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mendyweiss

11-13-2006, 06:38 AM

QUICK !! Whose side are we on?The Suunnis,the Shiities, the Kurds, or the Turds?

johnniewalker

11-13-2006, 08:43 AM

mendyweiss wrote: QUICK !! Whose side are we on?The Suunnis,the Shiities, the Kurds, or the Turds? Shiites ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!

FUNKMAN

11-13-2006, 09:34 AM

johnniewalker wrote: mendyweiss wrote: QUICK !! Whose side are we on?The Suunnis,the Shiities, the Kurds, or the Turds? Shiites ALL THE WAY!!!!!!! wurd!

sr71blackbird

11-13-2006, 03:37 PM

Which one looks the most white?

burrben

11-13-2006, 03:41 PM

i try not to pick sides in war, you might have to back it up. but i have two words - managed partitions

mdr55

11-13-2006, 03:49 PM

Whose ever on the wrong side of the bushes is our enemy. Simple as that.

DarkHippie

11-13-2006, 05:29 PM

Ours

reeshy

11-13-2006, 05:32 PM

I wonder how often the Shiites clean their sheets????????????????

DarkHippie

11-13-2006, 06:11 PM

I hate when I find Turds in my Shities.  Damn that hummus!

Yerdaddy

11-15-2006, 03:24 PM

mendyweiss wrote: QUICK !! Whose side are we on?The Suunnis,the Shiities, the Kurds, or the Turds?I'm genuinely curious why you phrased the question this way? Not a dig, but what makes you see it as us taking one side against another?

mendyweiss

11-15-2006, 03:42 PM

Yerdaddy wrote: mendyweiss wrote: QUICK !! Whose side are we on?The Suunnis,the Shiities, the Kurds, or the Turds?I'm genuinely curious why you phrased the question this way? Not a dig, but what makes you see it as us taking one side against another?You asked a good question, as you usually do in thsi topic area. I like most Americans am following this war through the media, and the I really am not sure if any group is aligned with the US. I know there are different factions fighting there, are they our allies, or are the anti- Sadaam ? or trouble makers connected to terrorists?. It is frustrating to read about this every day. I don't think democracy is a top priority with any groug in Iraq.You are more informed than I on this subject. Just my frustration here. I don't see a happy ending there.

cougarjake13

11-15-2006, 04:00 PM

mendyweiss wrote: QUICK !! Whose side are we on?The Suunnis,the Shiities, the Kurds, or the Turds?i dont know butwhen i eat my curds on a sunnis day i usually wind up with shiities turds

Yerdaddy

11-15-2006, 04:04 PM

OK. I'll try and summarize it. It's 2 am here and I gotta git, so it'll be short for a change. The Sunnis: 20% of the population - held most of the political and military power before the war and shit on everyone elseShiia: 60% - have most of the political and military power now and were shat upon by the Sunnis beforeKurds: 15% - have had semi-autonomy since 1992 - are now content to keep the rest out and are looking for an opportunity to break awaySince the early stages the Sunni, looking for a situation that would give them the best opportunity to regain power, and since democracy guaranteed they would lose it, have been trying to provoke the Shiia into military confrontation by blowing up mosques shrines and alot of people all along. The Shiia didn't take the bait for a long time because they stood to benefit from democracy. But, once the Shiia political organizations took over most of the government they've put their militias into the security forces and have been attacking Sunnis - killing sprees, mass arrests, torture, etc. This has escalated to the point where some analysts have called it a civil war. So the situation for us is both for and against these two sides, depending on the particular situation. We need the Shiia militias disbanded and we need the Sunnis to feel like they have a say politically. That's where we're at now. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/washington/15military.html?_r=1&oref=login" target="_blank">Here's</a> two <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/washington/14mccain.html?fta=y" target="_blank">articles</a> on how the debate over strategy is being played out - at least as regards the democrat's specific ideas. The republicans, from the beginning, have never stated their specific ideas. There's tons more links in all the other threads about it. I usually describe what's in the links.

