Thank you. I’ve been waiting a dozen pages for someone to point that out. The current resistance is in no way about “fighting foreign invaders.” It’s about who gets to control the country next. Folks that cheer on the insurgency are, for the most part, cheering on the Sunni to once again crush the majority Shia along with the Kurds.
Please explain the point of attacking heavily armoured American troops then. I’m sure you have a logical explanation.
Another expert! Surely, we are lucky to have such as these, who know precisely what the insurgency is about, their goals, their strategy! I only regret that you hadn’t the time to limn for us the sources of this precise information, that seems to have eluded so many of us.
Sure. They don’t.
Understand I’m not talking about the initial resistance to the US invasion. I’m talking about the present Sunni resistance forces that are doing everything they can to fight what they see as a Shia take over of the country. These forces, if at all possible, avoid direct contact with US forces. When they engage US forces they use “stand off” weapons such as roadside bombs, mortars, car bombs, or suicide bombers. After Fallujah it is increasingly unlikely that they will engage US forces directly even in urban fighting for protracted encounters.
Sunni insurgents target US soldiers because the US is supporting an election that will bring the Shia to power. The Sunni insurgents would very much like the Shia to lose the support of the US military. However, US soldiers are not the main target of the insurgents. Iraqis are. For every 1 US soldier that gets killed, 30 to 100 Iraqis are killed by the insurgents. The point is fear. The goal is to disrupt the upcoming elections in anyway possible. Pollsters, government workers, candidiates, and Iraqi security forces are the prime targets, but any Iraqi will do if it makes people too afraid to support a non-Sunni government.
Do US soldiers in Iraq have any internet access at their bases? I’m fondly imagining a soldier sitting there, surfing the Dope, as I’m sure they do, and coming across Blackclaw’s post.
How relieved they’ll be to find out that they’re not under constant threat of attack.
The don’t have to cower in their bases anymore.
There was them reporting that attacks are getting more and more frequent, but clearly they are mistaken…
Sarcasm is an art form that eludes your grasp.
But what the heck. I’ll claim to be an expert. At least until a real one comes along. I hold a Masters in International Relations and Iraq was one of my areas of study. My prediction on post war Iraq was in error, I thought more Kurds would be shooting at somebody by now. But generally the post war mess that has emerged should not have come as a surprise to anyone except perhaps the Bush administration.
Now, hopefully, we can assume that you already know that the Sunni have dominated control of Iraq for much of that nation’s history. Using just a small bit of logic it is not too difficult to conclude that it would be unlikely that the Sunni would let go of that control without at least some members of its community being willing to fight to retain it. Upon looking at the type of targets the insurgents chose - Shia Mosques, Shia clerics, Kurds, pollsters, government security forces, election candidates, etc… the conclusion is at least circumstantially backed up.
It is of course impossible to read the minds of the insurgents to grasp their motives. Nor do I believe that all the insurgent groups are composed of single, coordinated organization. But the clear motivator for these groups, fear of a Shia dominated Iraq, is consistent for almost all of the insurgents. (Note: not all.)
Here is an article that offers some good insights into the Iraqi insurgency:
http://www.mideasti.org/articles/doc89.html
This article makes the case that the resistance is mostly led by former Baathists.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resist/2004/1119core.htm
I believe that the insurgency has a wider base than just former Baathists but am certain that the insurgency is almost entirely comprised of Sunni Iraqis with a few small elements of foreign religious extremists.
No, the problem is you’re willfully misreading my post.
**When they engage US forces they use “stand off” weapons such as roadside bombs, mortars, car bombs, or suicide bombers. **
If you are capable of reading a newspaper and learning that these types of attacks are growing in frequency, than you are equally capable of reading how many Iraqis are getting killed everyday in comparison to US soldiers. The insurgency clearly has a targeting preference.
Killing US soldiers is harder to accomplish and elicits a harsher rebuke then killing Iraqi civilians yet achieves the same goal of throwing a monkey wrench into stability.
We ought to pull the fuck out and let them have their civil war already.
What the hell? Let’s try that again.
Killing Iraqi civilians is easier to accomplish and elicits a smaller rebuke then killing US soldiers. Such acts still achieve the same goal of throwing a monkey wrench into stability.
It’s not exactly rocket science why their preferred targets are civilians.
I asked why the insurgents were bothering to attack US troops if, as you contend, they are not interested in fighting ‘foreign invaders’
You replied with:
Hard to wilfully misread to be fair.
I’m not sure what the relevance is of you then going on to cite the fact that the insurgents use ““stand off” weapons such as roadside bombs, mortars, car bombs, or suicide bombers” (as opposed to attacking with their fists?) in these attacks. That would appear to support my contention that the insurgents are motivated to attack the occupying troops rather than your contention that they aren’t. US troops tend to use a wider range of “stand off” Weapons such as big fuck off bombs dropped from planes, but I wouldn’t cite that as proof that they have no interest in fighting the insurgents.
I was too busy replying to Blackclaw’s post to even notice the way that he categorised a ‘suicide bomber’ as a ‘stand off weapon’ 
One with a remarkably sophisticated guidance system.
This whole argument over what the insurgency wants would be greatly clarified if we could get some honest numbers as to how many insurgents there are. For most of 2004, we heard that it consisted of a few thousand baathist holdouts, and foreign terrorists. Then in October the numbers got upped to 11,000 to 20,000. Now there are reports of 200,000+ insurgents. It’s doubtful that that increase came about in large part as a result of old Baathists suddenly ‘getting it’ and deciding to fight for the old Saddamite dominance. Or have they all been on vacation this past year?
Don’t quite agree with you but so what if they are? Why should we let your view of the situation determine the boundaries of discussion?
