Progress in Iraq

[pchang]

It appears that regular people are starting to get fed up with the insurgents. If this keeps up, the insurgency is really doomed.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/06/iraq.ghost.town/index.html

[chequita guevara]

It's doomed when the Sunnis are fed up, which does appear to be happening.

[lord of the mark]

let me be the pessimist, then. Even if the insurgency is looking doomed in the LONG run, theres a very long way to go in actually eliminating it. Turning the "sea" against the guerillas is a an important condition, but not the only one, for winning.

A. The insurgents can still retain control of areas where the population is cool to them by sheer coercion. A costly method, perhaps not sustainable, but enables them to remain active for some time.
B. Even if some fence sitters are turning against them, Im sure they still have strong pockets of support.
C. Some of the change in hearts and minds must come from the use of Iraqi forces to do searches, etc instead f the less culturaly sensitive Americans. But the Iraqi force is still vulnerable, with inexperienced officers, and is subject to penetration by the insurgents.
D. Theres bound to be rocky spots on the political path, and that could still lead to Sunni backlash.


So good for the Iraqi people, but dont count any chickens yet.

[DanS]

There's a lot of cause for both optimism and pessimism in Iraq.

The WaPo had an article a couple of weeks ago about Sunni tribes developing vendettas against the terrorists. The marines just watched on as the local tribe and the terrorists had a days long firefight.

On the other hand, you look at the suicide terrorist attacks against civilians in Baghdad and it just seems unendingly gruesome. It's amazing to me that such a large number of people are willing to commit suicide in order to kill civilians. 3 suicide attacks just today.

[Dinner]

Re: Progress in Iraq

Originally posted by pchang
It appears that regular people are starting to get fed up with the insurgents. If this keeps up, the insurgency is really doomed.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/...own/index.html

The lady was a ****e and a Turkman. The insurgency gets its support from Arab Sunnis.

[pchang]

She is married to a Sunni and not the only one referenced in the article.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by pchang
She is married to a Sunni and not the only one referenced in the article.

actually the ethnicity and religion of the tribal sheiks is not made clear. But what do you expect from CNN?

[GePap]

The insurgency is not the reason for pessimism in Iraq. Its the fact it took so long to come up with a government after the elections, that the Constitution might very likely be late, and that who knows if whatever deal is reached will be supported by the population.

I worry when Condi vists the Kurdish regions of Iraq and the colorguard has a Kurdish flag waving and nary an Iraqi flag in sight.

[DerSchwarzfalke]

Some perspective: it took America a good eight years to get its government 'straight,' between Articles and ratification of the Constitution. If there is one adjective that describes democracy, it is 'slow.'

[MichaeltheGreat]

That was a tiny matter of working out details, not fundamentally opposed groups whose politicians are easily displaced by armed fighters.

We didn't have politics by assassination and a potential civil war on ethnic, tribal and religious lines as the background for our political squabbles.

[Kuciwalker]

We did have a civil war along political lines though

[DerSchwarzfalke]

That misrepresents the nature of 18th century America. The history books present this sanitized version of America that is just a bunch of white men gathering together in Philadelphia to hammer out some minor details. Violence was in fact a very real part of life at the time; the very mention of the word 'taxation' in any form was enough to spark rebellions, not to mention the nature of politics as it started to form in the 1790s. And I am sure a Georgian considered himself just as distant from a Bostonian as a Shiite from Basra considers himself distant from a Kurd in Mosul. I think it is a cogent analogy, and my point still stands.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
We did have a civil war along political lines though

Yeah, and you solved it through purges.

Sieg heil, *****es.

[Kuciwalker]

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DerSchwarzfalke
That misrepresents the nature of 18th century America. The history books present this sanitized version of America that is just a bunch of white men gathering together in Philadelphia to hammer out some minor details. Violence was in fact a very real part of life at the time; the very mention of the word 'taxation' in any form was enough to spark rebellions, not to mention the nature of politics as it started to form in the 1790s. And I am sure a Georgian considered himself just as distant from a Bostonian as a Shiite from Basra considers himself distant from a Kurd in Mosul. I think it is a cogent analogy, and my point still stands.

How many were killed in or as a result of Shay's rebellion?

How many in the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion?

How many signatories of the Articles of Confederation were subject to assassination attempts?

etc. etc.

**** the history books. "Violence" in those days might be a drunken brawl and some thrown rocks, somebody rode out of town on a rail, or one or two people getting shot if things came to a boil.

Whether Georgians gave a rat's ass about Bostonians is irrelevant - they needed several weeks (months in the winter) and a lot of effort to get close enough to do each other any harm.

There was nothing like the kind of current violence in Iraq, in the post-rebellion 18th century US, let alone politically motivated violence. That's true on either a per capita basis or pro-rata.