The Iraq thread 4

[ran 0]

It's not impossible you're right, but they'd get a few shahidin on the way for a relatively low effect depending on the grade of the mustard agent used.

[Balschoiw 0]

There even was an IED with a chemical agent in Iraq and the effect was, you guessed it , poo poo.

Under conditions like in Iraq with a high change of temperature between day and night and errosive effects of the surrounding, shells exposed to natural effects do not survive storage more than 10 years. The agents leak out or the hull integrity is so degenerated that any manipulation of the casing will result in some very astonished wannabe bomb-builders.

As for homebuilt chemical devices: You´ll need a lot of state A chemical agents to create a bomb that does more harm than a conventional explosive device. So unless the terrorists have access to a bio-agent they will get more effect with a conventional device or a dirty bomb muffled together from russian nuclear remains.

If Bush tried to make a big thing of those antique and mostly uneffective and useless chemical remains, everyone with a little knowledge would label him a complete idiot, if that hasn´t already happened.

[walker 0]

Hi all

I have started to view the chances of winning the Iraq war with increasing pessimism.

Sure the soldiers are winning the battles just as they did in Vietnam but it is the politicians job to win the war and TBA and TBA2 just do not seem to be up to the job.

I thought at the beginning that if enough troops were put in to completely stifle any descent that the country might be calmed down and a stable effective government and administration allowed to flourish.

Despite enough troops being the demand of all those generals with experience of the failures of Vietnam from Collin Powell on down that has not happened. TBA never planned for allowed enough troops to do the job.

Daily assassinations mean that even the courts cannot work properly. When a senior lawyer in the biggest trial in the land is not safe no one is.

Now Iraq is increasingly bent on civil strife. There are the now daily bombings of mosques and markets. The rising number of ethnic kidnappings. The killing of Zarqawi seems to have had no effect. The infiltration of the police by militias and insurgent groups stealing IDs uniforms and even police cars.

Another city Ramadi has become such a no go area that it has had the first stage of the Fallujah treatment.

Increasingly there is talk of Vietnamization. Yet such a policy failed in Vietnam. I fear the very thing I predicted two years back of descent into civil war in Iraq followed by its neighbours stepping in to protect their ethnic and religious sect brothers leading to a complete meltdown of the middle east

The upsetting thing is that Iraqis are beginning to say things like we were better under Saddam.

The Journalists have now left the Palestine hotel as being too dangerous and pigeons nest in its foyer.

The biggest sign for me though was a report BBC 24 hour news special report from Iraq by John Simpson as he interviewed the bureau chief of a top US news paper.

They discussed various aspects of the current situation in Iraq and they talked about that at least people waved at the helicopters as the flew past so the war should be win able. The other journalist then talked about an interview he had with a top US General Casey where he had brought that point up. That they even waived in supposed insurgent strongholds. The General said surely they had already won the war then added that their Intel people told them the reason they all came out and waived was they were afraid if they did not waive the Americans would shoot them.  

They wondered around a newly created park that was built with 2 million dollars of Aid money. The head of the US agency spoke about it. Your average Iraqi citizen will never visit it, it is in the green zone and now it runs to weeds. One of the biggest costs though is a car park which is unused. It has another purpose. It is the emergency helicopter extraction point for those on that side of the river in the event of a Saigon style evacuation.

John Simpson asked if he might have a chance of getting on the copter in that case? The other journalist hedged his bets saying the spaces were already taken but he might be able to get a space for the BBC's most experienced war reporter.

John Simpson then speculated maybe he could get some inflatable boats to get him and his team out but the other journalist explained that the dense reed beds grown along the side of park made it impossible to get boats in to the shore (Security step to prevent boat based bombs or attacks on the green zone?)

My Real fear is that Iraq will become a trap for the coalition in the event of a Middle East melt down. As I warned in the past if we have to pull out Saigon style it will be across thousands of miles of hostile air space and territory and we will have to move a fleet out through the gulf with possibly both coastlines set against us.

That thought is really scary.

I hope that unlike the plan for invasion of Iraq which never had exit strategy included that the Saigon style pull out includes more than a 2 million dollar car park surrounded by reed beds and herbaceous borders.

Follow this link then click the "Life in Iraq three years after invasion" video link on the right hand side of the page to see part of the report

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin....ipe=all

Do I sound worried? Walker

[Jinef 2]

You sound like a worried old woman.

I'm sure the government knows what they are doing, they are the government after all. Everything will be fine. Don't worry, be happy now la la la

Oh sorry, I think sarcasm is against the rules.

[Homefry 0]

I have started to view the chances of winning the Iraq war with increasing pessimism.

Started? Just?

[walker 0]

Hi all

I think any pull out plan can not take place until Iraq is stabilized. It certainly should not be a panicky pre-midterm US election plan.

I know that there is movement toward increasing policy of “Vietnamization†being pushed by TBA but it did not work in Vietnam and it is even less likely to work in an Iraq already engaged in low level civil war. The killings in Iraq are over thirty a day and rising. This third year of the occupation has been the worst for the number of killings. How hollow now George Bush Junior’s “Mission accomplishedâ€.

As Stephen Biddle wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations:

Quote[/b] ]Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon

Stephen Biddle

From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006

Summary:  Most discussions of U.S. policy in Iraq assume that it should be informed by the lessons of Vietnam. But the conflict in Iraq today is a communal civil war, not a Maoist "people's war," and so those lessons are not valid. "Iraqization," in particular, is likely to make matters worse, not better.

 Stephen Biddle is a Senior Fellow in Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Military Power.

