Most Iraq war analysis focuses on the "big players"

>>31349215
Rules of engagement. Unless insurgents were actively shooting at you, you couldn't fire back in some instances. I believe the phrase was "show, shout, shove, shoot". Same with riding in convoys, you couldn't engage vehicles that got close without the "wave hand, wave flag, shoot flare, shoot engine, shoot driver" method. In an environment with suicidal radicals, having people get close was always a big danger, so our rules of engagement were really a danger to ourselves.

Furthermore, training the local police and military force was a disaster, due to ancient tribal rules and a lack of national patriotism, which was replaced by regional patriotism. Example: Muhammed and Samir are cousins, however, Muhammed became an Iraqi police officer while Samir became an insurgent. Obviously the 2 wouldn't fight one another, so they trade info, take out one another's enemies, who are usually members of other religious sects (Sunni vs Shite), other regions, or people whom they dislike. When US joint operations are conducted, a lot of information is passed between the 2 cousins, which further disrupts regional stability. In the end, the nation is in shambles, Muhammed loses his job, while Samir possible has his if they're both still alive, and nobody really wins, as Muslims in general only care about their tribes or tribe alliances, not their nation as a whole.

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>>31349258
The second paragraph is critical, But I wonder why it wasn't taken care of before the invasion even happened.

Iraq is a cousin-marriage nation. That means it is a tribal nation right down through into its "bones." That has been well-known for centuries by anyone who bothered to look.

Did the DoD's anthropologists and strategists seriously not have ANY plan to deal with this by March 2003?

How the fuck is that even possible?

>>31349274
You're making the mistake of assuming that they ever wanted to stabilize the region.

>>31349258
I agree about the shambles that was the new Iraqi army and police but the rules of engagement argument everyone uses is a bit of a stretch desu. Sure it led to some more coalition deaths and probably saved a fair number of insurgents but the trade off of that was far less civilian deaths, which if they did occur would completely negate any advantage of killing a couple more akbars
>Civilian deaths distance local population from foreign force
>Distanced local population turns to the insurgents instead
its just COIN 101, i mean even with the ROE this ended up happening anyway, without it the Iraqi Insurgency would've blown up to Fallujah levels nation wide

>>31349258
>Rules of engagement.
That only kicked in later though. The first few years was "if it looks armed, shoot it, if you're unsure, shoot it anyways"

>>31349376
So how did the Army lose Fallujah if it had wide latitude to maintain order?

>>31349215
cqb while a nice skill to learn in urban settings is a meat grinder.

Not politically feasible anymore imo. Taking shots from a house? Go in there in clear it.

It evolved to taking shots from a house ? we keep taking casulties and get bogged down doing taking it down cqb style. Shoot a tank round down the door.

But thats not feasible anymore either.

RoEs and political will along witih 5th column always hinders the efforts.

>>31349274
well remember in anthropology its "racist" to say third world countries, its racist all the time.

Funniest thign in anthropology class was a teacher talking about animal rights in mexico of all things and her brain had like a mental breakdown and her conditioning failed. She just kind of summed it up as yea im sure theres more important things to worry about in mexico but animal rights is important too. it was funny to see her not believe her own bullshit.

>>31349382
Because they just left fallujah. Then some co tractors got killed and they sent a couple marine battalions to indiscriminately kill everyone in the city

>>31349417
Contractors

>>31349417
>Because they just left fallujah

>Major Sunni city on a route into Baghdad
>Saddam was a Sunni
>Iraq is a tribal society
>Sunnis are probably going to be mad as fuck over Saddam's fall
>Ramadi and Fallujah are probably going to be critical to Iraq's future security
>Abandon Fallujah

Was the Iraq war planned out by literal retards? Honest question.

>31349215
What the fuck? The guy on point in OPS image have a carry handle on the bottom of his rail...

>>31349450
not very many flip up sights at this stage of the game. How you retain your irons sights in case your acog goes down blah blah blah...did you brink your map pens and whistle?

>>31349431

The problem is that we didn't get rid of Saddam when we went in the first time, when there was still somewhat of a rebel infrastructure to support in both the North and South.

