Posted on 01/12/2006 3:24:30 PM PST by lancer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 11 - The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency. In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad. Across from the Iraqis stood the men from Al Qaeda, mostly Arabs from outside Iraq. Some of them wore suicide belts. The men from the Islamic Army accused the Qaeda fighters of murdering their comrades. "Al Qaeda killed two people from our group," said an Islamic Army fighter who uses the nom de guerre Abu Lil and who claimed that he attended the meeting. "They repeatedly kill our people."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Hot red-on-red action! Only $6.95 a month!
Blue on blue is tragedy, red on red is comedy.
We should leave, let them kill each other, then go back in and "mop up".
Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" comes to mind.
These clowns are hopeless and havn't a clue on anything. I hope they just continue to kill one another then it will all be over. Hey, Praise Allah for this one....
We should leave, let them kill each other, then go back in and "mop up".
That would be a foolish idea, unless you really want to destabilize the ME even more than it is now or to increase distrust of US political goals.
How about the rest of the world.
Making a commitment and standing by it comes to mind.
We built a coalition of nations willing to back our play in Iraq based partially on a premise that we would remove a despot and bring some stability. If we abandon them now, it probably would be more difficult to gather allies in case we ever needed to do something similar.
Our friends are already our friends, and our enemies are already our enemies. "East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet".
The size and capabilities of the Coalition forces involved in operations in Iraq has been a subject of much debate, confusion, and at times exageration. As of July 1, 2005, there were 26 non-U.S. military forces participating in the coalition and contributing to the ongoing stability operations throughout Iraq. These countries were: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, United Kingdom, and Ukraine.
Much more info at:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_coalition.htm
However, I do understand your point and I hope you understand mine. We are not alone, in theory, but in practice, we pretty much are. Just like at the U.N. where the U.S. pays about 90% of the budget for the approximately 144 "member" nations, who do nothing but mostly sponge off of us.
Pakistanis certainly seem to get around. If there is a terror hotspot a connection to Pakistan will emerge sooner than later.
From the NYT article you posted :
Quote:
The meeting was held in a farmhouse in Mosul, he said. About 25 men from Al Qaeda attended. Several appeared to be from Pakistan. Some spoke Arabic so poorly that they had to speak through a translator.
The discussion dragged on for seven hours, he said, but did not go well. The local insurgents demanded that the foreigners from Al Qaeda leave Iraq.
Unquote
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