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Originally Posted by Mazer
What we are doing is hunting insurgents who interfere with the civilized people who have volunteered to fill the void that was left when Saddam's government fell. What we are doing is preventing a new dictatorship from replacing the old one while the people govern themselves of their own volition. Give them a little credit; they haven't started a civil war yet, and as time passes it's becoming less likely that they ever will, they haven't given up despite many attempted and a few successful assassinations on public leaders, their police and military forces grow larger and stronger every day, and the press has unprecidented access to the events that happen there. Their progress surprises even myself.
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this Pollyanna viewpoint, which mirrors that of the administration, is completely unsupported by the facts.
when
71% of iraqis want us to leave, and
60% of them support attacks on US troops, it's a misnomer to label them "insurgents" - we're at war with the majority of the population.
the Iraqi press is being targeted for death by the Iraqi government and the American press can't leave the Green Zone unescorted. the country is on the verge of anarchy - average of 100 iraqis are killed every day, with attacks on US troops averaging one every 15 minutes. by any metric you'd care to use, the plight of the average Iraqi is worse than any time in the past three years.
their progress does not surprise me.
edit: let's get an assessment from a
a non-kool aid drinker:
Quote:
Iraq situation is dire, Straw admits
Friday September 29, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
The former foreign secretary Jack Straw has described the situation in Iraq as "dire", blaming mistakes made by the US for the escalating crisis.
Mr Straw - now the leader of the Commons - was foreign secretary at the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and staunchly backed Tony Blair's decision to join the operation.
"The current situation is dire," he said on BBC1's Question Time last night. "I think many mistakes were made after the military action - there is no question about it - by the United States administration.
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