Iraq Elections: A Victory for Terror

[leftchick]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/international/europe/10spiegel.html

~snip~

It was an astonishing figure, even for Iraqis. Last week the head of Iraqi intelligence, Mohammed Shahwani, reported that the Iraqi terrorist and resistance movement numbered 200,000. The figure, according to Shahwani, includes about 40,000 bomb experts and sharpshooters, as well as 160,000 part-time guerillas and supporters who are harboring resistance fighters and terrorists and providing them with logistics services.

The 150,000 US troops stationed along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers face a powerful combat force -- 20 divisions, motivated to the core, and apparently able to claim seemingly unlimited recruitment capabilities.

No one at the Pentagon has denied General Shahwani's numbers, even though they exceed Washington's previous estimates by a factor of about ten. According to US military expert Anthony Cordesman, the numbers coming from Baghdad are realistic. Cordesman believes that they confirm something that the Pentagon has consistently denied -- that the resistance movement in central Iraq now enjoys "broad support" among the population.

A few weeks ago, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned that the Iraqi government expects the violence to increase leading up to the planned Jan. 30 elections. Despite these expectations, Allawi's nerves and the confidence of his administration have been shaken by what has been happening in Iraq's Sunni triangle, even though events in Iraq have been somewhat overshadowed by news from South and Southeast Asia. The number of attacks has been consistently on the rise, with more than 200 casualties within the past three weeks. More than 80 police officers have already been killed in the new year. Another high-ranking administration official, the governor of Baghdad province, Ali al-Haidari, was assassinated only last Tuesday.

[warrens]

1. This American Life this weekend had excerpts from a documentary

About some Arkansas National Guard deployed in Iraq. After one bombing of their convoy, they question onlookers about who set the bomb. "The Americans, trying to destabilize our country" is the reply from every one of them. The soldiers get pissed off.

Then, in a report about the elections, they dropped a REAL bomb. Of 13,000 cops in Mosul, only about 600 are actually on duty. The rest have been killed, wounded or scarpered.

Flyers are being circulated in Baghdad, to every apartment, saying, if you vote, your children will be orphans, your wife will be a widow, etc. They interviewed some guys in a cafe, asking them if they are going to vote. "Are you CRAZY?" One guy said, they may protect us at the voting booth, but nothing can protect us if we are seen voting.

The candidates won't even let their names be published. So we might end up with a guy with a bag over his head voting on a blank sheet of paper for an unknown candidate.

Sounds like Bush democracy to me.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[VegasWolf]

11. No. he can't cut and run. Halliburton would then lose "their" oil. n/t

[JohnyCanuck]

2. resistance movement in central Iraq now enjoys "broad support"

Is it any wonder?

They had already been stopped and searched at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi police, but the Americans made them get out of the truck, searched the cargo, and looked at their identity papers. Marwan remembers that one soldier merrily chirped at them in Arabic, as friendly as could be, and said they were free to go. But when they got back in their truck, the Americans had a sudden change of heart: the two of them were ordered out, handcuffed, and pushed into one of four Bradley fighting vehicles that made up the patrol.

<snip>

The Bradley stopped at a bridge that spans the Tigris, a bridge that also regulates the flow of river water and is known as the Tharthar dam. Zaydun and Marwan were shoved out onto the walkway. The water roared below as the soldiers uncuffed them and ordered them to jump.

"Why? Why?"

Marwan's plaintive cry fell on the deadened ears of his captors, who grinned and laughed. Even as he cried out against the unreason of a world gone mad, in which the "liberated" are tortured by their "liberators," his anguish was drowned out by their glee as they forced him into the river at gunpoint.

But not before he saw them push Zaydun – who couldn't swim – over the edge as he clung to his tormentors, begging. But the Americans weren't having any of it:

"Shut up! Shut the f*ck up!"

www.antiwar.com/justin/

[Rose Siding]

4. No one at the Pentagon has denied the numbers but Bush has...

Asked if he shares Scowcroft's concerns, Bush told reporters today, "Quite the opposite. I think elections will be such a incredibly hopeful experience for the Iraqi people."

He said that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces "appear to be relatively calm." The four remaining provinces "are places where the terrorists are trying to stop people from voting," he said. So I know it's hard. But it's hard for a reason. And the reason it's hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56128-2005Jan7.html?nav=rss_politics

Handful? OH! Maybe it's "handful" as in He's Got The Whole World In His Hands :shrug:

[stevedeshazer]

5. We've lost the war.

It's all over but the killing and maiming now.

Thanks, Bush. :grr:

The article needs a full read. See if you don't agree with me.

[leftchick]

6. It is an excellent article. It is the reality missing in the US media..

People and reporters never question that idiot* when he says... things are swell, people are free, democracy is on the march...

:grr:

[NYC]

7. What is more important than American perception?

...Allawi...sees his chances of being elected jeopardized by the rise in terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, he cannot openly support postponing the election, because this would give the appearance of his extending his term without an official mandate. Although it would seem to be in Bush's best interest to allow Allawi to have his way, the American public would probably view postponing the election as a setback in the war on terror...

From page 2 of the article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/international/europe/10spiegel.html?pagewanted=2&oref=login

[NYC]

8. "There is open civil war."

Oil Minister Thamer Ghadban has admitted that "There is open civil war. I see no end to this crisis."

Bottom of page 2 at NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/international/europe/10spiegel.html?pagewanted=2&oref=login

[PATRICK]

10. Resistance and civil war

America was badly disunited as well with at least a third of the population being emotional loyalists(finally too humiliated and let down to sustain their hunger for noble paternalism, some fled to Canada). The hopes of Bush rest in large part on the divide and conquer, which if it doesn't work(as in Iraq) at least allows the invader to withdraw and leave an "I-told-you-so" basketcase.

The divisions were ALWAYS a desirable background to control the resources of Iraq. How badly the occupation is failing to win is another matter entirely. leave it to American loyalty and media to ignore the failures of the occupation and play up the ever present civil war aspect- as if we
are goodwill spectators trying to teach the aborigines about democracy and not the fool and fuel for all fires.

[Massachusetts]

9. "Freedom is messy"

It sure is Don. See you, Little george and the rest of the Robber Barrons in Hell!:evilgrin:

[leftchick]

12. This fellow thinks the assessment "seems incredibly naive, "

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/546F50AD-6FBD-41D3-910B-2530E3F1896F.htm


~snip~

Despite this, the Iraqi intelligence chief optimistically predicts that the terrorist "attacks will recede and end in one year".


For those familiar with the situation on the ground, al-Shahwani's assessment of the complex guerrilla insurgency seems incredibly naive, particularly when one factors in the Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen tensions that have yet to fully explode in northern Iraq.

However, al-Shahwani's wishful thinking pales in comparison to the delusional ramblings of George Bush and his minions. With hundreds of thousands of coalition and Iraqi security forces battling insurgents and attempting to batten down Iraq under the iron grip of martial law - the American masterminds of this intervention are already claiming that America has "brought democracy to 28 million people".


No doubt this will be welcome news to those marines in Sumatra when they complete their humanitarian effort, reboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and sail back to continue a mission long since pronounced accomplished.