THE GRAND DELUSION

Contentious as the current debate over Iraq is, all sides seem to make the crucial assumption that to succeed there the United States must fight the Vietnam War again -- but this time the right way. The Bush administration is relying on an updated playbook from the Nixon administration. Pro-war commentators argue that Washington should switch to a defensive approach to counterinsurgency, which they feel might have worked wonders a generation ago. According to the antiwar movement, the struggle is already over, because, as it did in Vietnam, Washington has lost hearts and minds in Iraq, and so the United States should withdraw.

But if the debate in Washington is Vietnam redux, the war in Iraq is not. The current struggle is not a Maoist "people's war" of national liberation; it is a communal civil war with very different dynamics. Although it is being fought at low intensity for now, it could easily escalate if Americans and Iraqis make the wrong choices.

Unfortunately, many of the policies dominating the debate are ill adapted to the war being fought. Turning over the responsibility for fighting the insurgents to local forces, in particular, is likely to make matters worse. Such a policy might have made sense in Vietnam, but in Iraq it threatens to exacerbate the communal tensions that underlie the conflict and undermine the power-sharing negotiations needed to end it. Washington must stop shifting the responsibility for the country's security to others and instead threaten to manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds in order to force them to come to a durable compromise. Only once an agreement is reached should Washington consider devolving significant military power and authority to local forces.

NOT AGAIN

As it is in 2006, in 1969 Washington's strategy was built around winning hearts and minds while handing off more and more of the fighting to indigenous forces. From the outset of the Vietnam War, efforts to coax the Vietnamese people away from the communists and into supporting the Washington-backed government in Saigon were a crucial part of U.S. policy. "The task," President Lyndon Johnson said in 1965, "is nothing less than to enrich the hope and existence of more than a hundred million people." The United States transferred $2.9 billion in economic aid to South Vietnam between 1961 and 1968 alone. In 1967, allied forces distributed more than half a million cakes of soap and instructed more than 200,000 people in personal hygiene. By then, thanks to U.S. pressure, elections at all levels of government had taken place throughout South Vietnam. The plan was to undermine the Vietcong by improving the lives of the South Vietnamese through economic development and political reform.

Of course, the counterinsurgency was about more than winning hearts and minds; it was also about fighting. At first, following Congress' decision in 1965 to commit large-scale U.S. ground forces, Americans did much of South Vietnam's defensive work. But in 1969, the Nixon administration changed course and decided to transfer responsibility for ground combat to the South Vietnamese. "We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable," Richard Nixon declared. "This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater." The strategy, which became known as "Vietnamization," led to the complete withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Vietnam by 1973. After that, South Vietnamese troops who had been trained and equipped by the Americans conducted all ground operations...

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/2006030....on.html

Follow Link for the full article

But my personal thought is that I am not seeing “Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon†I see something far worse, Vietnam after all resulted in a stable government, I am “Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Beirut†or even worse “Seeing Iraq, Thinking post Russian Afghanistanâ€.

I fear that TBA’s current policy of a panicky pre-midterm US election troop draw down to save the Republican Party is playing right in to Al Qaeda’s hands. The signs are that we will see a failed state and Iraq’s neighbours being drawn into the ensuing civil war in order to protect their own religious sects. The two hundred dollar barrel of oil and economic meltdown in the rest of the world could well be the result.

As many other countries that counselled against interfering in Iraq pointed out. It sits at chaotic juncture in Middle East culture and politics where the results of your action are completely unpredictable and most likely to destabilise the region.

Several other international annalists at the Council on Foreign Relations pointed this out in reply to Stephen Biddle’s article.

Quote[/b] ]What to Do in Iraq: A Roundtable

Larry Diamond, James Dobbins, Chaim Kaufmann, Leslie H. Gelb, and Stephen Biddle

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006

Summary:  Can anything -- international mediation, regional collaboration, decentralization, or constitutional negotiations -- save Iraq from a full-fledged civil war and the Bush administration from a foreign policy fiasco?

How to End It

Larry Diamond

In his trenchant analysis, Stephen Biddle ("Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon," March/April 2006) argues that the escalating violence in Iraq is not a nationalist insurgency, as was the Vietnam War, but rather a "communal civil war" and that it must therefore be addressed by pursuing a strategy different from "Vietnamization": if the United States were simply to turn over responsibility for counterinsurgency to the new Iraqi army and police forces, it would risk inflaming the communal conflict, either by empowering the Shiites and the Kurds to slaughter the Sunnis or by enabling a Trojan horse full of Sunni insurgents to penetrate the multiethnic security forces and undermine them.

Biddle is right in many respects. First, Iraq is already in the midst of a very violent civil conflict, which claims 500 to 1,000 lives or more every month. Second, this internal conflict has become primarily communal in nature; as Biddle writes, it is a fight "about group survival." It pits Sunnis against Shiites, in particular, but also Kurds against Sunnis and, more generally, group against group, with smaller minorities coming under attack on multiple fronts. Third, as Biddle warns, the current moderate-intensity communal war could descend into an all-out conflagration, with a high "risk of mass slaughter." Thus the United States cannot in good conscience withdraw from Iraq abruptly -- and doing so would not even be in the United States' national interest -- because that would remove the last significant barrier to a total conflagration.

Washington needs a new strategy, and, as Biddle writes, it cannot simply be "Iraqization" of the conflict. Biddle proposes two bold steps: slowing down the buildup of the Iraqi army and police and threatening to "manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to coerce them to negotiate." But these steps (particularly the latter) are dangerous and unlikely to work, because they follow from an incomplete analysis of the formidably complex, multidimensional nature of the Iraqi conflict.

