American ignorance via Iraq just continues to run rampant...

[LynnTheDem]

1. If it's a "Sunni-led insurgency", why do the US military and US analysts, including in the Pentagon, keep admitting every few weeks that they have "no idea who or what the insurgents are" other than that 95% are IRAQIS and NOT "foreign fighters"?

2. Sunnis are NOT "Islamo-fascists", ya stupid MFing rightwingnuts. Sunnis are SECULAR, as was Hussein. Islamist extremists were Hussein's ENEMY and who he kept suppressed. DUHHH. The "Islamo-fascists" are many of the ones currently in the Iraqi "government", thanks to BUSH.

3. The US Steno Media and the bush-bots can continue to call the "insurgents" in Iraq "Islamo-faascists" and refer to the "Sunni insurgency", but seeing as how SUNNIS ARE SECULAR, that contradiction really makes ya look dumb as fucking dirt, ya morans.

4. No, the majority of Sunni do not hate the Shia & no the majority of Shia do not hate the Sunni. There are TRIBES who hate other tribes. Sunni & Shia have lived together peacefully and inter-married (the kids call themselves "Sushi") and worshipped and lived together for centuries. Iraqis are TRIBAL, and almost EVERY TRIBE has Sunni AND Shia branches.

5. The "Sunni Triangle" is bush-bot catapulted propaganda bullshit. Sunni live in Basra and other southern areas of Iraq; Shia live in Tikrit and other northern areas of Iraq.

6. No, Saddam Hussein was most certainly NOT an "Islamist extremist fanatic". :eyes: Geebus fucking Cripes how DID this country breed so many stupid MFers, anyways?

7. No, the majority of Iraqis DID NOT want us to invade and "liberate" them, no, they DO NOT want us to stay, no they DO NOT want Iraq broken up, and yes the "insurgency" is 90-95% homegrown IRAQIS.

8. And try not to forget just WHO INVADED WHOM? WHO was the AGGRESSOR?
Did Poland invade Germany?

So Dear US Steno Media, bushCabal, and rightwingnut MFing idiots; until you actually have a clue what you're spewing, why dontcha try to just STFU.

Thank you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Yes Poland attacked Germany

you missed the memo?

(Of course it was what today we would call Spec Ops going over the borde and taking over a radio station, but hey who is counting?"

Look people are ingorant of what is going on in LO for god sakes and this affects us "in a more direct way." (I know better, but joe and jill have been programed NOT to look at what happens to them fariiegners."

[Morning Dew]

5. If I recall correctly, the "Poles" in that incident

were SS men dressed in Polish uniforms. They went into Gleiwitz, Germany on the Polish border and seized the radio transmitter. They broadcast that the town was in Polish hands and that it was time to attack Germany. Then they left some ready made casualties dressed in Polish uniforms to make it appear that the Poles really had started to invade and had been killed in the attempt. Almost immediately, the German press arrived to photograph the event.

Sounding much like Chimpy, Hitler had said:

" I shall give propagandists a reason for starting the war, whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked, later on, whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but Victory. Have no pity."

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Yep, that is why I also wrote in what we today

would call spec ops, special operations forces...

:-)

My cynicism is showing

[Morning Dew]

7. :)

I was just happy that I remembered the incident. Had to go look up the Hitler quote, though.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Welcome to DU by the way

[Morning Dew]

9. thanks!

I've been here a while, I just don't post often. Most of the time, others post what I would have much better than I could have.

[arewenotdemo]

23. Incredible quote

but no mention of catapults??

[cynatnite]

2. Most of the ignorance is due to corporate media...

They give three minute stories with no real depth which leads to facts that educate the public being left out.

[Oversea Visitor]

3. n/t

:hi:

[LynnTheDem]

4. n/t too

:hi:

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. Understanding of history and facts are hard for many Americans

Ever see that "jaywalking" segment on the tonight show, where Leno goes around asking people really basic questions and they have no clue? They're the ones that vote republican. They're the reason repukes want to stifle education as much as possible.

[The Magistrate]

11. A Few Small Points, Ma'am

Sunni Arabs are no more secular than Shia Arabs, or than Sunni Kurds, for that matter. The Ba'athist Party is a secular organization, modelled after Fascist principles: most, though not all, Ba'athists are personally secular, in orientation, and most Ba'athists were Sunni Arabs, though there were some Ba'athists drawn from all the various religious and ethnic groups in the country, including the non-<oslem ones.

