Victory in Najaf
When your air force kills hundreds of tribesmen, and you're not really sure just who you've killed, you maybe need to think about what you're achieving.The Najaf "victory" over Al Qaida, which mutated into a "victory" over a Shi'ite cult, now seems to have been a massacre of pilgrims (armed pilgrims, yes, but few groups in Iraq travel unarmed these days. The story is very confused -- part of the problem with Iraq is that the government there lies and information sources, including our own troops, often conflict because they lie too.
Read Healing Iraq for discussion of the fucked-up politics involved in this particular disaster. What is happening in Iraq is that a huge patchwork of bad boys are fighting each other. It's chaos.
This kind of story should be borne in mind when you hear Bush or Cheney telling you that we did this or did that against Al Qaida or "insurgents". They are not just lying. They don't have a clue what's going on.
posted by Dr Zen @ 3:52 pm
6 Comments:
Yes, if they haven't done so already, this event should be taken by all Americans as signifying the so-called war as an official clusterfuck.
(OTOH a certain autonomy must be given commanders on the ground and this is a case where they were simply unable to guess the right decision. But explanation does nothing for the people who were trapped amongst the palms under a deadly rain of fire.)
I think if you're "guessing" the right decision, you probably need to look at your decision making.
Sorry guys, I was there. The training camp the insurgents were fighting from didn't spring up overnight. It was a well developed fortress complete with double trenchlines, at least ten mortar positions, weapons caches, tunnels, underground bunkers, a field hospital, medical supplies, etc. You are correct in only one aspect; we were not sure who these insurgents were until we surveyed the compound the following day and found their propaganda flyers. After translation, it turns out they were a messianic cult with plans to kill Shiite religous leaders and raid IP stations during the final day of the Ashura celebration in order to cause chaos and mayhem. They hoped this would ultimately lead to the appearance of the Hidden Imam who would bring peace and justice. The truth is as simple as that.
I should have realized that you are too blinded by your ideology to recognize the truth when you read it. You would rather live in ignorance than have your ideology challenged. Like I said, I was there; you can say bullshit on a stick all day long but that doesn't change the facts. I speak only the truth here and not ideology. The unvarnished truth is as I previously stated; but, it doesn't fit your conspiratorial ideology so you attack it. I'm the only one writing here who was on the ground and saw the action, it is what it is. The truth can set you free Dr. Zen.
I don't have any opinion on what happened. My post says "people lie". That's all. Many times we've heard one thing or another from Iraq and elsewhere, and the truth has turned out to be very distant. An anonymous poster turns up and quotes Iraqi government reports, I tend to switch on the bullshit detectors.
The problem with "truth", anonymous, is that it's almost impossible to know it when you see it. But it very rarely turns up in the hands of anonymous commenters on my blog, I have to say!
I have no problem believing it*, but it doesn't change the fact that it is very difficult to distinguish between those who mean harm and those who don't and that the situation, overall, has become a clusterfuck. I don't blame that on the military but on the administration and its relationship with the media.
* - "I was there" is rather an easy thing to say.
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