Here is a pretty good tip off of why we can't do any good in Iraq

[NNN0LHI]

When our soldiers can be attacked on a regular basis (like 20 or 30 times a day regular) and the millions of civilian Iraqis do not lift a finger to warn our guys whats coming, or even turn them in afterwards, the party is over. We have lost. Some of us just don't know it yet.

Don

[spindoctor]

1. nah

How many Americans lift a finger after or before a drive-by or a good ole-fashioned mugging?

I am sure civilian Iraqis have bigger things on their minds.

[Wickerman]

2. I'm not so sure

I would bet that money is being spread around pretty thick. Thats how we've done this thing so far - I don't see us changing. People don't seem to be responding to whatever incentive it is that we are offering. These folks have lived with suspicion and fear all their lives - we will have to work to win their trust. It appears we haven't done so by bombing the shit out of them, putting them under sanctions for 12 years, then bombing the shit out of them again.

[gratuitous]

3. That's a big part of it

"These folks have lived with suspicion and fear all their lives." We in the U.S. don't have an appreciation of what that's truly like. When your neighbor might rat you out anytime, when the mail carrier is really a government agent who reports to his superiors all the time. When dissent in any fashion is dealt with ruthlessly -- death, disappearance and domestic terror.

And the terrorized aren't ignorant of who's pulling the levers. The U.S. has a shameful history of first propping up Saddam, then making a big show of demonizing him, and finally toppling him. Our society has a collective amnesia about the first part of that sequence, a dim recollection of the second part, and a good memory of the third part. The people who have survived all the horrors of Saddam remember the whole sequence very well.

And since removing Saddam, the U.S. has done very little to improve its image with the Iraqi people. And there was and is no coherent plan by this corrupt administration to do anything of the sort anytime soon. These people are wounded and scared, and we have tens and tens of thousands of troops running around pointing guns at them. What would your reaction be under those circumstances? It's not hard to divine what the average Iraqi is thinking, either.

[dawgman]

7. sounds familiar

"'These folks have lived with suspicion and fear all their lives.' We in the U.S. don't have an appreciation of what that's truly like. When your neighbor might rat you out anytime, when the mail carrier is really a government agent who reports to his superiors all the time. When dissent in any fashion is dealt with ruthlessly -- death, disappearance and domestic terror."

Sounds like the "tips" program the dept. of Homeland security.

[jab105]

5. I would!!

I think most people I know would...wouldn't you?

[caledesi]

4. I get it..believe me and the attacks just keep increasing. Remember

when it was about 10 a day and now we are up to 30-40. It's a loser, just like Vietnam was. Nationalistic fervor will win out.

[kentuck]

6. We are trying to buy their loyalty...

We are paying them better pay thean they have ever received in their lives. This is vintage Bush. Buy them!