Although the war in Iraq is mainly a communal conflict, it is not only that. It also contains an important element of nationalist insurgency. One misses an essential piece of the puzzle -- and a reason the conflict is so difficult to contain -- if one does not grasp that many Iraqis (mostly Sunnis) are fighting in some significant measure because they believe they are waging a war of resistance against American occupiers and the Iraqi "traitors" who cooperate with them. Among the score or more of Sunni insurgent groups, both the radical Islamist forces and the secular resistance (which includes Saddam loyalists and surviving Baath Party members) have as one of their principal aims the expulsion of U.S. forces from Iraq. That this goal coincides with the ambition of some to return the Baath Party to power or with the dream of others to establish a Sunni Islamic caliphate -- and with the conviction of all that the Shiite Islamist parties are controlled by Iran or at least stalking-horses for Tehran -- should not obscure the insurgents' dedicated, ideological resistance to the U.S. presence. The communal hatred that extreme Sunni Islamists have deliberately provoked (a cynical tactic in a war of destabilization, eviction, and conquest) has overshadowed the resistance's nationalist dimension but has not removed it.

The Sunni resistance believes the United States seeks to establish permanent military bases in Iraq in order to control the country and its oil indefinitely. Some of the most ideologically extreme insurgent forces, such as al Qaeda in Iraq, will fight to the death to expel the Americans and achieve their own goal of domination. But since the autumn of 2003, other insurgent groups (accounting for a significant portion of the Sunni insurgency) have sent signals through international intermediaries that they want to talk directly to the United States. Two of these groups' objectives have been to obtain an unambiguous statement from Washington that it will not seek permanent military bases in Iraq and to set up a timetable for a complete U.S. military withdrawal, even if it stretches over two or three years. For more than two years now, Washington has had the opportunity to open negotiations, with the help of international mediators, with these elements of the insurgency and then draw Iraqi government leaders into those talks. The result could have been -- and might still be -- an agreement by key elements of the resistance to wind down the insurgency: Sunni political and religious leaders could send clear messages to their constituencies to suspend the war of resistance and pursue their political interests through the emerging game of peaceful politics and governance instead. In exchange, the United States would need to commit at least to a flexible timetable for the withdrawal of its troops, tied not only to dates but also to facts on the ground and confidence-building measures. Now that the conflict has become "communalized," much more will likely be required to curb the violence. But the need and the opportunity for dealing with the Sunni-based resistance remain...

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/2006070....le.html

To read the rest of this peice and the other analysis by the other authors as well as Stephen Biddle's reply follow the link.

What this most points out is the failure to understand complex situations by TBA I would point to the causes of this as George Bush Junior being political lightweight as far as thinking is concerned and to the oversimplification of complex issues that characterises the philosophy of the NeoConMen that have gained control of the US Republican Party. They did not even have the basic common sence to stay clear of something that was beyond their abilities.

The inability of the administration to read such complex issues means that foreign relations whizzes right over TBA’s head.  It is the root cause of the general dislike of US round the world and why George Bush Junior has become the USA’s first and only International Lame Duck President.

Happily the situation is solvable in a democracy the electors can vote out any party that does not get its act together.

Kind Regards Walker

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Have a look at this (download is a bit slow at times)

http://video.kavkazcenter.com/clips/west_demo_eng.wmv

It appears as if the members of this security firm have created a security circle around their convoy. ANY car that comes to near is being shot at. And I must admit looking at these images makes me believe that 1 out 4 are probably just innocent civillians (the first one realy appears to be an insurgent though). Naive, but innocent. If thats the case, then this footage is realy sickening!

[Messiah 2]

old video footage, exstensivly discussed before in this thread... I think i provided alot of photo evidence why approaching such a convoy was known to be dangerous, and was forbidden... one of my friends, a CP operator in Iraq, also came onto the thread and commented about those videos too, working for the same company as the guys in the video do.

the very last part of the footage is, however suprising, as I'd like to know what the Americans in the hmwvv's in the middle lane did after the british engaged the vehicle. Surely if the killing was random for a 'laugh', the brits wouldnt have shot when there were western whitnesses to see it.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

old video footage, exstensivly discussed before in this thread... I think i provided alot of photo evidence why approaching such a convoy was known to be dangerous, and was forbidden... one of my friends, a CP operator in Iraq, also came onto the thread and commented about those videos too, working for the same company as the guys in the video do.

This thread has become so tremendously huge that is basically impossible to screen all previous pages for such a video.

Quote[/b] ]

the very last part of the footage is, however suprising, as I'd like to know what the Americans in the hmwvv's in the middle lane did after the british engaged the vehicle. Surely if the killing was random for a 'laugh', the brits wouldnt have shot when there were western whitnesses to see it.

It definetly wasnt randomly for a laugh. But still it is an absolulety terrible standard procedure to secure a convoy. Effective but inhumane... and probably the error margin is quite high! I dont know but my stomach turns bitter when watching this! If a bullet would hit my son next to me just because I was daydreaming (and some of these drivers were) then I would wake up as a new born suicide bomber the next day.