All this is really for another thread but: Avenger, I think Blackclaw was honing on the fact that you said insurgents attack “heavily armoured” US troops- they usually go for softer military targets like roadside checkpoints,mess halls, etc. I’m sure you could find cites of attacks on some APCs if you want to continue the hijack.
Blackclaw has a better understanding of the situation there than the rest of you. What he has written makes perfect sense. What the rest of you has written makes it looks like the insurgents are freedom fighters, fighting for a better Iraq for all. And that the Americans are there with the sole purpose of killing brown people and stealing their natural resources. In other words, you see the insurgents comprised of caring, thoughtful humanitarians, with no other goal than to rid their country of the terrorist Americans. If you truly believe this, I wouldn’t be surprised if you also believed that up is down and the sun sets in the east.
You’re damn right I’m not. FYI: I was still in highschool when I started to teach [often illiterate] muslim women to speak Dutch, in order to get them out of their isolation.
Right. I used the wrong word. They’re eating away our freedom.
There IS no accurate picture. Our government is SO afraid of being called racist [see below] and SO eager to keep the calm, nothing is being publishized.
You can ask any Dutchman, though.
Heck. Ask any muslim.
This, ofcourse, is lame bullshit.
Do you think I’d be alive when the situation was that bad?
Would you agree with me when every woman in the Netherlands is being called a whore?
When everyone is being killed while criticizing the islam?
Because, contrary to your country, our homo-sexuals are quite open about it.
Well…They used to be, anyway.
Yes.
Nothing was done in the last decades. Freedom of religion/speech, you know. Steps are being taken right now.
After someone was killed for his freedom of speech.
(A mosque in Amsterdam is teaching their followers just that: Throw homo-sexuals from a high building - head first - and when not dead, stone him)
(“Al Tawheed mosque, considered a hotbed of radicalism. Its imam refers to Christians and Jews as “kindling for hell fire” and says homosexuals should be thrown off tall buildings, preferably head first”.
The Times & The Sunday Times)
Things like this happen every day, yes. See below.
Excuse me, but you haven’t got a clue what going on in the Netherlands, have you?
Honey: I WISH I was exaggerating. With all my heart, I wish I was. 
Again: There’s nothing more I desire: To live in peace, with our muslim brothers and sisters.
It’s hard work when the love is coming from one side only, though.
I urge you to read this: Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines
It’s an honest account of what’s going on around here.
Our mistakes are clearly indicated. It’s not a one way article.
Some quotes:
Many of the more than 1 million Muslims who live in the Netherlands have already opted for radical Islam.
Geert Wilders [a populist politician who, indeed, criticizes Islam] also had to go into hiding. He now appears in public only for legislative sessions in the Hague, where he travels under armed guard. He complained in mid-December that the death threats had hampered his ability to build his party. The head of a conservative think tank told newspapers he had been advised by security personnel to stay away from Wilders. Anyone who declared himself for one of those 28 seats that looked ripe for the plucking would thereby place himself on a death list, too. One strange but highly professional video that can be downloaded off the Internet shows drawings of machine guns, then photographs of Wilders with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and then captioned panels reading:
name: geert wilders
occupation: idolator
sin: mocking Islam
punishment: beheading
reward: Paradise, in sha Allah
Already in the 1990s, there were reports of American-style shootouts in schools, one involving two Turkish students in the town of Veghel. This past October, newspaper readers were riveted by the running saga of a quiet married couple who had been hounded out of the previously livable Amsterdam neighborhood of Diamantbuurt by gangs of Muslim youths. There were incidents of wild rejoicing across Holland in the wake of the September 11 attacks, notably in the eastern city of Ede. The weekly magazine Contrast took a poll showing that just under half the Muslims in the Netherlands were in “complete sympathy” with the September 11 attacks. At least some wish to turn to terrorism. In the wake of the van Gogh murder, Pakistani, Kurdish, and Moroccan terrorist cells were discovered. The Hague (news - web sites)-based “Capital Network,” out of which van Gogh’s killer Mohammed Bouyeri came, had contact with terrorists who carried out bombings in Casablanca in 2003. Perhaps the most alarming revelation was that an Islamist mole was working as a translator in the AIVD, the national investigative service, and tipping off local radicals to impending operations.
A society that fears it will die if it does not change, but would rather die than be accused of racism, gay-bashing, or Islamophobia - That’s us, alright.
CarnalK: This thread has been hi-jacked so often I’m not sure anyone remembers what it was about anymore. And as Alde is no longer around I doubt it matters.
Creative_Munster, who are you replying to? And, while you’re there, what the hell are you talking about?
No, you asked why they attacked “heavily armoured American” troops and my answer was “they don’t.” The insurgents as a general rule do not engage US armor directly. Your use of the term “heavily armored” made me envision US Armor… i.e. tanks. The insugents hit “soft” targets. They hit supply trucks, they lob mortars, they set off roadside bombs.
Sorry if my answer was too narrowly defined for you.
As opposed to attacking with direct weapons fire and making sure they achieve a military objective. The insurgents have a motivation to attack US troops, but they have thus far been unwilling to really press an attack against US troops as they have been against Iraqi security forces. This is partly because Iraqi security forces are an easier target, but I believe it is also because the real enemy the insurgents are fighting is an Iraqi government that they (the Sunni) do not control.
[QUOTE=AvengerCreative_Munster, who are you replying to? And, while you’re there, what the hell are you talking about?[/QUOTE]
I was replying to you, elucidator, and the others who share your sentiments. As to what the hell I’m talking about, I wrote in my post what I was talking about.
Yes, that was when it didn’t make much sense. I know this is the pit ‘n’ all, but care to back up your charicterisation of my views with any actual evidence.