When Will Iraq Start Calming Down?
RyoOhki
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">And what will the US do?</div> <a href='http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8849085%255E401,00.html' target='_blank'>Attacks kill 182</a>
A while ago Saddam was finally found and captured, a move which was hoped would help slow or halt the attacks that have been fairly consistant since the end of combat in May 2003. However, that has not been the case. The most recent, and certainly the most devestating, attacks in Iraq have claimed over 180 lives, and that number is still rising. 264 US soldiers have been killed since May as well.
The question that must be asked is "When is it going to stop?" The coalition cannot simply absorb such attacks endlessly, and the Iraqi people are starting to turn away from the US: <a href='http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8855477%255E2,00.html' target='_blank'>Shi'ite leaders blame the US</a> It is inevitable that in such conditions people will believe that the people protecting them arn't doing a good enough job. These attacks are having an effect, be it on the Iraqi people or on the soldiers themselves: <a href='http://www.peripatetic.com/archives/000287.html' target='_blank'>Morale suffering</a> . So when will Iraq cool down? When will the attacks stop?
How about when the Iraqis have their own government? Unlikely. These attacks have been directed against Iraqi civilians as well as US occupation forces, so it probable that the attacks would continue even after the US left Iraq. Could the Iraqis protect themselves? The US military with the latest technology and 130,000 highly trained troops have been unable to stop these attacks, so the possibity of the New Iraqi Army and police being able to halt the violence seems unlikely.
So what will the US do? That's the other big question. Abandoning Iraq, writing the whole thing off, is a possibility, though remote. More likely is that the US will continue to maintain a pressense in the country, doing their best to stem the attacks. But where are these attacks coming from? The recent bombings were blamed on a Jordanian man with suspected links to Al Qaeda, and the US believes that many of the attacks in Iraq are being carried out by foreign terrorists. Will the Iraq situation bring about further military action against Middle Eastern states, such as Jordan, Syria or Iran? How will the US public react over the coming months and years? Will they start to tire of the costs and casualities? Will they be willing to go to war again?
Your thoughts and opinions please.
A while ago Saddam was finally found and captured, a move which was hoped would help slow or halt the attacks that have been fairly consistant since the end of combat in May 2003. However, that has not been the case. The most recent, and certainly the most devestating, attacks in Iraq have claimed over 180 lives, and that number is still rising. 264 US soldiers have been killed since May as well.
The question that must be asked is "When is it going to stop?" The coalition cannot simply absorb such attacks endlessly, and the Iraqi people are starting to turn away from the US: <a href='http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8855477%255E2,00.html' target='_blank'>Shi'ite leaders blame the US</a> It is inevitable that in such conditions people will believe that the people protecting them arn't doing a good enough job. These attacks are having an effect, be it on the Iraqi people or on the soldiers themselves: <a href='http://www.peripatetic.com/archives/000287.html' target='_blank'>Morale suffering</a> . So when will Iraq cool down? When will the attacks stop?
How about when the Iraqis have their own government? Unlikely. These attacks have been directed against Iraqi civilians as well as US occupation forces, so it probable that the attacks would continue even after the US left Iraq. Could the Iraqis protect themselves? The US military with the latest technology and 130,000 highly trained troops have been unable to stop these attacks, so the possibity of the New Iraqi Army and police being able to halt the violence seems unlikely.
So what will the US do? That's the other big question. Abandoning Iraq, writing the whole thing off, is a possibility, though remote. More likely is that the US will continue to maintain a pressense in the country, doing their best to stem the attacks. But where are these attacks coming from? The recent bombings were blamed on a Jordanian man with suspected links to Al Qaeda, and the US believes that many of the attacks in Iraq are being carried out by foreign terrorists. Will the Iraq situation bring about further military action against Middle Eastern states, such as Jordan, Syria or Iran? How will the US public react over the coming months and years? Will they start to tire of the costs and casualities? Will they be willing to go to war again?
Your thoughts and opinions please.
Comments
1. All enemies of Coalition forces and Iraqis who favor democracy must be removed.
2. Iraq must be returned to a totalitarian state.
All free States face the possibility of these attacks. There is no other way to guarantee an end to terrorist attacks.
As for the current mindset of the average Iraqi, I've been turning to the web logs. Here's one that pretty much sums up my interpretation of these recent events:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Spitting in the face of the wind.</b>
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- What happened today in Baghdad and kerbela were not just the bloodiest terrorist attacks that took place in Iraq after the war, they were events that set a clear definition to the meaning of the violence in Iraq.
