Why attack the Red Cross? It seems like there are no limits

[ShaneGR]

It appears that with the bombing of the UN, and now a Red Cross HQ... the bombers in Iraq really don't have any limits. It also struck me as odd that they would to at the start of a Muslim holiday. What's going on here? Is there strategy ultimate chaos? Bush is right about them being willing to kill anyone, anytime... unfortunately he created the situation. So I guess the question is, other than getting our troops out of there, how in the world does Iraq become even a halfway decent country? Is this a generational commitment? What is our exit strategy? How do we deal with a country that not only has a healthy resistance internally, but also has thousands of would-be bombers streaming in from neighboring countries?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?0cv=CB10

(snip)
BAGHDAD, Oct. 27 — Car bombers struck the international Red Cross headquarters and four police stations across Baghdad on Monday, killing about 40 people in a spree of destruction that terrorized the Iraqi capital on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to police and Red Cross reports.

THE RED CROSS said 12 were killed there, and police said 27 were killed in the police station bombings, most of them Iraqis. The U.S. military confirmed that among the dead was one American soldier killed at a Baghdad police station.

The bombings came hours after clashes in the Baghdad area killed three U.S. soldiers overnight, and a day after insurgents devastated a hotel full of U.S. occupation officials with a rocket barrage, killing a U.S. colonel and wounding 18 other people. U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was in the hotel, but was unhurt.


EDIT: In Iraq the Red Cross does NOT operate as the Red Cross, they operate as the Red Crescent Society.....

[DisgustipatedinCA]

1. how in the world does Iraq become even a halfway decent country?

You asked how Iraq is to become a halfway-decent country. Well, it may one day become "half decent" and it may not. But a partial answer to your question is that it will NEVER become a half-decent country while the US remains. Never. Bush's idiotic statements from today aside, the Iraqis as a whole do not want us there and I really don't believe they'll rest while a colonial power is trying to tell them what to do, how to live. Ask the British.

That oil may as well be sitting under the mantle of the earth; that's about how accessible it's going to be as long as we're there trying to steal it. Bush may be the last person on earth to understand that he'll never win a guerilla war like this. He'll eventually be made to understand.

[bryant69]

4. I could be wrong

And please correct me if I am wrong--but isn't there a middle strategy between Totally withdrawing and remaining in Iraq forever. I mean if we leave immediately, what hope is there for democracy, for freedom to exist?

This is why we need a democrat in the white house, someone who can get us out in a logical manner. Particularly since President Bush's primary concern seems to be connected to grabbing the oil.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Jackpine Radical]

11. I think the way out is to bring in the UN,

to give up aspirations of stealing all their oil and Walmarting them, get Halliburton and the rest the hell out of there, get our military out as quickly as is expedient and replace them with troops fom Islamic countries, hold elections or otherwise decide whether the country needs to be/can be ethnically subdivided, and start ensuring that our money actually goes to rebuilding rather than just being a fancy transfer system of American wealth to multinational corporations.

[BurtWorm]

20. I agree with you

These are attacks on the US by proxy. The Iraqis may begin to hate whoever is behind these attacks, but they won't be too kindly disposed toward the US either for failing to protect them and for bringing 'em on. The US should accelerate the turnover of control to the Iraqis, preferably by ceding control as quickly as possible to the UN and abandoning the plan to enrich Republican cronies with the billions earmarked for Iraq aid.

PS: Of course they won't give up anything so easily.

[NewJeffCT]

12. the 'middle' ground

is handing over control to the UN and creating a multi-national peacekeeping force under UN auspices. But, then Cheney-Bush don't get control of the oil in the long run... and, maybe Halliburton won't get any more no bid contracts.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

13. Sadly, I don't think so

We could reduce forces in the country, we could start some sort of "be nice to the Iraqis" initiative, but I believe the people doing the bombing won't be happy until we're gone, completely gone.

So if we reduced troop count in the country, the remaining troops are more vulnerable. Also, they have less control of the country. If, on the other hand, we started bombing the hell out of them again, well, that just makes us more hated and subject to more attacks, unless we manage to kill all of them; genocide tends to be frowned upon.

To me, the bombing of the Red Cross says that the people behind it don't want ANY westerners there at all, for any reason. We cannot bring them democracy. That was never Bush's intent in the first place. But even if a Democratic President truly wanted to bring democracy, he or she couldn't do it. You just can't cause democracy to burst forth from the barrel of a gun. Democracy with our seal of approval isn't really democracy after all. We'd put too many conditions on it, like having a secular government, for example.

