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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (14843)	11/2/2003 6:37:28 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793696

Interesting bit on Arab jihadis in Iraq during the invasion. These excerpts struck me about Iraqi attitudes: memri.org ---------------------------------------------------------- Many articles in the Arab press have focused on the ill treatment of the Jihad fighters by Iraqis. A Lebanese volunteer who returned from Iraq said that the Iraqi officials isolated the volunteers and the Iraqis themselves "hunted them whenever they could." [10] Another Lebanese volunteer returning from Iraq added: "During the war I was exposed to more Iraqi friendly fire than American fire. The Iraqi people refused to accept the volunteers among them and betrayed them by leaving them exposed." [11] One report stated that ten Arab nationals, mostly Syrians who volunteered to fight for Saddam's regime, were executed publicly in Baghdad during the war because they refused to fight in residential areas. [12] Another report mentioned that the "Iraqi Shi'a in the Iraqi capital considered the Arab volunteers to be supporters of Osama bin Laden who they said had nothing to do with us…" [13] Four Arab volunteers who returned home from Baghdad to Damascus and Cairo stated that the Iraqi citizens were directing American forces to the hideouts of the Arab volunteers in exchange for large sums of money. They said that the American forces viewed the volunteers as one of the most important targets because they could carry out martyrdom (suicide) operations against groups of American soldiers. and... "Abu Khaled's problems were far from over, however. He had to walk 20 kilometres to reach Baghdad . 'Exhausted, tense and with almost no food or drink for several days, I reached a house where I thought I could finally find shelter.' An Iraqi man opened the door and asked Abu Khaled about his identity. The Palestinian fighter answered proudly that he is an Arab volunteer. 'The man slapped the door in my face and said 'go away we do not want you in our country.' Not only did he refuse to let me into his house, he wouldn't even offer me a glass of water.'" "It was then that Abu Khaled realised that the Iraqi people had a different agenda. To his astonishment, he was later told that the Iraqis wanted to get rid of the dictatorship and oppression of Saddam Hussein at any cost - and in this context the Arab volunteers were regarded by them as supporters of the regime, who are cashing dollars, only to prolong the Iraqi suffering. 'I do not defend Saddam's regime. I joined the resistance to defend the Iraqi people.' I wanted to take part in the war against our brethren in Iraq . I came to defend the dignity of the Arab nation,' said a shocked and bewildered Abu Khaled." "After walking several hours, Abu Khaled finally found some people who offered him water and informed him of the whereabouts of Palestinians in the Baladiyat district, a few kilometres from the centre of Baghdad . There he joined fellow Palestinians in resisting intensive coalition strikes. He recalled, 'The Palestinians' resistance delayed the coalition forces' capture of the centre of Baghdad for a whole day. I saw one Palestinian kill five Americans with one missile.'" "The realisation that many Iraqi civilians did not want to see further resistance to the invasion forces struck Abu Khaled even more staggeringly. 'While we were defending ourselves from the coalition strikes, I saw an Iraqi in a nearby building shooting at us. I had to protect myself and my people so I fired an RPG missile at his house. While he was not killed, the second floor of the house was destroyed.'"

To: LindyBill who wrote (14843)	11/2/2003 2:06:31 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793696

My guess as well -- is we will exit the majority of the troops by next summer. I wonder in the meantime if we will bring in the spy drones to see where these creeps are coming from....Just reverse the tapes to see the origin.

To: LindyBill who wrote (14843)	11/3/2003 7:00:33 AM
From: bearshark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793696

>>>I think the best thing is to give the place back to the Iraqis ASAP. We were much too ambitious in our planning for running the place long term. Keep a few "lily pads" for our troops, cut down to about 50K of them, and exit next summer with the rest.<<< I did not support attacking Iraq when we did but I do not believe in "cut and run." Since we are there now, we should restructure Iraq as we intended--whatever it takes. No one that thought about war before it started expected the restructuring of Iraq to be the easy part. We knew we would be there for years and our soldiers would be subjected to terrorist attacks--it is the middle east!