[lit-ideas] Re: Al Zarqawi
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 08:06:02 -0700
I guess everybody heard they killed Al Zarqawi. It took as long or nearly as long to kill
this guy as it took the Allies to win WWII. And who knows if it'll mean anything.
There's a good article in Le Monde Diplomatique on how the US military's assault on al-Qaeda
has been a disaster. The US killed most of the senior people (the Afghan veterans), but this
has brought in a new generation of Iraqi fighters, thus unintentionally Iraqi-fying the Iraq
outpost of al-Qaeda (and making it more relevant and significant to Iraq), plus the new
generation is far more ferocious, thus intensifying the violence. In the past six months, al
Zarqawi had deliberately taken a back role in Iraq al Qaeda, in order to bring native Iraqi
into the organization.
The loss of al Zarqawi (if it is true; the USA has claimed this several times before) thus
isn't significant, and in fact, is probably counter-productive.
If the US had left al Qaeda Iraq alone, it would have remained a foreign group in Iraq,
without ties to the population. Iraqi are very resentful of outsiders (US, Afghani,
Persians, Turks, etc.) meddling in their country.
Do you know the term for Iraqi? POI. That's what the US soldiers call them now. They're POI.
As in, Pissed Off Iraqi. They're totally pissed off at the USA.
The article in Le Monde Diplomatique has a good analysis of the current situation, the
factions, their motivations, and so on. It may be online; I get the paper subscription.
Anyone notice the stunning US defeat a few days ago? No? Paying too much attention to the
threat of gay marriage, Bush's latest useless distraction? The USA lost Somalia. The USA has
been fighting a secret war, paying, training, and directing Somali warlords, to prevent
Somalia from "going Islamic." The Islamic guerrillas captured Mogadishu. This is pretty bad
news. Islamo-whatevers are capable of defeating a US-funded assault and have taken over a
country. The moderate and secular authoritarian regimes in the Arab world (Syria, Saudi
Arabia, Israel, Egypt, etc.) are certainly paying attention: the Islamos are on the march,
the US can't stop them, and the US population couldn't care less.
But hey, there's a great story in the papers about two blonde chicks in a
traffic accident.
Meanwhile, the US is sending more troops to Iraq. They're preparing for a major assault, to
be timed for the US November elections.
This will only increase the number and level of POI.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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