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Old 08-04-04, 06:45 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Default Account of Broad Shiite Revolt Contradicts White House Stand

James Risen

United States forces are confronting a broad-based Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has been the focus of American counterinsurgency efforts, United States intelligence officials said Wednesday.

That assertion contradicts repeated statements by the Bush administration and American officials in Iraq. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they did not believe the United States was facing a broad-based Shiite insurgency. Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.

But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising.

A year ago, many Shiites rejoiced at the American invasion and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who had brutally repressed the Shiites for decades. But American intelligence officials now believe that hatred of the American occupation has spread rapidly among Shiites, and is now so large that Mr. Sadr and his forces represent just one element..

Meanwhile, American intelligence has not yet detected signs of coordination between the Sunni rebellion in Iraq's heartland and the Shiite insurgency. But United States intelligence says that the Sunni rebellion also goes far beyond former Baathist government members. Sunni tribal leaders, particularly in Al Anbar Province, home to Ramadi, the provincial capital, and Falluja, have turned against the United States and are helping to lead the Sunni rebellion, intelligence officials say.

The result is that the United States is facing two broad-based insurgencies that are now on parallel tracks.

The Bush administration has sought to portray the opposition much more narrowly. In the Sunni insurgency, the White House and the Pentagon have focused on the role of the former leaders of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein's government, while in the Shiite rebellion they have focused almost exclusively on the role of Mr. Sadr. Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon that the fighting in Iraq was just the work of "thugs, gangs and terrorists," and not a popular uprising. General Myers added that "it's not a Shiite uprising. Sadr has a very small following."

According to some experts on Iraq's Shiites, the uprising has spread to many Shiites who are not followers of Mr. Sadr. "There is a general mood of anti-Americanism among the people in the streets," said Ghassan R. al-Attiyah, executive director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy in Baghdad. "They identify with Sadr not because they believe in him but because they have their own grievances."

Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. official who worked covertly in Iraq in the mid-1990's, said that some of those Sunni tribal leaders were once opposed to Saddam Hussein, and years ago approached the C.I.A. about working with it against Hussein. But now, many of those same tribal leaders have turned against the occupation, current and former intelligence officials say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/in...08SHIA.html?hp
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Old 08-04-04, 07:40 AM   #2
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I hate to say it, but after our troops come home and the Iraq government takes over then it'll be their problem, not ours. A quick and immediate pull out would not guarantee instant peace in Iraq, and we have an obligation to leave things better than we found them. The article fails to give any detail to pertaining to the character of the uprising, is it simply anti-Americanism, is it a power grab, or is it nothing more than adolescent rebellion and angst? Furthermore, what can we do that we aren't already doing to fix the problem? My take is that the Shiites are mad at us for not supporting their uprising in '91 and they're embarassed by their appearant uselessness in '03, so they want to restore their national pride with a show of force. Unless they show some grace and gratitude to the U.S., instead of fighting with us, they'll just look like children and be treated as such by the bordering nations and the world at large. Grow up Iraq.
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Old 08-04-04, 02:28 PM   #3
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so are we still pretending we're fighting the "war on terror" in Iraq or do we finally concede that these are just pissed-off Iraqis? or do we say that they're really terrorists anyway, by virtue of the fact that they're angry Arabs?
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Old 09-04-04, 05:44 PM   #4
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in a recent neilsen survey
for a national poll
i favored the opposition leader before the prime-minister in prefered PM and the opposition party to the current government..

though when asked if we should pull our troops out..i had to say no, let them finish the job..

for some reason i couldnt say cut and run...
Quote:
I hate to say it, but after our troops come home and the Iraq government takes over then it'll be their problem, not ours. A quick and immediate pull out would not guarantee instant peace in Iraq, and we have an obligation to leave things better than we found them.
i have to agree with that ..

on the other side of the coin..i dont believe there is a lot anyone can do to stop this country falling in a state of civil war..

but you just cant pull out a situation like this gradually the remaining troops would be slaughtered

this japaneese hostage situation is starting to look like a good attention getter for these insurgents..i got a feeling we have a few other similar senarios to look forward to in iraq in the coming months..
(one of our green senators just arrived there on a fact finding mission..)

really dont know about these aid workers sometimes..how much do they really help minimize the civilian casualties..because
they certainly have become more than a nucience to military ops being right in the middle of a war like like this...i am sure they are fully warned they could be killed by iraqis or by friendly fire...but are willing to take the risk....thats big of them ..but when they get on arab television with knives at their throats...i bet the army wishes they had of got them with some freindly fire..