BYOBKenobi

11-15-2006, 04:07 PM

yerdaddy, do you think there is a solution where Iraq ends up as 3 separate countries or are they too blended together to draw lines?  I know the Kurds are pretty much on their own up north, but what about the other two?

empulse

11-15-2006, 04:29 PM

Actually we have a peaceful (or relatively) area to the north of Iraq with the Kurds, Sunni and SHiite are in the west and southeast.  We are for whatever dumb ass reason traing Shiites to be police and millitary and sending them to control Sunni areas (and same with sunnis trained and put to work in Shiite areas).. which results in Death Squads forming like what we have now.  Its wierd that whenever you say DeathSquad the stench of Jon Negroponte is never far away.  We'll back whoever has control of the most oil, and will let us put permanent bases on their soil.  And thats only after we install a puppet regime that we can work with.**Radio Psychic**  **Radio Psychic**Iraq will be divided up into 3 separate, but equal states/provinces, have a centralized Federal Gov't, and they will all fucking fight over Oil revenue.  Iraq has only been Iraq since what ...1952?  Iraqis don't believe in Iraq.  In their minds its still 3 seperate areas, the only one who could act as the cohession to hold them together was Saddam Hussein, and thats by saying "fucking behave or ill gas you".  This is why Bush 41 didn't go in, his advisors said "Its gonna be a cluster fuck sir" and he listened.  Its a mess, there is going to be no solution that looks or ends pretty.   Maybe before we invade someone we can all ask if we can see the evidence.  Because Iran, although 100% Batshit Crazy, isn't a nuclear threat.   The uranium mined from that area can't be enriched for bombs, its contaminated,  Some mineral that makes it near impossible to enrich to weapons grade.  They also lack the centrafugal capcity they need to enrich any usuable uranium.  I think i heard they need 1800x more centrifuge than what they currently have.  IAEA (international Atomic Energy Agency) estimates it taking them 10years to develop that ability if they worked night and day to do it.  We won't be rid of our problems until we ween ourselves from the Middle Easts teet for oil/energy, and buy back our debt that China and Saudi Arabia own, and its trillions.  We don't even own this democracy, the corporations do.  And ultimately we need to try and find a way to not worship money so crazily, and stop putting dollars before everything and everyone else.  I would pay 100$ more a year in taxes if they would invest it soley in paying down the foriegn debt and developing renewable energy.  this is too much for someone to read. i talk too much.emPulse

This message was edited by empulse on 11-15-06 @ 8:32 PM

Yerdaddy

11-16-2006, 03:47 AM

BYOBKenobi wrote: yerdaddy, do you think there is a solution where Iraq ends up as 3 separate countries or are they too blended together to draw lines? I know the Kurds are pretty much on their own up north, but what about the other two? It's been proposed by some really smart people. Senator Joe Biden is probably more knowledgible about Iraq than anyone else in Congress and, along with the head of the Council on Foreign Relations, (a well-respected think thank), <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/opinion/01biden.html?ex=1163826000&en=fb9d38e6cf79be1a&ei=5070" target="_blank">he proposed this a few months back.</a> See the article for the rationale. Basically, what's happening is that so much has gone wrong in Iraq that ideas about what to do become more and more diverse, but with less and less chance of success. This is what happened in Vietnam. People still argue about what we should have done to "win", but the truth is at some point the problems have gotten too many and too severe to solve. It's what happens when wars are being lost. Immediately after Biden proposed the "partitioning" of Iraq, Anthony Cordesman, probably the civilian most knowledgible about the situation in Iraq, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/opinion/09cordesman.html?ex=1163826000&en=dbf0352f74350d6c&ei=5070" target="_blank">responded</a> with why this is a bad idea. Read both of these pieces and they both make sense. That's because there are no easy answers anymore. Personally I think it's a bad idea for us to try to work towards. Just because we draw up boundaries doesn't mean they'll be respected by the people who live there, (see: the entire history of colonialism, especially almost every conflict in the developing world in the last hundred years). Even if we draw borders around the warring ethnic groups instead of through them, like was usually done in the past - including Iraq - the parties will still be fighting over what they want - power and money. (We don't have enough military in Iraq - US and Iraqi - to secure the borders now. This would be removing US forces but doubling or tripling the borders that need securing.) In Iraq the oil is mainly located in Shiia and Kurdish areas. So the Sunnis - those who have been attempting violent solutions the longest - will be cut out and will still see a violent chaos as their best chance for an outcome that is most favorable to them. The Shiia will fight back, just as they are now.Possibly the worst outcome will be that Turkey will invade the Kurdish area and Iran and all the other Sunni neighbors - Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, ect. - will intervene on the side of the Sunnis. The risk is complete regional conflict that we cannot afford to abandon, and thus it will be simply Iraq X 10 for us. [<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/15/AR2006111501490.html" target="_blank">I just noticed the Washington Post has a piece on this aspect in today's paper.</a>] Which is still a risk for us anyway. Honestly, the public debate is refusing to even look past tomorrow in discussing the stakes in Iraq. It's extremely childish and unbecomming the most powerful nation in the world. The reality is that losing in Iraq, which is what we are doing, could lead to a World War III type war. But we're too busy pointing fingers at each other to even notice this. But that's a whole other rant.The articles I linked to earlier mark a new shift in the public debate about what to do. Republicans don't have a plan, but, for the sake of electoral politics, they've been screaming that the democrats don't have a plan. So, in the tradition of muddled stupidity that is the democratic party, they came up with a plan. That plan is partially a reflection of the situation in Iraq and partially a political strategy for the 2008 presidential election. It takes into consideration some of the most basic facts in Iraq - we have become increasingly unpo

