What is the REAL situation in Iraq?

Great Debates
21

Sorry for the double post, here is an excerpt from yesterday’s security report. It is by NO means comprehensive and leaves out many many incidents (I can vouch for the fact that I hear several rockets/explosions a day that don’t make it to the report)

THE OCCULATION OF THE 12th IMAM -30 SEP

30 September is a date of significance to Shiite Muslims. The period 29-30 Sep 04 is likely to see significant numbers of Shiite pilgrims converge on mosques in KARBARLA, NAJAF and to a less marked degree BAGHDAD. This period could present an opportunity for anti-Shiite elements, such as Zaqawi’s Tawhid, to commit acts of violence. It should be noted that significant numbers of pilgrims have been reported in vicinity of HILLAH.

BAGHDAD

EVENTS OF INTEREST – 28 SEP 04:

· ZONE 1: Time unspecified, rocket attack vicinity of AL RASHEED HOTEL

· ZONE 2W: 1457 hours, civilian convoy reportedly attacked with IED (NFI)

· 37N: 2357 hours, civilian convoy reportedly attacked with IED (NFI)

SUMMARY OF REPORTED EVENTS 28 SEP 04 –BAGHDAD:

· IED: eleven (11)

· COMPLEX ATTACKS: nil (0)

· SMALL ARMS FIRE ATTACKS: two (2)

· RPG ATTACKS: one (1)

· HAND GREANADE ATTACK: nil (0)

· INDIRECT FIRE ATTACKS: eleven (11)

OTHER AREAS:

EVENTS OF INTEREST – 28 SEP 04:

NORTH

· MOSUL: 1445 hours, a railway train was reportedly attacked with small arms fire and the last carriage looted by local civilians.

· MOSUL: 1445 hours, a CF convoy was attacked with a VBIED (NFI)

· MOSUL: Time unspecified, civilian convoy attacked.

· MOSUL: various times: two (2) IED attacks, one (1) small arms attack, two (2) hand grenade attacks and three (3) indirect fire attack reported

· TAL AFAR: 2230 hours, buses carrying ING were reportedly attacked with multiple IED. Multiple ING casualties reported.

NORTH CENTRAL

· DULUIYAH: 1000 hours, ING soldier reported to IPS that he was abducted and beaten by Anti Iraqi Forces

· DULUIYAH: time unspecified, one (1) indirect fire attack reported

· BALAD: 0845 hours, one (1) small arms fire attack reported

· BAQUBAH: 2025 hours, ING Check Point reported to have been attacked with multiple VBIED

· BAQUBAH: various times, one (1) IED attack, one (1) hand grenade attack and one (1) indirect fire attack

· HAWIJAH: 1457 hours, three (3) SA-7 reported to have been handed into CF

· TAJI: various times, one (1) IED and one (1) indirect fire attack reported

· TIKRIT: 1215 hours, one (1) complex attack reported

· MUQDADIYAH: 1115 hours, one (1) IED attack reported

· BALAD RUZ: 1450 hours, one (1) IED attack reported

WEST

· RAMADI: various times, three (3) IED attacks, one (1) complex attack and one (1) indirect fire attack reported

· KHALADIYAH: 1420 hours, one (1) IED attack reported

· RAWAH: 1930 hours, one (1) small arms fire attack reported

· FALLUJAH: unspecified time, one (1) indirect fire attack reported

· SAQLAWIYAH: unspecified time, one (1) indirect fire attack reported

SOUTH CENTRAL

· HILLAH: Large crowds of pilgrims reported

· MASHUR: 1315 hours, IPS found and cleared an abandoned car containing gas cylinders linked to explosive

· HUSWAH: 2055 hours, one (1) IED attack reported

· ISAKNDARYAH: various times, one (1) IED attack and one (1) indirect fire attack reported

· MUSAYYIB: various times, one (1) complex attack and one (1) small arms fire attack reported

SOUTH EAST

· BASRAH: 1048 hours, a large crowd, including people armed with small arms and machine guns, assembled at the CITY STADIUM

· North of BASRAH: 1144 hours, CF reported heavy tribal fighting

· BASRAH: 10815 hours, a complex attack on civilian convoy reported

· BASRAH: various times: one (1) IED attack and one (1) indirect fire attack

GENERAL

IMPORTANT DATES:
· 30 SEP – Night of Forgiveness. The night of forgiveness is where Muslims ask Allah (swt) to forgive the dead. 30 Sep is also the anniversary of the birth of Al Mahdi, the 12th Imam, after whom Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia are named.

