The Correct Degree of Aggression
All this talk about cranking up the heat in Iraq has me thinking. How many people really understand the mental attitude that is necessary to go into battle, if you hope to prevail?
I’m thinking about my friend, Maj. Philip Wolford. He was a captain commanding a tank company when I knew him in Iraq. His tanks, Assassin Company, usually led the battalion’s assaults. Wolford became the butt of ribbing by other officers, because from the commander’s hatch of his M1A1 Abrams tank, he was using his 9mm pistol and hand grenades against the enemy as often as he used his 120 mm main gun and his .50 cal. That’s because Wolford got in close.
Wolford saved my life and those of the men I was riding with at al-Hindiyah, when our Bradley’s guns jammed as an Iraqi recoilless rifle crew was about to open fire on us from our right rear quarter — a high-velocity armor-piercing round that would have bounced around inside, cuisinarting me and Smitty in the rear compartment. Wolford reached down into his box of grenades, pulled the pin and threw one to take out the recoilless crew, which was too close by the roadside for him to angle his guns down on them.
The day before Hindiyah, this is what Wolford told his platoon leaders, platoon sergeants and tank commanders:
“Once the fighting starts, if there are people in the streets, in civilian or military clothing, they are the enemy and they will die,” Wolford said, noting that other units had encountered Iraqi fighters in civilian clothes and civilian vehicles.
“There are some towers and high ground. We will shoot all towers,” Wolford said. “They have used car bombs and suicide bombers … If they don’t stop, fire a burst of .762. If they turn around, then they were probably going to the store to get some Saddam beer. If they don’t stop, kill them.”
He talked about the paramilitaries, believed to be civilians who were forced into the fight against the Americans in Nasiriyah and Samiwah when the Saddam Fedayeen took their families hostage.
“I don’t think they are fighting for the regime. I don’t think they are fighting for the freedom of Iraq. But make no mistake about it. They will fight,” Wolford said. “Like I told you a thousand times, they put one round on you, you put one thousand rounds on them, until those pajama-wearing motherfuckers stop firing. They put one AT (anti-tank) round on us, you blow the whole block up. There is no collateral damage concern that will stop us carrying our mission out. When we’re done, we’ll rename the place Assassin town, because we’ll own it.
“The brigade commander doesn’t say he wants the enemy captured. He doesn’t say he wants the enemy on the run. He says he wants the enemy destroyed. So kill him.”
Turning to the map, Wolford pointed out the road that had been dubbed “Route Bruins.”
“My intent is to quickly seize this crossing point at the canal, start a fight with the enemy and fucking kill him,” Wolford said. “We’re not going to be jackshitting around. We’re going to be quick.”
And that’s what he did. I was happy to ride with Wolford and men like Platoon Sgt. Jonathan Lustig. I knew they had their wits about them, and the correct degree of aggression that would keep us alive. I should say that I repeatedly saw these men exercise caution in the midst of fire, endangering themselves by withholding fire to prevent civilian deaths. But when they attacked, and when they met resistance, they were quick and ruthless. As the invasion progressed, I realized I was willing to follow them anywhere, and I did, even on a day when we expected to die. In the company of men like that, it would have been a privilege.
Listening to the debate of the past few weeks, it is apparent to me that the Democratic congressional leadership does not understand the correct degree of aggression that is necessary to prosecute a war. I believe, from everything I’m seeing now, that our commander-in-chief does.
Links:
Michelle in Baghdad.
Topics: Uncategorized
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:58 am on Thursday, January 11, 2007
25 Responses to “The Correct Degree of Aggression”
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January 11th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Sounds like the kind of mindset that produced “victories” like Gallipoli and Dien Bien Phu.
Clean the wax out of your ears alphie, you ain’t hearing right.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Few populations being subjected to genocide are entirely docile, anh.
And the ones that do fight back are usually called insurgents…
January 11th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Holy crap alphie, do you make this crap up off the top of your head? try using facts and logic and not hyperbole.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
alphie said: “There’s a subtle difference between war and genocide, though
Yeah, subtle like a sledgehammer in a fine crystal shop. Geez, Alphie, check your dictionary for the definition of war, genocide, subtle — or all three!
January 11th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I hate to break it to you guys, but Iran probably won’t take the bait your stupid, greedy and violent “leaders” are desperately trying to get them to bite at.
Instead, they will just stand back, point at the damage our billion dollar penis enhancers have done to them…and the world will cut us off from civil discourse for decades.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
It’s not our fault they have penis envy.
Interesting tactic, alph. Misdirection always works for a few minutes when you’re cornered.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Right on, Alphie. Sounds to me like what Giap or Attaturk might have said.
“I am not giving you an order to attack, I am ordering you to die!”
Mustafa Kemal, at Gallipoli.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
It’s Bush and his cronies who are cornered, ctg.
But Iran isn’t going to take the bait.
They (and China) win no matter what your boys do to provoke them…China will pay for any damage we do in our final spasm as the world’s only superpower.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
But Iran isn’t going to take the bait.
Iran has already taken the bait by fueling the insurgency and providing weapons, fighters, money etc.
We have been in a defacto war with Iran since 1979.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I think we took Iran’s bait instead, PA.
Nothing we do can change the fact that China’s running the world now.
The only thing we can change is the final body count for our failed policies.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Thanks, alphie, you’ve revealed that you are anti-American and anti-western, and that you have a special jones for China. No more need to pay attention to your ignorant rantings then.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Jules, My advice to my son the night before he deployed the first time was, “If it’s you or them, make it them.” It will be exactly what I will tell him this time, too. Correct degree of aggression indeed.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Thanks, alphie, you’ve revealed that you are anti-American and anti-western, and that you have a special jones for China. No more need to pay attention to your ignorant rantings then.
