April 09, 2004
Winning hearts and minds firefights
I heard a Lt. Col say "we're winning every firefight." So? Why are you in firefights? Why are people killing your Marines? Doesn't that speak of a massive policy failure. Now, I know he has to win a battle, but the idea that we're fighting in Iraq is insane. We were supposed to liberate these people, not have them turn on us.Posted by Norwood at April 9, 2004 04:42 PMSistani is trying to split the difference and stop the killing. Well, that isn't going to work. Sadr is not the only Shia in arms. Iraqis are telling western reporters that they are sick of the incompetence and mishandling of Iraq. Iraqis have the most educated populace of the middle east, 130K engineers and architects, but the country is being rebuilt by Halliburton. Unemployment is 60-70 percent and not going down, the streets are unsafe.
......The whole CPA is a grotesque mistake, isolated from normal Iraqis, a big green target for the random mortar or rocket. It should be called NKVD HQ, because it is dominated by ideologues. Iraq is not Afghanistan, it is not a rural society dominated by tribal leaders. Yet, US policy has tried to run Iraq like Afghanistan, with utter and complete failure.
The US broke off the attack in Fallujah to negotiate, which in English means that they cannot get more than a mile into the city. Their attack has stalled and they don't have the reenforcements to unstall it. The food supplies are basically going to feed the guerillas, since there is scant seperation between the two. Scenes of nearly broke Shia sending their food to the Sunni heartland is both touching and scary.
