The picture that emerges is of an occupation force that has its hands full trying to keep the roads open to its forward operating bases, while leaving the rest of the province to Iraqi police or military units, or to the insurgents — who, of course, are often the same people.
Back to Main
October 2, 2005
WB: What a “Secure” Province Looks Like
Comments
“I was up in a guard tower outside the FOB (base) and a group of IP (Iraqi police) came up and offered us hash and whiskey,”
So how many GIs would actually turn down that offer when no reporter is standing by to note? And where is all the H going coming from record harvests in Afghanistan and looking for a hard currency market?
There is a much underreported drug problem the US forces are facing in Iraq.
You said it Bernhard, “underreported” . We’re used to that aren’t we.
Posted by: rapt | Oct 2 2005 23:53 utc | 2
It seems that the insurgents have not only good intelligence and motivation but they seem to have an incredible ability to continually strike.
I wonder how the Sunni militias will perform when they have to fight the various Shiite militias and the Kurdish peshmerga who have now become the official Iraqi security forces in open conflict.
Or will their tactics be more of the same guerrilla strategy? Which it seems is just a strategy of destabilization not one of over powering opponents and taking power.
Posted by: nanook | Oct 2 2005 23:56 utc | 3
When the troops in Veitnam understood the war was lost they turned to drugs and atrocities.
Posted by: ken melvin | Oct 3 2005 0:05 utc | 4
& yr vaudeville generals
dancing
on the graves
of your sons
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 3 2005 0:22 utc | 5
“this is no warbling brook nor Shadow of a Myrtle tree
but blood & wounds & dimal cries & clarions of war”
wm blake – the four zoas
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 3 2005 1:16 utc | 6
Yes, and let’s not forget how common insurgent infiltration is…“It’s a problem that’s faced by police forces in every major city in our country, that criminals infiltrate and sign up to join the police force.” –Donald Rumsfeld. You just can’t make up stuff like this.
Posted by: Stfish7 | Oct 3 2005 2:44 utc | 7
You just can’t make up stuff like this.
Whaddya mean? Rummy does it all the time.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 3 2005 3:26 utc | 8
I very much enjoy Billmon’s parallel postings contrasting today’s events with similar events in fact or fiction. Always a learning opportunity.
I wonder how much of today’s US-Iraq occupation disconnect would equate to the Soviet leadership messages of the past in the USSR-Afghanistan disconnect and failure?
Posted by: notanumber | Oct 3 2005 3:29 utc | 9
another dylan moment
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Posted by: annie | Oct 3 2005 8:34 utc | 11
The constitution vote that will not happen:
Iraq’s President Calls for PM to Step Down
Meanwhile, the parliament decision Sunday was the latest instance of the Shiite-dominated government making a favorable interpretation of rules on the constitution.
Those rules state that the constitution is defeated if two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces reject it, even if an overall majority across the country approve.
Iraq’s Sunni Arab majority has been counting on those rules to defeat the charter at the polls. There are four provinces where Sunni Arabs could conceivably make the two-thirds majority “no” vote.
But instead, parliament, which has only 16 Sunni members, approved an interpretation stating that two-thirds of registered voters — rather than two-thirds of all those who cast ballots — must reject the constitution for the rules to apply.
The change effectively raises the bar to reach the two-thirds mark.
It only takes a few bombs on a polling station here and there to keep registrated voters away from the poll.
As had to be expected this unilateral “procedural change” actually fixes the vote – no need to wait for the polling at all.
Toto pulled the curtain back, and the American people said, “Close that fucking curtain, we can’t hear what George Bush is telling us with that guy yelling and pulling all those levers.”
Posted by: steve expat | Oct 3 2005 8:43 utc | 13
Well b. givin the Americans alter ego (Zarqawi) pronouncement of civil war, along with the journalist pool according to Chris Albritton, and now Juan Cole, and the breakdown of the Shiite /Kurd I-beam of power sharing — it seems official now, WE GOT CIVIL WAR. Whatever that means. Tonight on 60 minutes was a preview of what may now come as the next great white hope(sort of) in the resurrection, of one Ahmad Chalabi, “the only man in Iraq who can get anything done” and desperatly seeking dictator status in exchange for graceful exit — and so vindicating the neo-con original solution.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 3 2005 10:21 utc | 14
This has all been coming since April 2004 — Fallujah, Najaf, Abu Ghraib.
Posted by: ab | Oct 4 2005 0:49 utc | 15