Time Exposes Iraqi Resistance
Whenever one gets to feeling like the Bush administration is in over its head in Iraq and has no clue what to do next, it is comforting to know that the opposition is even more in the dark. Time magazine managed to send some reporters inside a resistance cell in Iraq, and last week, the report on their activities made the cover. It is as if Hitler invited the Times and the Washington Post to Penemunde in 1943. The mind boggles at the sheer idiocy of it.
Perhaps the guerrillas thought they were undermining American resolve by showing off their mighty weapons -- air-to-air rockets with do-it-yourself modifications to permit ground-based launching. The report added, "According to the cell's security chief, a ring of men with shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades is watching for U.S. helicopters that might try to stop the assault." Think about that for a moment. The cell security chief is speaking to reporters from Time magazine revealing assets and tactics -- professional negligence to be sure.
This is not to say that the enemy is not intelligent -- one suspects they are not unlike the forces they face in that regard. Nor are they cowards; only brave men and women will use and face lethal force. However, if that cell still exists, it is because US military intelligence has so thoroughly compromised it that its value to the occupiers is greater if it is not destroyed.
These mujahideen wannabes ought to be fighting like Mao and other guerrilla leaders taught. Hide among the population, attack and move, be everywhere and nowhere. Perhaps the leader of the Long March should have added, "Don't talk to journalists from the other side." Then again, he probably didn't think such advice was necessary.
The incompetence of the enemy is not something upon which a military strategist should rely. Nonetheless, when offered an opening caused by a blunder, a good general exploits it. One might offer an epitaph for those bitter-enders who will die because of this report -- "Loose lips sink ships."
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