Iraq on the Brink

[sushi]

"Both US commanding officers and the US Chief Administrator Paul Bremer ...tell Sunday they believe the Coalition is winning the war against the insurgents. But on the ground, Sunday finds a different - angrier - Iraq than last year. An Iraq teetering on the brink of civil war."

"All over Iraq, the mood, even of moderate Iraqis, has hardened against the Coalition occupation."

"And in places like the anti-Coalition hotbed of Fallujah, even the most revered clerics now preach in the mosques that resistance against the Coalition is acceptable."

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Fallujah religious leader Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi challenges the legitimacy of the occupation, and argues that without the WMDs the coalition used to justify the war, the occupiers should leave. I agree with him. Why don't the foreign troops just leave. They're encouraging more attacks, like in Madrid.

You'd expect a religious leader to be kind and forgiving, but not this one. Read the transcript of this story.

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/article_1502.asp

[xchrom]

1. can you say

intifada?

[izzie]

2. Do you have this feeling we are doing something new?

I do. Killing of Am has dropped right off, Bush is not talking about it and not many in the Bush Co are, and I say the men have been pulled back behind walls so they will not be killed as often, We are letting the corp work and take over the countries business but US military are being pulled back and Bush and Co are going to shut down Iraq so it will not be an item by Nov.Walk off and leave the mess he made and blame it on the people in the country because they can not get their act together.

[sushi]

4. Bush isn't talking about it

because he wants this problem, that he created, to go away. He's hoping the UN, that he called irrelevant, will help make this problem go away before the election. Killing of soldiers has dropped off but the place is far from secure. Soldiers kicking in doors in the middle of the night, rude and swearing, and threatening to kill people is hardly winning the hearts and minds of the locals. I don't think this problem will be solved even after Osama has been captured.

Why leave tens of thousands of soldiers there after the handover, and why have an embassy of 3000(?) unless the aim is to meddle in the affairs of Iraq?

Instead of concentrating on fighting the terrorists responsible for 9/11 Bush invaded another country that hasn't attacked the US. I don't understand how anyone can still support him.

[enough]

3. The death toll

snip>

As Sunday reports, the unspoken — and unrecorded — death toll from the war and its aftermath is the number of civilians who have died as a result of US mistakes.

This week's report also features dramatic vision of just how tough and aggressive the US military is taking the fight against the insurgent terrorists operating inside the country. But, as Ross Coulthart questions, isn't that get-tough US strategy the very thing that is alienating large swathes of the Iraqi population? Why is it necessary to kick in the doors of potential suspects with guns blazing, as our story shows?

And why is the US not doing enough to respond to the mounting civilian death toll? Sunday returned to one Baghdad suburb it visited within weeks of the US invasion last year — Daura. On the main highway south of the central city, it's this suburb through which American armour made its way towards Saddam's main palaces and Government buildings. In just one incident we filmed, 26 civilians — including children — were killed by an American cluster bomb which exploded over local homes by mistake. It would have been easy for US forces to win back the support of locals by acknowledging that terrible mistake and apologising for that "collateral damage". But one year on, the bereaved relatives have not heard from the Americans and they are now bitter … and angry towards America.

more>

[sushi]

5. Do these mistakes

get reported in the US or is it ignored because it is only foreigners who died, not Americans? Who cares if it is innocent civilians, including children. It's Iraqis, "collateral damage," not important.
Do the masses in America realize that their leader is NOT making the world safer? He's just creating more extremists.