This is exactly why Bush the Elder left Hussein in power. Sure, he was a brutal dictator, but he was a known quantity. He kept factions under his thumb. That genie is now out of the bottle (a la the former Yugoslavia) and it's not going back in. Shia/Sunni, they both want to prevail, yes? They're both united insofar as wanting us to get the hell out. After that, they'll fight over that power vaccuum. Oops, I forgot the Kurds. It just got even more difficult.

Giving the whole thing over to the UN at first glance seems like the best idea. But I think they might be in for a world of pain. Half a million dead children in 12 years has deeply angered a great many Iraqis. I think the UN would have a very tough go of it.

None of this comes as a surprise to lots of people and groups who tried to warn Bush about this. It was all pretty predicatable. It would serve us well to look at these folks' predictions. But no, I expect we'll be attacking Syria next, which might, of course, cause the entire Middle East and Parts Beyond to explode with rage.

Bush has himself in a terrible, terrible mess. He'll have to pay with his political life. Many others have had to and will have to pay with their own lives.

[jobycom]

5. Ever wonder if we may after all succeed in uniting the Iraqis?

We might cause the various factions to finally unite against us, once those who are using us to gain an advantage start to realize that we won't let them win, either. Our factions are only ours because they think they will beat all the other factions with out help. Once they realize they are just becoming toadies for the real power-- us-- they may start playing both ends against the middle. At some point, if we hang around there long enough, a leader will emerge who will unite all factions against us. It's pretty much a Muslim tradition when fighting Christian invaders.

Won't it be interesting if that leader is Saddam? Everyone does see why we put more effort into slaughering Uday and Qusay than in catching Saddam or even Usama, right? Younger men live longer and have more energy to inspire others.

[jobycom]

2. George Washington slaughetered Hessians in bed on Christmas Eve

The point being that when you are defending your home against invaders who have killed hundreds of thousands of your people, you tend to not worry about niceties.

And here's a trick question for everyone: What shape is the red cross of the Red Cross in? Cogitate on symbolism for a while.

[ShaneGR]

14. They use a different symbol in the middle east

[jobycom]

24. Duh! I even knew that! Bad brain day.

You're right, they use the crescent. I just looked at a picture on CNN's page of an ambulance, and the crescent is clearly visible.

I wonder how that's perceived in the Middle East? Do most people see a clearly western organization trying to appease them by displaying a crescent-- in which case it would seem like condescension or even blasphemy, or do they see the Red Crescent as a global organization with equal respect given to all nations and religions? I think the bombs may imply that at least some see it as Western, but I wonder what the general consensus would be, if there is one? Do you know?

[lcordero]

3. A few months ago

Bush said that he wasn't willing to protect humanitarian organizations.
A lot of this stuff is interconnected. Take the "No child Left Behind" Act for instance. The "No Child left Behind" Act has a section in it where a school has to make students's records available to military recruiters.

[Kamika]

6. They will attack anything non muslim

They have this idea that anything non islamic is "run by jews" or that they are spying for the CIA. So they are blowing it all up.

I dont think Iraq will be a democracy ever, it will either be occupied for a LONG time or just become a second Iran

[Rose Siding]

18. There have been bombings at Mosques!

There will be no happy ending to this story.

[ShaneGR]

19. The Mosque bombings

Appear to be an internal Shi'ite power struggle. One faction wants to run everything, so they blow up the groups who are either supportive of the US occupation, or blow up groups who are seen as a threat to control post occupation.

[Spazito]

7. My take on it is that the opposition in Iraq want the US TOTALLY...

isolated, with no support from anyone, including international organizations. They have taken to heart the challenge of "Bring it on".

[JohnyCanuck]

15. I agree. They're sending a message, "foreigners get out."

The Iraqi "freedom fighters" want to get the message out that if you are a foreigner or even an Iraqi working for a foreign agency you are not going to be safe in Iraq period. Therefore the reconstruction effort will be made much more difficult and complicated for the US as they will be unable to rely on the disaster relief work of the usual international aid agencies, and the rebuilding of the infrastructure will also be hampered if non-iraqis (engineers, technicians, construction people etc) are unwilling to assume the risk of living and working in a war zone and foreign businesses are reluctant to invest in Iraq.

[jobycom]

26. Sort of "No justice, no peace?" Sounds right. nt.

,

[Frances]

8. I think Iraq is like Vietnam

The people who are doing the bombing want to create so much chaos and fear that other countries will wash their hands of the affair. The U.S. soldiers will begin to see all Iraqis as "gooks" and kill indiscriminately. That will make the majority of Iraqi people support the Iraqi insurgents. Our poor soldiers will come home with memories that will haunt them the rest of their lives. Our VA hospitals will claim that the physical and psychological problems of our soldiers were caused by something other than Iraq.

