As the war in Iraq winds to its inevitable end, uneasy reflections are taking over Russia's political and military elite. No one in Moscow ever seriously believed that Saddam Hussein might indeed "defeat" the allied forces. But the speed and decisiveness of the offensive has bewildered many. Russian generals were expecting another prolonged so-called non-contact war, like the one against Yugoslavia in 1999, in Afghanistan in 2001 or the first gulf war in 1991, when a four-day ground offensive was preceded by a 39-day air bombardment. It was believed that the Americans were afraid of close hand-to-hand encounters, they would not tolerate the inevitable casualties, and that in the final analysis they were cowards who relied on technical superiority. The Russian media is generally avoiding the hard questions and serving up anti-American propaganda instead. It is alleged that the U.S. government is "concealing casualties" (like its Russian counterpart), and that hundreds if not thousands of U.S. soldiers have already been killed. Maybe this deceit will become the main semi-official excuse for disregarding the allied victory.
Seems the Arab street isn't the only "credibility challenged" entity...
| There was a report in Jihad Unspun yesterday that a nurse in Kuwait had seen "with his own eyes" 700 U.S./Brit corpses on ice that we were afraid to admit to. Why we should store them in a Kuwaiti hospital rather than conceal them on one of our ships in the Gulf wasn't mentioned. There are periodic reports, that show up in the Pak press, of 800 corpses from the Afghan campaign similarly iced at Jacobabad airbase. It's easier to spin Famous Victories in your head than it is to fight them on the ground. |
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