The only way Saddam can win this war is the same way the VietCong won in 1975 - it wasn't through superior force, better soldiers, better equipment. Saddam has to deeply divide the alliances between nations, and to deeply divide the voters within those nations that fight. To turn around the eBay vendors statement, Saddam can quite truly say "if you're not against us, you're with us" because every division helps his cause of making the coalition too wary to fight effectively until they eventually have to come home.The backlash over Canada's decision not to join Operation Free Iraq has moved to the Internet with a U.S. eBay vendor refusing to take Canuck bids.
For all the bluster on TV about no holds barred and determination to win, there is far more determination to limit civilian casualties than there is to win the war.
Umm Qasr could have been taken in 48 hours, Basra in a tad more, but to do it in such a way that not a single civilian needs a Band-Aid makes it a near impossible task for the military.
And every time someone does something like penalise an individual buyer because of his country's government's policies, they add to this division...
It seems to me that Saddam is winning the war that counts - the PR war to take away the will of the coalition. Successive governments in the US have acknowledged that political interference lost the military war in Vietnam, and that political vaccilation lost the overall war in Vietnam, yet they seemed doomed to do it again.
The terrible chaos over the 3 civilian dead in Baghdad on the 19th seems insane to me. The endless footage on US networks of the few misses in Baghdad seems treasonous to me. The complete ignorance by networks of the fact when a city is defended by GPS jammers and AA guns that missiles are going to be brought down on non-military targets seems incompetent to me...
Now Saddam is even hailing the weather and using it as a PR exercise to maintain the rage...
May our warriors come home victorious soon...
Russell C.
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