The Iraq thread 4

[IceShade 0]

Please explain why any discussion relating to Iraq has to "benefit the Coalition forces and those that have been taken hostage..."

EDIT:

Quote[/b] ]I guess you could just shut your mouth about the typo now.

There ya go crossing the rules again. You won't be around long enough for me to correct a second time I'm afraid.

Oh, obviously I should have said 'Please stop referring to the typo I made a few posts above, because it has no relevance to the topic and discussion'.

Instead of getting the message...

Edit: I was feeling a bit depressed, with a lot of work to do tomorrow, but after actually being involved in such a discussion I'm happy again.

Thanks guys

[Akira 0]

Now that that is taken care of, please answer my question:

Quote[/b] ]Please explain why any discussion relating to Iraq has to "benefit the Coalition forces and those that have been taken hostage..."

[IceShade 0]

I would like to, but I can't be bothered to do so.

[Akira 0]

I would like to, but I can't be bothered to do so.

Then your posts and "contribution" are as useless as I original thought.

[ralphwiggum 6]

seems like Zeus ppl are thinking they can mess around here.

[miles teg 1]

They are just trollers... maybe baron...maybe just some other random idiot wanting attention.   If they bothered to read the past topics on this thread they would see that there is very free discussion here as long as people don't cross the line and start directly insulting or posting childish remarks designed to simply piss people off and cause the thread to deteriorate into a trade of insults.  I must say that the moderators on this forum are much better then most forums about keeping a lid on things. Yeah, I've had my disagreements with them and at least once I thought they crossed the line a bit, but still, I respect them overall.  

People who just pop up on a thread and who refuse to engage in intelligent debate are just trolls and need to be Post Restricted or Post Banned if they continue it otherwise they just cause the death of a thread and any semi-intelligent debate.  

Anways back to the point of this part of the thread concerning this woman who died.  I really fail to see what Billybob and AL's intentions are.    First they seem to dispise this woman, then they don't.  

I wish they would both simply say what they feel instead of saying, "I didn't say it, the article I posted did."  or words to that effect. 

That is also a form of trolling.  Don't post those articles unless you state clearly that you are only posting them as articles for everyone to make comments upon and they don't necessarily reflect your views.

From most reports, it seems as if she was getting the data on families affected by US military action somewhere and that she was getting aid to them.  Thats all that matters.  The rest of the stuff about the body counts, I agree with Billybob in that it is in a way a "he said, she said" debate.  It also maybe that SOME units are keeping track of body counts and that perhaps she did find some records of civilian body counts.  But at the same time, this activity may NOT be official US Army policy.   So in fact both sides may be telling the truth.

But in the end, without investigating ourselves, we can only guess and make assumptions based on statements and other circumstantial evidence.   There's not enough data to know for certain.

But I think it can be said with some confidence that this woman did some really amazing things and that her death is a blow to the goals of the US military in Iraq.  I honestly think most US military commanders want good relations with the Iraqi people and she was a strong facilitator in accomplishing this goal.

But if you question her character, I think I fairly extensively addressed all of the allegations that blog made about her.

If you wish to debate that further then list what problems you have with her and why she should not be regarded as a hero and an American patriot because personaly I feel that she was someone who was advancing the publicly stated goals of the US in Iraq and not hindering it.   If you don't feel strongly about it, then it would probably be best to move on to another subject.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Anways back to the point of this part of the thread concerning this woman who died. I really fail to see what Billybob and AL's intentions are. First they seem to dispise this woman, then they don't.

I wish they would both simply say what they feel instead of saying, "I didn't say it, the article I posted did." or words to that effect.

That is also a form of trolling. Don't post those articles unless you state clearly that you are only posting them as articles for everyone to make comments upon and they don't necessarily reflect your views.

.....

Quote[/b] ]Her death is horrible but isn't that giving too much credit?

Quote[/b] ]

That article fails to mention the reconstruction fund in which she did not create. The reconstruction fund existed before her lobbying. Furthermore, the article tries to demonize the US govt. by saying they do not care about iraqi people but Marla did. Hello...

