Too bad my crystal ball is broken and the 8 ball is a bastardMy Brigade Commander, COL Funk, has a saying when referring to Iraq/Afghanistan/COIN: "This isn't rocket science. If it were rocket science they would have rocket scientists doing it. This is much harder than rocket science."
Ever since I completed my first deployment I've known defeating an insurgency was a difficult process. One just doesn't show up, kill a few people, drop a few bombs, search a few houses, and call it a day. It takes research, processes, dedication, and a good team to pull it off. It takes patience, local population support, commanders and leaders who understand COIN, and a capable local security force. It takes a fucking miracle.
At NTC we received word that our AO would change. Originally we supposed to be just north of Baghdad, essentially dealing with an area with some Al Qaida holdouts and a few Baathists, where a bad week consisted of a few IEDs going off. Now we are headed to an area northeast of Baqubah near the Iranian border, the wild country.
Attack levels are only slightly higher in this area compared to north of Baghdad. The only difference is the number insurgent/terrorist/freedom fighter groups we are facing...pretty much all of them. I'm not kidding when I say this. Name an organization conducting attacks or facilitating the conducting of attacks or smuggling weapons for the conducting of attacks or even possibly thinking about maybe conducting attacks and they are operating in this new area of operations or just outside of it.
Al Qaida...we got 'em, both Al Qaidas, the international and Iraqi groups. Ansar al Islam/Sunna...them too. New Baath Party, reformed Baathists, former Baathists of a different name...yep. Badr...hell yah. Jaish al Mahdi...you betcha and their buddies the Jaish al Mahdi Special Groups. 1920's Revolutionary Brigade...well, not so much, but we've got their buddies who broke off from 1920's. There were groups I've never even heard of and had to look up the acronyms.
Oh, and we've got Kurds...lots of Kurds. And when you have Kurds you've got Peshmerga. I have no issues with the Pesh, other than they are slowly trying to take over the area we will be operating in which means we could possibly see conflict between them and the Iraqi Army.
Just for kicks there's a bit of tribal warfare going on as well. We didn't want to make this too easy.
I know I wanted a bit of a challenge when I came back to the Stryker Brigade but crikey, give me a freakin' break.
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