The invisible enemy in Iraq

[leftchick]

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3213107

<snip>

So who is the enemy?
A 13-year-old Sunni boy in Abu Ghraib prison for murder, told by his extremist uncle that the cost of manhood was an American soldier's life.

A 20-year-old Shiite man in Najaf, still pining for retribution in the killing of more than 200 of his fellow militiamen in a battle with American forces last year.

An out-of-work carpenter, engineer or teacher. A former Baathist Army officer, cut off from his pension and not allowed to serve his new nation. The relatives of a Shiite family mistakenly killed by a U.S. soldier who feared their vehicle carried explosives.

"There is not one face, one agenda and one ideology," says Judith Yaphe, a former Iraq analyst with the CIA and a senior fellow at the National Defense University. "What you have is multiple insurgencies."

But Yaphe said there is no way to accurately estimate the number of insurgents in Iraq.

[PurityOfEssence]

1. It's incredibly complex; those who promote simplistic solutions are fools

The assholes who got us into this mess are of the same cloth as the sweet and moral dissenters who want us to cut and run.

It's not simple. There are many groups with many axes that are constantly being ground.

Anyone who says there's a simple solution is either a fool or a charlatan.

[mike_c]

3. cut and run?

Hmmm, if that's what you call withdrawing from an illegal and immoral occupation, then I'm just the sort of fool you're talking about. What do you call it when murderers stop killing, or thieves stop robbing? Do you call that cowardice?

The war in Iraq is a crime against humanity. You think stopping it-- "cutting and running"-- is equivalent to cowardice? I think stopping it-- immediately-- is the same as stopping any other crime, and continuing it is the equivalent of continuing a serial murder spree.

[VegasWolf]

4. cut and run vs die and bleed to death economically? This from a not

sweet and decidedly amoral war dissenter.

[gratuitous]

5. I think we do need to take our hands off the bloody levers

Does that equate to cutting and running for you? I haven't heard any responsible voice in a position to do something about it actually say that we should cut and run.

What we, the United States, need to do is take our hands off the bloody levers of an illegal war. We've fucked up the situation beyond any ability of ours to repair it. We should rotate our troops out of Iraq on a timetable measured in weeks, and replace them with UN troops whose mandate is merely to keep the peace, not to launch any offensives. The United States should foot the entire bill for the UN, and for any initiatives of a duly-constituted Iraqi government through the end of, say, 2007.

Maybe we could accomplish this funding through an excess profits tax on the oil companies, Halliburton, Bechtel, Custer Battles, and every other private enterprise firm that has been profiteering off this war. And we have the exact same say and auditing procedures that were in place while Paul Bremer was running things in Iraq and managed to let $9 billion fall through the cracks.

If that's "cutting and running," then sign me up with the sweet and moral dissenters, because that's about the only way I see toward cleaning up this incredible mess we've created.

[htuttle]

7. We cannot fix Iraq...

...anymore than a rapist can give counseling to someone they raped.

[BillZBubb]

9. Cut and run?!

Love the right wing framing. Keep it up.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. We tried to tell them

this would happen.

Instead of fighting terrorism, BushCo have done every thing they can to create more terrorism.

[underpants]

6. Last throes, safer than Detroit, cost of doing business, dead enders,...

complete lack of appreciation for human life

Oh sorry I just got this note-please ignore prior mention of "cost of doing business" if you do not comply voluntarily we may be forced to "erase it for you". That is all.

[leftchick]

8. This really is a must read from beginning to the end

It debunks all of bush's bullshit mantras, the "fighting them there", etc. It also shows that a few soldiers comprehend the insanity and realize how hopeless the whole bullshit operation is.

[Village Idiot]

10. The last line of the story is especially telling:

"How can we know who is our enemy," he says, "when we don't even know why we're here?"