Quote[/b] ]

They (media and others) her giving her too much credit. She gets credit for helping those people but the way how people are painting her is off. They are making her the beauty and the US govt an beast.

Again, how do those post convey that I dispise her. Furthermore, I didn't post a article but quicke did in which I replied to. The article (ny daily) seem to demonize the US govt.

[theavonlady 2]

Anways back to the point of this part of the thread concerning this woman who died.  I really fail to see what Billybob and AL's intentions are.    First they seem to dispise this woman, then they don't.

I have not switched opinions at any point here. For the last time, from a previous post of mine, many pages back:

Quote[/b] ]

EDIT: Let me sum up by linking to an article whose title conveys what I agree with: Let Us Not Speak Ill of the Dead But Let Us Speak Accurately.

Capite?

[Placebo 29]

brother_bob_wallace & IceShade the trolling stops now, you're welcome to use these forums as long as you use them within the forum rules, if you don't like the conversation in this thread then don't read this thread, it's really that simple. Your actions serve only to do a disservice to the Zeus name.

Everyone else get back to your own corners and converse/debate the topic, anything else has no place here.

[theavonlady 2]

Remember those supposed hostages reportedly held a few days ago?

Quote[/b] ]Dozens of Bodies Found in Tigris River

1 hour, 48 minutes ago Middle East - AP

By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - For days, Iraq was shaken by claims that Sunni Muslim militants had abducted as many as 100 Shiites from an area at the tip of Iraq's "Triangle of Death."

Shiite leaders and government officials warned of a major sectarian conflict, only to see the reports evaporate when Iraqi security forces swept through the area and found no hostages.

But on Wednesday Iraq's interim president said he had proof of the abductions: 50 bodies recovered from the Tigris River.

And northwest of Baghdad, witnesses said 19 bullet-riddled bodies were found slumped against a bloodstained wall in a soccer stadium in Haditha.

The discoveries came as insurgents unleashed a string of attacks that killed at least nine Iraqis and wounded 21. They included four suicide car bombs — one of which targeted interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's convoy — and a roadside explosion in the capital, police said. Allawi escaped unharmed, his spokesman said.

[quicksand 0]

Link

Quote[/b] ]Shi'ite officials said that dozens of bodies had been found in the Tigris south of Madaen, but a Reuters cameraman who visited the location found no evidence of any bodies.

First there were 150 hostages in Maiden,then Iraqi security forces raided the city and claimed to have freed ten famillies,found a home that facilitated bomb making,later they retract the statement and acknowledge in fact there were no hostages in the first place and it was all a missunderstanding and insigation ploted by some extremist Shias in the government.Now,Talbani claims some 50 hostages have been fished out of a river but a Reuters cameraman that visits the scene said there were none.

I am to say at least suspicious about the whole affair,if not doubtful of the intentions and the veridicity of statements of some people from within the government.

[Balschoiw 0]

I have seen photos of the bodies that were fished out of the Tigris by fishermen. Some were decapitated, others had limbs cut off. There were women, kids, men, some of them have been heavily abused before they died. They were photographed and buried in a mass grave as their body condition was very bad. (hot weather, water)

If more things like that do happen, a civil war is more than close.

[ebns72 0]

mi8 shot down killing nine

[walker 0]

Hi all

It seems the situation in iraq is deteriating.  

Quote[/b] ]Six Americans Dead in Iraq Helicoptor Attack

By Jamie Tarabay

The Associated Press

Thursday, April 21, 2005; 11:26 AM

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A commercial helicopter contracted by the U.S. Defense Department was shot down by missile fire north of the Iraqi capital Thursday, killing six Americans and three Bulgarians, officials said.

The Mi-8 helicopter went down about 12 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy said. Video on television showed burning wreckage and personal belongings scattered across a wide area.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6493-2005Apr21.html

The toll of Dead and maimed contractors trying to stabalize and Rebuild Iraq rises monthly

The place is not safe what with aid workers still being kidnaped and killed, journalists cannot do their work this one war has killed more journalist than almost any other in the last 30 years. Those deaths tell you how bad the situation is

For Iraqis the situation is just horendous with bombings and shootings weekly if not daily occurances. No one knows how many innocent civilians killed by the coalition but idications are that it is probably at least 30 a week. TBA refuses to count them because there are so many.