22

Great you could join us, madmonk!

I think this guy can genuinely be counted on to give us the Straight Dope, agreed? (Or is he a leftist who went to Baghdad just to complain?)

23

But that’s rather the point. New York, which is governed to death on multiple levels by stacks of bureaucracies weighing probably six sextillion tons, sounds like hell on earth when you spit out the numbers. Meanwhile, Bagdad is in de facto anarchy, occupied by a foreign force, and seething with terrorists. You’d likely expect violence. I mean, violence is violence — whether it is being carried out by muggers hidden in the shadows of tall buildings, ideologues cowering behind civilian mosques, or government thugs sent by Saddam to kill and torture your family. Quite honestly, if you believe that the situation in Iraq is so dire, then I do not understand how you can fail to support US efforts to calm it down, particularly given that your political ideology does not forbid you from interfering in the affairs of others, and in fact, encourages it.

24

this might be the first time i’m saying this in this particular context, but i’ve said it to many people before. i always hear people telling me they talked to someone who’d just returned and who painted a rosy picture of iraq and the gratefulness of iraqis. my response to them, and to each individual who paints a not-so-rosy picture, is simply: you don’t see everything that’s going on. your situation is not necessarily generalizable, so we should be careful when trying to make generalizations based on individual accounts.

having said that, thanks a ton for your perpsective, madmonk28. even if we can’t be sure things are as you say (overall–i have no reason to doubt your presentation of facts), it’s still invaluable to get this sort of first person account.

now, on to my editorializing: i personally think the situation in iraq, overall, is going to shit. the religious and ethnic groups there are large and tend to hate each other very much. a brutal dictatorship may have been all that was holding the state together. with the recent influx of non-iraqis bringing yet more fighting and causing more unrest between the native groups, you can bet this will be a dashed hard place to gain peace. various iraqi people might be experiencing a better way of life, but how long will it last if civil war breaks out?

25

But the numbers are different. The numbers of family members killed by Saddam in the decade before this intervention were vastly smaller than the family members killed by the current violence. Youcannot compare 13 muggings with 13 people killed by a rocket from a US helicopter.

How can they be said to be “calming it down” when so much of the rockets are launched at them?

I said all along that I might advocate a well conceived, UN-sanctioned plan to change the Iraqi regime for humanitarian reasons (after similar intervention in at least 6 other regions around the world).

I said many times that this poorly conceived shambles would make the situation in Iraq dire.

26

So much of the rockets? Please forgive that grammatical carbuncle!

And Lib: what do you make of madmonk’s testimony?

27

You forgot aircraft slamming into tall buildings, and multiple hurricane strikes, the combination of which killed fewer people than did the last 3 month’s violence in Iraq. The Iraqi’s need to take a hint from us americans, and not get upset over such normal, day to day death and destruction.

28

Speaking of rockets, what else would you suggest to deal with Al Sadr’s goons? I am of the opinion that more rockets are needed (see WW2, in particular the part where we bombed/shot the holy hell out Japan and Germany for several years, and the subsequent lack of noteworthy resistance), but if there is another reasonable option, what would it be?

29

Well, now that the eggs have very definitely been broken and Fallujah is utterly out of Allied hands anyway, I’d say: Partition.

30

Civil war won’t break out for a number of reasons. The main fuel of the insurgency is of the Sunnis being kicked out of their premier positions, and the lack of reconstruction and promises being met by the Coalition.

I personally have great faith in the Coalition, and if it had been invaded on any other more legitamate pretext, the situation still would of occured, besides we’re dealing with a nation which has suffered more than 30 years of repression and war, instead of writing it off as a failed state shit hole in hell and a handbasket, maybe actually trying to understand the things before the invasion and the nature of Saddams rule, we’d understand better why they were fighting.

31

Iraq will completely collapse only if the US loses the political will to stay there and fight it out. If the US sticks it out, having created the fucked up mess in the first place, then Iraq has a decent to good chance of stabalizing sometime in the future (stabalizing not necessarily equaling a democratic Iraq of course). That ‘sometime’ might be years of course, but it will happen. This instability can’t last year after year indefinitely…its not sustainable without massive outside support.

Whats the Iraqi situation today? Well, its obviously pretty dire…especially in light of the fact that American resolve seems to be wavering. This is of much more concern than the attacks taking place in Iraq, because if the US leaves Iraq goes into the fire. One thing I’ve noticed though is that the terrorists/insurgents are increasingly targetting ‘soft’ targets (my guess is that tangling with the US/UK troops is too costly for them to sustain on a regular basis)…many of which are Iraqi’s themselves. This could have one of two possible outcomes.

