'New troops may leave Iraq in coffins'

[ByaKya]

'New troops may leave Iraq in coffins' | Herald Sun

"The American people have to prevent their sons from coming to Iraq or they may return in coffins," said Sheikh Abdel Razzaq al-Nadawi, a senior official in al-Sadr's movement in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

OMG dude, i thought teh iraqis like us because we killed teh saddam ??
i thought the only people that didnt like us were terrorists?? derr

For our resident neocons, "shiites" are 60 percent of iraq and they are the people that were most oppressed by Saddam, so needless to say, if THESE people are telling us our troops will be coming home in coffins, well then i dont need to spell out what the Sunnis think of us.

Oh right, you dont know what a sunni is, Sunnis are the religoius sect of islam that saddam himself was a part of.

[The_Genius]

I'm a Sunni.... And a Shiite is my brother no matter what religious scholars / clerics think.

I think its a more positive move from Shiites than killing Sunni Iraqis.

[ByaKya]

Quote by: The_Genius I think its a more positive move from Shiites than killing Sunni Iraqis.

ROFL, im not sure "positive" is a word some of the americans on this forum would use for this, but i would call it a change

[The_Genius]

Sure.. I agree. Wrong word choice for conservatives... but let's be realistic.

Why should US Troops be the only ones with rights to kill? I mean, Iraqis aren't there for american shooting practices.

[Blef]

Of course the Iraqis have a right to defend themselves against their "liberators". I'd do the same in their position.

[ByaKya]

Quote by: The_Genius Why should US Troops be the only ones with rights to kill? I mean, Iraqis aren't there for american shooting practices.

Thats a clear way of putting it.
As soon as iraqis fight back, they are called terrorists, its the same with the palestinians.
How dare they fight back! we are bringing them democracy! dont they want teh democracy?!!!

[The_Genius]

Exactly... That is why sacratarian volence needs to stop and Iraqis need to unite to liberate their country from US.

[BobbyO]

Quote by: ByaKya 'New troops may leave Iraq in coffins' | Herald Sun OMG dude, i thought teh iraqis like us because we killed teh saddam ?? i thought the only people that didnt like us were terrorists?? derr For our resident neocons, "shiites" are 60 percent of iraq and they are the people that were most oppressed by Saddam, so needless to say, if THESE people are telling us our troops will be coming home in coffins, well then i dont need to spell out what the Sunnis think of us. Oh right, you dont know what a sunni is, Sunnis are the religoius sect of islam that saddam himself was a part of.

Bya, Bya, Bya....

Sadr is not beloved by 60% of the shiites. Indeed he has much opposition. Part of the problem is that the Shiites are divided on the issue. Ayatollah sistani had summoned them last week to knock their heads together to settle these things.

[RickSp]

Quote by: BobbyO Bya, Bya, Bya.... Sadr is not beloved by 60% of the shiites. Indeed he has much opposition. Part of the problem is that the Shiites are divided on the issue. Ayatollah sistani had summoned them last week to knock their heads together to settle these things.

Yah, so your idiot king is sending more troops into a civil war that we do not understand just as Mahalki is sending Kurds into Baghdad to restore order among the various Shia and Sunni factions. Together forward to certain defeat! How incredibly stupid and, given that US soldiers lives are at risk, downright criminal.

What is the Arabic word for "brain-dead"?

[RickSp]

Interesting commentary from the conservative weekly "Human Events":

Repeating History in Iraq

The "new" element this time is pouring more troops into Baghdad to make the city safer. But we've been there and tried that, including one major attempt just a few months ago in "Operation Together Forward." The result, admitted National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, was that "sectarian violence continued to mount, so we did not make the progress on security we had hoped. We did not bring the moderate Sunnis off the fence, as we had hoped. The Shia lost patience, and began to see the militias as their protectors." Now, it's one thing to sell oats before the horse has eaten them, and another thing to sell them after. Bush's proposals were not terribly convincing the first time, and developments in the interim have not magnified their allure. Yet he expects his address to generate support for expanding the war to solve problems that, had his previous strategy worked, would not exist. Either you have to believe this latest program is truly different, or you have to assume he has learned better ways to implement it. But the basic formula is identical to those of the past, for the obvious reason that Bush has little capacity to learn from his mistakes. Trusting him to devise a successful formula for Iraq is like asking Jeff Skilling to come back and revive Enron. Exhibit A in the administration's case for a surge of troops into Baghdad is the experience in the city of Tal Afar, which the president has long held up as a model. But critics say the success was partial at best, with Shiite areas secure and Sunni ones armed and dangerous. And -- brace for a real shocker -- things went south as soon as U.S. troops moved on. On top of that, Tal Afar was a small city, and the heavy concentration of forces we managed there would be impossible to duplicate in Baghdad, which is vastly larger. Not to mention that we can't build a 9-foot concrete wall around Baghdad, as we did in Tal Afar. James Dobbins, a former Bush envoy to Afghanistan now with the RAND Corp., says that based on previous nation-building efforts, we would need some 500,000 troops to stabilize Iraq. Even with the boost in troop strength, we would have only one-third that number. Dobbins points out another defect: If we concentrate our efforts in Baghdad, the insurgents can do the same, raising the level of violence instead of curbing it. That is what happened last summer, when we deployed more troops there in an attempt to improve security, only to see a jump in insurgent attacks and American casualties. Another possibility is that our enemies will take the opportunity to wreak havoc elsewhere, knowing we're too focused on the capital to respond. Having more troops might have helped in the months following the invasion. At this stage, though, an increase would probably just deepen resentment among the locals. Our presence offers one of the rare points of agreement between Iraq's sectarian enemies. A recent poll found that 92 percent of Sunnis and 62 percent of Shiites approve of attacks on U.S. forces, and both groups overwhelmingly favor our withdrawal within six months.

