<p>AQ and the ex-Baathists are two separate factions in Iraq. Both engage in violence against the US forces and both engage in anti-government and anti-Shiite violence as well. </p>
<p>But to label either as “the insurgency” is a cartoon-level simplification. The numbers of AQ are very small and without the Americans as a target, their support evaporates. Attacking Americans is one thing that a majority of all non-Kurdish Iraqis agree is valid, with something like 90 percent of Sunnis agreeing with the proposition but more than 50 percent of Shiites as well.</p>
<p>Gen. Petraeus was dead on in his paper presented at the Army War College some 2-3 years back, wherein he discusses that there’s a short half-life as armies of liberation become armies of occupation…and we’ve passed that half-life several times over now.</p>
<p>For a realistic view of Iraq in microcosm:</p>
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<p>Goes on at great length. The reality of Iraq, not the cheerleading puff pieces in support of the administration. Click the following for the full story:</p>
Isn’t it amazing how smart people are when they say something that can be used to support your political ideology but how dumb that same person is when he says things that are counter to your belief system?</p>
<p>Isn’t it possible that not very smart people can say smart things some of the time, and dumb things at other times?</p>
<p>On its own terms, the “surge” (read: increase in hostile, aggressive occupying forces) has failed. The idea put fowarded by GWB is that it would buy time for political progress (i.e., handing over permanent control of the oil fields to U.S. corporations.) Hasn’t happened.</p>
<p>Isn’t going to happen either. The administration keeps wanting to buy time, and Congress keeps giving them that time, but nothing changes (except more kids coming home in body bags).</p>
<p>Petraeus is soldiering on because it’s his job. By the points outlined in his own paper, we’ve already screwed the pooch many times over. He’s hoping for a miracle. </p>
<p>What many people in this country, particularly those who support Bush and the Iraq war, can’t stomach or even wrap their heads around is that the success of the American military efforts is largely irrelevant and completely subordinate to, Iraqi political developments.</p>
<p>I would wait a couple of years for Iraqi security forces to get their act together…another illusory notion so far…if there was a coherent, effective political “center” in Iraq that showed a reasonable chance to “hold.” There isn’t. (Not that this would justify invading Iraq in the first place, it just would be the least-bad of a bunch of bad options now…there are no good options, no even mediocre options left. Thanks, Bush & neocons.)</p>
<p>Of course, it doesn’t help that in our arrogant wisdom we constructed a weak government dependent upon multi-faceted cooperation to have a chance of working. The thought was that if all parties had buy-in, they’d work together. What a bunch of effing imbeciles.</p>
<p>“What a bunch of effing imbeciles.” So what else is new?</p>
<p>About original piece, I think Brookings Institute says it all.</p>
<p>Re concerns about Iraqi civilian deaths, I didn’t notice too much concern on anyone’s part about civilian, ansd specifically children’s, deaths from the embargo. To think the powers that be are suddenly great altruists strains credibility. Too bad we don’t have the visual sign of Pinnochio’s nose each time these lies are told. I’ve been hearing these whoppers since I was 15 re Viet Nam.</p>
<p>ID, I know: a penny that’s been threatening to drop for some time. The Sadrist block isn’t participating either, I don’t believe. Sunni and Shiites agree! They won’t work with Maliki.</p>
<p>“I’ve been hearing these whoppers since I was 15 re Viet Nam.”</p>
<p>Which lies are you talking about? The truth that after the Dems abandoned Vietnam like they want to do with Iraq that hundreds of thousands/millions of civilians were slaughtered? We didn’t even need to provide them troops to fight - just the aid that was needed for them to fight back the onslaught of a Soviet/Chinese funded North Vietnamese invasion. That’s quite a legacy.</p>
<p>Vietnam is probably a bad parallel to cite these days. They have Baskin Robbins, have Most Favored Trade Status, and like Americans. If the Arab world as a whole regards us that way in 35 years, may I live to see it, we should be so lucky.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>Brookings is indeed fairly liberal; one of my uncles had a career there. However, the folks who wrote the article cited in the OP aren’t critics who have come around. I read a summary of their publications list. If it’s accurate, they’ve been supportive all along.</p>
<p>“Which lies are you talking about? The truth that after the Dems abandoned Vietnam like they want to do with Iraq that hundreds of thousands/millions of civilians were slaughtered.”</p>
<p>I’m again going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you care for the innocent Iraqi children who are dying today every bit as much as you did for the Vietnamese ones.</p>
<p>May I send you the address of the Middle East Children’s Alliance so that you can send a check? (hopefully, a large one?) I’m not joking - they really do need it, and we are going to need to do a lot to rebuild relationships, whoever “wins”. This is something we can collaborate on.</p>
<p>I’ll do you one better: I will match you dollar for dollar for every contribution you make to MECA.</p>
<p>The best thing that can be done for the Iraqi children is keep as many as possible from becoming orphans, not fund the orphanages that will have to be built if your policy is followed.</p>
<p>“They have Baskin Robbins, have Most Favored Trade Status, and like Americans.”</p>
<p>I’m sure that as they were being killed they were at least grateful that 30 years later their killers would have a chance to eat Baskin Robbins ice cream.</p>
<p>I am not asking you to fund orphanages; only medicines for Iraqi children who are dying today (many because American-backed Sunni tribesmen are confiscating the medical supplies and selling them on the black market for arms.) </p>
<p>You don’t have to wait until tomorrow to help, when you can do so today. If more Americans had cared for Vietnamese children when they needed it, maybe the other war wouldn’t have been lost. Who knows? But if you don’t help them today, they won’t be orphans, because they won’t be alive. I assume you do care.</p>
<p>Firstly, Pollack and O’Hanlon are cheerleaders in support of the Iraq War without regard for the truth, of long track record. In fact, Pollack is thought to have spied against the US on behalf of Israel. Secondly, having just seen O’Hanlon proudly featured on Glenn Beck, even his “positive” claims – as was the editorial ultimately – are so puny (amounting to “some” cause for optimism on the military front, but no real progress politically) that all it’s done is give partisan holdouts who can’t face the truth some footing to push a message that we are at a turning point. We’ve been hearing that forever. What bs.</p>
<p>Okay. (I know Dr. Mona El-Farra personally, which is why I suggested them, but Jews and Arabs working so closely together for 19 years can be problematic; we can find another.) Whom would you trust? How about the American Friends Service Committee? They built artificial limbs for kids all through the Vietnam War and fitted them in Vietnam itself.</p>
<p>Or Doctors without Borders? The Adventist Relief and Development Agency, based out of Turkey, has always done good work in delivering medicines without regard for politics, though I don’t know if they can get across the border any longer.</p>
<p>Anyhow, find the agency you like. It might end up saving American lives as well in the long run.</p>
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