A.J.

11-16-2006, 04:10 AM

Yerdaddy wrote: Possibly the worst outcome will be that Turkey will invade the Kurdish area and Iran and all the other Sunni neighbors - Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, ect. - will intervene on the side of the Sunnis. The risk is complete regional conflict that we cannot afford to abandon, and thus it will be simply Iraq X 10 for us. [<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/15/AR2006111501490.html" target="_blank">I just noticed the Washington Post has a piece on this aspect in today's paper.</a>] I think you meant that Iran would come to the aid of their fellow Shia, not the Sunnis.  Or did you mean that Turkey would invade the Kurdish area AND Iran?  I don't think Turkey wants to tangle with Iran.

Yerdaddy

11-16-2006, 04:33 AM

A.J. wrote: Yerdaddy wrote: Possibly the worst outcome will be that Turkey will invade the Kurdish area and Iran and all the other Sunni neighbors - Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, ect. - will intervene on the side of the Sunnis. The risk is complete regional conflict that we cannot afford to abandon, and thus it will be simply Iraq X 10 for us. [<a target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/15/AR2006111501490.html">I just noticed the Washington Post has a piece on this aspect in today's paper.</a>] I think you meant that Iran would come to the aid of their fellow Shia, not the Sunnis. Or did you mean that Turkey would invade the Kurdish area AND Iran? I don't think Turkey wants to tangle with Iran.  No, I left out that Iran will be supporting the shiia even more overtly and substantially, and the others would aid the Sunni. What? You think I actually read this bullshit myself?!  Ha!

BYOBKenobi

11-16-2006, 06:55 AM

thanks yerdaddy. 

johnniewalker

11-16-2006, 12:48 PM

Yerdaddy wrote:  They basically are saying that the necessary steps in Iraq are fulfilling the complex tasks that the public is not paying attention to: reconstruction and job-creation in order to lure the public away from supporting violent conflict, and supporting the government while still providing them the US military to conduct basic government responsibilities. They're saying we need to buck the political will of the American people. That's certainly an interesting point. It won't be accepted because violence is so frequent that it doesn't seem necessary right now, but it seems a valuable step towards things being "normal".  It's a logical problem.  The these things could help stop the violence, but can't happen because of the violence.  Another point I thought was interesting was the Galbraith article...."The first point I’d make is that we Americans like to think there’s a solution to every problem, and that isn’t necessarily so." and ..."there is no guarantee".  I don't think there is a solution to fix things now, but there should be a proper starting point.   There was certainly no quick fix for our tradition for racism and slavery.  This quote also talks rather harshly about the Sunni's, I get the impression from the article that its almost like paybacks a bitch and your getting what's coming to you for the past. I was more persuaded my Cordesman.  If we are serious about this it has to be a proper long term commitment.   Everyone says that  eliminating Saddam was a noble effort and we had dreams of building a proper nation, even if we didn't call it that, which would help us out in the area.  That's where we started, and after all this time and money and lives, I hope its not all in vain.