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>>31349215
US soldiers gang raping a 14 year old girl and then murdering her along with her entire family probably did a lot to help insurgent propaganda. of course there was Haditha and Abu Ghraib too. I'd imagine the insurgent recruiters would have had a harder job if the US military wasn't raping, massacring and torturing civilians.

>>31349450
Shitty command telling them to leave it on their rifles so they don't lose them. I've jokingly suggested putting one on there for an authentic early 00's USMC A4 clone.

>>31349974

the us media that picked up those stories gave them credence and helped the insurgency campaign.

the insurgents put out almost daily 'atrocities' committed by the us forces but we only know of a few because the us media decided to cover them non stop

the us media was a huge contributor of getting soldiers killed

>>31350013
If you don't want the media to report on the fact that you rape and murder little girls, you should probably just not rape and murder little girls.

>>31350069

This

Its like cops shooting blacks.

Yeah blacks shoot each other all day but no one bats an eye because they are held to a low standard. When a cop (any race) shoots someone who should not have been shot, it's blasted all over because they are expected to be at a different standard.

Same with the US (or any) military vs Insurgents.

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>>31350125
Yeah, you can't claim the moral high ground and then get upset when you're held to a higher standard.

>>31350069

The problem is, they were held accountable.

muslims on the other hand, well you know, rape, torture and murder all you want

>>31350125

>it's like cops shooting blacks

This. Fun fact, white people get blasted by cops nearly 2x as much as blacks. More UNARMED white people are killed by cops than blacks every year. But does the media report those killings? Nope. They go ape shit about apes going ape shit instead.

Same with soldiers. Yeah sure, there are certainly some fucked things that go on, and that shit shouldn't be ignored.... but 99% soldiers are just doing their job, and don't fucking rape anyone. When you leave that part out, it makes it easy to recruit shitheads and up the number of people getting killed.

>oh but anonchan, black people are shot at a disproportionate rate

You're right. When you commit a disproportionate amount of crime, you get a disproportionate amount of police contact, which leads to a disproportionate number of blacks getting shot. Don't want to get murdered by the police? Stop breaking the law.

Fun fact: If you don't sell drugs, rape women, commit burglary or armed robbery, don't speed or drive like a fucking retard, and turn down the goddamn music, YOU NEVER ENCOUNTER THE POLICE.

And when you do, don't fight police officers or lead them on car chases, and just follow lawful orders given by said officers..... AND YOU DON'T GET SHOT. sure, police brutality exists and some of it is racially biased, but 99% of it is just common sense action-reaction.

goddamn I hate apologists.

>>31350198
IF you're the greatest country on the planet, why stoop to the level of others?

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>>31350205
>but 99% soldiers are just doing their job
'I'm just doing my job' is what you say when youre writing me a parking ticket, not when youre invading my country.

not to sound like a hippie, but war crimes are vague and usually judged by the victor. an argument could be made that the Iraq war was a 'war of aggression', making the 99% not so innocent.

>>31350336

okay. I'll say 99% of soldiers weren't raping, executing, or otherwise unlawfully killing civilians due to racism, trying to cover up a crime, or a genocidal agenda.

>>31350219
I agree, we should just nuke them.

>>31350219
Something something total war, something something Gen. Sherman.

>I took the bait

>>31350380
Leaving aside the sectarian nature of the conflict and the brutal recent history. How many teenage girl gang rapes and civillian massacres would you tolerate before you took up arms and resisted an invading foreign army? Do you expect so angry young man in Iraq whose just watched his entire society collapse to say 'those rapists and murderers were probably just bad apples, i'm sure the rest of them are just swell'. My point is, if the goal is hearts and minds, the 1% is too much.