But it was already discussed so I leave it here

[Messiah 2]

yeah, i understand the thread is rather huge... if i recall correctly, it lasted a fair few pages of heated debate...

yes, you're correct that its effective, it certainly stops anything getting near you, but errors are bound to occur, and thats the only time the press and the world take notice... I think there's the problem of a catch 22 situation... if you're relaxed, and allow people who innocently stray into your cordon around the vehicle, recover and realise, one day you're going to have the suicide vehicle ram into you... if you're ever vigilant and adhere to your 'do not approach within 100m' sign on the back of the vehicle, everyone slates you

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

yeah, i understand the thread is rather huge... if i recall correctly, it lasted a fair few pages of heated debate...

yes, you're correct that its effective, it certainly stops anything getting near you, but errors are bound to occur, and thats the only time the press and the world take notice... I think there's the problem of a catch 22 situation... if you're relaxed, and allow people who innocently stray into your cordon around the vehicle, recover and realise, one day you're going to have the suicide vehicle ram into you... if you're ever vigilant and adhere to your 'do not approach within 100m' sign on the back of the vehicle, everyone slates you

with a dusty windshield and my terrible eyes I would be able to read such a sign from 20 metres away max!

I know that alaram lights and horns are attracting enemy fire, but they would be the only measure available to appropriately warn "civillians" of what is ahead of them! Unfortunately unfeasable!

[Messiah 2]

again... damned if you do, damned if you dont

[walker 0]

Hi All

My fears of a full blown civil war in Iraq have been increased by the degree of attacks on the members of the Iraqi Parliament.

A mess of "Tit for Tat" kidnappings and attempted kidnappings of parliament members has now joined the almost regular assassinations.

The result: now the Sunnis have pulled out of the Iraqi Parliament.

This is not a good sign.

Quote[/b] ]Sunnis Boycott Iraqi Parliament Over Kidnapping of Legislator

Hussein Daughter, First Wife on List Of 'Most Wanted'

By Joshua Partlow

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, July 3, 2006; Page A15

BAGHDAD, July 2 -- The largest Sunni Arab bloc in the Iraqi parliament said on Sunday it would boycott the fledgling legislature to protest the kidnapping of a colleague, at a time when the prime minister is pushing a reconciliation plan aimed at bringing religious sects together and lessening the daily violence.

The decision by the Sunni Accord Front, which holds 44 seats in the 275-member parliament, threatens to pull the legislature apart. The announcement came a day after legislator Tayseer Mashhadani and seven of her bodyguards were abducted in broad daylight on a busy street in a predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad. One of the leaders of the Accord Front, Adnan Dulaimi, said the Sunni parliament members would not participate in the legislature until Mashhadani was released.

"This is outrageous and should be remedied by the government with the participation of American forces," said Dulaimi. "That she and her bodyguards would be kidnapped by criminal gangs is something that should shake Iraq."

Sunni legislators blamed the abduction on Shiite-led militias aligned with the majority political parties in Iraq. Some accused the Iraqi security forces, who were near the kidnapping site in the Shaab neighborhood, of standing by and allowing Mashhadani's convoy to be captured...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn....96.html

On the Shiite Side the same

Quote[/b] ]...A Shiite lawmaker survived an assassination attempt in the Mahmudiyah area south of Baghdad. The motorcade of parliament member Liqa al-Yaseen was attacked by gunmen, who abducted eight of her bodyguards, but she managed to escape, said Maj. Gen. Salim Khaiyon of the Interior Ministry.

IBID

The mortars continue:

Quote[/b] ]...The violence continued on Sunday. A mortar attack hit the Muhammad Bakir al-Hakeem Hospital in the Shula neighborhood of northern Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding 16 others, said Col. Sami Hassan of the Interior Ministry...

IBID

The car bombs continue:

Quote[/b] ]...A car bomb targeting police exploded in the central Baghdad district of Karrada, killing two policemen and one civilian and wounding eight other people. Another car bomb near a Baghdad bus station killed three more people, police said...

 IBID

And daily the anonymous tortured corpses float down the Euphrates and the Tigris

Quote[/b] ]...Also, Iraqi patrols discovered 11 unidentified corpses floating in the Euphrates River between Hilla and Ramadi in western Iraq. The bodies, of men believed to be in their 20s and 30s, showed signs of torture and had gunshot wounds to the heads, Hassan said...

IBID

This did not need to happen

Sadly walker

[Nemesis6 0]

This did not need to happen

Then what did need to happen?

...Oh wait, I forgot you're not talking to me. Too bad, I'd bet you could find a morally sound alternative, brewed from common sense. Oh well.

I guess I'll go on then -

Wheelchairs Help Iraqi Kids

Quote[/b] ]MOSUL —Seeing a small Iraqi child smile when you give them a toy will make anyone smile themselves. Give an Iraqi child a wheelchair to change his or her life, will make the anyone choke up with emotion.

One special individual started a crusade to help disabled children in Iraq by providing wheelchairs to help make their lives a little more comfortable and to be able to enjoy their childhood years.

Brad Blauser, a civilian employee with Logistical Services Incorporated on Forward Operating Base Diamondback, Mosul , Iraq has made it his personal mission to see that handicapped Iraqi children get the wheelchairs they deserve. Blauser is a native of Dallas.

“There is an alarming rate of children in Iraq that suffer from birth defects, disease, or casualties of war,†said Blauser. “I wanted to make sure that these children are not restricted to their homes because they don’t have any means to get outside and play with their friends.â€

Blauser was involved with many activities at the chapel where he met Maj. David Brown, a surgeon from 1 st Battalion, 24 th Infantry Regiment. Blauser asked him what he could do right now to help out. He wanted to do his part.

“Brown told me that many Iraqi children needed wheelchairs,†he said. “So I sent out an email to over 300 friends who were helping me with my bible drive.â€

Blauser explained to his friends that they were in immediate need of wheelchairs, so he asked for 12, hoping to get the six he needed. At a cost of one to three thousand dollars each, he did not know what to expect. To his surprise the generosity of his friends began pouring in.