There was a debate since that time of how to define those violent attacks against Iraqi civilians, IP and coalition forces. To us, it was more than clear that these were terrorist attacks made mainly by the remnants of Saddam’s regimes and terrorists from outside Iraq supported by some neighboring countries and Islamic radical groups with political and moral support from all anti American media and countries.
Others, mostly paid off or idiots, looked at these attacks as legitimate resistance by Iraqi people against (occupation). That was when the attacks were mostly on the coalition forces, but when it switched to aim mainly at the IP members and the infra structure, those (supporters of resistance) claimed that the resistance is doing damage to the American interests and not to the Iraqi infra structure and that the IP were traitors that are helping the occupiers! And some tried to divide those actions into 2 parts: one (aimed at coalition) they insisted on calling resistance and the second (on the IP and infra structure) as conspiracy planned by the occupation forces to justify prolonging their occupation! Others had the nerve to call every attack in Iraq that wasn’t aimed directly at Iraqi civilians as resistance, and that this justifies the (accidental death) of say 10 Iraqis when a bomb fails to reach its final target and explode outside the concrete barriers of an American facility to kill only Iraqi civilians!
What happened today leaves no doubt about the nature of these attacks. They are terrorist crimes meant to stop or at least hinder the democratic changes and progress in Iraq, taking different ways each time selecting the most vulnerable and most (rewarding) target.
The recent attacks along with the previous, were aiming directly and clearly at Iraqi civilians. The purpose is more than clear once we look at the places and the people who were attacked. As most of these attacks took place in She’at and Kurdish areas and at such a critical time where as happened today the She’at were gathered to memorialize a sacred religious occasion, it leaves no doubt that the final objectives of these attacks were starting a civil war between She’at and Sunni or between Arab, Kurds and Turkmen.
There would still be some stupid people who would say” but there were attacks on coalition forces these days. So there are still 2 types of violence: resistance ’killing coalition forces’ and terrorism ‘killing Iraqis’”.
I want to say that this is one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard (for those who really mean it), as how can you call attacking innocent people as terrorism and at the same time justify the killing of the soldiers and police forces who are trying to protect those innocents, and what is worse is that some of the people who make such discrimination are the same who blame the Americans for failure in protecting Iraqi civilians!
They are saying that when someone kills an American or any other coalition soldier, who is trying to protect Iraqis and keeping order and security in Iraq, that he is resisting occupation, and when say, someone kills a soldier who is supposed to protect a group of Iraqis or injures him and thus it becomes easier for (another one) to carry a terrorist attack on those unprotected civilians, they call it terrorist attack and blame the soldier for not doing his duty!
These attacks however will not achieve their objectives, as we all saw that despite several attacks on mosques, wholly symbols and different ethnic or religious groups on hot areas that are the focus of a political struggle such as Kirkuk, there was never any feedback that makes us believe in the possibility of a civil war. And here where people we generally don’t like or at least disagree with, such as Sistani and the leaders of the SCIRI, play a vital role in calming people, containing and minimizing the political echo of such terrorist attacks, by insisting on blaming terrorists from outside Iraq and asking people to show self discipline, and we all know the effect of words from men like Sistani on the common Iraqis.
It maybe early to predict the reaction to those horrible attacks, (but I’ll risk) and say that I’m firmly on the belief that the terrorists will not succeed in achieving their malicious intentions.
The severity and brutality of these attacks, if should tell us something, then it’s that we (Iraqis and coalition) are on the right path and that our efforts to build a new Iraq are progressing in a very satisfactory way, otherwise our enemies -Arab dictators and terrorist Islamic groups with the remnants of the old regime- wouldn’t have acted so madly and wouldn’t invest all their evil forces in what I still consider a futile attempt to stop the great progress being done in Iraq trying to build a stable, democratic and prosperous country and the greater effect of achieving this objective on the ME in particular and the rest of the Arab, Muslim world and the world in general.
Some people still wonder what would be the relation between liberation of Iraq and war on terrorism. I think that the fact that nearly all the terrorists are gathered on our land to fight so fiercely should be more than enough an explanation. It may seem that the dictators and fanatics from outside are winning by inflicting such horrible losses in our lines and that the battlefield is Iraq, where in fact (my opinion) we are doing them a much more damage by building Iraq and that the battlefield is much more larger than Iraq. We are fighting them on their lands by showing their citizens what they can achieve once they are free. It’s still far from being an appealing vision, but soon it will be. These dictators and their allies instead of trying to change so that they can find a place in the new world or at least take a safe shelter (Aristed) and not end being dragged from a sewage hole, are actually stupid enough to try to resist it. They are (spitting in the face of the wind).