exiting this situation is going to be a lot trickier than vietnam ..but comparing them too much is fairly futile and serves nothing...

sadly it may need to have civil war to ever find peace...
eg. if during the US civil war if the big powers of the time banded together and invaded to stop that war when it first started signs of becoming nasty or something ..tho i think back then foregin governments opted for funding one side or the other with arms and provisions..(oh wait they still do that too.. ) dont have to give reasons why that would of never happened.. but would peace have had happend sooner or later ?

they might need to do a sneaky retreat late one night..and leave these people sort things out..because i dont think democracy is going to go in there very easy..bit like trying to install office on a palm pilot

so if the job is to install democracy by june 30 dont work...then coalition gets the sack for screwing up the contract and goes home..
or we see how much more its like vietnam 4 years from now..

the question may as well of been would you prefer a rock or a hard place..

EDIT:
oops spoke too soon..
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...bductions_dc_2
(ack-(Reuters)Iraqi insurgents said they had seized four Italians and two Americans on the western outskirts of Baghdad on Friday)
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Last edited by multi : 09-04-04 at 06:44 PM.
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Old 09-04-04, 06:42 PM   #5
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Interesting reply, multi.

It's funny that most of us who were in favor of, or at least supportive of the war, are saying "Let's get the hell out", while most of the opposition now says, "We've got to stay in and finish." Just an observation, not an attempt to refuel old fires.
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Old 09-04-04, 07:28 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally posted by multi
in a recent neilsen survey
for a national poll
i favored the opposition leader before the prime-minister in prefered PM and the opposition party to the current government..

though when asked if we should pull our troops out..i had to say no, let them finish the job..

for some reason i couldnt say cut and run...

i have to agree with that ..

on the other side of the coin..i dont believe there is a lot anyone can do to stop this country falling in a state of civil war..

but you just cant pull out a situation like this gradually the remaining troops would be slaughtered

this japaneese hostage situation is starting to look like a good attention getter for these insurgents..i got a feeling we have a few other similar senarios to look forward to in iraq in the coming months..
(one of our green senators just arrived there on a fact finding mission..)

really dont know about these aid workers sometimes..how much do they really help minimize the civilian casualties..because
they certainly have become more than a nucience to military ops being right in the middle of a war like like this...i am sure they are fully warned they could be killed by iraqis or by friendly fire...but are willing to take the risk....thats big of them ..but when they get on arab television with knives at their throats...i bet the army wishes they had of got them with some freindly fire..

exiting this situation is going to be a lot trickier than vietnam ..but comparing them too much is fairly futile and serves nothing...

sadly it may need to have civil war to ever find peace...
eg. if during the US civil war if the big powers of the time banded together and invaded to stop that war when it first started signs of becoming nasty or something ..tho i think back then foregin governments opted for funding one side or the other with arms and provisions..(oh wait they still do that too.. ) dont have to give reasons why that would of never happened.. but would peace have had happend sooner or later ?

they might need to do a sneaky retreat late one night..and leave these people sort things out..because i dont think democracy is going to go in there very easy..bit like trying to install office on a palm pilot

so if the job is to install democracy by june 30 dont work...then coalition gets the sack for screwing up the contract and goes home..
or we see how much more its like vietnam 4 years from now..

the question may as well of been would you prefer a rock or a hard place..
i'm really torn on this issue, Multi....i agree that pulling out of Iraq is not an option at this point, but ask yourself this: what if you knew, right now, that this was going to go on for years? that we would be there for the next 10 or 15 years, young soldiers dying on a regular basis, day after day, year after year, billions of dollars being spent trying to mold these people into something we think they should be? does this really make any more sense than leaving now?

the June 30th deadline is an arbitrary artificial deadline set by the administration in a desperate attempt to salvage this mess before the election. clinging to this deadline is only getting more people killed at this point.

it's an infuriating situation, Multi - none of this had to happen, because we didn't have to go into Iraq in the first place. at this point, these kids are dying over there to save the President's ass.
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Old 09-04-04, 07:32 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally posted by theknife
...or do we say that they're really terrorists anyway, by virtue of the fact that they're angry Arabs?
Actually, the epithet 'terrorist' does apply, but this doesn't make it any less ironic that these people are not the same brand, group or class of terrorists which this war was supposed to eliminate, these are terrorists this war created. (or magnified, isolated, exacerbated, provoked... whatever you prefer.)

