NEWS: Iraqi City Temporarily Taken by Insurgents

POLITICS: Iraqi City Temporarily Taken by Insurgents

Unfortunately despite claims of "turning a corner" and denials that Iraq is currently engaged in a civil war, organized insurgents following cleric Muqtada al-Sadr temporarily took the city of Amarah following a bloody battle. The Iraqi army returned in force to reclaim the city later on.

al-Sadr has been a major player in Iraqi factional fighting since the Hussein regime was toppled. Insurgents loyal to him have been fighting US and British forces in various spots since the occupation began, including Fallujah, long a spot for some of the most intense fighting of the war outside of Baghdad. They're not going away.



At this point even Bush is beginning to acknowledge that things are not going well and there has got to be some change in the plan to stop the country from descending into complete chaos as factions battle each other.

The resurgence of violence against occupying troops in October, making it one of the deadleist months for US troops this year seems to point to an overall worsening of the situation in Iraq. Two and a half years since the fall of Baghdad it was hoped that the country would have returned to some semblance of normalcy, but that does not appear to be the case.



It's easy to get caught up in partisan fighting and finger pointing about the mess that Iraq has become. Certainly the GOP leadership should bear the blame for starting this war, but the fact remains that they did it, now it's time to get things fixed. There are real people's lives, both Iraqis and US and British troops who depend on that happening, and everyone's minds, both Democrats and Republicans, should be open to different possibilities in prosecuting this war to try and minimize the violence that is threatening to completely consume Iraq.

But we've turned the corner in Iraq! Of course we've turned the same corner a half dozen times as we spin in circles, but damnit, we've still turned the corner!!

The british troops had moved out of the area. Sadly it looks like we will have a pullout followed by a civil war then partitioning of the country.

it's tough! nobody ever said it was gonna be tough!

Nope, we were told we'd be greeted with flowers and candy, the war would pay for itself, and it would be over in six months at the latest. Now if Rummy had said that we would be greeted with a hail of bullets and IED's, it would cost over half a trillion dollars, and we would still be fighting 3 years later then I could see where complaining would be bad form.

Well we were in the very beginning, however we dragged ass doing god knows what and nowwhere are we?

I am totally anti-war - Iraq will be Bush's shameful legacy for all time, BUT

FUCK THE IRAQIS!

We gave them an opportunity, and they have taken to killing eachother instead of pulling together.

FUCK THEM

They harbor the foreign fighters, and although many cooperate, not enough do. Not enough are willing to grab freedom.

FUCK THEM

Civil war is happening. We should just pull back to Kuwait and Saudi and Gutter, but stay around in force enough to maintain regional security.

They had their chance, FUCK THEM.

The candy and flowers phase was over before I got back to the States from when we took the Marines over for the initial invasion in '03. It also didn't help that we went in with 120,000 troops instead of the 300,000+ troops GEN Shinseki (the Army Chief of Staff at the time) told Congress we needed to secure the country and prevent this very scenario from playing out. Instead GEN Shinseki was asked to retire for telling the truth and not toeing the party line.

I'm also pretty sure that sending 24 year old republican party operatives right out school to over see the reconstruction of Iraq didn't help matters.

maybe they're just mad because life for them is worse now than it was under saddam hussein.

Ricosuave, you can't hate them for doing only what they've known for thousands of years. We're the ones who are forcing "democracy" on them when they never asked for it.

It's much like trying to give a bee's nest a massage and insisting they'll feel better afterwards. "Oh, no shit? They're flying around angry? You got stung?" Der.

What the fuck would a general know about securing a country through military operations? Clearly bureaucrats and politicians know better.

CLAP LOUDER!

Hmmm.

**Iraq War Score**

Coalition of the Willing: 2

Terrorists: 1,563,981

It's seditious (yeah I said it, even though I don't know what it means) "stories" like this that embolden the Islamohippycommieliberalfascistvegetarians. Reporting on the events unfolding on the ground is the reason why America has lost the will to fight.

/spit.

Is it ok to question the patriotism of everyone who talks about Iraq NOW?

[insert lyrics to country music song here].

Meanwhile, all the libs are having abortions right and left and my kids can't pray in school - but the gays can get MARRIED?!?!

Just today, I saw a caravan of the gays mincing across the border, and I was like "Hey, gays, what right do you have to come here, to my homeland, to steal all the hairdressing jobs, and the community theatre jobs, and also the jobs selling sensible, yet kicky shoes which are perfect for business wear but also saucy enough for an impromptu post-dinner fete, from hard working Americans?"