“I could not believe my eyes at how many we received,†said Blauser. “We ended up getting 31 pediatric wheelchairs delivered to help the children.â€

According to Blauser, Federal Express shipped the first 12 wheel chairs for free. Then he was pleasantly surprised when Jane Crouch from Turner Broadcasting Network paid for the remaining chairs to be shipped to Iraq.

“I was just overwhelmed at the support we received from the people back home,†Blauser said. “Once again the American people have showed that they care about children they have never met, and it is truly inspirational.

These are the “mercenaries†for whom Markos Moulitsas “Screw Them†Zuniga feels nothing but scorn.

[EiZei 0]

These are the “mercenaries” for whom Markos Moulitsas “Screw Them” Zuniga feels nothing but scorn.

At least he had the decency to apologize.

Quote[/b] ]

Wheelchairs Help Iraqi Kids

Quote

MOSUL —Seeing a small Iraqi child smile when you give them a toy will make anyone smile themselves. Give an Iraqi child a wheelchair to change his or her life, will make the anyone choke up with emotion.

Fuck, think they could afford to be little less obvious.

[walker 0]

Hi all

I will deal with this point first:

...Oh wait, I forgot you're not talking to me. Too bad, I'd bet you could find a morally sound alternative, brewed from common sense. Oh well.

I said would not reply to you further on a post by you introduced to a thread in such a way that was clearly dragging said thread offtopic.

Stay on topic and I will happily converse with you.

This did not need to happen

Then what did need to happen?

The first and easiest answer is a simple nothing.

We did not need to go in in the first place

There was no WMD

There was no link with 9/11

There was no link with Al Qaeda

A second answer answer was TBA and TBA2 should have taken the advice of the sacked Generals and indeed Colin Powell to put in enough troops to do the job in the first place.

A third answer is there should have been an exit strategy. A plan to get us out. That takes leadership something that TBA  is sadly lacking. All we seem to be doing now in Iraq is drifting from crisis to crisis. Any fool can start a war. It takes intelligence to win one.

A fourth answer is that the coalition leadership should have rebuilt the country got their refineries back up an running so they do not have to queue miles for gas, got their fresh water and their electricity back and running it is still worse than it was under Saddam, found the billions in aid and Iraqi oil money that has gone missing under the coalition. It is a bad sign when even the Kurds the most down trodden people under Saddam are starting to complain about about all this.

A fifth answer make sure our political leaders give clear ethical and moral leadership to the coalition troops; telling them "The gloves are off" saying the Geneva convention don't apply, blaming Iraq for 9/11, saying they have WMD when they don't, generally dehumanising the Iraqi's etc. All that leads to a certain mind set and actions by the troops. Those types of behaviour lead to an Iraq where even General Casey says that the Iraqis come out and wave to the copters because they afraid if they don't the Americans will shoot them. Having mercenaries running up and down their roads with license to kill anyone with in 50 metres. All that does not lead to winning hearts and minds.

Without hearts and minds the war is lost.

Kind Regards Walker

[simba 0]

good post Walker , I just don't get why you, as a person against the war can still say things like this ?

Quote[/b] ]I have started to view the chances of winning the Iraq war with increasing pessimism.

your point would be , since we have started the war , for reasons I do not agree with , we should finish it ?

When I read something like this , in my head it sounds like

Quote[/b] ] a brit life worth more than arab life

wish for some israelian could easily turn into something like :

Quote[/b] ] a ... life worth more than ... life

I'll let you guess

Is it a hidden british colonialist talking through you , I really don't see the point of winning the war , give me one example (and this would be an exception) of deeply good influence of colonialism during the last 3 centuries , I don't see .

I do see conquest that realy improved the lifestyle of a population (arab were not so bad at this BTW ) , but these were conquest of a superior civilisations in many aspect such as religion, economy , science,... these colonisations were successfull because the new country was absorbed in empires and were quickly considered as equal to the other regions of the empires , we are certainly very far from this here , and the goal isn't even to colonise to bring in some way a superior culture , the only goal is to suck up the ressources of the country , how is it then going to be a "successfull conquest" .

American and Brits are really lacking imagination to gain a little support from the population , I suppose in Irak it would be nearly impossible to have enough peace to reconstruct , but in aghanistan soooo much could be done for the people , are they going to patrol in the desert until there isn't one taliban remaining , Aghanistan seems to be the biggest airsofters playgroung for many countries that don't wanna be involved in Irak , my country is involved in Afghanistan , I never saw on tv that we had soldiers over there , not once , what kind of joke is this.

Some of you are thinking about british and US soldiers as friends or family , but the rest of the world don't , so if you tell a martian: " 2 people you don't know are fighting together , one is attaking (and not defending) and the other is defending , wish one deserves to die in order to get the peace ? "

So if you wanna wait for the war to stop because to much allied have been killed , that's your problem ,but there are softer ways to stop a war , but you have first to understand that you will never win this war.

regards , simba

[Nemesis6 0]

At least he had the decency to apologize.

Apologies aside, it's pretty strange that he tries to hide the evidence, considering that he says that he's proud of what he said. Strange of showing it.

Markos Zuniga Moulitsas says:

EDITED out a partially graphic picture of the people Markos said "Screw them." to.

[walker 0]

Hi Simba

I am a practical anarchist.

Like any sensible human being I am against war.

Like any sensible human being I will fight to defend myself when attacked.

Like any sensible human being I realise it is a contradiction that will not disappear because I wish it.

