Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam
“We have a growing, maturing insurgency group,” he told me. “We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they’re all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are conirmed in that view.”
This is not surprising to me at all. The Iraqis do not want us there. It’s time for us to get a clue.
Quite a long time ago I was listening to “This American Life” on NPR. The episode was on Iraq after the war. This was not long, maybe a month or two, after Bush cockily declared “Mission Accomplished.” In the episode, they were in Iraq and they were interviewing people. They interviewed a woman soilder in the army who was taking names, addresses, and phone numbers of, ironically, Iraqi’s who no longer have addresses on account of our bombing them to oblivion. There is no postal system either. The soldier could not help them immediately so would get back to them “in two months”. So they interview this woman from the army and she is saying that she keeps telling them “two months’ over and over to them but, in reality, she doesn’t know when they would get the help they need. Then they go interview some Iraqi tribe leaders. They are pissed. No, they are beyond pissed. They have lost everything. They have had it. One of the men said something along the lines of, “if this doesn’t get fixed within 1 month we are going to war against America.” In other words, they were sick and tired of the situation. Because of America, they had lost everything. And they weren’t going to put up with it much longer. Sure enough, it was about a month later that the insurgency started.
Because of what I heard on This American Life, I am inclined to believe that this insurgency is just tribal men, or civilians, who are sick of the American occupation, and they are rising up to overthrow it. Sure, the various America-hating terrorist organizations are taking advantage of the situation, but I really wonder if the root of this insurrgency isn’t just regular Iraqis who are sick and tired of the American occupation.
Note: you can listen to that episode here. It’s act three. Click on the realplayer icon to listen via realplayer. It’s very interesting.
Blatherskite 