Iraq becomes prime training ground for export of Jihadists

[grandpa]

Iraq becomes prime training ground for export of Jihadists - Yahoo! News

AMMAN (AFP) - Iraq has overtaken Afghanistan as an ideal training ground for Jihadists to export their battle across and beyond the Middle East, experts say. The new generation of Islamist militants in Iraq are more battle-hardened than their veteran anti-Soviet counterparts from Afghanistan, and the export of their Muslim "holy war" to calmer Arab countries has become a phenomenon. The presence of Saudi, Jordanian and Yemeni volunteers in the besieged Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon, as well as arrests in Jordan and Saudi Arabia of Jihadists coming from Iraq illustrate this. "The Iraqi resistance doesn't need people inside, they have more than they need, freeing up foreign fighters to fight elsewhere," said Marwan Shehadeh, an expert in radical movements with the Vision Research Institute in Amman.

Yet again, I must note the irony of a war to end terrorism which actually sees it increase. I wonder how much greater this irony will become, and how much longer people will go before they start organizing against state power.

Grandpa h.

[Praxius]

Well the War on Drugs has already increased the sales and demand for Drugs... so that should have been their first clue that Wars on something that has no specific identity, do not work.

They might as well made a "War on Salt Water" for all the good it's doing.

You know..... the whole world would be so much better off if people around the world just realize there are all kinds of people who think and live differently then they do and they're perfectly fine by this..... and the moment we all stop trying to impose our way of life onto others, perhaps they'd do the same and half the friggin wars we have now probably would have never existed in the first place.

If the US pulled their asses out of Iraq, I seriously don't think the worse case scenario everyone's talking about would happen.... ie: massive killings and civil war..... Then again, perhaps it would..... but either way, You're not gonna stop it.

The worst thing it will turn into is pretty much what's going on now with Hamas & Fatah..... eventually one side will kill the other, or they'll figure something out..... either way, they'll still do this regardless if the US troops are there or not..... the only thing the US troops are doing is slowing the inevitable and getting killed in the crossfire.

[Mr. Jinx]

Quote by: grandpa Iraq becomes prime training ground for export of Jihadists - Yahoo! News Yet again, I must note the irony of a war to end terrorism which actually sees it increase. I wonder how much greater this irony will become, and how much longer people will go before they start organizing against state power. Grandpa h.

You as does Bush confuse the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. The war on terrorism is justifiable. The War in Iraq is not. It is also the biggest military blunder in US history. At least when we left Vietnam, we left the fight.

[banko]

I am so tired of the US sticking their noses in where they shouldn't that I am honestly starting to understand the terrorists point of view.

[improvident]

Sad eh? We have been told to hate these people because they hate us.. But in all actuality we were probably the 1st to show aggression..and thus spawned this hate..

Jihad and the Professors - article by Daniel Pipes

This was a link in the 'What is good about Islam' thread.. really gives you another point of view on the whole Islamic idea of jihad.. they are just doing what anyone would be expected to do.. especially a highly religious country.. they are protecting their views and opinions from a force that wants it basically eradicated.

Both the war on terror and the war in Iraq seem to me like nice ways to put it that we are in the midst of another crusade.. Westerners come into the middle east expecting that the people there want us.. and want to live the way we do.. and they really probably dont. we are just too stupid ignorant and big headed to realize this.. its turned into as much of a war on religion as it has a war for a greater economy.. Im just not sure which is more important to us at this point.. the oil.. or the Muslims

We are trying.. and have been trying since WW2 to be the moral do-gooders of the world.. and it just doesnt work.. not everyone shares our common beliefs and morals.. even if we mean well.. we arent taken well.. If a country decides it needs a civil war.. let them have a civil war.. isnt that what keeps a government set straight? When the people join together and decide something is wrong and they want change so they revolt.. Its what our entire country (The United States) was founded upon.. we didnt like the way we were being ruled.. so we formed our own government.. split away from English rule.. and then fought a Civil war.. Sometimes internal conflict.. is exactly what the doctor ordered

[Praxius]

Quote by: improvident Sad eh? We have been told to hate these people because they hate us.. But in all actuality we were probably the 1st to show aggression..and thus spawned this hate..

Good point... the more the Bush admins portray them as terrorists and evil doer's the more they look like the evil doers, and as time goes on, and more secrets and cover ups are unvield, the more of us are probably gonna start to understand why they are in the position they currently are towards our way of life......

I could easily say that to them, we all probably seem just like sheep..... following our sheppard to the edge of the cliff without one individual thought to protect us from the fall..... (Multiple hidden messages in that)

It's probably our own ignorance that's causing all of this, and how slack we are when it comes to keeping those we vote in, in check.

[Jubloz]

What's with the trend of not wanting an empathetic president? I've heard so many speak of Bush with pride because he's "A war president that doesn't waste his time seeing things from the evil doer's perspective." Why is this a desirable quality? How is such a trait at all admirable? How can someone be deemed noble for combating terror when they are creating more of it? The Bush administration is the terrorist organization, promoting and endorsing the bombings of innocent civilians and spawning countless new and vengeful terrorist groups.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Jubloz What's with the trend of not wanting an empathetic president? I've heard so many speak of Bush with pride because he's "A war president that doesn't waste his time seeing things from the evil doer's perspective."

