 |
 |
LOOSE
CANONS |
| |
|
| Kill Ratios |
 Print Friendly Format
 E-Mail this to a Friend
|
| By
Jed Babbin |
Published 4/15/2003 12:14:00 AM
|
The
EU is holding another summit, and Tony Blair will meet
with Jacques Chirac for the first time since the war in
Iraq began. It's being billed as a "kiss and make up"
summit. I can't wait to see this. Maybe we'll see the
reappearance of "Baghdad Bob" -- former "Information
Minister" Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf -- as Chirac's new
public affairs man. He's no Ari Fleischer, but as
mouthpieces go, al-Sahhaf had quite a
pedigree.
After surviving a tour as Saddam's
foreign minister, al-Sahhaf reappeared on international
television as the darling of everyone who wasn't
watching Fox. He told more lies on television than
anyone since Lil' Billy. By the second week of the war,
his daily pronouncements of thousands of dead coalition
troops strewn across Iraq -- and the firm hold the
Saddamites had on the airport -- should have been played
for laughs. Wars teach the most horrible and important
of lessons. The lesson for the Arab nations is learned
only by studying the number of coalition soldiers killed
to the number of Iraqis and imported "fedayeen" killed.
The kill ratio is so lopsided -- maybe two or three
hundred to one -- that it should sink in even for the
Syrians and their ilk.
Syria -- member in good
standing of the U.N. Security Council -- is nose-deep in
terrorism. Hezbollah -- the terrorists who killed 241
Americans in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing -- are a
wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ba'athist Syrian
government. Every time Oliver North calls in to his
radio show (which I'm privileged to host while he's in
Iraq) I hear again about the "Saddam Fedayeen." These
falsely-labeled "Saddam loyalists" are thousands of
imported terrorists fighting to prevent Iraq from
becoming free and democratic. Hundreds of them -- or
more -- are Syrians. Many more are armed with
Syrian-provided weapons. And among them are many
Hezbollah members.
Since 1983 we have done little
more than remonstrate with one Assad after the other.
The younger -- Bashar, the current "president" -- is not
the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he is as ruthless
and bloody-handed as his old man was. Terrorism is the
only game in Syria, and it has to be stopped one way or
the other.
Israeli intelligence said early last
week that many of the missing top-ranking Saddamites
have fled to Syria, taking the millions they stole to
Syrian banks. There is a thousand-to-one chance that
Assad will look at the pictures of Saddam's statue being
toppled, and learn. It is a shame there are no pictures
of the trail of dead Iraqis our ground and air forces
have left from Basra to Tikrit. They would tell a tale
even Assad couldn't misunderstand. There is a lesson in
the destruction of the Iraqi "elite" Republican Guard
for Assad, Khameni, OBL, and the rest of those whose
power relies on the fighting ability and courage of the
Arab armies.
The Iraqi army proved smarter than
its leaders. Most of the regular soldiers either
surrendered or fled. Those who chose to fight were
killed. Think about it. In any well-matched tough fight,
one side might kill two or three of the enemy for every
soldier it lost. So far, slightly more than one hundred
Americans have died in this conflict, and about thirty
Brits. (I mean no insult to any others of our allies who
fight -- the Aussies, the Poles, and others -- but I am
unaware that they have suffered fatalities in this war.
If they have, I should welcome a correction.) But though
we have paid a price in blood it is so disproportionate
to the losses we have inflicted on the Iraqis that those
who want to continue their terrorist war against us
should think very hard. We probably have killed two or
three hundred Iraqis for each soldier we lost. No Arab
armies -- individually or in combination -- have any
serious chance to beat us in any standup fight.
Only Mohammed al-Sahhaf (or his CNN vassals)
could say otherwise. It matters not whether we are liked
or loved on the "Arab street," wherever that is. It is
essential, as Ralph Peters said, that we be feared. But
what can we do to get the point across other than what
we have already done? The sad fact is that those such as
Bashar Assad and those like him cannot admit the
fecklessness of the Arab armies any more than they can
admit the corruption and despotism of their own
governments.
A faithful reader asks whether
Saddam's WMD have been spirited off to Syria, if the
Turks' cooperation would have prevented this, and if
Syria should be our next campaign rather than North
Korea. I think it's very possible that some of Saddam's
WMD are in Syria, and more than possible that many of
the WMD scientists and engineers are as well. Some may
have gone to Russia, but Syria is the most likely place.
I think this would have happened with or without the
Turks' double-cross. The Turks would not have been able
to seal the border any more than we could. And if
Saddam's WMD went to Syria, it would have happened
before the war kicked off.
Syria is, well, a
nation we will have to deal with one way or the other.
Better to do it now while we have the forces there to do
it. Never mind that two of the five carrier battle
groups are rotating home, or that the B-2s and F-117s
are also being moved back. Syria is not Iraq. It took us
three weeks to deal with the substance of the Iraqi
army. If the president chose, Syria could be resolved in
a third of that time.
Syria should be presented
with an ultimatum: turn over the members of Saddam's
regime, their papers and their stolen money by the end
of the week, or face the consequences. Syria's response
to the ultimatum would be a good measure of the learning
capacity of the terrorist governments. If Syria can
learn, there is hope for them all. But Syria won't,
because to do so would require it to admit what it
cannot, that its power in the world is an illusion. With
that realization -- forced or learned -- governments
will fall, and the world evolve.
Jed
Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the
first Bush administration, and is the author of the
novel, Legacy of Valor. He now often
appears as a talking warhead on the Fox News Channel and
MSNBC.
|
| |
|
| | |
|
|
| DON'T
MISS |
| INSTANT
REVISIONISTS |
| Everyone
always knew it was going to be easy, especially those stuck in
Vietnam jungles and Iraqi quicksand.
|
| THE
LAWFUL TRUTH |
| If you
can't gamble, golf, or gossip about the war, how about
complaining about lawyers and the law?
|
| NEW
LOW COUNTRY FRANCE |
| A letter
from Paris, where the President of the U.S. is now commonly
called a ''stupid bastard.'' |
| THE
RED GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE |
| Vermont was
once like New Hampshire, a northeastern conservative redoubt
where urban liberals only summered or skied.
|
|
|