I have to apologise to all involved over there; Iraqis, Coalition soldiers, journalists and aid workers for giving my support at the start of all this to TBA and TBA2. I trusted the people who run the govenment of the country I live in to make sound judgements on on good intel.

Over the last year I have been brought by the sheer weight of evidense to the opinion that TBA and TBA2 had and have no exit strategy and that an evil and nasty fraud has been purpotrated on us all by numerous groups and individuals in our ruling elitists, to benefit their oil money based bank accounts.

That veil of good governance has been lifted from my eyes so that now I see that those involved in TBA and TBA2 had no proof of WMD or links to Bin Laden. That they were never interested in bringing freedom to Iraqis. They would rather have a war and make money for the likes of Halliburton and The Carlyle Group. That the only ones to benefit from all this are Robber Oil Barrons, speculators and NeoConMen.

Who is paying for all this?

Everyone who drives a car or uses electricity or oil in their heaters.

Every coalition soldier maimed or killed in service of their nation.

Every dead and maimed contractor trying to stabalize and Rebuild Iraq.

Every journalist maimed or killed who dares to try to report from Iraq.

Every Aid worker maimed or killed trying to help the Iraqi people.

Every innocent Iraqi killed or maimed by car bomb, bullet, or beheaders blade.

Every innocent Iraqi killed or maimed in that most disgusting and asanine of phrases as "colateral damage".  

Sadly walker

[simba 0]

Every american should act like you now Walker .

I don't know what is the feeling of your family , friends ,... about the war, but I suppose most of them were pro war , can be hard to think differently. you got my respect for that.

[quicksand 0]

The chilling toll of Allah's sniper

Quote[/b] ]WITH elbows bandaged and knees padded for comfort, Abu Othman lay face down on a Ramadi rooftop and cradled his Russian-made sniper rifle as he waited for the tall American soldier to appear.

The soldier’s habit of urinating into the street from the top of his Bradley armoured vehicle had angered Sunni Muslim inhabitants of the tree-lined suburb he patrolled. It was not the urinating as such that offended them; it was the way he exposed himself regardless of whether any women were around to see him.

In the end an old man came forward to demand his death. He complained to insurgents that the soldier had strafed his street, destroying several cars and a trailer at a cost of thousands of dollars.

The insurgents responded by firing a rocket-propelled grenade at the Bradley. It missed. A few days later they tried to blow up the vehicle with a Russian C5K missile. The missile missed, too. That was when they sent for Abu Othman.

It was a long, hot wait that summer’s day on the rooftop. Abu Othman was glad of his headphones. He played his favourite verses from the Koran and their soothing flow cleared his mind, infusing him with a determination to see through the assignment, come what may. He prayed for God to deliver his target.

“Then the call came on my mobile phone, informing me that the soldier and his vehicle were finally heading my way,†he said.

“The moment finally arrived. The Bradley stopped and the soldier stood on it ready to relieve himself. He was relaxed. He put his hand on his trousers. I took aim and fired one shot and saw him drop dead.â€

Abu Othman punctuated the story with praise to Allah for his success. “It was the perfect situation for me,†he said. “The soldier was standing and that made him such an easy target.â€

In the world of the Iraqi insurgent, Abu Othman — not his real name — is something of a celebrity. Known to all as The Sniper, he is acclaimed for the consistency with which he dispatches victims from ranges of 1,000 metres or more.

The tale of how a humble calligrapher became a renowned marksman by teaching himself from websites, honing his skills with computer games and studying Hollywood films such as The Deer Hunter is the stuff of legend in the Sunni triangle of militant towns to the north and west of Baghdad.

One commander after another had boasted to me of his prowess and when a meeting was finally arranged at a house in the capital’s suburbs last week, the most striking thing about Abu Othman was his unadulterated pride in killing.

