Yesterday, Gen. Rick Lynch, Military Moron, who says he is “blessed to command Multinational Division Center and Task Force Marne,” gave a press briefing via satellite. Blessed?
The goal of Task Force Marne (is “Operation Marne Torch” named after the river in France or the incredibly bloody Battle of the Marne in World War I?), he says, is to “block accelerants of violence into Baghdad”. What might those be? “Accelerants are defined as anything -- insurgents, weapons, materiel, IEDs, VBIEDs, ideology, anything -- that, left uncontrolled, would affect the security in Baghdad.” Oddly, he talked about how many caches of weapons and IEDs they’ve been finding, but not so much about stockpiles of ideology. And you know how dangerous that stuff is left uncontrolled.
Military codename of the day: Operation Stampede 3.
I think I’ve said before, Lynch loves to talk about “my battlespace.” He gets positively tingly. He said it eight times during the briefing, and “our battlespace” five times.
He also enjoys talking about “detailed kinetic strikes.” Which is something to do with killing people.
Operation Marne Torch is all about location, location, location: “We have taken real estate from the insurgents, and will now hold on to this terrain until competent, capable Iraqi security forces can provide the sustained security presence that’ll keep the extremists away from the people of Iraq and from the government.” That’s the problem with these real estate deals. You acquire this “prime” piece of real estate, thinking that some competent, capable prospective buyers will just show up and take it off your hands, and then you wait, and you wait, and you wait....
He says he “senses” a “growing discontent” among Iraqis with Al Qaida, which he believes has “worn out its welcome.” He’s just jealous that they got a welcome, and we’re still waiting for the flowers and dancing in the streets we were supposed to be greeted with in 2003.
He touted his “economic engagement strategy,” which entails giving funds to state-owned businesses (gasp! socialism!), which could give jobs to as many as 2,800 military-age males (sorry, gals!). “Now, you might say that’s not a big number, but that’s 2,800 people who aren’t going to be planting IEDs, because they got proper employment.” What, they couldn’t do it on the weekends? And is he saying that they’ll only be hiring people who write “planting IEDs” on the form under “previous job experience”? Or maybe that every single unemployed man is an insurgent?
There will also be a “scrap metal initiative,” because, for some reason, “there’s a lot of scrap metal in Iraq”.
Some of the reporters asking questions had names like Courtney Kube and Mike Mount and Guy Raz.
Some of the reporters had clearly been covering the military just a little too long. Mike Mount of CNN asked, “Do you have any MRAPs in your AOR?” I don’t know what it means to have MRAPs in your AOR, but it sounds incredibly dirty. Sadly, Lynch replied that he has no MRAPs, but “we’re all excited about getting the MRAPs.”
Asked what would happen if the “surge” troops were brought home, Lynch said (three times), “It would be a mess.”
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