Ba'athists remaining in Iraq are today as likely to be working for the U.S. and the puppet government as participating in the resistance, and of course a great many are doing both, for such is the nature of the conflict. The situation is one in which, taken as a whole, it is impossible to cleanly differentiate between "nationalist" and "religious" motivation, for they mutually reinforce ardor. There are elements of Moslem doctrine that urge defense of Moslem land against invasion by infidel conquerors as a religious duty: no one seeking to rally people to a desperate and dangerous enterprise would be so foolish as to leave such a potent tool unused.

That fundamentalists of varying stripes comprise the bulk of the puppet government's officialdom is the best testimony possible to the prevelance of such convictions in Iraqi society today: there are no other figures with even a shred of credibility who could be recruited to the task, unsuited to it as they are from the point of view of U.S. policy, both stated and actual.

That there is some intermingling of the various sects throughout the country does not alter the fact of the predominance of one or the other in various regions. There are Republicans in Chicago, after all: they garner maybe one vote in six in general elections, but that hardly makes it false to say that Chicago is a Democratic stronghold. It as proper to speak of a "Sunni triangle" in Iraq as it
would be to speak of a "Republcan South" in the United States, or a Catholic southern Europe, though Democrats can certainly be found in Mississippi, and doubtless there is a Lutheran congregation or two in Rome itself.

That hostility exist between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam is pointless to deny: the division began in battle and massacre, after all, and has continued down the centuries in episodes of the same. It does not matter that the majority of persons in both sects do not hold any particular hatred for persons adhering to the other: it matters only that some active faction within each sect holds such hatred, and is willing and able to act violently on it, to produce a situation of civil war in which even ordinary persons will be driven to uphold their side of the thing for their own safety. That is how the thing is accomplished, and always has been: civil war is not different from war between peoples foreign to one another in that regard; most people do not really want it, but those determined to have it force the thing on the rest by actions that put the matter past amity and reason, into the territory of fear and hatred. In Iraq today, the process has already proceeded to a point past recall, it seems to me.

[LynnTheDem]

12. You and I are in agreement on most points.

But not on all. Which is fine. I didn't agree with everything my ME Studies prof taught, either.

:)

[The Magistrate]

13. Always A Pleasure, Ma'am

You do some excellent work.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[LynnTheDem]

17. Likewise, my dear sir.

:) And if I may repeat your words...

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Kurovski]

14. Nominated. As much for the Magistrate's comments as for

my reliable favorite, LynnTheDem.

I have a nephew who is contemplating joining the Army, I told him that the majority of insurgents in Iraq are Iraqis. (I thought it was 85 percent, but saying "the vast majority" will be the truth.) Other things regarding Iraq that he had no idea of.

My nephew is 16 years old and can be forgiven his lack of knowledge. But I will NEVER FORGET how the press led so many to their deaths with their f'ing bullshit lies.

[The Magistrate]

15. Do What You Can, Sir, To Disuade Him

This is not a cause in which a fighting man ought to expend himself....

[Kurovski]

18. I assure you, we are doing our best.

I have a sense that his desire will pass, but there are many more discussions to be had.

I have complete respect for his thoughts on the matter, and can actually see his point of view. Unfortunately that view is not a fully informed one, which is where I come in.

And here I go again with that feeling of contempt rising within me for the press and BushCo. They are truly vile, vile lying heaps of rubbish, offal, and waste.

But thank you for your kind concern, dear magistrate.

[LynnTheDem]

16. Links to US military etc articles on 95% Iraqi insurgents;

Report attacks 'myth' of foreign fighters

The US and the Iraqi government have overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, "feeding the myth" that they are the backbone of the insurgency, an American thinktank says in a new report.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1576666,00.html

U.S. Now Finds That Insurgents Are Mostly Iraqis

The battle for the city of Fallujah is giving U.S. military commanders an increasingly clear picture of this country's insurgency, and it is the portrait of a home-grown uprising overwhelmingly dominated by Iraqis, not by foreign fighters.

