ping
In the event of invasion, he planned to go to ground and direct an insurgency -- and had prepared the ground to do exactly that. Evidently, we were totally unprepared for this tactic.
Air America Deflates - The progressive radio network isnt long for this world.
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FYI
Origins of the Iraqi Insurgency
Release/Translation of Classified PreWar Docs ping. If you want to be added or removed to the ping list, please Freepmail me.
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Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents
Excellent data. Thanks for posting this.
Similarly, another senior Iraqi politician told a small group of Americans last fall that Zarqawi was "nothing." Zarqawi's operation is essentially run by the Syrian mukhabarrat, this Iraqi figure explained. Jihadis are recruited through the mosques to Syria, where they are trained by individuals from Afghanistan. They then cross into Iraq, all the time under the watchful eyes of Syrian authorities, without realizing that they are, in fact, part of a major Syrian intelligence operation.
This is the core of the problem. We are fighting in Iraq the intelligence organizations of Syria and Iran. The "insurgents" are just extensions and tools of these governments.
That is precisely the pattern they have attempted (and still are attempting) in Iraq. That is why it is central to that effort to get the various Iraqi factions involved in a civil war, just as Lebanon in the 80's. To this end al-Qaeda is either a tool or irrelevant; at the moment it seems to be vacillating between the two. It cannot now be what it wanted: a spearhead of a popular revolution.
Succeed or fail, it's an exercise in butchery. I think it will fail, personally. The Iraqis have one single motivation for remaining a unified state that the Lebanese did not enjoy - nobody gets rich from the oil unless everybody does.
Thanks for post and ping.
I can name that tune in two words "Bush's fault".