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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (238015)	7/26/2007 10:00:31 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

First of all, I've never read an article yet which claims that AQ in Iraq was more than 1500-2000 people. And usually less than that. Sure, 1500-2000 people can create havoc, but they can do so long term only if they have the tacit support of many 000s more who will feed, shelter and hide them. But if they lose that support, they will fairly quickly be rounded up and/or killed. Second, I recall reading articles last fall about how Sunni tribes in Anbar were getting sick of these lunatics and beginning to turn against them and cooperate with the US against them. All I've read over the past 6-9 months has pretty much confirmed that. I admit it--I'm going on newspaper, magazine and journal articles. I haven't actually been to Iraq. I don't speak Arabic. Surely you can admit that I am on firm ground in stating that they are NOT "the only outfit in town with big guns, organization, and utter ruthlessness" and that you were overstating their capacity when you implied the opposite. Both Shia and non-AQ Sunni have plenty of weapons and organization, and are capable of plenty of ruthlessness when they driven to it.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (238015)	7/27/2007 11:48:03 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Nadine, re: "AQ has been fostering the civil war, setting bombs along the fault lines in Iraqi society, blowing up Shia, taking over Sunni strongholds like Baqubah and declaring them part of an AQ Emirate. If they had no organized opposition, they would succeed. This is no fantasy, this is what is being reported from the ground. What makes you say different? This is a shining example of fear based thinking. The entire population of Iraq is crawling with guns. Almost every household has arms at its disposal. The population is full of men who fought in the Iraq/Iran war. It has a long history of armed conflict. There are tens of millions of Iraqis who haven't been able to flee or haven't wanted to flee the country. AND THEY ARE NOW EFFECTIVELY FIGHTING OFF OUR OCCUPATION. That's about 150,000 well armed American soldiers using tanks, choppers, jet bombers, satellite images, night vision goggles, payola to civilians and Iraqi officials at an unprecedented level and employing nearly as many "civilian" personnel. But you're so scared of the Cheney/Bush/Rice pumped HUGE THREAT of a little organization of several thousand radicals that you no longer see them as the criminal threat they are. In your mind they're poised to take over Iraq, the Middle East and then the world so we have to make this WW111. Use your head. Get a real perspective. Picture millions of tough, armed and determined Iraqis. Picture a handful of foreign Al Queda fighters. Picture the weapons available to both and then ask yourself how the speck got so big in your mind and the elephant got so small? The sad truth is that the Sunnis in the Anbar Province could have easily dealt with Al Queda. Their choice to enlist the "help" of the Americans had nothing to do with a lack of ability to deal with that threat. The Sunnis realized they had a golden opportunity to mimic the tactics of the Shiites. They had a "help us fight the bogeyman" ruse they could use to get arms, training and support from the Americans even though the Shiites were adamantly OPPOSED to ANY American arms or training for the Sunnis. So now we're not simply arming and training Shiite "national forces" in the Iraqi civil war; we're training and arming both the Shiite and the Sunni sides. I actually think that's a better deal than arming only the Shiites but not as good as arming neither. It would take a long time to create the parity of Shiite/Sunni arms that existed before we meddled and helped the Shiites, and the violence of the civil war will be greater, but we'll have to live with that. In the meantime, keep worrying about that Al Queda gnat that looks like jumbo jet liner to you, I'll worry about the millions of young Muslims who've learned that we're unspeakably evil and deserve to die. Anyone who says you Bushies are impotent should clarify. You're impotent when it comes to accomplishing the positive results you trumpet but when it comes to creating unintended negative consequences you're unbelievably adept. The worst leadership in this nation's short history, by far. There will be chapters written in history books about how inept, misguided and anti-American principled this Administration was and how so many Americans lost their way, stuck their arms out and supported it. And you, Nadine, might be the poster child. Ed