Posted at LewRockwell.com this morning is a powerful piece from Paul Craig Roberts, in which he compares the crazed happy-talk from the official War Party to the ravings of "Baghdad Bob," at whom we were all so happy to chuckle back in the spring of '03. In his piece, Mr. Roberts refers to the American military estimate of the number of "insurgents:" 20,000.
According to the September 1 Manufacturing & Technology News, the Government Accounting Office has reported that over the course of the cakewalk war, the US military’s use of small caliber ammunition has risen to 1.8 billion rounds. Think about that number. If there are 20,000 insurgents, it means US troops have fired 90,000 rounds at each insurgent.
Very few have been hit. We don’t know how many. To avoid the analogy with Vietnam, until last week the US military studiously avoided body counts. If 2,000 insurgents have been killed, each death required 900,000 rounds of ammunition.
The combination of US government owned ammo plants and those of US commercial producers together cannot make bullets as fast as US troops are firing them. The Bush administration has had to turn to foreign producers such as Israel Military Industries. Think about that. Hollowed out US industry cannot produce enough ammunition to defeat a 20,000 man insurgency.
This makes me wonder what the regime's plans are for Syria and Iran, both of which would seem to be in The Big Dope's crosshairs. I'm thinking that even His Slowness can't be figuring on a whole bunch more "urban warfare." The supply of muscle is severely limited, and (as pointed out by Mr. Roberts) even small-arms ammunition could get to be a problem. To me, this suggests that perhaps the plan is centered around lobbing in plenty of cruise missiles, GPS bombs, and other precision-guided munitions.
That should work out well.
2 comments:
I am a reasonalbly smart and educated person and still have no idea what is going on. I'd like to think that W knows more than I, but I am an optimist.
Lemming, I have read your fine blog, and I have no doubt that you are indeed both intelligent and educated. That said, I must disagree. I do NOT hope that Dubya knows more than you know. If he does, then he's not merely the slow puppy he appears to be; he's actually evil. I think it more charitable to esteem him as merely stupid.
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