"They plan to beat us"---Jim Lobe Analysis-Fallujah Punctures... Optimism

1//Inter Press Service April 1, 2004

http://www.ips.org/index.htm



FALLUJAH PUNCTURES WASHINGTON’S OPTIMISM

Analysis by Jim Lobe



(SNIP)



While few expect a similar reaction now, the fiery re-emergence of Iraq in the public consciousness -- after a relatively calm month when it was pushed to the back pages -- makes it clear that the Bush administration's optimistic depictions of the situation there might be as misleading as its pre-war claims about Baghdad's weapons of mass destructions (WMD) and ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist group of Osama bin Laden.

(SNIP)


As noted by veteran 'New York Times' correspondent John Burns on Thursday, both the Fallujah murders and the latest roadside killings should prompt military and occupation officials to re-think their conclusions in early February that foreign and local Islamist terrorists had replaced loyalists of former President Saddam Hussein in the ''Sunni Triangle'' of north-central Iraq as their principal enemy in the country and that they had ''turned the corner'' in putting down the insurgency of the Ba'ath Party supporters.

''This reminds me so much of Vietnam, it's scary'', Lawrence Korb, a senior Pentagon official under President Ronald Reagan (1981-89), told the 'Washington Post' Thursday. ''Every time in Vietnam that we kept saying there was light at the end of the tunnel, then something horrible would happen''.

The pattern of these attacks suggested to T.X. Hammes, a senior military fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies who just returned from a two-month assignment in Iraq, that occupation forces face a real insurgency that will not be defeated in the short term.

''They plan to beat us'', he wrote, adding that the opposition now consists of disparate groups who are loosely allied ''to drive the U.S.-led coalition out of Iraq''.

The ''quality'' of the mob's violence in the attack on the four security workers -- all former members of U.S. Special Operations Forces -- also struck Juan Cole, an Iraq specialist at the University of Michigan, as both remarkable and ominous.

''The degree of hatred for the new order among ordinary people is bad news'', he wrote in his daily ''blog'' (Internet journal). ''It helps explain why so few of the Sunni Arab guerrillas have been caught, since the locals hide and help them".

''It also seems a little unlikely that further U.S. military action can do anything practical to put down this insurgency; most actions it could take would simply inflame the public against them all the more'' Cole added.

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''It also seems a little unlikely that further U.S. military action can do anything practical to put down this insurgency; most actions it could take would simply inflame the public against them all the more'' Cole added.

Obviously the Fallujah residents just weren't shocked and awed enough the first go round. /sarcasm

The Russians tried for years to get a foothold in Afghanistan and the "Insurgents" - with tactical advice and weaponry provided by the 'Mericans - let it be known that Outsiders were not welcome. Russia finally gave up, took its toys and went home.

Why in the hell the 'Mericans thought they could bomb and bluster their way into the Mideast and achieve a positive outcome is beyond me. The "Insurgents" have been trained and armed well and like unruly teenagers they're throwing it all right back in our face. Their ranks of hatred against the U.S. grow daily and the bombings and outraged attacks against us will NEVER stop! It worked for them before, it will work for them again. Eventually the U.S. will realize that it just ain't financially cost effective and we'll depart with our tail between our legs. Meanwhile the human toll of suffering and death will only grow.

It's been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result. Clearly the Smirk Administration is populated by Madmen!