He claimed to have killed 29 men in all — 20 Americans and nine Iraqis. “I want to cry when I speak about my work,†he said at one point during an interview that lasted long into the night. “I am so afraid that God will deprive me of this talent that he bestowed upon me.â€

Abu Othman’s story reflects the speed with which the US soldiers who ousted Saddam Hussein came to be seen even by some of the dictator’s enemies as occupiers who must be repelled; and the discipline and determination at the core of an outwardly chaotic insurgency that has claimed more than 1,000 American lives.

The son of a senior police officer, he dropped out of school to join Saddam’s army but, to his family’s horror, went absent without leave and lived like a fugitive for years, eventually finding work as a shepherd in the desert that straddles Iraq’s borders with Syria and Jordan.

When Saddam fell, Abu Othman returned to his home town of Falluja with his wife and four children. Soon afterwards came the first outpouring of hostility to US troops in the town. They opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators, killing 13.

The incident stirred in Abu Othman, 30, a potent mix of nationalist fervour and religious zeal. “I decided to do something more with my life,†he said.

Two passions persuaded him that he was destined to be a sniper. He loved to shoot birds and was also a skilled calligrapher, engraving glass with handwritten verses from the Koran. He was convinced that the precision and patience this entailed would serve him well in the insurgency. “Sniping was the most natural thing for me to progress to,†he said.

He pushed himself hard to make up for what he lacked in education, reading manuals and grasping the rudiments of mathematics and physics required to calculate the range of a target, a bullet’s drop over distance, the impact of wind speed and all the other technical intricacies of sharpshooting.

On the internet he found thousands of pages of information, from operating instructions to “reviews†of rifles by men who had used them in combat.

For months his entertainment included shooting games on his PlayStation. He believes they sharpened his senses. His favourite films included Enemy at the Gates, starring Jude Law as a sniper, and JFK, Oliver Stone’s re-creation of the assassination of John F Kennedy.

Borrowing a sniper rifle, he practised for hours in the desert, firing at wooden targets that he had fashioned in the shape of men. “I practised various distances, from 300 metres to 1,000 metres,†he said. “I trained until I felt ready to go and try my skills in the field.â€

It was April last year and American forces were gathering outside Falluja, which by now was seething with militants. Some were local inhabitants intent on defending the “city of 100 mosques†from what they saw as an infidels’ incursion. Others had come to Iraq from various countries to wage jihad.

Carrying another borrowed rifle, Abu Othman volunteered his services to fighters including Omar Hadeed, who would become a senior lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq.

“A day or two later they sent me a note asking me to take care of an officer in an American convoy who was involved in negotiating ceasefire conditions with officials from Falluja,†he said.

The insurgents ordered him to a mosque. “I was scared as I made my way there. It was my first mission and my mind was racing: would I get the target or would I not?†He climbed up to the minaret with a member of a surveillance team that had identified the American officer as a target and was able to point him out among a group of soldiers in the street below.

Before setting up his rifle, Abu Othman said takbeers — repeating Allahu akbar (God is greatest) over and over again. “I looked through the scope, worked out the calculations and fired. I saw him drop in the middle of the soldiers, and they began firing at the mosque as we sped downstairs.

“They then fired a rocket at the mosque, which hit the minaret and left a small hole,†he said, evidently furious at the damage to the mosque and seemingly unable to comprehend that his own actions had provoked it.

“The mood in the mosque downstairs was buoyant and spirits were high,†he added. “People and sheikhs hugged me and congratulated me and there were more takbeers.â€

Later, the sheikhs treated him to a large lunch where Pepsi flowed like water. “The mood was beautiful and I returned home almost out of my mind with joy.†He received a visit from the fighters that night. “They came with a present,†Abu Othman said excitedly, his face lighting up like that of a child receiving a toy. “They gave me my own personal sniper rifle as a token of their appreciation and a sign of their confidence in my abilities. It was still wrapped in its nylon.â€

The weapon was a semi-automatic SVD Dragunov sniper rifle, with a range of more than 1,200 metres. Abu Othman described its technical specifications with affection, using drawings to help him explain various lethal attributes.

The insurgents soon called for him again, this time to “take out†an American sniper on the roof of a house on one of Falluja’s front lines.

He was escorted to another house some distance away that gave him an uninterrupted view of the American’s position behind a small, rooftop wall with an opening through which the soldier was firing intermittently on a group of insurgents, pinning them down.