>>31350471
>How many teenage girl gang rapes and civillian massacres would you tolerate before you took up arms and resisted an invading foreign army?
>Implying the US wasn't just following middle eastern culture

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>>31349215
As Bong who served out there i can tell you:


Us Soldiers:
> having no idea of hearts and minds apart from throwing out candy.
> guy in front of me booting a dog to death in front of a family and laughing maniacally all the while.
> Rifle butting 13 year old kids during raids.
> Indiscriminately firing 50 cal rounds in a 60 degree arc into a neighbourhood to kill a sniper that probably bugged out before we heard the shot.
> Crap knowledge of culture, tribes, castes, Ba'ath party shit.
> American soldiers thinking they were in iraq because of 9/11 and not oil inflation prices and chemical weapons

>>31350336
I know some NCOs who would on the spot execute their officers for kosovo level shit


Bruhs. We should have kept our lord and saviour saddam. Sometimes

>>31349274
>>31349258
essentially the rules of engangements should have been to shoot everyone.

>>31350498
Correction that is U.S. Soldiers and not us (as in we).

>>31350471

I would tolerate none. I would take up arms against a foreign military even if they never raped anyone, because it's my godamn country and I'll be damned if I let a foreign military walk on my soil without getting a bullet up the ass.

but that's not me. that's not most people. it takes extreme things like rape/murder to spur them to action.

Like I said before, these things shouldn't be ignored when it happens. It should be reported. It should also be EQUALLY reported when these soldiers are held accountable, and when things go right.

The media has a habit of sturring up shit over a bad thing happening.... and then never showing the result. They got their controversy. 6 months later you can't remember how it all ended because they did a 30 second blurb on it, compared to the 2 weeks of 24/7 coverage on the incident.

on top of that, they only report on things that go wrong. when you do that, you paint a very, very unfair, biased, evil picture. that does indeed spur people into action. you create a false image and that is what's used as a recruiter tool

I totally agree that """1% is too much"""" yes. it is. you're right. that's why you need to have even and equal reporting, and not prey on people's emotions, causing knee jerk reactions.

you gotta let them know, "sorry guys, we recognize that these soldiers were wrong. we aren't hiding it. they're being held accountable." show them that justice is being done, and that most soldiers don't act this way.

>>31350498
I thought the US military I worked with in Iraq and Afghanistan were excellent. They had some massive issues, but so did we. No one came out of that looking great.

The only ones who I came across (and I spent far more time there than any human should have to) who came close to that description were from 3ID, who at the time were having a gang problem. There were a few bad eggs in one Marine unit I encountered, but nothing major.

Personally I thought they were great fun and I keep in contact with them to this day.

>>31350498
>As Bong who served out there i can tell you:
>What I heard from Micheal Moore

>>31350551

US Army 11b here (former), I worked with the Royal Marines for a bit. They had a couple of overzealous shitheads to be sure, but for the most part they were squared away. Real professional. I think that guy talking shit is a civilian, or at the very least, never actually served with any US units. Either way, to us vets it's pretty clear he's full of shit.

>But what errors were made at the small-unit (right down to platoon) level which hindered decisive victory over the jihadi insurgents?

Not a lot, really.

There was a culture, particularly in the British Army and USMC, to constantly claim to be able to do more with less. It didn't matter how lean you were running, you were doing more. "Punching above weight" became an obsession, as opposed to a stop gap for not having the right numbers on task. This didn't start out at platoon or company level, but among staff officers keen to impress. Seeing their success, junior officers tried the same way of doing things.

The failing of the British Army in Iraq was assuming that the insurgents would be slow burners, like every COIN war they had fought previously. The failing of the US military was an over reliance on "special forces" (where line troops would have sufficed) and a tendency for senior officers to look toward scoring points in Washington.

>>31350551
>ex-Aus mil
Likewise I don't have a problem with any of the US troops I saw running around, doing their stuff.

Ultimately, to answer the question the OP raised- it entirely goes back to a command level, if people aren't doing what they're supposed to or fucking around then its entirely on their CO for not policing their shit before it gets out of hand. When I picked up my commission I'm well aware that if something goes balls up on the ground then the arse-kicking goes UP, it may start with the troopies dicking around but ultimately I'm responsible for everything they do, see, shoot and shit on.