The "evildoer's perspective" seems to be any perspective not his own.
It seems this mentality is required so he does not drop the phony premises behind the war. If he starts caring much about what others think of him it's harder to be a tyrant. This is why I think Bush's religious baggage may be genuine, as well.
It's harder to feel stupid when you are in a divine light.

Grandpa h.

[Maybe-not]

Quote by: banko I am so tired of the US sticking their noses in where they shouldn't that I am honestly starting to understand the terrorists point of view.

Indeed. However, use the word "Terrorist" with care. As much as the US and West tries to make the entire Iraqi and Palestinian resistance movement look like the Taliban, there are several other groups fighting there. For one, the PFLP in Palestine. Or the new organization, GRA, who are currently training troops in Iraq.

Not all of these organizations are "terrorist", in the sense of using terror in the Civil population as a means to a revolution. The GRA are using it's troops for tasks such as taking over a TV station for a hour or so, and do not employ assassinations, nor terror bombings. And I've heard rumors of some RAF-Wannabes training up in Iraq, (hope not) and know for sure the FARC have a few people there to pick up some experience.

[rmnunez]

• One study lists 207 firms from 21 countries that contributed to Iraq’s non-conventional weapons program during and after the Iran-Iraq war. E.g., West German (86); British (18); Austrian (17); French (16); Italian (12); Swiss (11); and American (18). • Throughout the U.S. exports to Iraq, several agencies were supposed to review items relevant to national security or that could be diverted for a nuclear program. The reviewers included the SD, DOD, Energy Department, Subgroup on Nuclear Export Coordination (included representatives from Commerce Dept., Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the intelligence community, and DOD). Sometimes CD did not send items to reviewers. On other occasions, reviewers objected, and CD still approved the items. Stephen Bryen, Deputy Under Secretary of DOD for Trade Security Policy during the second Reagan Administration, claimed that the DOD objected to 40% of applications that CD actually sent to DOD for review. Compare with a 5% DOD objection rate to dual-use technology applications for export to the U.S.S.R. during that same time period. U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990

Does anyone still insist Saddam was effecively contained? And how do we establish from these facts, that Saddam was not involved in proscribed weapons procurements between 1991 and 2003?

[Matt W]

Yes, yes, Saddam was a bad person. That much is obvious. But the question being posed is whether Iraq is worse now than under his rule, rmnunez. Do try and focus on the topic...

[rmnunez]

Well he was a fairly awful dictator, big military spender, ethnic and political repression, very corrupt and nepotistic. What gets tossed on either side of the scales measuring whether Iraqis are worse off as a consequence of intervention? Infant mortality rates, life expectancy, electrical power delivery, telephone lines, export revenue... Saddam ruled for 3 decades, if the Iraqis endured him that long, he couldn't have been all that bad?

A conservative estimate suggests as many as 300 thousand Iraqis lie in unmarked and scattered mass graves as victims of atrocities. Saddam may have averaged 'only' about 10 thousand innocent civilian fatalities per year, but each was more wrongful than the harm to the average intervention/occupation victim. Some estimate over twice as many innocent Iraqi civilians have died as a consequence of intervention and occupation. If this were what got tossed on the scale, Iraqis are worse off as a consequence. I think the insurgents and relateds are liable for a substantial portion of the total civilian casualties in Iraq, but would hold the US liable for all of them (minus about 10 thousand per year) since absent occupation that is the way it would break down.

Iraqis are worse off in many other ways, there is non-governmental sectarian violence, criminal impunity, religious fundamentalism, foreign terrorism and military occupation. The aim ought to be to create the circumstances that allow the Iraqis to assume control of a substantial measure of their own country with an adequate infastructure.

The obstacle is the insurgency and associateds, be they righteously indignant Iraqi patriots, foreign martyr wannabees or Iranian military advisors. The jugular to the whole operation is reconstruction and this is the Coalition's weakest point. I don't understand how the impact of insurgency wasn't taken into account when planning for recostruction. All sorts of problems flow from this apparent lack of consideration; de Baathism would mean doing without the expertise of masses of trained and expert professionals; retaining rather than retraining the Iraqi military is the more important problem. If they are useless, why keep them, but if you let them loose, what will they do? My answer is profitably apply them to the reconstruction effort, and that any delay makes it more difficult.

But my point wasn't that Saddam was an awful tyrant, rather than that he was heavily armed and dabbling in precluded weapons. Saddam was not adequately contained, he acquired billions of dollars worth of weaponry, despite embargoes and inspections:

[Matt W]

And I still see no real link to the topic, rmnunez....perhaps I'm missing something?