The people in the countries of the coalition were presented with supposed evidence that Saddam and by extension Iraq was a threat.

I actually agreed with those reasons given to start the war.

In the case of the Iraq war it is now obvious to even the least sensible human and NeoConMan denyer that TBA and TBA2 Lied and Lied and Lied again in order to drag the coalition into war.

There was no WMD

There was no link with 9/11

There was no link with Al Qaeda

When you make the choice to fight a war you should do it properly. Do it wrong as TBA and TBA2 have and it costs more lives and will probably fail to achieve its ends.

You should have a plan.

You should have an ethical or moral compass with which to plot a course to achieve your plan.

You should have the means and will to achieve your plan.

There was no plan other than charge up to Baghdad and do a few drive bys. The Moral and Ethical compass seems to be lets loot the Iraqi economy and con the coalition tax payers out of billions.

There has never been enough troops to achieve the job, the death rate has risen continuously and the coaltion troops may be dying for nothing. The country has never been stabilized.

There has never been a plan to get the Iraqi economy up and running, if there was those in the coalition responsible for enacting it were criminally incompetent; Iraq is a total basket case.

Heck I have even seen Iraqis saying Saddam was the good old days.

Like any sensible human being I believe that those who make a wrong decisions that costs thousands of lives should be made to face the consequences of their actions.

Can I make myself more clear?

Kind Regards Walker

[Nemesis6 0]

In the case of the Iraq war it is now obvious to even the least sensible human and NeoConMan denyer that TBA and TBA2 Lied and Lied and Lied again in order to drag the coalition into war.

AND WE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU MEDDLING KIDS!! OFF TO THE CON-MOBILE, MY NEO-FRIENDS! YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF US! WE WILL RETURN!

Hello.

[walker 0]

Hi all

It apears that the 200,000 AK47s shipped into Iraq from a US base in Bosnia and meant for the Iraqi Police and security services, that were some how lost in transit; have started to turn up.

Quote[/b] ]...In some Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad, religious leaders went door to door seeking volunteers to join self-defense groups and promised to distribute AK-47 assault rifles to those who didn't have them. Mahmoud al-Obaidi, a cleric at the al-Abaz mosque in Amiriyah, canvassed the neighborhood asking for one male volunteer from each household. He told residents to be ready to mobilize if mosques broadcast " Allahu Akbar " -- God is Great -- three times...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...._2.html

Follow link for the full story

Quote[/b] ]10 May 2006

HAVE 200,000 AK47S FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF IRAQ TERRORISTS?

FEARS OVER SECRET U.S. ARMS SHIPMENT

SOME 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.

The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.

Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.

And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.

It follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq's police and army instead went to al-Qaeda

Amnesty chief spokesman Mike Blakemore said: "It's unbelievable that no one can account for 200,000 assault rifles. If these weapons have gone missing it's a terrifying prospect." American defence chiefs hired a US firm to take the guns, from the 90s Bosnian war, to Iraq.

But air traffic controllers in Baghdad have no record of the flights, which supposedly took off between July 2004 and July 2005. A coalition forces spokesman confirmed they had not received "any weapons from Bosnia" and added they were "not aware of any purchases for Iraq from Bosnia". Nato and US officials have already voiced fears that Bosnian arms - sold by US, British and Swiss firms - are being passed to insurgents. A Nato spokesman said: "There's no tracking mechanism to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off." This year a newspaper claimed two UK firms were involved in a deal in which thousands of guns for Iraqi forces were re-routed to al-Qaeda.

One arms broker's lawyer is said to have admitted that nearly all of a shipment of 1,500 AK-47s went missing. And a US official said Å270million of equipment could not be traced.

Meanwhile, Aerocom, the Moldovan air firm at the centre of the 200,000 missing AK47s, was stripped of its licence by its national authorities a day before the first shipment...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news....ge.html

Follow link for the full story

A little research leads you to a certain Viktor Bout.

Follow link for a well researched history of Viktor Bout

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout00.htm

Follow this link for a potted history of Viktor Bout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Bout

The Bush Administration pressed for Bout to be left off planned UN sanctions in 2004.

Viktor Bout has long associations with the NeoConMen. Aerocom was working for Dodgy Dick Cheyney's Halliburton subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root.

Quote[/b] ]Years ago, when I photographed some of Victor Bout's planes and found them unlisted in any official register, I became intrigued by his movements (his airline operations moving from one country to another) and added page after page with information. These days the information comes to me because I have this "dossier" on my website. And while the companies on this page are not directly involved or run by Mr Bout, their ways of operations seem similar, operating both legally as well as, let us say, suspect flights.

During Jan.2005 I received the following information:

QUOTE:

A company called Chapman Freebourne has a subcontract with KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc. ) to fly passengers for KBR and other Western Contracting entities into and around Iraq.

Chapman Freeborn is merely a broker and they subcontracted the work to Aerocom. Aerocom is a suspected Victor Bout Company as you are aware. Aerocom was flying un-registered aircraft between August and November 2004, when the planes were switched to a company called Jetline International - you also know the apparent connection between Jetline International and Victor Bout. Check out the link between Aerocom and Jet line - their contact details are exactly the same address/telephone & fax numbers etc.

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout22.htm

Follow link for the full story

19 hours ago the call to arms and for the AK47s to distributed went out from mosques.

Quote[/b] ]Iraqi politicians say it's now a civil war

By Joshua Partlow

and Bassam Sebti

Published: Wednesday, July 12, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The words they have come to fear thundered out from the mosque loudspeakers as the sun sank over Baghdad: ``God is great! God is great! God is great!''