cougarjake13

11-16-2006, 03:43 PM

say this on henry rollins websiteits a few segments of letters from a soldier in iraq to friends and family back home, its a good read to get their point of view of whats going on over there<a href="http://21361.com/site_2004/dispatchs_archive/LettersFromASoldier.html">http://21361.com/site_2004/dispatchs_archive/LettersFromASoldier.html</a>

Yerdaddy

11-17-2006, 02:41 AM

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601647.html" target="_blank">Debate Grows Over Beefing Up U.S. Force in Iraq Military Leaders Oppose McCain's Push for Thousands of Additional Troops</a>"Without additional combat forces, we will not win this war," McCain said, describing inadequate U.S. troop numbers to clear insurgent strongholds, stem sectarian violence and train Iraqi security forces. "We need to do all these things if we are to succeed. And we will need more troops to do them."Military officials and defense experts, however, said yesterday that significantly escalating the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq is largely implausible because it would severely strain the military, would be unsustainable for more than a few months and would offer no discernable long-term benefit.On Wednesday, Gen. John P. Abizaid, who leads the U.S. Central Command, testified on Capitol Hill that he believes sending in a large contingent of infantry troops would be a mistake, in part because it could dissuade Iraqi troops from taking the lead in security operations. Abizaid said he plans over coming months to introduce a more robust training effort -- involving additional U.S. trainers and advisers to help boost the numbers and capabilities of Iraqi forces -- so Iraq can defend its homeland and thus transition toward a U.S. exit."It's easy for the Iraqis to rely upon us to do this work," Abizaid said. "I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future."Military officials and experts said yesterday that they think such a plan could work only temporarily because the Army and Marine Corps are stretched thin by ongoing conflicts. They said a large number of troops sent into Iraq would be hard to sustain over time without dipping significantly into the National Guard and reserves.The argument for increasing troop numbers is that it might stop the cycle of violence and thus halt Iraq's drift toward civil war. The problem is that military analysts say there are not enough forces available to do that.Under the troop-to-population ratios used in historical counterinsurgency campaigns, some of which had aspects of civil wars, the United States and its allies in Iraq would need at least 500,000 and perhaps more than 1 million troops, military experts say. No one thinks those numbers will be available anytime soon, even if the training of Iraqis is greatly expanded and accelerated.Some experts said a short-term surge could create a window for Iraqi forces to develop and take over, but they said it would have to be temporary. Retired Lt. Col. Conrad Crane, the lead author of the Army's soon-to-be-finished counterinsurgency manual, said it is unlikely a short-term surge in combat forces would be decisive.Instead, Crane supports Abizaid's idea of increasing training efforts."If his goal is to increase capacity and capabilities, that's the right way to go," Crane said. "The long-term solution is to get the host nation to be able to secure their own freedom and their own liberty and future."It sounds like McCain and Abizaid may be talking apples and oranges here. I seem to remember McCain talking 10,000 additional troops and Abizaid is responding as though the suggestion was 20k or more. Which would mean they would have to straighten out the terms of their debate before they come to an understanding. But the problems of having more troops is there in Abizaid's testimony. This is a huge problem: you NEED more troops to win. You DON'T HAVE more troops. So now what? I'd blanket party Rumsfeld and Cheney just to feel a little better, but we're still stuck with the fucked up situation they created.

johnniewalker

11-17-2006, 01:28 PM

<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2154076/"></a><h3>
<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2154076/">Forget the Democracy Crap</a> It doesn't look like they are too keen on more troops at Slate. Claiming it reeks of a "military junta". At this point it doesn't seem like we have much time left there, I think we should be thankful for even some action.  Even if it is for just a short time... </h3>

