease and deaths in the city. Hey voila the US/UK have softened up the real resistnce (world public opinion) if they need to conclude their invasion with a messy and brutal assault on the capital. Of course the final assault being done on 'humanitarian grounds'.

The thing to watch over the next 48 hours is whether US/UK try to take Basra or do they head straight for Baghdad. The risk of Basra for US/UK is that it is protected by the full time army units and their techological advantage is seriosuly diminished in urban settings. I feel it likely they deploy units to prevent Basra from counter attacking but move on ASAP to begin their medieval siege on Baghdad.

FYI - Sarajevans weren't allowed to leave the city during their siege but I suppose that was different as the Serbs were the 'bad guys' then!