Just one day before, Sunni Arab sheiks in Amariyah, one of Baghdad's most embattled neighborhoods, had gone door to door recruiting volunteers willing to fight against Shiite militias. The mosque's signal Tuesday night meant the time to fight was now...

http://www.registerguard.com/news....n_worldFollow link for the full story

If these AK47s are turning up in insurgent hands to ferment a civil war and being used to kill Coalition and Iraqi troops and contractors; then this is a scandal that will dwarf the Kennedy Assasination, Watergate, Iran Contra and Plamegate combined.

Walker

[Nemesis6 0]

Viktor Bout has long associations with the NeoConMen.

Damn it, we must eliminate him before any more secret information can be divulged! We cannot have the anarchists know any more about our secret connections since they now know about our secret Communist NeoCon Senatorâ„¢!

Speaking of Anarchism, Walker, have you read this article on how to squat a building? http://www.practicalanarchy.org/squats.html

The thing that's most interesting is the site name, which seems to conform to your political affiliation.

And more important: Do you follow these guidelines for being a proper practical anarchist? - http://www.practicalanarchy.org/tips.html

[ralphwiggum 6]

this is about Iraq, not anarchism.

[walker 0]

Hi all

The NeoConMen having "Lost" 200,000 AK47s in Iraq when transferring them through Viktor Bout; in a contract organised by Dodgy Dick Cheney's Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root now wish to send some more of the arms to Afghanistan.

Quote[/b] ]Bosnia's leftover guns: Sell, give, destroy?

The US wants to give the weapons to Afghan forces after previous sales to Iraq went missing.

By Beth Kampschror | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA – What's been called the biggest arms transfer since World War II - the shipping of leftover weapons from Bosnia's 1992-1995 war to combat zones in the Middle East and elsewhere - may not have come to an end, despite a year-old moratorium on Bosnian arms sales.

As a UN conference on small arms wrapped up last week, key policymakers reviewed the UN's 2001 action program to end the illegal arms trade, but were unable to come up with a final document or recommendations.

"It is a known fact that in the 1990s, out of 49 major conflicts, 47 were waged with small arms and light weapons - and that most of the conflicts were exacerbated by the availability of illegal small arms," conference head Prasad Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka told the press before the conference.

The UN estimates that one-quarter of the $4 billion annual global arms trade is illicit. But experts are also concerned about legal trades, particularly from Bosnia before the moratorium. The concerns are heightened in light of an Amnesty International report in May that detailed a 2004 Bosnia-to-Iraq shipment of thousands of guns that apparently went missing in a maze of subcontractors.

The Bosnian and US governments are discussing gifting a shipment of Bosnia's familiar Soviet-type weapons to Afghanistan. But small arms expertswould like to see Bosnia's weapons destroyed rather than exported, and to end the post-cold war flow of arms from Eastern Europe to conflict zones around the world.

Until the moratorium began last summer, some 290,000 small arms and light weapons and 64 million rounds of ammunition in Bosnia were exported from Bosnia's stockpiles, mostly to Iraq, according to EU peacekeepers.

"Afghan and Iraqi forces have a long history of Soviet-era weapons, and, accordingly, acquisition of these types were selected because of their familiarity, compatibility, and ease of maintenance for the rapid re-establishment of the respective forces," says US Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter. "Consequently, in many instances, we have gone to suppliers in many other nations which have available weaponry that fulfill the requirements."

Amnesty International highlighted one of the US Department of Defense's Bosnia weapons shipments in a May report that detailed a dizzying array of contractors and subcontractors hired to bring some 99 tons of automatic assault rifles from Bosnia to Iraq, to arm the Iraqi military and police.

According to the report, the Department of Defense contracted the Alabama-based company Taos, which then subcontracted a Bulgarian firm, which, in turn, subcontracted the Moldovan-registered company Aerocom to ship the weapons to Iraq in August 2004. But Aerocom lost its air operation certificate one day before the shipments were to begin, because of European Union concerns about air safety and security. According to the Amnesty report, Aerocom was also linked with the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, who has been blacklisted by both the UN and the US Treasury Department for his role in supplying arms to conflict-riddled areas of Africa...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0710/p12s01-woeu.html Follow link for the full story

Afghanistan needs more arms like Newcastle needs more coal. Afghanistan and Pakistan is awash with AKs.

And it does not take a genius to realise that they will end up in the hands of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. NATO needs this like a hole in the head; a situation that is likly to occur to lots of NATO soldiers if the Iraq deal is anything to go by.

Why did it not occur to the NeoConMen to simply smash up all the exess guns from Bosnia.

I am guessing maybe reducing the number of innocent civilians or Coalition and NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan being shot by "Lost" AK47s is not top of the list of priorities for the NeoConMen.

Quote[/b] ] ..."It's only a matter of time before it transpires that an American soldier is killed by a weapon that the Americans brought to Afghanistan, or Iraq."

Ibid

Walker

[walker 0]

Hi all

In the seemingly forgotten Iraq war the deaths go on; more than 14,000 Iraqis have died in the first six months of 2006. In May to June alone 5,800 Iraqis have died.

Quote[/b] ]U.N.: 14,000 Iraqis killed in 2006

Holy city bomb kills 45; Armed robbers hit Baghdad bank

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 Posted: 2145 GMT (0545 HKT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- More than 14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half of this year, an ominous figure reflecting the fact that "killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread" in the war-torn country, a United Nations report says.

Killings of civilians are on "an upward trend," with more than 5,800 deaths and more than 5,700 injuries reported in May and June alone, it says.