And they were like "Dahling, someone has to help the New York liberals and the media destroy your way of life." Then they pranced off without even a "Ciao, baby."

I tried to run them over in my Ford F150, but I was a little short on the 800 dollars I needed to fill it up, so the engine died. I did blast some Toby Keith at them, so I think they got the message. And that message was Take THAT, Osama, cause these colors don't run... unless they're running at you to stick a BOOT UP YOUR ASS!

Undoubtedly, even now our government is planning to do something just as kickass in Iraq.

Ehm, actually what you gave them was an invasion which destroyed all state infrastructure and created the setting for three anatagonistic groups to go to battle with each other. All of it for oil. Shame, shame, shame.

Hindsight is 20/20.

Technically, they aren't insurgents, they are militia . You may think this is a symantic difference, but politically they are quite different from other anti-Coalition, jihadist, terror or other anti-Iraqi Govt. force even though they have all been conveinently been lumped under the same banner of the "Insurgency". This is a gross misrepresentation of how fragmented the different guerilla forces of Iraq are. Here's a list (from Wiki) of a few of those forces:

So, just how sectarian (and violent) do you need to get in order to call it a "Civil Conflict" or "War"?

"Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions"

So you claim to be anti war, but you place all the blame for this violence on the Iraqi people?

You're opinions are worrying and disturbing.

yeah, because all the arabs are only animals and they can't understand the civilisation us brave emperialists are trying to offer them (you do realise that this is the exact same argument that facilitated the violent european colonialism of the 15th century. It's the same logic that allowed the American settlers to wipe out the native population that justified the disgusting slave trade on which American and European wealth is built.

Those poor primitive Iraqis, if only they were clever enough to accept out generous gift of civilisation

This from the Guardian today.
It seems now that all options are on the table...it's something of a massive humiliation for the coalition leaders, when they're thinking of going cap in hand to two of the key states in Bush's expanded axis of evil, asking them for help in clearing up the mess in Iraq.

If there wasn't so much carnage and death involved, then it would be hilarious.

That said, the corridors of power in Tehran and Damascus must be echoing with the sound of gleeful laughter.

What a bloody mess this war has become. Talk about politically bloody hard to work out what to do. We leave immediately, the country collapses into war. We stay, the situation gets worse. The local militias are going to have to work out some way of getting on, because until they do, I can't see the Coalition forces feeling justified in leaving - which I want them to, too many soldiers and civilians have died and its time we came home.

At the moment, we're still stuck in this blame mentality. Allies fault for invasion, Iraqi violence etc etc...But maybe if we stop the 'blame' thing and work out what the hell we're going to do to prevent more people from dying. That's my only prerogative; human lives are at stake. I don't give a shit about bushes oil - he can take it and stuff it up his glorious arse. At the same time, I don't feel right about letting Iraq collapse into anarchy. The problem is, Saddam (despite being a sociopathic murderer and fascist dictator) kep the country absolutely bolted down i.e nobody could cause problems because he'd kill them. Take that government away, and you have three thousand different kinds of people fighting for their own political power. It has become tribal warfare almost, and considering the disparate number of these peoples fighting - it's going to be very hard if not impossible to sort out.

I am a little tired of basically reading about all this violence and horror.

Akrasia: Before you went off on a tirade about colonialism, I think you might have been missing the point. TheGringo said that they didn't ask for our conception of democracy, we FORCED it on them. Nobody was simplifying things and saying they are a bunch of animals; they just work things differently to us, and trying to get them to run things on our governmental terms is like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. Since they had Saddam the Psycho Murderer running the country for years, I guess the political vacuum means things are very difficult to sort out - what sort of political system should they have? I don't know, it's difficult to say.

I don't disagree with you Markus...but the politicians in the US and over here were repeatedly warned by academics, journalists, and anyone else with a frank knowledge of the region in the run up to the invasion, what kind of Pandora's box they were opening by removing ALL the power structures in the country. They were told not to get involved...and yet they did. Against all the good advice. And now all the predictions have come horribly true.

I'm pretty much sick and tired of it all too...but I never agreed with the damn thing in the first place.

What really pisses me off is that the men who are truly responsible for this carnage(Monkey boy and his pet poodle)will get off scott free, and no doubt go on to live long, happy, moderately peaceful lives, in stark contrast to the civilian population in Iraq.

If they had never invaded in the first place, they wouldn't now be having prostrating themselves in front of their "sworn enemies", pleading for them to restore order in a country that has collapsed into anarchy. I wonder how well they sleep at night?

hopefully his new tactics arent going to include the tactical nukes that we have plans to use.... http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/US-joint-nuclear-operations