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hate to say I told you so, but some of us certainly expected it would be, didn't we?

But anyway, it does us little good to quibble about terminology, "angry Arabs" or "terrorists" these are people engaged in the definitive acts of provocation and coercion that earn the name. Hostage taking certainly qualifies.

The coalition forces do have rules of engagement and though they may be imperfect, blurry and adrift in a vague context, they do seek to operate at a different moral level. I would agree the consideration of morality in such situations is about as productive as lighting a cigarette with a nuclear weapon, that we have forced these people's hands and given them the very freedom of anarchy they've obviously craved for some time, but just because we're opposed to the war doesn't mean we have to make any special linguistic allowances for desperadoes, thugs and assholes. The disenfranchised human animal will always resort to terror. Why we pretended not to know this is beyond me.

And it is hard to say which force is 'more sophisticated.' The indigenous people do have deep centuries of traditions of control and proven methods incitement as their arsenal along with a primitive but highly effective technology, whether it's bits of metal and rusted wire and a handful of fuel, semi-automatic weapons or television images of blindfolded Japanese civilians. The coalition has GPS tracking, night vision, unmanned surviellance and laser guidance, but is still a blunt, brute and green force, designed and conditioned for something far more coherent than it faces.

It is extremely philosophically irksome that this prophecy is so self-fulfilling that many will soon so completely forget the true identity of these people that they will become stand-ins for the terrorists that posed real threats to us on our own soil, once, long ago, as if in a fevered dream. While we pursue teenaged suicide bombers contained in a dispossessed third world with all our classic American determination and enthusiasm, whatever global terror networks may be out there with the real power to hurt us are still there, watching us expend ourselves, giggling in the shadows.

You're absolutely right that we should make a distinction theknife, a serious, clear distinction that we will not forget between the fighting Iraqi and the global terrorist, but the longer the fight goes, the more moot the distinction may become, because we are breeding the global terrorists of tomorrow.


And I'd disagree with your observation mdneer. You yourself were saying essentially "fight harder, fight better" in another post--and this is pretty consistent with what I'm hearing from 'most' other advocates, while I myself, and I believe 'most' who were against it think that, as multi said, if we were to disappear overnight we will have "helped" the situation as much as if we stayed there 40 years, and that we wouldn't be doing much more harm than has already been done.



edit: I posted at about the same time as theknife there and his comment made me think that the truer observation is probably that those on both sides of the issue are now simply less certain of themselves. The impact of reality is far greater than the impact of ideas...
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Old 09-04-04, 08:43 PM   #8
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well i’m not a republican but i’ve gotta give our president credit where credit is due and that’s this week’s on the job training and employment news. it’s true! he’s taken a bunch of unemployed, disaffected & aimless people and turned them into very focused america-hating fighting machines. talk about productivity. and at the rate bush is going all of iraq's civillians, young and old, will be fully employed killing americans right in time for the november elections, if not sooner. while it's true that the liberals said it would happen, bush is the one who rolled up his sleeves and made it happen. please remember to acknowledge bush for this amazing feat when you pull the lever on nov 2nd.

- js.
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Old 09-04-04, 11:03 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally posted by theknife
i'm really torn on this issue, Multi....
likewise..

i see these dead kids every weeknight at the end of PBS newshour...and their eyes stare back at me ..its the silence and the eyes..
leaves me with the cold feeling of senselesness and futility for a few minutes after..
then there is constant streams of injured and dying iraqi's also on the media..largely the arab tv networks playing up the civilian deaths...wich in turn is really getting to arabs in surrounding countries

you have two different cultures blitzing their public with propaganda on scales we really havent seen before..
arabs seem split on supporting terrorisim and having US style democracies and in the west everyones
split on the war on terror and on the govenments that have been handling it up to now..

a bit worrying in this country the fact that several tons of amonium nitrate has gone missing...a few months away from an election..
that could build a some really nasty fucking bomb
they gov will say they are doing all they can..but they will secretly probably let one happen because it will be in their favor...
as was stated in another very good thread here since this political forum started a huge terrorist attack in australia or the US would probably give power to bush or howard..and al quade is probably smart enough to realise that.
i think i am more worried about our gov seting up a terrorist attack..for its own gain..
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