Abu Othman had brought with him a home-made dummy head — a painted face on a stick topped off with a chequered headdress. His companion used it to create a diversion while Abu Othman pinpointed the American’s position and made his calculations. “I put my trust in God,†he said. “My only feeling was that I must kill him. Everything was ready. I looked into my scope and saw movement from the hole in the wall. I fired and waited.

“There was silence from his side. I wasn’t even sure whether I’d got him. Some other mujaheddin threw a few grenades at the house where he was positioned and when there was still no response they stormed the place. They found him dead on the rooftop with a bullet in his face.â€

The insurgents seized the American’s weapon, which was added to Abu Othman’s armoury.

He killed two more American snipers that week, he said — one of whom had inadvertently shot a girl crossing the street with her father amid the mayhem. US troops eventually withdrew to the town’s perimeter under an agreement that delegated the job of confronting Falluja’s militants to an Iraqi brigade. The militants were to remain in control for a further seven months.

“We were victorious in that battle,†Abu Othman said. “We were overjoyed with our achievements. I had gained a reputation and I was asked to train other snipers in Falluja.â€

He produced a pamphlet entitled Increase God’s Mercy by Sniping Americans and a CD-Rom displaying the techniques he had picked up from his research. He also set about training his own unit, 35 strong.

“The Americans spend thousands of dollars training their snipers. I have trained myself and my unit for hardly anything,†he said. “The whole art is based on physics and despite my lack of high education, God has granted me the aptitude to understand it all.â€

With his reputation further enhanced, Abu Othman was much in demand from insurgents’ cells in other towns where men from Saddam’s disbanded army and members of his Ba’athist regime teamed up with rebellious desert tribesmen, fierce nationalists, common thugs and roaming fanatics from around the Muslim world to challenge American military might.

The insurgency gained a momentum that was reinforced by al-Zarqawi’s money and highlighted by his talent for horror, manifested through suicide bombings and videotaped beheadings.

Abu Othman said he had eventually resumed hunting. “You went back to hunting birds?†I asked.

“Hunting soldiers — Americans and Iraqis,†he replied.

What drove him to keep killing? “When I snipe at my target and watch him drop, I feel elated — dizzy with ecstasy. I fall on the ground, shouting to God, calling Allahu akbar, for God is indeed great,†he said. “When their snipers kill one of us, we go to heaven as martyrs, but when we kill them they go to hell.â€

Asked how he distinguished between his feelings towards American and Iraqi targets, he did not hesitate. “An American kill is more fulfilling than an Iraqi. I am certain it is right and justified. Sometimes I feel a tinge of sadness for the Iraqi, but then I remind myself that by working with the Americans, he is forsaking his religion.â€

Fatwas issued by local clerics permitted him to kill fellow Muslims in the police and national guard, he explained.

He said he had killed last summer in Baghdad as well as Falluja and Ramadi, commuting between the three cities with a bag containing his rifle and everything he might need in the event of a long wait for prey: water, an inflatable mattress, a prayer mat and tapes of koranic verses, utensils for cleaning and adjusting his rifle, and a few grenades for good measure.

Then came the overwhelming second American onslaught on Falluja last November and, for Abu Othman, embarrassment. He left the city on a Sunday morning to bid farewell to his family nearby, only to find himself cut off from his unit when the US offensive began earlier than expected.

“I felt my soul melt away,†he said. “I tried to get in but was fired upon. We still had contact with the inside so I stayed in touch with my men.

“The Lebanese, Abu Falah, killed four Iraqi soldiers, but another one was trapped when his ammunition ran out, so he took the grenades he had and blew himself up next to an American armoured vehicle.

“I wished for death instead of being caught out like that. I lost nine of my unit.â€

Still unable to enter Falluja and retrieve his weapon, Abu Othman has not “worked†in three months. But last week he received word that an Italian-made sniper rifle would soon find its way to him. “God is generous and sends what is needed when it is needed,†he said.

According to Abu Othman, many insurgents are regrouping after last month’s elections, appointing new “emirsâ€, or leaders, at the head of smaller cells cleansed of suspected infiltrators.