Instances I can recall of people doing some dumb shit where usually the rear-echelons or reservists they deployed, most of us that where first in Afghan, first in on Iraq where professionals that did the job for a living full time and in my case I'd done a couple of tours peace keeping before that. Not like we want to be 'cops' either post invasions, they kept asking us to do it but we really don't like it.

>>31349258
>>31349274
>>31349291
as far as ROE goes 1: that is a fault created by generals not created at the platoon level. 2: you have to be more specific as to when and where the ROE was in place and how strictly was it enforced. early on in Iraq up until at least the end of 2006 ROE was very loose, and you could do as needed. In 2008 and later ROE was much stricter and more heavily enforced with every round you fire having to accounted for and investigated in some units.

>>31350668

lol yeah civs don't seem to understand that ROE is not some blanket thing. it changes unit to unit, station to station, etc. etc.

My unit had an ROE. but then that ROE changed twice on our patrol every day, because we had different ROE based on the sector we were in.

green zone vs area known for ambushes don't have the same ROE. ROE is based on operational requirements, mission parameters, thread condition, and many, many other factors.

>>31350551
Given the benefit of the doubt. I think they had been there too long, and the sun got to their head a bit.

>>31350568
michael moore the director? I don't get the reference.

>>31350577
I saw what i saw. I'm not saying we didn't have bad guys either, we had an MI captain who was notorious for her dawn raids and all round based attitude, she'd have wasted all our lives just to grab a lead.

>>31350599
Oh god "punching above weight" i can't tell you how many times we did ammo counts and what SS got back was "one mag staff" or "2 mags staff". In one instance we "cleared" one sector about 3 times in one fortnight.

>>31350648
REMFs are the worst on the front line, they are too gung ho, seen too much hollywood and are wound tight as a wasp in s shaken jar.

>>31349431
>Was the Iraq war planned out by literal retards?
A lot of it really was. Keep in mind, the military at the time was largely a peacetime force. There were brushfires here and there, sure, but not enough to produce a large, combat experienced senior officer corp. So, the people ultimately in charge didn't have the experience or level of knowledge to plan a war, and the ignorant people outnumbered them (thus burying good ideas).

>>31349974
I'd love to crack open abeer after a hard day's work

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>>31351096

>>31349215
Why is his carry handle mounted on the underside of his barrel?

>>31350125
>When a cop (any race) shoots someone who should not have been shot, it's blasted all over because they are expected to be at a different standard.


Only most of the time the cop is justified in shooting and the MSM still runs with the da ebul raycis cops narrative.

>>31352153
He wanted a low-mounted optic and a carry handle simultaneously?

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>>31352153
He got issued one and had to keep it on his person for EDL checks. Not wanting to put more pouches on his already crowded flak he said fuck it just gonna keep it on my musket. I had a sgt on my 2nd deployment that did the same thing with his NVGs.

Or just because it looks silly, had a buddy who mounted his RCO on top of his m4 because it looked like the battlerifle from halo 2. Had it zeroed and everything. He also tried to get as much shit on his rifle as he could because he thought it was funny.

>>31353844
*on top of his m4 iron sights.

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>>31349276
/thread

>>31353844
That's how my Dad has ACOG mounted because his AR has a fixed carry handle.

and if I'm honest, I always liked the look of M4s like that.

>>31349450
It was stupid but it was done incase your ACOG shit out or some such nonsense. I'm not sure when it was dropped but it was before 07 because I got into a shit slinging match with some 11B about muh neverserved status when I brought it up. He went in around 08.

>>31353887
I can see the appeal. I couldn't get a good cheek weld with it, but he had a fucking giraffe neck though. Same reason I didn't like the MDO on my 240 when we got them, fucked up my chi when I would sight in.

>>31350498
This smells like bullshit

>>31352153
To keep it on him as well as being a monopod in a pinch for siting it on cover

>>31349215
>hich hindered decisive victory over the jihadi insurgents

This implies victory could have been won in Iraq, which is bullshit to begin with.

But if you read "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas Ricks, certain US infantry divisions (such as 4th ID) deliberately ignored COIN fundamentals top to bottom and noticeably helped the insurgency.