One is that it will completely paralyze the Iraqi’s with fear and terror, causing them to completely disengage from any attempt to self govern, tuck their collective heads down and kiss their asses good bye. Or, it might piss them off and focus their anger away from the Americans (well, somewhat) and towards these other groups. And I’ve noticed a pick up in people joining the Iraqi nation guard, inspite of the targetting of new recruits.

Anyway, in the long run it will all come down to US political will to stay in Iraq until things stabalize…or to tuck tail and let Iraq go into the fire. Its all on our shoulders what future Iraq has.

-XT

32

He makes nothing of it because he is attempting to B.S. you by…hmm, how would the philosphers put it… creating a false dilemma by posing a complex question, perhaps. In other words, you can’t call Iraq unsafe unless you are willing to conceed that New York is equally unsafe. See? You lose.

For one, there are many other possible assessments, and for another, as you and others suggest, the relevance of New York to Iraq is highly questionable. It’s a painfully simple thing to critique using the simplest logical tools, and Lib’s (im)moral relativism oozes through the gaping holes in the argument.

Really, it’s amazing the rhetorical honesty these guys at least feign to display so long as the dialectical exercise can be won on their terms; or at least so long as the opposition can be snowed by the relentless spouting of jargon. Otherwise, see the arms flailing wildly to grasp at any and all straws within reach.

(oh, I await the ensuing fountain of bullshit with bated breath)

33

Sounds like a good reason to pull the troops the hell out of Iraq and station them around NYC :wink:

34

See Vietnam, in particular where we bombed/shot the holy hell out of Vietnam for several years, and the subsequent lack of noteworthy surrender by the Vietnamese.

or the current situation:

35

I take him at his word. He simply itemized the incidents of violence. I could do the same for New York City, but that point has been made. I noted his remark that there are things that go unreported, but with NYC same same. And I don’t mean to minimize the problems in Iraq, but as I say, anyone surprised by it is quite naive. And if they hold to an interventionist political philosophy — I mean honestly, if they take upon themselves the yoke of deciding what’s good for other people and what central plan should be made to accomodate everyone from rural Wyoming to South Central Los Angeles — then they should be at the front lines of people who are cheering on Bush to enforce the peace. But what the way alll this hysteria about Iraq comes across to me is that people are actually glad that there’s trouble in River City. It’s like they consider it to be good punishment for Bush and good vindication for themselves. That’s what’s disturbing about it to me. They use these gloomy interpretations (whether real or not) for no greater purpose than an I-told-you-so.

36

No, Vietnam is what you get when you have certain areas and methods ‘off limits’, and fight something less than a total war. The last war we fought with our gloves truly off was WW2, and the last war we utterly and completely won was WW2.

37

Posted by Liberal

But I have spent some time in NYC and time in Baghdad (and pretty much every other major city in Iraq). I have gone days and days in NYC without hearing an explosion while in recent months I have never gone a 24hr period without hearing explosions (I doubt I’ve gone 12 hours without hearing one) and I bet I’ve never gone more than 2 hours without hearing gunfire and our office is in the quietest district of Baghdad.

To say Baghdad and NYC are “same same” is wildly off the mark. Baghdad is much more dangerous, there is no effective government in many areas, US helicopters fire rockets into city streets and car bombs go off daily, not same same, worse worse.

38

But you’re in a war. That’s the whole point I was making. I didn’t say New York and Bagdad are same same except in the sense that much violence goes unreported, so you can put your straw man back in its carrying case. The point is that all this feigning of surprise, all this downright enjoyment of the mysery for the sake of punishment and/or vindication, and all this hypocrisy of bashing Bush while supporting the efforts to establish peace — these are Neanderthal in their conception.

39

Not convincingly, it hasn’t. Or even logically.

You are comparing crimes in New York City (including non-violent larceny) with assaults against troops in Iraq. Apples and oranges. How many armed assaults against police officers have occurred in New York within the past month? (A more apt comparison.)

40

Well, at least we know where Brutus stands on this: McNamara is wrong in now considering Vietnam a mistake. Rather the mistake was "hav[ing] certain areas and methods ‘off limits’, and fight[ing] something less than a total war, " in other words not being more brutal and willing to kill more innocent people.

Thanks, Brutus. At least now we can consider your comments about the current situation in the context of your stand on this past one.