News from the war zone

Washington Times ^ | 5/04/04 | Tod Lindberg

[kattracks]

Forget about the "fog of war" for a while -- that is, the inability to know what's going on in the heat of battle. Let us turn our attention instead to the "fog of occupation."

What, really, is going on in Iraq? Well, if you read newspaper reports or catch the news, what you get these days is mainly a catalogue of the U.S. casualties of the previous 24 hours, which havebeen alarmingly high (though lower overall than military planners expectedto incur just in thecourse of toppling Saddam).

[Justa]

It will take time but the Iraqis are already moving on. Democracy or not the benefits from an absense of dictatorship and totalitarianism are enough for now. Democracy is a long way off. Much closer is resolving the issue of the Iranian and Syrian fighters in country.

Those who opt for a return of Ba'athist dictatorship or an Iranian-style Shia theocracy increasingly alienate themselves from Iraqis. It some places the resentment turns to hostility and outright fighting. The majority of Iraqis see-thru the hollow complaints about occupiers or threats Islam to the real purpose of the insurgency: the quest for power and control by would-be dictators.

So long as the Coalition is here offering an alternative the reputations of Ba'athists and Theocrats continue to decline.

[dan1123]

For one, there are no reports of Iraqis fleeing...

For another, if the vast bulk of the reconstruction effort had crawled to a standstill over a lack of security, we would be hearing about that...

For a third, for all the bad-news reporting, we haven't been hearing about deterioration in Iraqi quality of life.

Interesting points, there are some slight counterpoint about the reconstruction effort, like a Reuters story Monday:

"People say to us 'you've been here for a year and what have you done for us,"' he said. "We sat down with the district council and said 'we want to know what you want'."

"Sewers were number one," he said, laughing at the irony of a combat soldier putting such things high on his agenda
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5019004

But there is no statement in the article that restoration of basics like water, electricity and sanitation. Plus, the article describes the area in question as a slum, leading the reader to not expect such things.

I'd like to get a better picture of what is going on overall in Iraq. It seems like all we get are isolated bits and pieces. Are they now using the new currency? Is the interim government deciding anything? Is an average family there (outside of Fallujah) working and living differently now since Saddam is gone? I think I would have seen some kind of special on that.

[kms61]

A lot of the information out there is contradictory. I don't think anyone outside Iraq really knows what's going on, and those inside Iraq only know what it's like in their little area. Maybe someone in the government has the big picture, I don't know.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. It's WAY our of line to call this a quagmire. However, there have clearly been some setbacks in recent weeks.

What's troubling to me is how our side was seemingly caught flatfooted by some of thse events, and has been playing catch-up ever since. It's a lot easier to keep the intiative than to get it back once you've lost it.

[Triple Word Score]

I think the babies who got out of that prison for children and toddlers are probably living a little differently now. Somehow I just can't imagine that things are worse for women who are no longer tied upside down to menstruate on themselves for the amusement of the Saddam regime.

I'm sorry, I'm just sick of the negativism. Dammit, we've made things better, I bet most Iraqis know we've made things better, and if the Iraqi people would decide that they have no patience for people (mostly imports from Iran) who blow up cars and slow down the rebuilding, then we could be out of there in four months.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

I don't think the reason we aren't hearing anything these days about Iraqis who'd like to live in a free, decent, democratic society is that there aren't any.

No, but until there is evidence of it, one must admit of the possibility.

My only problem up to this point is that Fallujah and Najaf are not the place and time to test who is with us, but to test who will oppose us and to demonstrate the result of that error. If the people come out in masse as human shields to defend Sadr cowaring in his mosque, so be it. When the active opposition is dead is the time to test the rest.

[driftless]

For the record the libs and their defeatist friends on the right are not afraid that we will fail in Iraq, they are afraid that we will be successful. It's sad when you have to fight a war with the enemy in front AND in back. As in getting stabbed in the back by your so-called countrymen. I wonder how many members of Big Media agree with the Ted Rall's and Michael Moore's views of the situation? I'll bet it's more than a few.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

There was a story recently of packages of toys and candies for Somali children being burned by their parents who called it "proselytizing" by the West. Some prefer radical Islam to a better life. But since Islam is a proven threat, the choice cannot be theirs. Give them liberty or give them death.

[Triple Word Score]

Works for me.

I've written the President three times telling him that the only answer is to flatten Fallujah three hours after dropping warning leaflets...shooting anyone who comes out armed. Then melt the bridge where they hung the bodies of unarmed noncombatant contractors who were there to help them rebuild. I don't think it would take VERY big conventional bombs to melt that bridge, if we did it right.

Then salt the fields around the village.

I don't know how you say "Any more questions?" in Terrorist, but I think the message WOULD get through.

Why this hasn't been done is beyond me.

[jwpjr]

We keep talking about salting the ground around these cities, but actually it's just sand and nothing grows there anyway. Save the salt, just let them try to eek out a living like their ancestors did, without the food, water, fuel, etc. they depend on coming in from the outside world to make their area inhabitable in the first place. Put up a perimiter and keep ANYTHING from going in. Anywone who wants to can leave, but they must be unarmed and there's no returning until the siege is over. Sooner or later they will run out of food, you can't eat an RPG and they will either starve to death or come out without their weapons. Make these two towns the towns that time forgot!

[Triple Word Score]

We don't want them forgotten. We want a lesson. Flat towns make for genuine surrender--and the effect is good for a lifetime. That's been known since there first WERE towns. Alexander the Great didn't have to flatten EVERY town he came across. Word spread faster than he did, and that's all he needed.

And I do believe there is agriculture around this town...I have seen pics, not that you can trust what the media hands out.

[alloysteel]

For all those who are so ready to point fingers and say "You failed!" in Iraq, the proper response is to answer that accusation with a question - "What have YOU done, if anything, to help in succeeding?" There is a certain segment who wants failure, but also wants to avoid being named as the source of the failure.

We can succeed in Iraq. There are already thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions who desperately WANT the venture to bring Iraq into the 21st Century to succeed.

It can be so. For a better future, it must be so.