This message was edited by johnniewalker on 11-17-06 @ 5:37 PM

Yerdaddy

11-19-2006, 03:50 AM

<a href="javascript:TINYMCE_UNIQUEURL();">LONDON (AP)</a> -- Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday.In a wide ranging interview on British Broadcasting Corp. television, Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors -- including Iran -- if any progress is to be made in the region.''If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi Government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible,'' he said on the BBC's Sunday AM breakfast show.No more denial from the right, please?

johnniewalker

11-19-2006, 03:04 PM

I'm not trying to steal your thing, but i read a wild article about syria finally getting into the fray and the events surrounding this week. <h1><a href="http://www.yahoo.com/s/441185">Syria calls for U.S. timetable in Iraq</a></h1>...A suicide bomber in the predominantly Shiite city of Hillah south of
Baghdad lured men to his KIA minivan with promises of a day's work as
laborers, then blew it up, killing at least 22 and wounding 44, police
said.
Babil province police Capt. Muthana Khalid said three suspected
terrorists, two Egyptians and an Iraqi, were arrested on suspicion of
planning the suicide attack with the bomber, a Syrian.
Within hours, a roadside bomb and two car bombs exploded one after
another near a bus station in Mashtal, a mostly Shiite area of
southeastern Baghdad, killing 11 and wounding 51, police said.
Besides the victims of the bombings in Hillah and Baghdad, at least
23 other people were killed nationwide. In addition, the bodies of 56
murder victims, many of them tortured, were dumped in three Iraqi
cities, 45 of them in Baghdad alone.
Also Sunday, gunmen kidnapped Iraq's deputy health minister from his
home in northern Baghdad, the Iraqi army and police reported. They said
the gunmen wore police uniforms and arrived in seven vehicles to abduct
Ammar al-Saffar, a Shiite.
Al-Saffar was snatched nearly a week after dozens of suspected
Shiite militia gunmen in police uniforms kidnapped scores of people
from a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad. That ministry is
predominantly Sunni...<h1><a href="http://www.yahoo.com/s/441185"> </a></h1>

A.J.

11-20-2006, 03:27 AM

<a href="http://www.yahoo.com/s/441185">Syria calls for U.S. timetable in Iraq</a> Funny how nobody called for a Syrian timetable in Lebanon.

Yerdaddy

11-27-2006, 01:54 AM

More bad news from Iraq. A couple of articles illustrate how the bad guys in Iraq continue to outmanouver us and make me even more pessimistic about the future.The first one confirms something I've feard for a while now: that Moqtada al-Sadr is as politically shrewed as he is brutal and is modelling his organization after Hesbollah and Hamas by developing the ability to provide social functions on one hand while maintaining his violent militia on the other. This is a model that Hezbollah and Hamas have used to great effectiveness in Lebanon and Palestine by playing the role of mini governments - providing security in violent areas as well as social and other services to the people - like keeping the electricity and water on, providing medical and education services and even acting as a justice system, Don Corleone-style. Organizations like this have proved successful because they exist in places where the governments are corrupt, inefficient, weak and usually repressive. All of these conditions have been present in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad. This type of organization is dangerous because it's so much more resilliant than a purely violent militia. People will forgive repression and violence they would otherwise abhore if it comes along with working utilities and the ability to go to work in safety. In a conflict zone it works like a video game: you take hits and lose people, shrinking your organization and limiting your abilities, but as you go along, you pick up "life points" that make you stronger and keep you going longer in the game. I know Al-Sadr sees it this way and it is a political calculation for him to rush into a battle zone before the US or Iraqi government can get services in and win the hearts and minds of rattled locals. Hezbollah did this recently in Lebanon, giving aid agencies no choice but to work with Hezbollah linked organizations in order to provide aid, and former Taliban and other extremists did the same after the earthquake in Pakistan last year. It's strategy that's not unlike the advice of the Army War College gave the Bush administration for how to handle Iraq after the initial conflict. It's just that the Bush adminstration wasn't planning on staying in Iraq and when it tried reconstruction and it's "hearts and minds" campaigns, it was way too little and way too late. In fact it created some of the conditions of corruption and inefficiency that is now allowing Al-Sadr to step in and do the job we should have been doing. In other words, it's a key battleground that we have lost to the enemy. And we won't get it back anytime soon.Anyway, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/26/AR2006112601242_pf.html" target="_blank">here's the article. </a>Couple that with another in a long history of reports that the US training of Iraqi security forces is still shit. In fact it's so bad that the military itself is not even willing to put statistics about it in its own reports. The training and equipping of Iraqi forces has been the only thing that can even be assumed to be the administration's strategy for winning - or even leaving - Iraq. "As they stand up, we will stand down." And we're STILL not even doing that right.<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/26/AR2006112600980.html" target="_blank">News article - a minor one, I know.</a><a href="http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/061102_options_iraqi_forces.pdf">Cordesman article it's largely based on.</a> [PDF]And Cordesman now defines Iraq as a civil war. Nice going to us!