The report, a bimonthly document produced by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, covers May and June, and includes chilling casualty figures and ugly anecdotes from the insurgent and sectarian warfare that continues to rage despite the establishment of a national unity government and a security crackdown in Baghdad.

The report lists examples of bloody suicide bombs aimed at mosques, attacks on laborers, the recovery of slain bodies, the assassinations of judges, the killings of prisoners, the targeting of clergy -- all incidents dutifully reported by media over these three-plus years of chaos in the streets...

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/18/iraq.main/index.html

Follow link for the full story

The tortured and executed bodies continue to float down the Euphrates and Tigris or are found on rubish dumps. Dark whispers of Death Squads in the night with white Toyota Land Cruisers and police equipment conjure up a nightmare Iraq every bit as bad as Saddam's dark times.

Quote[/b] ]The Times July 21, 2006

Civilians flee death squads

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled their homes as sectarian violence has turned increasingly bitter since the US-backed national unity Government was formed two months ago, official statistics released yesterday showed.

Sattar Nowruz, the Migration Ministry spokesman, said that there was a rise of about 32,000 internal refugees over the past three weeks, taking the total to about 162,000 over the past five months.

“We consider this to be a dangerous sign,†Mr Nowruz said.

Shia leaders joined the United Nations and the United States in raising the alarm over the bloodshed, and a form of “ethnic cleansing†that the Government has labelled “campaigns of displacementâ€.

The US military admitted that the violence in Baghdad was little changed despite a big security clampdown, while the city mortuary said it had seen 1,000 bodies of victims so far in July, a slight increase on June.

The reported rise in the number of internal refugees came a day after the US military issued a warning to Shia and Sunni leaders to rein in their respective “death squads and terroristsâ€. (Reuters)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2279232,00.html

The suicide bombings killing 20 to 50 at a time are now daily occurrences.

And coalition troops hunker down in their bunkers or do daily combat patrols even an aid run is now a combat patrol in an increasingly hostile environment where they continue to die and fail to hold the ground because they have not been given enough troops to do the job.

Quote[/b] ]An Iraqi City Where Tasks Often Turn Into Combat

For U.S. Troops In Ramadi, Peril Is Always Lurking

By Ann Scott Tyson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, July 22, 2006; Page A14

RAMADI, Iraq -- The dusty neighborhood in east Ramadi was deserted last week as U.S. and Iraqi soldiers rolled up to deliver water at a mosque. Not a good sign in this urban war zone, where residents vanish whenever an insurgent attack is imminent.

"No one's around," said Staff Sgt. Guillermo Valadez, a civil affairs soldier from San Diego. "They believe a lot of the rumors from insurgents that we'll shoot them," he said, his rifle at the ready. Iraqi soldiers kept watch from nearby rooftops. Tanks stood on alert a few minutes away.

In Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold considered by U.S. commanders to be the most contentious city in Iraq, even the most benign mission is a combat operation. This heavily bombed capital of Anbar province is the deadliest city in the country for U.S. troops relative to its population -- and the last place in Iraq that American forces will be able to leave, U.S. commanders predict. Ramadi averages nearly 20 insurgent attacks a day, and U.S. soldiers here can count on taking enemy fire within 45 minutes of rolling out from their bases.

Widespread fears of a major military sweep of Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, led to an exodus of residents last month to outlying areas, reducing the population by about a quarter, to 300,000 people, according to residents and U.S. officials. Fighting has escalated as the U.S. military has worked first to isolate Ramadi by building more roadblocks, and then to thrust deeper into areas held by insurgents, setting up new outposts and fighting for ground block by block.

But even as U.S. and Iraqi forces make headway, a week embedded with troops in Ramadi revealed an insurgency that remains so lethal, sophisticated and ubiquitous that it appeared able to scrutinize every move of American and Iraqi soldiers -- whose smallest missteps often proved deadly. On Monday, one U.S. soldier was killed in Ramadi and another wounded by a sniper after they ventured half a block too close to enemy terrain.

Mortar shells pound U.S. camps so routinely that some soldiers say they can't fall asleep until they hear them. Bombs litter most major roads, limiting movement. Teams of insurgent fighters -- or snipers operating alone -- seem ready to exploit their every opportunity.

A Costly Delivery

On July 14, as soldiers began hastily unloading boxes of water at the mosque in Ramadi's eastern Mulab district, Sheik Adnan Abdul Latif strode up in a flowing white dishdasha , a traditional robe, wearing a thick beard and a worried look. Like many Ramadi residents, he was terrified of being caught in the crossfire.

"Maybe the mujahideen will mortar the mosque because you bring water here!" Latif said to Valadez through an interpreter. "Things are very bad here now," he said bitterly, adding that it was "much better" before U.S. troops came to Ramadi.

A light-blue car drove slowly down a side street -- possibly carrying an insurgent shooter.

"This is Friday. Soon people will come to the mosque," Latif said hurriedly. "It's not good if they see you here."

As the U.S. and Iraqi troops returned to their vehicles, a bullet cracked the air nearby. Then automatic rifle fire bursts out on either side of them, wounding an Iraqi soldier. It had been 43 minutes since the soldiers left camp...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn....67.html

Follow link for the full story

Ramadi is not the only city that has become a no go area for the insufficient numbers of coalition troops. Even Baghdad has become ungovernable with a now almost permanent curfew. It has split into sharply divided sectarian sub cities along religious and ethnic grounds and defended by militias that act as police by day and death squads by night.

In a civil war in all but name the death toll is now said to be 150 a day.

Sadly Walker