>>31349400
What the FUCK are you trying to say?

Punctuation and grammar, PLEASE.

>>31349258
>Muslims in general only care about their tribes or tribe alliances, not their nation as a whole

Hit the nail right on the head. It's really hard for us as westerners to realize that hajjis dont give a fuck about a unified iraq or a unified afghanistan. they only really care about what they can see to the edge of the horizon, nothing else.

>>31350498
>60 degree arc

Yeah, bullshit. No one's ever going to use more than a 45 degree arc.

>>31349417
>>31349422

>Then some co tractors got killed

I understood that as "company tractors" and didn't even find it odd. I guess that's what you get when you're used to the notion of mortars being pulled by tractors in wartime.

I understand your question op but there was no end game, there wasnt anything resembling a post saddam strategy except WELP LETS HOPE THEY SORT IT OUT.

Every single soldier in the invasion could be "special forces" trained, speak perfect arabic and understand the local cultural and tribal makeup of their lands and it wouldnt have mattered because the fundamental problems of the instability was never going to be fixed.

>>31354059

Fiasco was written in like 2004

>>31356636
>2006
>also implying the surge wasn't lipstick on a pig

>>31353964
Yeah, it isn't the most comfortable way to shoot but you make due with what you can I guess

It is a nice transition from irons to sight and vice versa if you like to do that

>>31349215
This picture makes me miss the mid 2000s and almost miss the interceptor

>>31349274

I'm not sure if it is apocryphal or not but there's the whole business about the senior level officials in the administration not knowing or appreciating the difference of Sunni/Shia.

Personally I think the only reason why the international community has been so horribly reluctant to ever consider a policy of separating the state is because they fear contagion. I remember when the idea of splitting up Iraq was fit to solicit gasps and signs of warding off the evil eye by the politicians and international diplomatic scene. While now it's actually being recognized as an inevitability for Syria.

Obviously partition doesn't lead to sunshine and roses given the death and suffering of India's in the 1940s, the unsolved dilemma in Israel-Palestine, but it has proven to be invaluable in keeping the peace in the Balkans since the 90s. I know judging by Libya and Iraq that I'd rather see Syria partitioned if the alternative was the rebels winning and making good on the old "The Chrisitans to Lebanon, the Alawites to the grave" chant. Except that was back when there was still a popular protest going on, today it'd probably be "The Christians to the grave, the Shia to the tomb, the Alawites to the meathook"

>>31349974

It didn't help but wreckless debaathification and dissolving the military did a thousandfold more for the insurgency.

>>31350125

There's a very strong "nobody picks on my little brother but me" complex.

>>31353858

Too late fagget you're getting an AR carry handle on your musket and you're going to like it.

>>31349258

Why not look at the tribes as tribes then and promote on over the other; if Samir feels like he's being included, he's less likely to go akbar, and both can be pointed at that other tribe which happens to line up with your interests less than theirs.

From a tribe can be forged a nation.

>>31349431
>Was the Iraq war planned out by literal retards?

Short answer: yes. It was planned by people who had no idea how muslim arab societies work. They literally thought America would steamroll their way in and everyone would welcome a western oriented democracy.

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God the 2003 Iraq war was so fucking senseless. Even in Vietnam we could have pulled the "muh allies" excuse out of our ass, even if they were terrible fucking allies.

Why exactly did Bush hate Saddam so much?

>>31353844
>He also tried to get as much shit on his rifle as he could because he thought it was funny.

What's his trip here?

>>31350336
>whitemen
>raping arabs

So basically niggers made us lose Iraq?

>>31356959
How old are you again?

>>31356755
>It didn't help but wreckless debaathification and dissolving the military did a thousandfold more for the insurgency.
Well yeah, of course those decisions had a bigger impact. But this thread is specifically not about those decisions, it's about the platoon level fuckups that hindered victory over the insurgents. American soldiers providing fuel to the enemy's propaganda is an example of that.

>>31350189
This.

>>31356959

Saddam tried to have Bush Sr assassinated.

It was personal.