- In case you haven't noticed, the Iraqi Resistance has
taken a chapter out of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and turned
it 180 degrees against the author.
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- The past week records at least four American choppers
downed by "ground fire", and in one case it was admitted that
a chopper was downed by a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile. Wanna
bet they were all shot down by missiles? I'm betting they were, and this
tactic is exactly the same tactic as our CIA used to drive the Soviets
out ofAfghanistan. We gave the Afghan Resistance Stinger Missiles, and
the Russians started falling out of the sky in droves, causing multiple
casualties with each strike.
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- If you are basically a guerilla fighting group, once
you get the aircraft out of your hair you have much better odds forcing
your foe to fight you on your own terms, house-to-house. Somebody
is supplying the Iraqi Resistance with modern and sophisticated, top-of-the-line
SAMs, and it can't be that difficult to find out who it is. Naturally,
Bush will try to blame the Iranians, but my money says it is either China
or North Korea, the latter being the most likely culprit.
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- If this trend continues as I strongly suspect it will,
our troops will lose their close air support, which leaves only the option
of air strikes by fixed-wing aircraft. Jet fighters can deliver smart-bombs
from a safe distance, once a specific target is located and relayed to
it by ground forces, but attack helicopters have the advantage of immediately
identifying the enemy and attacking in concert with ground troops.
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- This is the main reason our casualties have been relatively
low compared to the enemy, because helicopters can wipe out large sections
of resistance as the battle rages. But if the choppers are being drawn
in and knocked out regularly, our ground troops will suffer the consequences
because they will be forced to do all the work of clearing the areas occupied
by the Resistance, and that translates into higher American casualties.
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