6 Years Later Iraq Better but Still Shaky

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by saden1

Lets go with go with the sports analogy...say you're Zorn, it's the Monday after a tough win against the hated Cowboys. You break down game film and start rating the performance of the players, coaching, and the team. What battles did you win and what battles did you lose? Any injuries?

k, well first i'm glad you went with the home team getting the overall win, and that was what my comments were intended. I see the "W" as being a regime change that works for the betterment of both the international and iraq's national societies. The "W" means that no more kurds will be slaughtered, just because they are kurds. It means that no more chemical attacks will be conducted on iraqi civilians by their own government. (By the way if you want to compare for real purposes wouldn't iraq be better cast as the raiders? although with some of the players that dallas has had maybe it works) It means that women and children will not be tortured because of their husband/father's political or religious beliefs.

But it definitely was not a victory without cost:
America lost some of its best players - the corporals, the privates, and the 2lt's who make up the backbone of our armed forces.
We took a black eye for a personal foul call at Abu Ghirab(sp)
We overspent on old line equipment and new fangled rookie technologies, where the opponent was more like the buffalo bills(pre TO) and way under the financial cap by using cheap "expendable" players (suicide bombers, small IED's)


Here is the "game" breakdown (my apologies to GTripp for not being nearly as good as his):

In the 1st quarter it looked like a blowout, we rolled through their defensive line, took out the 1st string line and had their QB scrambling, and eventually he went down with a severe head injury.

In the 2nd and 3rd quarters, they started clawing back, negating our fast strike offense, with well timed offensive strikes. But our defense kept forcing them to settle for FG's( IED strikes, skirmishes). They made one strong attempt to get at the Green Zone, but were re-buffed and we established a solid defensive front.

Late in the 4th quarter our coach, encouraged on by asst head coach-offense (nicknamed "Condi" (Goat ref)) called for a strong ground game to pound it out and secure the win. By solidifying the political ground gains with a strong offensive surge, the game was nearly over when Dan Snyder (the american people) saw that the coach, along with vinny(the congress) ran roughshoud(sp) over the organization's internal structure and was so angry that he fired the coach with 2 minutes to go. The new coach came in and had his qb kneel down during the final two minutes and the win was official.

Battles won:
we took out their 1st line offense quickly, and did not let them use any devastating trick plays.
we took away homefield advantage, and actually got the crowd on our side (by putting political structures in place, opening the political process and ensuring no retaliation against opposing sects occurred (or minimized them when they did)
we reduced the effectiveness of their backup plans(ied's suicide bombers).

Battles lost:
politically we lost clout
financially we took a hit
our soldiers paid heavy emotional, psychological, and physical costs
but honestly, i don't see any as lost, just a lot harder fought then some people expected.

(i digress to politics for a minute, I remember early on Bush told the american people, that this war would not be easy, and it would go on for a long time- he was speaking of the process- not specifically of the land war and occupation of iraq - because commentators the world over were saying that america did not have the resolve to fight. We lost roughly 4000 good soldiers, the enemy talked of sending home 10s of thousands of american bodies, i have posted earlier, no lost life is a good life, but the enemy did not do what they wanted to do, we limited their ability to kill our soldiers, but once we set foot over there they were going to kill some of us. WWI had 10's of thousands dead in a single day, vietnam had nearly 60,000 american dead - 1.5 million total dead, war is not fun, it is not nice, the opponent is not without ability, we limited that ability. end of digression)

Coaching:
i would say game prep was good, hence the strong 1st quarter, but shallow, we did not anticipate and make in game adjustments very well. The coach relied to heavily on one coordinator, didn't listen soon enough to other assistants, and waited until the win was in jeopardy to change the strategy.

I would liken most of the press to JLC except instead of Danny being the hated entity it was the coach. They absolutely hated the coach, and any story they ran, even "positive" ones had slight, or not so slight, digs at him.