Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths About Iraq

This is from yesterday, but I think it is important that everyone reads it... I will just list the "myths," you can go to the link to read Dr. Cole's explainations.

http://www.juancole.com/2005/12/top-ten-myths-about-iraq-in-2005-iraq.html

Top Ten Myths about Iraq in 2005

Iraq has unfortunately become a football in the rough and ready, two-party American political arena, generating large numbers of sound bites and so much spin you could clothe all of China in the resulting threads.

Here are what I think are the top ten myths about Iraq, that one sees in print or on television in the United States.

1. The guerrilla war is being waged only in four provinces.

2. Iraqi Sunnis voting in the December 15 election is a sign that they are being drawn into the political process and might give up the armed insurgency

3. The guerrillas are winning the war against US forces.

4. Iraqis are grateful for the US presence and want US forces there to help them build their country.

5. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, born in Iran in 1930, is close to the Iranian regime in Tehran

6. There is a silent majority of middle class, secular-minded Iraqis who reject religious fundamentalism.

7. The new Iraqi constitution is a victory for Western, liberal values in the Middle East.

8. Iraq is already in a civil war, so it does not matter if the US simply withdraws precipitately, since the situation is as bad as it can get.

9. The US can buy off the Iraqis now supporting guerrilla action against US troops.

10. The Bush administration wanted free elections in Iraq.

I heard that 80-85% of the attacks are in those 4 provinces. That means the rest of Iraq is hardly the void of violence, but bush apologists have mangled that statistic for their own purposes.

don't see the insurgents blowing up a sand bar in the desert as an effective use of terror.

Those 4 provinces they always talk about don't include Basra and I don't believe it includes Mosul. Also much of the lower river valley where there seem to be alot of people living.

new york and washington