Weapons, vehicles and money seem as plentiful as ever. When Abu Othman needs them, he asks a sheikh he has answered to since Hadeed’s reported death in the crushing of Falluja. His superior in turn seeks approval from a senior sheikh who oversees a number of loosely affiliated cells.

The material rewards for Abu Othman appear to be few. In Ramadi the old man who wanted the Bradley soldier dead unexpectedly gave him the equivalent of Å3,000. Some of the money was used to pay for lambs to be slaughtered and distributed among the poor, he said. Most of the remainder was eventually spent on rifles and ammunition for his unit.

Abu Othman is eager to return to the fray as soon as his new weapon arrives. “Then I will be back in business again and with this new piece I will be indestructible,†he said.

As for the future, he believes the spiral of violence can be broken, but only after coalition forces withdraw.

“Once they leave Iraq,†he said, “we will resolve our differences with the government peacefully and without bloodshed.

“Until then, there is no room for negotiations.â€

A really unic story,I don't think I've read a story from the insurgents side for over an year.

All though I have no doubt he infalted his kills,snipers were the primary killer in the first Fallujah siege when the Marines reached the industrial zone and Ramadi is also one of the deadliest cities in Iraq.

More important is understanding the insider view offered by this article into their mind set.Beyond his apparent cofidence and good moral,it's to say at least curious how once again the story is about an Iraqi that hated Saddam,ran away from his army and only turned to sniping when a dozen of Iraqi civillian demonstrators were shot dead by US soldiers.

He killed US soldiers.Couldn't their deaths have been avoided if they had from the begining a different aproach instead of their hardline attitude?I think so,judging by the fact that Fallujah-the former bastion for insurgents erupted only after the fatal shootings.

Had the US military did better in restraining their actions,would the insurgency evolve past the "strategical unchallanging" level it had in the first post war months to turn into such a fearful and enduring enemy?I doubt it.

[Crazysheep 1]

Iraq's new president has said the insurgency could be ended immediately if the authorities made use of Kurdish, Shia Muslim and other militias.

Quote[/b] ]Iraq militias 'could beat rebels'

By Jim Muir

BBC News, Baghdad

Iraq's new president has said the insurgency could be ended immediately if the authorities made use of Kurdish, Shia Muslim and other militias.

Jalal Talabani said this would be more effective than waiting for Iraqi forces to take over from the US-led coalition.

Mr Talabani, a Kurd, also told the BBC he would not sign a death warrant for captured former leader Saddam Hussein.

And he warned that any attempt to impose an Islamic government on Iraq would break up the country.

He said the Shia religious parties with whom the Kurds have struck a partnership to underpin the new government have agreed to a compromise whereby Islam will be one of several sources for Iraqi law.

'I won't sign'

If Saddam Hussein is to go to the gallows, as many of his erstwhile foes insist he must, his death sentence will have to be endorsed by the new Iraqi presidency.

But Mr Talabani, a lawyer and human rights advocate who has always opposed capital punishment, made it clear that his principles would not allow him to sign such a document, despite all the suffering the Baathist regime had inflicted on his Kurdish community.

"Personally, no, I won't sign," he said.

"But you know, the presidency of Iraq are three people. These three must decide. So I can be absent. I can go on holiday and let the two others [the vice-presidents] decide."

Mr Talabani said all other members of the new Iraqi leadership were in favour of a swift execution for the former Iraqi dictator.

"All of them are for sentencing Saddam Hussein to death before the court will even decide," he said.

"So I think I will be alone in this field, calling for a reprieve."

But President Talabani did not believe the execution of the former president - who has yet to go on trial - would undermine efforts to sap the insurgency by winning over elements of the former regime's Sunni Muslim constituency.

"I think if he'll be finished, many of his followers will give up their hope or their wishful thinking that one day he will come back," he said.

Militias

Mr Talabani said he favoured an amnesty for Iraqi insurgents who had taken up arms out of disenchantment with the new regime.

He also said he believed members of the former ruling Baath Party should be allowed to take up jobs in civil life and the administration - but not in the armed or security forces, unless they had a track record of secret opposition to Saddam Hussein.

