Topic: Iraq : Death Before Dishonor (Hooray) | |
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Death Before Dishonor
March 22, 2007: In late 2006, there were 1,300 terrorist attacks a week recorded in Iraq. Most of these were minor stuff, a few gunshots, or a bomb going off harmlessly (most roadside bomb attacks fail). By January, this was down to 1,000 a week, and that continues to drop. The "surge" is calming things down. It's become more dangerous for civilians to appear on the streets with guns. Iraqi civilians continue to be the primary victims of the violence, accounting for over 90 percent of the deaths. However, this includes dead terrorists, and more of them are getting killed as their safe houses and bomb factories are found and raided. American intelligence estimates that about half the terrorist operations have been shut down inside Baghdad. Terrorists who have survived the raids, have fled to the suburbs, or Western Iraq. The suburbs have become a major battleground, as many of these towns have long been all-Sunni. In Western Iraq, the tribes continue to turn on al Qaeda and other Sunni terrorist organizations. Four years ago, the tribes bought into the idea that Sunni Arabs could use terror to regain control of Iraq. The terrorists brought in money, and kept the Americans and government security forces out. It all seemed like it would work. But then the Americans started coming in. Fallujah fell to an assault by American marines. The majority of Iraqis elected a Shia dominated government. Some of the tribal leaders began to have second thoughts. The more hard core Sunni terrorists responded to this with death threats, and death, for tribal leaders who were working with the government. This produced a growing backlash from the Sunni Arab tribes that dominate western Iraq. For the last year, that war has spread to Baghdads suburbs, where many of Saddams most loyal (and generously rewarded) supporters lived. The suburban Sunnis have been the most determined terrorists, because they went from being the most favored, to least favored, Iraqis overnight, once Saddam fell. Many of these suburban towns are solidly behind the terrorists. That is, a majority, or large minority of the population actively supports the terror campaign. But now more police and security forces are moving into these towns, and battles are breaking out every day. The government has the troops for this, with security force strength now at 320,000. It was 232,000 a year ago, up from 120,000 in 2004. A major change has been the development of experienced police and army leaders. That takes time, and the time has passed. While it's still easier to send in American troops to quickly take care of armed resistance, the Iraqi troops now know how to search and clear a neighborhood of weapons and terrorist tools. The basic strategy of the U.S. troop "surge" is to put these Iraqi security forces in pro-terrorist neighborhoods, and back them up over a long period. Since Iraq now has ten million phone owners (most of them cell phones), once people fell free from constant terrorist surveillance, and retaliation, they begin phoning in tips about who the bad guys are and where they hang out. The terrorist groups contain a lot of professionals from Saddams secret police and Republican Guard, people who know how to organize an attack on less experienced security forces (containing mostly Shia and Kurds). But with enough American troops there as backup, these attacks never gain any momentum, and result in a lot of dead Sunni Arabs. The Sunnis Arabs still cannot deal with American troops. Even though the majority of terrorist attacks continue to be against U.S., the majority of victims in these attacks are Iraqi civilians. Moreover, terrorists lose over ten of their own for each American solider they kill. All those civilian casualties have turned the civilian population against the terrorists. Despite energetic efforts to put the blame on American troops, too many Iraqis have witnessed these attacks, and seen how the terrorists slaughter civilians during futile attempts to inflict casualties on the Americans. Even Sunni Iraqi civilians are often victims of the terrorist attacks, and have had enough. Unfortunately, the enemy is willing to die fighting. Many of the Sunni terrorist leaders are Saddams henchmen, with lots of blood on their hands. They have seen many of their associates put on trial, and hanged. Many more have been killed by Shia death squads. These killers take particular care to go after Sunni Arabs who participated in the 1980s war with Iran. To this end, Iran has been training some of the death squad members to be more efficient killers. Iran still holds a grudge for the 1980 Iraqi invasion of Iran, and eight years of war that followed. In Iran, thousands of maimed (by shells, bombs and poison gas) veterans of that war are still around, as a reminder. In Iraq, most of those Sunni Arabs who supported Saddam in the 1980s have fled the country, been jailed, or been killed. Those that remain don't expect to survive unless they can regain control of the country. That's impossible now, but the coalition of religious fanatics and Sunni Arab supremacists that lead the terror campaign seem determined to fight to the death. The rest of Iraq wants accommodate them. |
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thanks for the update, keep them coming.
did you ever say where you were at? if so i think i missed it. stay up, doc |
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Does that mean we're actually WINNING this war? Heh. I honestly didn't
believe it could be done. Not that I believed the war couldn't be won. I just didn't believe this administration could get their heads out of each others' backsides long enough to do it. Of course, soon, the democrats will take office and this entire war will have been for nought. How sad. |
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Give em some credit.
Whatever they say to get in office will go out the window once they are there and get the briefings they are not getting now. Perhaps they should be getting a Reagan style QUICKLOOK? |
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Maybe. But name any unpopular war where they DIDN'T immediately jump
ship once the administration changed. |
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Whoever wrote the opening posting in this thread must not be listening
to what Gen'l Petraeus is saying! The death rate has climbed since Bush's last escalation; Diyala Province, has turned into an anti-occupation stronghold; the US military is building walls inside Baghdad to isolate communities so as better to control them; the largest attacks on the Green Zone have occurred, killing one Iraqi legislator; and the insugents continue to improve their fighting capabilities (the latest: a tank-piercing explosive); the Iraqi police desertion rate is rising again; SecDef Gates took a trip to tell our Iraqi stand-ins that the US military was going to pull further back into safe bases and cut back on street patrolling; US military units are pulling back into safe areas (with some success in Anbar Province, it must be said); and US military tours have been extended 25%, from 12 to 15 months, with anticipated harm to the troops' training, families and job prospects, to say nothing of the death and maiming of our own troops. No, whoever thinks this is getting better needs a reality check. Unfortunately. Bring 'em home, folks. We've done our best. Our troops deserve better respect than they way they are being treated by this administration, and by some of their own leadership (e.g. Generals Odierno and Pace) Oceans |
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oceans-
two of the people who are in this thread have been or are still in Iraq. I will take first hand accounts over whats going onthere before some others who have their own agenda's. Gen P. was my commanding gen at ft. campbell (101st airborne) the escilations that you refer to are much like "black on black" crime except its iraqi on iraqi, however some of the traditional (if you can say that) troubled spots in iraq have seen a greater decline. doc ..... (and yeah ive been there, seen it, KNOW without any doubt that we are in fact doing great things over there and are indeed SIR winning this war- thank you) but thats a big difference between reading about something and doing something. |
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Oceans I beg to differ.
Even the liberal news sources are starting to back away from the we are losing stance. And the General you mentiond was quoted on one news service just this afternoon stating mostly exactly what was said in the OP. He also asked the interogator that was attempting to flay him how anyone could say we were loosing when IN EVERY ENGAGEMENT WITH AN ARMED FORCE IN IRAQ THE US MILITARY HAS COME OUT A CLEAR WINNER. |
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Soldier, I am going to guess that Gen'l Petraeus knows a LOT more about
how things are going in Iraq than you. He is pretty damn smart, too. I grant you that you know things at a street combat level, and maybe a bit about CAP activities, but it is the larger picture that controls what happens, not the personal experiences of a single troop. I wish you the best of luck, soldier. US medics, for the most part, are the good guys. But stay safe and don't get too ****ey with the hoo-wah stuff. And don't make too many assumptions about who knows what and what our experiences have been. Makes you sound kinda silly. There are a lot of things that you are not privy to. |
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