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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (198382)	8/21/2006 3:01:56 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 281500

Ms. Hawkette, you've finally gone totally insane. Iraq, for the most part, is fairly stable. It isn't just Anbar and Baghdad --- and how much of the country does this include? --- what is happening in Basra? What is happening with the Kurds and the Turks? Why don't you take a family vacation with your hubbie to Iraq? ======== "Iraq: Mayhem in the south too 8/11/2006 The Economist The south is less bloody than the centre but it is violent and lawless all the same The noise of a mortar round, like an incoming train, startles a bunch of contractors and aid workers waiting for their helicopter flight out of the British diplomatic compound in Basra, sending them and your correspondent scrambling for cover. This—and the array of other projectiles that have whizzed over the riverside palace complex in the past few nights—is presumed to be the Mahdi Army's revenge for the arrest of their local commander by British soldiers a few days before. It is very different from two years ago, when British diplomats would happily cool down on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, since walled off by the concrete barriers that are ubiquitous across Iraq. The Shia-populated southern provinces used to be relatively safe. Not now. The violence in Basra, the south's capital, still pales by comparison with many other parts of Iraq, especially the Sunni areas to the west of Baghdad and the sectarian tinderbox of Iraq's capital. Even at its worst, in mid-summer, the bloodshed in Basra, caused largely by Islamist Shia militias feuding among themselves, claimed about 20 lives a week, according to the police, and now probably accounts for half that figure; Baghdad's daily death toll is far higher. Still, the violence in Basra has deterred investment and caused the middle class to flee. Few of the billions of dollars of oil extracted from the huge fields just west of the city seem to have been put to good use locally. After suffering terribly under Saddam Hussein, Basra is still a slough of despond; the hoped-for new era of harmony has never arrived..... kurdmedia.com ======================= Iran "mortars Kurd camp" in north Iraq KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi Kurdish official accused Iranian forces on Friday of firing a prolonged barrage of mortar shells at a camp of Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, killing two civilians and wounding three others. "The shelling started at 2:00 a.m. (11 p.m. British time) and ended at 1:00 p.m. (10 a.m. British time)," said Ruzgar Qrani, chief of security in Sinkser district, 165 km (100 miles) north east of Sulaimaniya, the largest city in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq. Adblock Militants from minority Kurdish groups from Iran and Turkey have based themselves in northern Iraq and there have been a number of previous claims by Iraqi officials that their neighbours have conducted cross-border attacks. Iranian officials were unavailable for comment." news.scotsman.com ========================== "Turkey's Kurdish Clashes Grow, Threaten European Union Entry May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Sakine Arat hasn't seen her son since he left their hometown in southeast Turkey 13 years ago and joined Kurdish rebels doing battle with the army. ``I sometimes catch a glimpse of a young man who looks like Murat, in a crowd in front of me or on the other side of the road,'' Arat, 71, said in Diyarbakir, 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Syrian border. ``But of course, it's never him.'' Murat is one of 7,000 armed Kurds fighting Turkish soldiers in the southeastern mountains in a conflict that has escalated since his Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, ended a five-year cease-fire in June 2004. The PKK is demanding political rights and better living standards for Turkey's 12 million Kurds. The government says it's a terrorist organization. ..." bloomberg.com ========================= "Iraq will not be sanctuary for Turkey's Kurdish separatists: Maliki AFP Saturday August 12, 10:41 PM ANKARA (AFP) - Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reportedly assured Turkish leaders that his country will not be a sanctuary for Kurdish separatist rebels from Turkey. "We will not allow Iraq to serve as a base for the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party)," Maliki told Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a telephone conversation, according to an Erdogan advisor cited by the Anatolia news agency. Maliki also indicated that Iraq would continue to work with the United States and neighboring Turkey in its fight against the outlawed PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and the European Union. Turkey last month threatened to intervene militarily at the Iraqi border against PKK camps there if Baghdad and Washington failed to take action....." uk.news.yahoo.com

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (198382)	8/21/2006 3:09:40 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

You do agree however that without a secure bagdad, iraq doesnt really exist as a nation. Also, it seems to me the guys doing the shooting today are sunnia as shiaa go to their mosques. The shiaa, who have been described by sunni, as illiterate 7th century moslems, had little part in the early days of sectarian violence and their shiaa militias, though just as brutal as their enemies, were spurred to action initially by zarquawis attacks. Yes we fought two separate superpowers in WW2. Today we fight two versions of islamic terrorism with us always in the middle. Hawk, i understand the consequences of losing this war. I am not Geode. But i also dont want american lives and treasure going down a rathole in a save face operation. We are moving toward that outcome, if not already there, i fear. That didnt work in Vietnam for the last 10-15K soldier who died for nothing. That as an outcome in iraq, albeit with smaller numbers, will tear this country apart and weaken the home front and cause more harm in the WOT than the apparent loss of iraq. The loss of iraq involves a three-way partition with shiaa influenced south which exists already, baath/terror alliance in the sunni area which also exists already, and a free Kurdish state which also exists today. So what are we losing except a little face. The arab street can go wild for a day or two as they did with Lebanon only to discover later on that it was really their loss, not ours. Mike@greatly_conflicted.com