But he made it clear that any such major decisions would have to be taken via a consensus involving the presidency, the cabinet and the parliament.

Asked how long it would take for Iraqi security forces to be in a position to replace the US-led coalition, President Talabani said the transition could take place straight away if a new strategy were adopted.

"In my opinion, Iraqi forces, the popular forces and government forces, are now ready to end the insurgency and end this terrorism," he said.

"But there is a kind of thinking inside the [outgoing interim] government that they must not use [them]."

The Kurds have in the past offered the use of their estimated 80,000 Peshmerga guerrillas for security tasks but have been turned down.

So, too, has the Iranian-influenced Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and its Badr brigade, another well-trained fighting force.

"We cannot wait for years and years of terrorist activity because we haven't enough government forces," the president said.

Role for religion

He envisaged taking up the offers of Sunni leaders who wanted to join the political process to ensure security in their own areas.

He admitted that the Americans remained opposed to the idea of a role for irregular forces.

"But we are independent now," he added.

Mr Talabani played down fears that the Kurds' senior partners in the coalition underpinning the yet-to-be-announced government, the Shia religious factions, might try to impose an Islamic government.

While Islam was generally agreed to be the religion of the state and should influence its laws, there could not be an Islamic government, he said.

"In Iraq, it is impossible, because you have Kurds, Arabs, Shia, Sunni, Christians - such a kind of mosaic society. It is not Iran, it cannot be an Islamic society. If anyone tried to impose it, Iraq would be divided."

While at first this might seem a good idea, it could be worrying. Militias being backed by the government will almost certainly create a state of civil war with much more violence. Also, it could lead to increased availability of weapons...meaning even if the current insurgency is annihilated, you could find different groups of extremists armed. And seeing as the insurgents are mostly Sunni, you could find racial polarisation and a situation where even more Sunnis become militant in response to racist atrocities that will inevitably come from using Shi'ite and Kurd militias to commit the insurgency. It will just escalate the situation and it will be the innocent Iraqis who suffer.

[walker 0]

Every american should act like you now Walker .

I don't know what is the feeling of your family , friends ,... about the war,  but I suppose most of them were pro war , can be hard to think differently. you got my respect for that.

Hi Simba

I am not an American I was born and bred and live in England in the county of Yorkshire.

TBA means "The Bush Admistration"

TBA2 means "The Blair Administration"

For the record though you may be interested to know that most Americans now think the Iraq war was a stupid and senseless waste of human life.

Quote[/b] ]Gallup Finds 53% Feel Iraq War Not Worth It; Will Media Probe Why?

By Greg Mitchell

Published: April 20, 2005 10:20 AM ET

NEW YORK With the conflict in Iraq seemingly stabilizing, a new government elected and American deaths declining, media coverage has dropped considerably. Perhaps that is partly based on feeling the public now has a more favorable view of U.S. involvement there. But a new Gallup poll, released Wednesday, firmly disputes that.

It found that only 45% of all Americans now feel the Iraq invasion was “worth it,†with 53% saying it wasn't.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp....0891594

Kind Regards Walker

[Bordoy 0]

53 % think Iraq war not worth it. 90%+ backed it in the first place.

[Akira 0]

If those numbers were true (and not just sarcasm) then it seems that would be a rather scathing indictment on TBA and TBA2's strategy and handling of the war I would say.

[FW200 0]

<<snip>>

Very interesting to read, thank you for posting it

[simba 0]

"I am not an American I was born and bread and live in England in the county of Yorkshire."

I should have known , it's not american time for posting on a forum

otherwise it's a good thing american and brits are finally against this mess, we still have to convince Avon !!

[EiZei 0]

53 % think Iraq war not worth it. 90%+ backed it in the first place.

Where are you getting the latter statistic? I dont recall the support for war getting over 70% even in the US.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Where are you getting the latter statistic? I dont recall the support for war getting over 70% even in the US.

He was being sarcastic.

Quote[/b] ] it's not american time for posting on a forum

[ralphwiggum 6]

The chilling toll of Allah's sniper

never knew Pepsi was a great drink, especially for hardcore muslims who despise western influence. i think this story is a BS.