[GraceAustin]

[quote=rmnunez;403663]Well he was a fairly awful dictator, big military spender, ethnic and political repression, very corrupt and nepotistic. What gets tossed on either side of the scales measuring whether Iraqis are worse off as a consequence of intervention? Infant mortality rates, life expectancy, electrical power delivery, telephone lines, export revenue... Saddam ruled for 3 decades, if the Iraqis endured him that long, he couldn't have been all that bad?>>>>>

I can tell you many world leaders who are 'bad', and who abuse the people of their country's, not the least of whom reside in Africa. And of course, we do little about it. Are we looking for excuses for attacking Iraq? I think so. We shouldn't have done that. It's been pretty much laid out, that 9/11 was the excuse for attacking them, before there was time for all the facts to come out. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But calling the insurgents 'terrorists', or dropping bin laden's name in every comment about Iraq, or calling the insurgents 'jihadists', makes about 40% of our population convinced Iraq was involved. Ahhh...propaganda at its best (or worst). Hussein was a bad guy. Should we have attacked and killed tens of thousands to depose him? What would you think about another country who killed your family to 'save' them? We blew it. Doubt that can be fixed. On 9/12/01 we had the world on our side. Now we have a whole lot of enemies. It really is a big deal that for the first time in our history we attacked another country without cause. Why do you think so many country's are now trying to arm themselves?

[rmnunez]

911 was just another excuse for attacking Saddam, and the fact he sat atop a third of the world's oil reserves and that the US is/was and anticipated remaining a major importer, would be a major consideration.

The US has previously attacked other countries without provocation or justification. It emerged as an imperial power to rival Britain by an unprovoked attack on Spain in Cuba and has maintained a practice of unprovoked attack ever since.

But the US doesn't attack just anyone without provocation, it picks its targets with care and in pursuit of foreign policy objectives. These objectives include (some say excessively emphasize) access to markets and natural resources around the world. Oil and the geographic points through which it passes to reach western markets provides justification for concern over a genocide ruling for decades smack-dab in the middle of the world's most important reseves.

As I've noted before, besides the repressive nature of his regime, Saddam was dangerous, attacked neighbors, dabbled in nukes, chemical as well as biological weapons and did have some terrorist connections, though not directly with the 911 attack. These would add excuses or justifications for intervention against Saddam.

I think all of these were duly considered when Bush contemplated intervention, I read into his contemporaneous statements feints at possible justifications before settling on WMDs. I suspect this was because it was then felt the threat of such weapons coupled with fears of terrorism from other Muslims, made intervention seem reasonable and appropriate.

Promoting intervention based on need to assure access to oil would have been a much harder sale. Likewise over concern for the ethnic repression or due to expressed concern from neighboring states. United statians would not volunteer substantial forces and resources at serious risk to solve other people's problems, but something less explicit than "oil greed" needs to sugarcoat the pill -WMDs did the trick.

[GraceAustin]

[quote=rmnunez;404477]911 was just another excuse for attacking Saddam, and the fact he sat atop a third of the world's oil reserves and that the US is/was and anticipated remaining a major importer, would be a major consideration.>>>>>>

I'm aware that the oil resource was at the heart of our attacking Iraq, especially when China was negotiating with Saddam for oil rights. It had nothing to do with reasons we were TOLD for the attack.

<<The US has previously attacked other countries without provocation or justification. It emerged as an imperial power to rival Britain by an unprovoked attack on Spain in Cuba and has maintained a practice of unprovoked attack ever since.>>>

We've done covert activities in other country's, helping to overthrow governments. We have attacked overtly at the request of allies, or in the case of WW11 when we were attacked, or had war declared on us. But Iraq is the first time we've EVER engaged in all out war over OUR interests alone, by attacking first. That's why bush used 9/11 as an excuse.

<<But the US doesn't attack just anyone without provocation, it picks its targets with care and in pursuit of foreign policy objectives.>>>

Oh, but we did.

[O-dehlay]

The Ron Paul solves. : (

[rmnunez]

I'm aware that the oil resource was at the heart of our attacking Iraq

I don't think oil greed was "at the heart" of considerations to intervene in Iraq. For years prior to intervention Iraqi oil rarely exceeded 8% of US imports, so access to this oil was not of great importance comparatively speaking. Oil outputs from Iraq haven't exceeded figures prior to intervention yet. Oil would be an important consideration in intervention because Iraq's oil is right next to that of a bunch of much more important exporters and their flows (not Iraq's) could be jeopardized.

[grandpa]

Quote by: rmnunez I don't think oil greed was "at the heart" of considerations to intervene in Iraq. For years prior to intervention Iraqi oil rarely exceeded 8% of US imports, so access to this oil was not of great importance comparatively speaking.

So this Administration is filled with people linked to oil companies, yet you don't think oil is at the heart of the issue? Please explain this.

Grandpa h.

[billybobama]

Quote by: grandpa Iraq becomes prime training ground for export of Jihadists - Yahoo! News Yet again, I must note the irony of a war to end terrorism which actually sees it increase. I wonder how much greater this irony will become, and how much longer people will go before they start organizing against state power. Grandpa h.

Terrorism worldwide has exploded under the Republicans and the Bush Administration. It is almost like that is the mission of the Republican Party, to increase Terrorism as much as possible. Now if you use this logic you should ask the question - Why? I will tell you. The Republican Party wants to destroy the U.S. Constitution and create a Military Fascist State. This could be done by declaring Martial Law after a Terrorist Attack. The Bush Administration has put themselves in a perfect position for this very event.