Military Intelligence

It's been a while since I've focused on what now appears to be a major cause of one of last year's tragedies in Iraq--the deaths of twenty US soldiers, all members of the 3rd Battalion 25th Marines, on successive days. Of course, come to think of it, pretty much every day in Iraq is tragic, for US AND Iraqi families. But the circumstances here underscore the depths to which the Bush administration was unprepared for war, which magnifies the horror of the foolish enterprise all the more:

Reports surfacing about the death of 20 Brook Park Marine reservists indicate that the Marines may have been betrayed.

The truth can be found in a classified report containing a completed investigation of the fatal events last August, reported NewsChannel5's Adam Shapiro.

Shapiro spent two weeks conducting numerous conversations with families of the Marines who were killed, as well as ranking officers from the 3rd Battalion 25th Marines.

The families of those who died are being told that on Aug. 1, six Marine snipers from the 3/25 were killed, and it appears they were set up and ambushed.

Two days later, 14 Marines from the 3/25 were sent to arrest the insurgents who killed the snipers, but their vehicle was blown up, killing all of them.

It now appears that they also may have been set up.

Statements from the Marines indicate as much, and a father of one of the slain Marines says that's the story he's being told by Marines who were there.

Consider: No WMD's, the ostensible casus belli--but Team Bush insisted, indeed, DEMANDED their war, virtually stamping around like a child throwing a temper tantrum in their zeal to begin combat...without adequate equipment for the soldiers they sent (and, regardless of your opinion of the war, without adequate numbers of soldiers, period). The story above makes clear, we also lack intangible assets--the military is either naiive or desperate to the point where the insurgency has thoroughly infiltrated those "security forces" who will "stand up" as we "stand down," to cite a certain village idiot missing from Crawford, Texass.

I don't really feel like combing through my archives, but more than once I vented as to our country's lack of understanding when it comes to Mesopotamia. We lack an understanding of the region's ancient history (a shame, given Mesopotamia's role in establishing Western Civilization), we lack an understanding of the region's modern customs, traditions, laws, etc., etc. Under those circumstances, it's not at all surprising to see the insurgency exploiting what is, sadly, a glaring weakness in the occupation.

And I'll turn the tables: could anyone imagine a foreign force occupying, say, Louisiana, without any real understanding of the myriad differences in the Gret Stet? You know, despite the regional, cultural, class, and ethnic divisions here, we're relatively homogenous compared to the Fertile Crescent. But an occupying army that couldn't distinguish between Shreveport and NOLA, creole and cajun, (or, hell, between Mestayer and Boudreaux), would be thrashing around in the alligator pond real quick.

We're seeing a situation like that--but on steroids--over there. And, for countless young men and women like the twenty soldiers above, that situation has cost them the ultimate price. What a horrible shame.

For Bush to claim that, somehow, history will vindicate him, is the height of foolishness, folly, and hubris. At the very least, he should be begging forgiveness (and, if somehow it'd been ME demanding such a war, I'd have long ago taken to the locked room with the bottle of whiskey and loaded pistol).

Again, what a horrible shame.