Some people may have been dispirited by today’s tragedy. I for myself am sad but -as I see these evil powers show their true ugly face and play their last card -surer than ever that we are winning and that it’s just a matter of time before the people of the neighboring countries start to look admirably at what <i>seems</i> to be at the present time a very unstable chaotic and poor country.
By Ali.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The absolute courage and resiliency of the Iraqi people is greater than we could have hoped for. The time will come when the press can no longer ignore them.
I highly recommend checking out some of the Iraqi bloggers. They are not mouth-pieces for the Coalition. The are often brutally honest and much more informative than the majority of press articles.
Here's a few links:
<a href='http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>Iraq The Model</a>
<a href='http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>Healing Iraq</a>
<a href='http://iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>Iraq and Iraq's</a>
I'm not saying that the Iraqis are turning away from democracy. I'm saying that they're not confidant that the US can protect them. There's no doubt that the Iraqis don't like what's going on and that few, if any, would have welcomed the recent blast (except for the Sunni). What I am saying is that we've gotten ourselves into this mess, and we have to figure out just how we're going to stop these attacks. Can the Iraqis handle this themselves, or will the US have to commit itself to a much longer occupation and/or invasions of neighbouring countries? Getting rid of everyone who opposes the Coalition and a democratic Iraq is a way of accomplishing that, but how exactly can we bring that about? Is it even possible?
But what's going on in Iraq makes no sense at all. Why kill Iraqi citizens? The only answer I can think of is to impede economic and democratic development in the country. The only Iraqi's who would want this are one's seeking to reclaim the Ba'athist regime and return Iraq to its original condition. I hope to God no one is on the side of these monsters, for as ill-fated as the War on Iraq was the coalition at least didn't intentionally kill civilians to further their aims.
But here's another thing I don't get: If these are really just guerillas aimed at seizing power from the coalition, how the hell are they getting people to suicide bomb? You must <b>really</b> be good at persuasion if you can convince people to run off and kill innocent people, and yourself, and expect to go to 'paradise'. What lies are they telling these people? Such a claim might make sense in Israel, but in Iraq? Come on.
Its realy time to pull out. we got the job done, saddam power is no more.Pull out all americans, and just send money. and fire half our troops to pay for it.
besdies, I bet the labor is cheaper there anyways
I don't believe that there's one particular group that's responsible for the attacks in Iraq. You do have the old Ba'athists, but you also have people pushing for a theocracy and people who just don't like America.
I doubt that America or any coalition force would be able to maintain an extended campaign without support at home eroding. English and Austrailian support is thin as it is and America no longer seems willing to mount extended campaigns. Getting rid of everybody who opposes the Coalition would be difficult and would require a great deal of resources and troops. It would involve, at the very least, an invasion of Iran and Syria, both of which would mount guerilla campaigns rather than fight a conventional war.
Power is maintained by two primary forces. Coercion and legitimacy. Coercion is effective in the short term, but ultimately it's ineffective and prohibitively expensive. Legitimacy is the only way to maintain order in the long run, but there's no assurance that Iraqis would go along with a U.S. friendly policy.
I was stating that the main tool to convince someone to kill themselves in an attack is Islam.
In the comming months, the violence with escalate, giving the US more "reasons" to commit our war crimes. We will see movements against other oil rich totalitarian nations such as Syria, Iran, and such. It will still be called the war on terror, because that appeals to the masses. Its sad, but there isn't really anything anyone can do.
I was stating that the main tool to convince someone to kill themselves in an attack is Islam. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, but this doesn't make sense. People don't just kill themselves unless they actually believe they are going to heaven. How do you convince them they're going to heaven? By telling them it's a jihad. How do you tell them it's a jihad? By telling them they are killing infidels.
And since when are Iraqi civilians infidels? And this is what I am getting at: it must take tremendous brainwashing and persuasion to get convince people that killing innocents is honorable and worthy of paradise.
Hopefully the constitution will get signed into law and stability will increase, I think we can all be a little optomistic and pray for a democratic Iraq in the future.
I don't understand?
Retreat should not even be considered.
And whats this about giving the US "reasons" to commit war crimes? Civilian deaths are one thing, but war crimes are completely different. Please explain to me the war crimes being committed in Iraq.
Sounds like the sorta thing I hear at meetings with my new friends the "Socialist Alternative" at uni. "The US are committing war crimes in Iraq" - and when pressed on the specifics all you get is a general "well civilians are dying" which doesnt constitute war crimes.
Nor is the US at fault the majority of the time.