Of the more than 1,000 men between the ages of 15 and 55 who were captured in intense fighting in the center of the insurgency over the past week, just 15 are confirmed foreign fighters, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. ground commander in Iraq, said Monday.

American commanders said their best estimates of the proportion of foreigners among their enemy was about 5 percent.

http://middleeastinfo.org/article4833.html

Insurgents Are Mostly Iraqis, US Military Says

The insistence by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and many U.S. officials that foreign fighters are streaming into Iraq to battle American troops runs counter to the U.S. military's own assessment that the Iraqi insurgency remains primarily a home-grown problem.

"They say these guys are flowing across and fomenting all this violence. We don't think so," said a senior military official in Baghdad. "What's the main threat? It's internal."

U.S. military officials said the core of the insurgency in Iraq was — and always had been — Hussein's fiercest loyalists, who melted into Iraq's urban landscape when the war began in March 2003. During the succeeding months, they say, the insurgents' ranks have been bolstered by Iraqis who grew disillusioned with the U.S. failure to deliver basic services, jobs and reconstruction projects.

It is this expanding group, they say, that has given the insurgency its deadly power and which represents the biggest challenge to an Iraqi government trying to establish legitimacy countrywide.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0928-21.htm

Iraq battling more than 200,000 insurgents
Intelligence chief says most are former baathists

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=11487

Poll: Iraqis out of Patience

A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in March concluded, “The insurgents...seem to be gaining broad acceptance, if not outright support. If the Kurds, who make up about 13 percent of the poll, are taken out of the equation, more than half of Iraqis say killing U.S. troops can be justified in at least some cases.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm

Nationalism drives many insurgents as they fight U.S.

But a wide range of interviews with Iraqis and U.S. officials here paints a starkly different portrait -- a growing, intensely nationalist resistance determined to remove U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.

Iraqi politicians do not dispute that foreign fighters are in their country. Posho Ibrahim, Iraq's deputy justice minister, said in an interview this month that the U.S. military has about 100 accused foreign fighters in custody. But they do not see the foreigners as the driving force behind the resistance.

Sharif, who was among the exiled Iraqi opposition figures who initially supported the U.S. invasion, said the typical resistance fighter is a young man with a military background who opposes the occupation...

Wazan said the resistance is led by 20 to 30 armed groups across the country.

"This (insurgency) is a justified action for any people whose country is under occupation," he said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/26/MNG659G46T1.DTL

But this shouldn't be any surprise;

-The vast majority of Iraqis DID NOT want the US invading and "liberating" them in the first place

and

-What would YOU do if your country was INVADED and OCCUPIED, if YOUR wife and/or kids were raped or murdered or beaten or disappeared by the invaders? If YOUR husband was beaten in front of you or disappeared by the invaders? If YOUR personal possessions were destroyed and/or stolen by the invaders?

I know what I would do.

[Kurovski]

19. Well of course I knew you'd have the backup.

Discussing "what would you do if America were invaded and occupied?" was one point brought up in discussion with my nephew.

He doesn't believe he'll necessarily be sent to Iraq if he enlists.

[LynnTheDem]

20. But of course. *grin*

Yes, he will be sent to Iraq if he enlists. My husband's unit is doing their 2nd tour. My hubby had his retirement papers literally in his hand last month...and the very next day he was stop-lossed (back door drafted) until 2007.

My nephew is currently Iraqmired on his first tour.

Many units are on their 3rd tour of Iraq (and Afghanistan.) And we mustn't forget Afghanistan, where the situ is getting daily worse there, too.

And this shite isn't going to end any time soon. "Decades" said Cheney the Dick..."We're not leaving" said bush the Stupid. On this, we can probably take the war criminals at their word.

[Kurovski]

21. Thanks again, kiddo.

My cousin's son is on his second tour in Iraq.

As for my nephew, when one is sixteen the world is oftentimes a magical place where nothing will go wrong, one will live near-to forever, and all things will fall into place just as one has dictated.

Ok, so by "one" I mean "me", but like, whatever.

Next chat I'll tell him there are no "maybe's" about going to the front, and that he needs to come to terms with the reality of war and the reality of this conflict in all its specifics.

[LynnTheDem]

22. You're welcome.

:hug:

[wtmusic]

24. Sunnis are as secular as Catholics are

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Islam

[Kurovski]

25. *kick*--n/t