Agreed! What a moonbat alphie is! We’re kicking China’s ass in this war along with all the other freedom-haters. They’re running scared. Alphie’s just blinded by BDS!
January 11th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Sure we are, Jan.
Even Olmert knows the score.
He’s in China this week looking for a new Suger Daddy for Israel:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/812626.html
January 11th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
hey alphie, why don’t you just move to China, then so you can side with a winner.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I believe the only way the Dems will support this war, fully support this war, is if they control the government all the way up to the White House.
Let them win in 08 - think about it…
January 11th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
pajama-wearing motherfuckers
Gooks? Enough Jules with the Vietnam Analogies! No matter how you spin it Jules, Iraq is not Vietnam. Get your head out of your ass you lieberal commie motherfucker!!!
January 12th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Noted and linked, Jules. Thank you for writing this. It’s a good example that soldiers already know what needs to be done here. Kudos.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
You guys don’t have any clue what you’re talking about. Which explains why there are so many of you commenting on the post of a guy who also doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You tend to congregate.
First of all, war is political. That means that if you go into somebody’s country to supposedly remove a threat that doesn’t actually exist, you don’t get a whole hell of a lot of leeway in the world’s eyes to start “unleash the dogs of war” and start blasting civilians left and right, so you can blow up the country that was supposed to be some shining beacon of democracy to the Middle East.
Secondly, it won’t work. If any of you clowns actually read a legitimate history book, you’d realize that unleashing our forces in Vietnam to create what were essentially “kill zones” where no one who wasn’t American or ARVN could go, bombing N. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, did not exactly win us the war. Why? Because unless you’re willing to nuke the place, you can’t kill all the people who are going to try and kill your soldiers if those people want your ass out of their country. Since even people like Jules aren’t willing to do that (unlike some of the nuttier commentators here) then exactly what are we supposed to accomplish with lesser means?
Letting our soldiers kill indiscriminately will result in two things. More dead soldiers, and more dead Iraqis. It will not result in peace in Iraq. Oh and also, it’s immoral given that we invaded them in the first place, but that’s hardly a compelling argument to you “serious” right-wingers.
January 12th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Firing on people in civillian clothes men women or children … I would think he would have to answer to a courts-marial for that
January 12th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
“First of all, war is political.”
Sorry, but war is war. War involves death, destruction, and is not a pretty thing. When politics gets involved in war, the “situation” is no longer war.
The US has an enemy. Radical Islamic terrorists want us dead. I’ve met them. I’ve arrested them. They don’t care about you, or politics, or John Kerry, or how “sensitive” the left feels we should be. They only care about non-muslims converting to the islam religion. If you aren’t willing to follow or you get in their way, they want you dead. They are a radical and extreme enemy.
One way to defeat such an opponent is to kill without care. If we would have started this war with an iron fist and continued killing until all were defeated, we’d be okay. You cannot build a democracy without a clean slate as we now know. Our mistake was that we did not finish what we started before we went into “police” mode.
The other way to defeat such an opponent is using Special Operations forces. This is the most effective way to win, but with our SOF community numbering around 20,000, we would need a full commitment by the military. That is out of the question because of the “conventional army leadership” ever-present in this conflict.
For more info, read this Washington Times op-ed.
January 12th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Nothing we do can change the fact that China’s running the world now.
When you owe a million, you have the problem, when you owe billions, the other guy has the problem ;->
January 13th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Iran has already taken the bait by fueling the insurgency and providing weapons, fighters, money etc.
And you know this because… the same people who sold you Iraq’s WMDs have told you so?
Did you know “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary? It’s true - Bush said so.
Sorry, but war is war. War involves death, destruction, and is not a pretty thing. When politics gets involved in war, the “situation” is no longer war.
“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to capture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment, or a company entire than to destroy them.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War, c500 BC
19 people from Al Qaeda gave their lives to attack the US. They got lucky and succeeded well.
As a result, the US attacked the Taliban and occupied Afghanistan. Not great for Al Qaeda, but not too bad either - it got the US fighting where they could reach them.
Then the US got bored and attacked Iraq. Big win for Al Qaeda - they didn’t give a shit about Hussein, the propaganda victory was tremendous and the easing of pressure in Afghanistan allowed teh Taliban to resurge.
And now the US wants to attack Iran. Another big win for Al Qaeda - the Taliban executed Iranian diplomats a while back. More propaganda victories.
“The enemies country” in this case is the hearts and minds of the Muslim community. ObL knows that, and he knows himself. He may not know America, but he’s gotten lucky.
The US has stumbled from one clusterfuck into another, escalating whenever it gets frustrated, overextending and making itself look like a bully. It has allowed the logic of war to overrrule the purposes of war.
The US doesn’t know itself, and it doesn’t know the enemy. And that’s why you can’t stay in Iraq and you can’t leave, and why you intend to engage a much stronger opponent without any actual achievable goal in mind.
January 14th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Now THIS is what I’m talking about! I grew up believing this is the only way to win a war: Kill the enemy. I’m so sick to death of feeding these creatons with my tax dollars. Argghhh!
January 14th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Hey Alphie, Hizbullah can kiss my ass, HAMAS can crawl in a whole and die, and Ahmadinejad can blow himself up. You freakin’ Iranian inan.