Samarra bombing: Lax measures or plotting?

[IndianaGreen]

Perception is everything! Whatever theories we may hold dear about the Iraqi insurgency, or the bombing of the Golden Dome mosque in Samarrah, what really counts is what the people in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East believe to be true.

Samarra bombing: Lax measures or plotting?

By Laith Saud

Wednesday 01 March 2006, 1:45 Makka Time, 22:45 GMT

If it was not evident already, it has now become indisputably clear that the American presence in Iraq has accomplished absolutely nothing.

Personally, as an analyst I am not one of those who insists that Iraq is on the brink of civil war, in the wake of the bombing of the al-Rawda al-Askari shrine. However, the Americans have proved incapable or unwilling to provide security.

If indeed the Americans - and the Iraqi government - are committed to providing peace and preventing civil war, it must be asked what exactly are they doing to achieve this end?

When we examine the situation more carefully it becomes apparent that only the Americans and the Iraqi government can facilitate civil war, not the Sunni and Shia peoples in Iraq who have lived together in peace for centuries.

Let us first consider the bombing itself: entry points into the city of Samarra have been limited for some time, meaning, theoretically, that those few remaining in use should be more secure.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/972DD1C0-237B-473B-96B5-3DBDABBCD35F.htm

[stillcool]

1. "Sporadic Violence or Imperial Meddling? "

By Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12117.h...

02/28/06 "ICH" -- -- The events of the last week have created considerable uncertainty among Iraq-watchers about what is actually taking place on the ground. It is increasingly difficult to know who is generating the violence and why. Particularly puzzling, is trying to identify the motives behind the destruction of the Golden Dome Mosque and the massive reprisals which occurred with such astonishing speed that they seemed to be pre-arranged.

And why were so many of those who were killed …“shot, knifed, garroted or suffocated by plastic bags over their heads”. (Washington Post) Many others were killed gangland-style with hands bound behind their backs and a gunshot wound to the head.
Is this the method of killing that we would normally expect from rampaging mobs, or is it more like a deliberate campaign of terror designed to spread fear throughout the community.

In Max Fuller’s seminal article, “For Iraq, ‘The Salvador-Option, becomes Reality”, Fuller points out that the Iraqi Interior Ministry’s death squads were, in fact, trained by agents from the CIA who had honed their skills in Vietnam and El Salvador. (Recently even the New York Times has admitted that these groups received American training) Fuller sees the same pattern appearing in Iraq as in other American-backed counterinsurgency operations. He says:

“In Iraq the war comes in two phases. The first phase is complete: the destruction of the existing state, which did not comply with the interests of British and American capital. The second phase consists of building a new state tied to those interests and smashing every dissenting sector of society.”

Riverbend http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

DahrJamail http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000365.php#more

[madrchsod]

2. i`ve read at last 8 iraqi blogger since this occurred

and they are saying the same thing..why after 1200 years this was attacked? the attack itself was well planned,there were sructural engineers involved, and took many hours to set the charges. the shrine was supposed to be guarded...

[Igel]

3. And it was.

The guards were bound. I'm surprised they're not dead yet, or at least that we haven't been told they're dead.

To keep from hurting Sunni pride, the guards were Sunnis. US and Shi'a guards were specifically excluded, per tradition.

When the blacks are subservient, or when they outnumber you, you bask in your wonderful sense of tolerance and forebearance. When they get uppity--esp. if you outnumber them--well, that's a different story. History of the Deep South for a good number of decades.

Replace 'black' with any minority name under some of the less enlightened Islams. Gotta know your masters. Remember, submission is the name of the game. Samarra's gone from largely Shi'ite to mostly Sunni in the last couple hundred years, since the last Sunni-Shi'ite war, and this is the first time since the shift occurred that, well, the Shi'a have been uppity.