mendyweiss

11-27-2006, 11:24 AM

So Prisident Bush is correct then when he said" Absolutely, we're winning !"

Furtherman

11-27-2006, 01:59 PM

mendyweiss wrote: So Prisident Bush is correct then when he said" Absolutely, we're winning !" No, that's the President's war on grass on his "ranch".

Yerdaddy

11-28-2006, 03:52 AM

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701398_pf.html" target="_blank">This first article</a> magnifies the the two major problems outlined in the articles I posted yesterday: that while al-Sadr is growing stronger, we set goals that we can't - or aren't really trying to reach.In a reflection of the growing new dimension of civil strife, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday that the militia of radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has grown eightfold over the past year and now fields 40,000 to 60,000 men. That makes it more effective than the Iraqi government's army, the official indicated.The Iraqi army has about 134,000 men, but about half are doing only stationary guard duty, the official said. Of the half that conduct operations, only about 10 battalions are effective -- well under 10,000 men.Sadr is so powerful that if provincial elections were held now, he would sweep most of the south and also take Baghdad, said the intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his position.Iraq's prime minister "doesn't have any coercive powers of his own," he said, calling Maliki "beholden to Sadr." Maliki won the prime minister's job with backing from Sadr, whose political bloc holds 30 seats in parliament.But in a sign of the discord in Washington, the senior U.S. intelligence official said the situation requires that the administration abandon its long-held goal of national reconciliation and instead "pick a winner" in Iraq. He said he understands that means the Sunnis are likely to bolt from the fragile government. "That's the price you're going to have to pay," he said.The United States also needs to reexamine other basic assumptions, he said. To be effective, for example, the Iraqi security forces -- including army and police -- should be roughly doubled from the current goal of 325,000 to about 650,000, which would require about three years of recruiting and training, he said. The expanded military, he added, would probably become overwhelmingly Shiite and Kurdish -- an outcome that many Sunnis fear.<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701287_pf.html" target="_blank">Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, and Bleaker</a>[QUOTE]The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, the official said.The Marines' August memo, a copy of which was shared with The Washington Post, is far bleaker than some officials suggested when they described it in late summer. The report describes Iraq's Sunni minority as "embroiled in a daily fight for survival," fearful of "pogroms" by the Shiite majority and increasingly dependent on al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Iranian dominance across the capital.True or not, the memo says, "from the Sunni perspective, their greatest fears have been realized: Iran controls Baghdad and Anbaris have been marginalized." Moreover, most Sunnis now believe it would be unwise to count on or help U.S. forces because they are seen as likely to leave the country before imposing stability.Between al-Qaeda's violence, Iran's influence and an expected U.S. drawdown, "the social and

A.J.

11-28-2006, 04:07 AM

We are there to help the Iraqis because inside every camel-jockey there is an American trying to get out.

Yerdaddy

11-28-2006, 04:26 AM

I figured this was the deal. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/middleeast/28military.html?hp&ex=1164776400&en=62594e5a560b87 cf&ei=5094&partner=homepage" target="_blank">Hezbollah Said to Help Shiite Army in Iraq</a>