Posted on 05/07/2006 6:14:11 PM PDT by blam
Mobs cheer British deaths as Basra slips out of control
By Oliver Poole, Iraq Correspondent
(Filed: 08/05/2006)
It took the soldiers from 1 Bn Light Infantry all the night and most of yesterday to remove the wreckage of the Lynx helicopter that came down in Basra at the weekend, killing five British servicemen on board.
As they used heavy lifting equipment to separate twisted metal from the debris of a house that the aircraft had crashed into, military experts were trying to establish whether the crash was caused by mechanical failure or hostile fire.
British officers believe the most likely cause was a lucky shot with a rocket-propelled grenade.
But one thing is already clear: Basra is slipping out of the control of British forces.
Saturday's televised pictures of a local mob cheering the deaths, pelting British soldiers with stones and hurling petrol bombs at their armoured vehicles belie the Government's assurances that the political situation in Iraq - and particularly in the British sector - is steadily improving.
Soldiers on the ground have long known that the reality is grim. They regard many of Basra's elected leaders as crooks at best and agents of Iran at worst.
The Shia militias that operate in the area do so with near impunity; good policemen are too frightened to confront them while the secular middle class now either dresses its women in headscarves or has moved abroad.
The tragedy is that the British have been unwilling - or unable - to stop this. With London terrified of the political effect of casualties, the Army has been forced to adopt a policy of appeasement to those they know are behind many of the worst outrages.
Yesterday Des Browne, the new Secretary of Defence, called for Saturday's events to be seen in context. It involved, he stressed, only a few hundred people in a city of more than one million.
The trouble is that the minority throwing petrol bombs at British soldiers are the ones who are taking control of Basra. They already have a powerful foothold in the provincial government and the police force, and have the power of the gun on the streets.
The wider context that Mr Browne ignores is that Iraq is collapsing. In another day of violence yesterday, car bombs killed at least 16 people in Baghdad and the Shia holy city of Kerbala, while dozens more bodies were found dead.
Amid the blood-letting, Iraq is splitting into three parts: an Islamist Shia south, a bitterly anti-American Sunni west and a Kurdish north where the vast majority long for independence.
The fault line is Baghdad with its intermeshed sectarian neighbourhoods. Basra is emerging as the capital of a new Shia "state". Several Shia militias are vying with each other for power.
British forces are the only moderating force left. But over the coming months they will be withdrawn, leaving the armed gangs, including the one led by the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, to fight it out for supremacy.
Not even the most optimistic intelligence assessment believes that Iraqi security forces will be strong enough to combat the fanatics.
Major Toby Christie, the British intelligence officer for Basra city, was resigned to the "flag-waving" that would accompany Britain's departure.
"Those people who actively worked against us will be able to play the nationalist card and hold themselves up as the heroes," he said. "There are no moderate leaders here. We will not be leaving behind a Westernised theocracy - and there will be a certain amount of killing once we go."
I recently asked Iraqi friends what would happen when the British leave. They laughed. "It will be the law of the jungle," said one.
Quick, someone get the Brits squirt guns. That'll teach the ragheads!
I repeat, "Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization." Totally incompatible, might I add.
there will be a certain amount of killing once we go." I recently asked Iraqi friends what would happen when the British leave. They laughed. "It will be the law of the jungle," said one.
Such hyperbole nonsense -
With that said this WH / GOP PR machines (and our U.S. military PR machine) need to wake the F up and start putting together a complete campaign to re-inform the public along with a daily process of informing the public.
The current press releases aren't working nearly well enough - The MSM simply ignore them and tout ANY negative news items they can over and over -
Islam, at its core, is not compatible with ANY civilization that is not Islamic.
Yup... so much for that "hands off" approach of the Brits.
This is just great....my son is headed there this summer...I wasn't too worried until I saw this on the news and read this....it's gonna be another long year in this household...
In the Middle Ages, Europeans Christians referred to Mohammed as Mahound, a devil. The more I look into it, the more it strikes me that Islam is a Satanic religion.
That's why the Iraqi Security forces are fighting side by side with us against a common enemy...yep, they're ALL so irrational.
No matter what we do for or to these people, in the end, we are still just infidels.
IMO, when the Book of Revelation mentions Babylon, the antichrist, etc., it's Islam and a new, or not so new leader of their's. Islam is Satanic at it's core and that's why they are willing to sacrifice their children's lives for the cause.
honestly, I am not sure why military occupation of an undefeated people while allowing political elements that openly HATE you to control their own territories, use private armies/militias, etc., is going to be expected to have a substantially different result.
Once you allow armed and ruthless radical elements to participate, you are going to see moderate elements (the people who just want to get on with their lives) marginalized if not outright removed from positions of political power.
Whatever else you want to say about this invasion and occupation, it absolutely floors me that the al'sadr variety of cleric have been allowed to flourish, even forming their own militias and holding areas, in the US occupation. Anyone who wants to tell me that this was the original US plan and/or that this is a good thing from the view of US interests please feel free.
It is not hard to see part of the 1991 rationale for leaving hussein in power.
Not to the British sector is he? That is what this is about. The writer reaches way too far when he characterizes all of Iraq. And maybe a tad too far for the British sector. If things are as hopeless there as he says, it's a bad situation but I blame the Brit approach more than anything. If it's broke, fix it. Somebody else fix it if the Brits can't or won't. And may God bless your son, mystery.
His Bn will be running the American base there...wherever that is in Basra....
What does FR think now almost 5 years into this?
News to me there is an American base in Basra. It must not have much to do with local security as that seems to be blamable on the Brits.
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