Yeah, just like the millions of moderate, peace-loving Americans who went door-to-door to root out the KKK in the 50s and 60s. Oh wait, no they didn’t…
Sadly, this form of terrorism comes with the territory when you are perceived as an occupying power. The British experienced many years of it in Northern Ireland from the IRA and its offshoots. Anyone British or Protestant was considered fair game whether you were a soldier or civilian, man or child. Did the many millions of peace loving Irish root them out? Of course not. Instead a whole new set of terrorist thugs were born in the form of the UDF and its offshoots. Their remit? To kill innocent Catholics, man or child. One lesson we can learn from the British forces is they managed, with some notable exceptions, to stick to the rule of law. If that were not the case the level of hatred of the “occupiers” would only have been far worse than it was. The pool of potential terrorists would have grown larger and the circle of violence would have escalated. Fast forward to Iraq. We are the occupiers. We must expect, while we are there, that there is going to be a significant proportion of the population who want to fight and kill us. Just as in Ireland, it will be through the only weapon they have available: terrorism. How bad it gets may depend on how we react.
Just what do you think is a significant proportion ? 1 percent ? That’s a lot of terrorists !
What is the evidence that the US has not given up sovereignty? I’m assuming you believe this considering you still believe that the US are occupying Iraq.
If you were awake and paying attention around the time of the handover, you would know that the US military made it perfectly clear that it would continue to operate under its own commanders and its own rules, and that it would not be taking any orders from the Iraqi government.
The Iraqis might have nominal sovereignty, but there’s little doubt that, despite the training of Iraqi police and other local security forces, the US army still constitutes a controlling power and is an occupying force in Iraq.
Here’s the acid test: Tell me whether you truly believe that, if the current Iraqi head of state asked the US to leave and let him govern the country, the US would comply. If the answer is no, then how can the Iraqis be said to hold sovereignty. And if they don’t, then who does? Seems to be only one possible answer.
I’ll also add that even if the Iraqis are technically in charge, the view within Iraq and the rest of the world is we’re still really in charge. They would be correct too.
I do not know. That might be as good a guess as any.
The forces of the coalition of the willing have demonstrably given up sovereignty. They are still there, however. The regime they chose for Iraq is in power and relies on coalition forces for its legitimacy and military support.
I suppose we can only try to imagine what our reaction would be if it was our own country that was invaded. We are lucky not to have an authoritarian dictator like Sadaam, but we would still probably resent a foreign power choosing our government for us. Especially if conditions in our country became worse than before the invasion. Especially if there was a suggestion that the invaders might be attempting to prosper from rebuilding work, handing out contracts to their pals without letting local engineers or even non coalition countries tender.
We can hope that many Iraqis might welcome our presence. I just do not think it should come as a surprise to anyone that many do not.
In a recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly (within the last couple months), there was a long article by a reporter who bought a couple of computers from fleeing AQers. The article included quotes from many emails–one, IIRC, written by OBL–and several, like, manifestos, that laid out their strategy.
I was going to accept this explanation but then I thought about post WWII Germany. We did the same thing, remove a vile scum dictator and foisted democracy on the remnants of the Reich. There were incidents of die-hard Nazis killing an “occupier” soldier here and there (and if this were the only thing bad going on in Iraq I could almost accept it). But you had no slaughter of people coming in to try to fix up the war torn infrastructure. Hell people like electricity and roads and plumbing.
This is why I think it is cultural, and speaks volumes about said culture.
This makes sense as far as it goes, but it’s not rational to murder contractors who are there rebuilding not only what was destroyed by us, but also what fell into disrepair under the previous regime. To be absolutely fair, Iraq’s sad state today is not due only to our having attacked it.
I mean, a civil engineer? Civil engineers build targets, not weapons!
The majority of Muslims fucking suck. Maybe not all of them, but most of them do. The world would absolutely be a better place if that fucked up religion never existed.
I think it’s a shitty double standard in the world when an entire region can hate a countries citizens for being americans and it’s ok but if americans don’t care for a person because of their hate filled cult-like religion they are looked down upon as if they are scum.
Fuck em I say. Let’s get the fuck out of there and let them have at each other.
According to Rumsfeld, the transition of political power will not change the chain of military authority in the country at all, and “has nothing to do with U.S. troops.”
So, this sovereign Iraqi government can’t even prosecute foreign troops or contractors for breaking the law, and this immunity from prosecution is the result of a US edict on the matter.
Whilst damning all muslims may be a bit over the top, it is also true to say that islam is not entirely innocent in all this.
Note, however, that this method of killing is only acceptable in a jihad situation and most muslims would deny that Iraq is a jihad. Therefore they would condemn these killings in Iraq on these grounds. If there was a jihad, on the other hand, then this method of killing is not only desirable but mandated by God.