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Who the Hell is Shooting at Us?
By Dave
Chaddock
These
were the words of an American sergeant in Baghdad the other day, where the
snipers are getting better and better. They are more patient, better
concealed, and seem to have a network of spotters who inform them where the
Americans are located. At the same time the explosive devices are
getting more dangerous and going off more frequently. A year ago
there were 834 IED attacks in one month, and half a year later the monthly total
had gone up to 1,666. Now there are said to be about 960 IED attacks
every week! Just about every week another helicopter gets shot down.
When the Iraq Study Group paid a visit in September, their C-130 had to perform
a "plunging corkscrew maneuver" in order to land safely, and then, in
flak jackets and helmets "they were placed in a fleet of armored Humvees,
each with a medic seated in the back" but "the roar of the Humvees'
engines could not mask the sound of explosions from car bombs outside the Green
Zone." The situation was "so much worse than they
expected." As one member of the Study Group exclaimed: "This
is a state of siege." (NYT, 12-8)
Indeed, the siege
effect has been intensified as Iraqi insurgents seem to be winning the battle to
cut Baghdad off from its major sources of power. Of 15 critical high
power lines in Iraq, only one or two would be
severed at any one time as of last March.
This
rose to a total of six or seven by last summer,
with all 15 lines targeted and brought down on July 6. Of
the nine lines directly
serving Baghdad, it is hard to keep even one or two of them partially restored, with a trickle of current
flowing. On a recent day, 40 of the 150-ft. towers were down on one line, 42
were toppled on another, and six other lines were cut. In a typical
sophisticated attack, explosive charges would be detonated at the four support
points of one
tower, and when it fell
it would pull down two or three more towers. Arriving repair crews would
themselves be attacked. Meanwhile other towers would be leveled
further up the line, so that restoration efforts would never be able to catch
up. (NYT, 12-19)
What is fueling this
insurgency? Sgt. Ricky Clousing of Sumner shares an insight with us. He
went to Iraq thinking he would be serving his nation but in his work as an
interrogator he was "stunned" by the overwhelming number of Iraqi
captives who were "either innocent or disgruntled citizens resentful about
the American occupation." He told his commander: "Your
soldiers and the way they're behaving are creating the insurgency you're trying
to fight. It's a cycle. You don't see it but I'm talking
to the people you're bringing to me." (NYT, 10-13)
Indeed, in a poll taken last September, 78% of Iraqis expressed a belief
that the American troop presence "is provoking more conflict that it is
preventing." (NYT, 1-9) Even when suicide bombers blow up
a large number of innocent people, as they did recently in a market area where
bottles of perfume were flying like rockets and at least 88
people were killed, Iraqis
blame the United States. Before the US invasion, there were no such
suicide bombers. Sunni and Shiite were living in peace with one
another. When it seemed that the Americans were favoring the Shiites, as
they cracked down on Saddam and other Sunnis; extremist Sunnis bombed Shiite
mosques, and then extremist Shiites retaliated. It was an
artificially provoked "civil war", and one that could even be said to
have pleased the American occupying forces. One colonel recently explained
that when Shiite and Sunni groups fight one another, "we sit back and watch
because that can only benefit us." (NYT, 12-28) However,
most IED attacks
continue to be launched, not at innocent civilians,
but at
Americans. Most Iraqis are outraged by the terrible bombings of civilian
shoppers and job-
seekers. But at the moment their energies are directed mainly toward
kicking out the Americans. Were we to leave,
then they could concentrate on stopping this sectarian strife.
This is one hell of a mess you got us into, George.
True, thanks to the enormity of your blunder, things
are not going to look quite so bleak at contract time, since the American people
have risen up and thrown a lot of your anti-union cronies out of office.
But would it not have
been so much nicer if you could have stuck to ferreting out the real
perpetrators of 9-11 instead of using the occasion as a pretext to indulge in a
long-cherished fantasy of bringing Iraq to heel? In a series of three
books, the most recent one titled TRIPLE CROSS, investigator Peter Lance shows
how the FBI could not connect the dots and capture 9-11 plotters because it was
trying to hide its dirty laundry. And although I have not been convinced
that 9-11 was an "inside job" there is a lot of stuff that needs to be
investigated. For instance, how was it that al Qaeda managed to pick
a day when top-secret war games exercises were being held, including an exercise
involving a pretend airplane hijacking (Michael
Ruppert, CROSSING THE RUBICON, pp. 360 ff.), as the perfect day to conduct its
real hijacks? It
is very difficult indeed to believe that this was a coincidence, and whatever
turns out to be the truth about this (a high level al Qaeda spy perhaps?) it is
bound to reflect poorly on the Bush regime.
So
who is shooting at us in Iraq? Perhaps they are relatives of such
innocent victims as the two women, one of them pregnant, who were shot and
killed on the way to the hospital (NYT, 6-1); or of hapless residents who
happened to be in the line of fire when the Marines, as is their wont, resorted
"quickly to using heavy artillery or laser-guided bombs when rooting out
insurgents." (NYT, 6-4) Perhaps they had relatives in that
hospital in Haditha when four persons were killed "when insurgents hid
behind patients." (NYT, 6-17) Or perhaps they are just ordinary
people who read newspapers and watch TV. The fact is, people all over the
world react the same way when their country is occupied. They really do not
like the situation one bit. And if you do not pack up and get out,
they are liable to take potshots at you.
The solution, when it finally comes, will be
along the lines of that suggested by the elected mayor of the Sadr City district
of Baghdad. The mayor's proposal is supported by "all the major political
and militia groups in Sadr City." He proposes to lay down the weapons
being paraded in the streets provided that the Americans stop conducting raids
and release a number of prisoners. But as this report notes, these
demands "seemed likely to draw stony stares from American military
officials." (NYT, 1-25) However, so long as the US is
unwilling to back away from confrontation and seek a negotiated solution, its
difficulties in Iraq will only deepen.
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