[Osx-nutters] good news from Iraq for a change

[Chuck Bennett]

On Aug 24, 2007, at 10:46 AM, Patrick Coskren wrote:

> On Aug 24, 2007, at 10:29 AM, Chuck Bennett wrote:
>
>> Looks like not only is the surge working
>
> Based on what evidence?


How about that every Democrat that declared it a failure is  
backtracking at full speed and changing the subject to Maliki
needing to go or that Bush should have done this years ago.  (Which  
is, of course, true)

They are scared to death that Petraeus is going to give a good report  
about the surge and ruin the political message they have been building.
I don't think they actually give a shit about the guys on the ground,  
just their own political fortune's so their message changes as fast  
as the wind changes direction.

I also tend to believe Yon as he has been boots on the ground for  
several years now, unlike Reid and company, and does his reporting  
from the front, not  bagdad hotel.

He has also been damn critical of the Administration's approach in  
the past so don't think he is a tool of the administration either.

>
>> but that the villagers are
>> finally figuring out that AQI needs to go.
>
> This is true, of at least some "villagers", anyway, and it is good
> news as far as it goes.  Unfortunately, AQI isn't the real problem
> any more, if in fact it ever was.

AQI trying to instigate was a part of the problem, I agree that in  
sheer numbers, they weren't very big, but they were the ones that  
tended to to the media attention grabbing
with beheadings and large car bombs in market places etc..

> The Sunni and Shiite death squads
> and militias, largely supported by rival government factions, are the
> problem now.


Agreed.


> I suspect the underlying issue is that the local
> militias are now powerful and well-organized enough that they see AQI
> as a rival for power, so they're shutting them down.  An important
> thing to keep in mind is that for the last couple of months, the
> Pentagon has started calling all local militias "Al Qaeda" whether
> they are or not.


Decades old hatred still has to play out with our without AQI.  There  
are scores to settle that were set in motion the moment Saddam wasn't  
no longer around to keep them apart.


One bad thing that does come from the surge is that is 'bottom up' so  
when the local villiges are encouraged to protect themselves and  
repel AQI, you in effect ligitimize the local milita and de-ligitimize
the central government.

That might work short term, but makes for a different sort of  
problems later.  (I think this, in effect agrees with your assessment  
that they see AQI as a rival)

I figure that the purpose is the give us cover to get out and leave  
the milita problems to the government.

>
> The rest of this guy's analysis is pretty dumb; it sounds like he's
> thinking a "civil war" only consists of large, organized military
> actions like Sherman's March.


I think there are pockets of what could only be describe as civil  
war, but I still don't think the nation can fall, easily, into a full  
scale civil war nor do I think that you could say that Iraq is now in  
civil war.
Because  of the difference in population numbers across sects as well  
as the lack of a 'safe' place where forces can be massed, I just  
don't see a full civil war developing.

If it  were to break out, however,  it would be bloody, but very  
short lived and would be the end of the Sunni's in Iraq.

=c=