[nalex]

Are the Shiites apparently freed from the Saddam days by the American invasion just going to continue killing people?

Why? What is the point of reprisals when they are already in control? Are American forces not more likely to have to leave if there is peace?

[Scribbler1]

Good point. I might be that since they must know we will leave only if there is a stable government, they want that government to be THEIR side.

OTOH, they might just hate each other so much some of them may not care if we are there or not. Sometimes it looks to me that we just get in the way over there.

[RickSp]

Quote by: nalex Are the Shiites apparently freed from the Saddam days by the American invasion just going to continue killing people? Why? What is the point of reprisals when they are already in control? Are American forces not more likely to have to leave if there is peace?

Why do you think that there will ever be peace so long as there is an infidel invader army in occupation? It is the one thing that unites the insurgency. Haven't you noticed that the longer we stay the larger and more established the insurgency has become?

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: RickSp Why do you think that there will ever be peace so long as there is an infidel invader army in occupation? It is the one thing that unites the insurgency. Haven't you noticed that the longer we stay the larger and more established the insurgency has become?

Understood, but when I read news reports stating 1 or 2 soldiers killed and then 30-50 Iraqis killed by car bombs and such I really do think sometimes we are not the actual target.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Scribbler1 Understood, but when I read news reports stating 1 or 2 soldiers killed and then 30-50 Iraqis killed by car bombs and such I really do think sometimes we are not the actual target.

The reports I have read say that US soldiers are being attacked by the insurgents 800 times per week, not counting the 1500 IED attacks monthly. So with US solders under attack every 12 minutes or so, concluding that the insurgency is not targeting them might not be a fair conclusion. Fortunately, unlike civilians killed by a car bomb in a marketplace, US soldiers are harder to kill en mass.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: RickSp The reports I have read say that US soldiers are being attacked by the insurgents 800 times per week, not counting the 1500 IED attacks monthly. So with US solders under attack every 12 minutes or so, concluding that the insurgency is not targeting them might not be a fair conclusion. Fortunately, unlike civilians killed by a car bomb in a marketplace, US soldiers are harder to kill en mass.

That they are, but I wasn't saying they weren't targeting out troops. I merely pointed out they are actually KILLING a lot more of their own, which would indicate we are not the only targets over there and Iraqis killing Iraqis has nothing to do with our presence.
You made the connection between peace in Iraq and our occupation of it. I am saying there seems no likelihood of peace whether we are there or not.
As far as being the main targets, I think we share that with the civilians equally.

[RickSp]

If you take the insurgency and all the militias, you are talking about quite a number of disparate groups with different goals and objectives. There is no doubt that the various militias are fighting each other as well as our troops. Given that US troops are under constant attack quite a few of these groups are indeed targeting them.

The continued presence of an occupation force doesn't add stability to mix, especially since the the occupiers don't understand the warring factions and are likely to become a target for all sides.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: RickSp The continued presence of an occupation force doesn't add stability to mix, especially since the the occupiers don't understand the warring factions and are likely to become a target for all sides.

Absolutely. I was speaking in comparative terms. Of course, if they were ONLY targeting soldiers this wouldn't even be a point of discussion.

[nalex]

There are interviews of Sunni Iraqis I have read recently that say that their attention has turned from "get the American invaders" to "get the Shiite that are killing the Sunni".

Also read that Bush's "surge" forces are there to confront the Shiite death militia. The war started off with one enemy (the Sunni Baathists) but now the enemy seems to be the Shiite militia - which will probably mean that things will get more severe as the US is basically facing off against the Iran side of Iraq, the majority that holds political power.

[RickSp]

Quote by: nalex There are interviews of Sunni Iraqis I have read recently that say that their attention has turned from "get the American invaders" to "get the Shiite that are killing the Sunni". Also read that Bush's "surge" forces are there to confront the Shiite death militia. The war started off with one enemy (the Sunni Baathists) but now the enemy seems to be the Shiite militia - which will probably mean that things will get more severe as the US is basically facing off against the Iran side of Iraq, the majority that holds political power.

Of course, there are two major Shi'ite factions and lots of splinter groups, as well as all the insurgents of every stripe. Blundering about in a civil war where we can't tell the combatants apart is likely to only make things worse, not to mention getting lots of Americans and Iraqis killed.