For the reasons above, I was against this war to begin with.

[ixion]

10. exactly, Frances...

One of the tactics of guerilla warfare is to create as much chaos as possible for the occupying nation. It's a tactic that goes back hundreds of years, and it's something the Bush cabal should have known would happen; yet, as with so many other facets of this stupid invasion, it was ignored.

[chiburb]

27. They're already coming home as you describe...

"I'm a counselor at a psychiatric triage unit in *****. I just had a long talk with one of our clients, a soldier just back from Iraq with classic PTSD symptoms. He's a wreck, reliving an incident where he was forced to fire on Iraqi children and now he can't live with himself. His family has abandoned him because he drinks nightly to drown the demons, he can't sleep because of the fear of "seeing the faces of those kids", and naturally, he feels that he can't go on with life anymore."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/

[MetaTrope]

9. In all the countries neighboring Iraq they operate as

the Red Crescent Society. So why are they in Iraq as the Red Cross? Is it Bush's philosophy of "Bring it on?"

[ShaneGR]

16. Actually they operate as Red Crescent

[Clark Can WIN]

17. It needs to be a Multilateral committment to turn the country back

over to it's own citizens as quickly as possible instead of the Unilateral piece of crap sham of a coalition over there now with it's boot on the country's neck.

The hit the Red Cross because it was a softer target that is also widely seen as an AMERICAN institution.

[Muddleoftheroad]

21. Chaos brings opportunity

They don't want peace because peace means the rebellion fails. They want hungry, angry people because those make fighters. The Red Cross and the UN and any other group trying to help will be attacked for that reason.

[bvar22]

22. The FIRST STEP ...

The expulsion of ALL INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE LOOTERS, and turn the rebuilding of Iraq over to the Iraqis.

[spindoctor]

23. Iraq became a failed nation after GW1

Historically the first Gulf War is the one between Iraq and Iran by the way, but what the hell.

After the first gulf war, the Iraqi regime lost control of half the country and its resources. Mostly because of the no-fly zones that were instated in the North and the South.
The government started spending billions of dollars on personal protection, and as always these funds were drawn from less significant accounts like healthcare and education.

In many ways, the whole organizational structure began to crumble as a result of the reduced governance. This created in effect a gangster state if you will. Organized crime is probably a big word, but more and more people got involved in shady dealings, especially with scaresness caused by a 10-year embargo to feed the black market.
In short, this already twisted society became a total chaos and corrupted from top to bottom.

I think it is correct when they say that these attacks are not a form of resistance as we know it. Whoever is behind them, is not trying to liberate Iraq, but rather trying to reinstate the chaos that they thrived on.

All of this could of course have been prevented if the Administration had bothered to do some actual research on Iraq first. It appears that most of their "intelligence" was obtained from people who had no notion of what Iraq had become in the past ten years. So don't think I am in any way trying to apologize for the mess we created. A post-war script going beyond Haliburton and oil wells would probably have been usefull too.

[MrPrax]

25. According to the AP report...RC

"Of course we don't understand why somebody would attack the Red Cross," she said. "The Red Cross has operated in this country since 1980, and we have not been involved in politics."...
I believe it IS the Red Cross arm operating and not the Red Crescent- makes sense in that the US occupation authority wouldn't want the Muslim arm aperating there...

BUT this is interesting from the same report!
"At the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in central Baghdad, witnesses said a suicide bomber drove an explosives-packed vehicle, apparently an ambulance, right up to security barriers outside the building at about 8:30 a.m. The vehcile detonated, blowing down the Red Cross's front wall, devastating the interior and blowing shrapnel and debris over a wide area.

Then, in quick succession, explosions went off at the al-Baya'a, al-Shaab and al-Khadra police stations. Ambulances, sirens wailing, crisscrossed the city all morning. "
Sounds like a major offensive like Tet...co-ordinated for Ramadan
AND...
"The Red Cross staff member said someone began firing off an automatic weapon immediately after the explosion - "100 bullets or more." He said he believed it was a gunmen somehow associated with the bomber "who wanted to scare people more."
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAOXWRLAMD.html

Yikes...where is security anyhow

[aquart]

28. Chaos is opportunity.

The Red Cross pulls out.

US troops, aware that ambulances can contain bombs, fire on innocent ill people increasing hatred and confusion and fear.

What do people do in such situations? They pray, because they're helpless to do anything else.

The religious leaders will be in clover, and Iraqis will die by the thousands until it's all sorted.

But at least it won't be Saddam killing them and that's a big plus, right?

Arghh, I think I'm still arguing with the friend I was talking to last night, who thinks going into Iraq was a good idea. An intelligent human in all other ways, too.