May 08, 2007

The Iranian Minefield

A Pajamas Media exclusive:


Maj. Martin Weber, an explosives expert, is trying to walk through a political mine field with me.

As with an ordinary mine field, you have to be very careful where you put your emphasis. Stress the wrong truth and either the left or the right wants to blow you up.

Here at Camp Victory, a sprawling concrete and razor wire American base that wraps around Baghdad International Airport, Maj. Weber was trying to explain how to negotiate that mine field. On the one side he wanted me to know me that the captured weapons on the table before us were — definitely, no doubt about it, absolutely — from Iran. On the other hand, he avoided drawing the obvious conclusion that Iran is supplying America’s enemies inside Iraq.

That simple and obvious conclusion would anger the Democratic leadership in Congress, much of the press corp, and a large swarth of the antiwar set.

Bear this is mind, when you watch this exclusive Pajamas Media video shot in Iraq. The video offers startling new evidence of IranÂ’s involvement in the insurgency. It is the first up-close, online video showing captured Iranian weapons. These particular weapons have not been shown to the public before.

There is video of the interview at the link.

As a side note, I've been attempting to follow-up on the capture of over 12% of Iran's HS50 precision sniper rifle procurement in Iraq first reported in mid-February, without any response thus far from MNF-I PAO.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:59 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 257 words, total size 2 kb.

Child Mortality Discrepancy?

Writing in the UK Independent, Andrew Buncombe states:


Two wars and a decade of sanctions have led to a huge rise in the mortality rate among young children in Iraq, leaving statistics that were once the envy of the Arab world now comparable with those of sub-Saharan Africa.

A new report shows that in the years since 1990, Iraq has seen its child mortality rate soar by 125 per cent, the highest increase of any country in the world. Its rate of deaths of children under five now matches that of Mauritania.

Jeff MacAskey, head of health for the Save the Children charity, which published the report, said: "Iraq, Botswana and Zimbabwe all have different reasons for making the least amount of progress on child mortality. Whether it's the impact of war, HIV/Aids or poverty the consequences are equally devastating. Yet other countries such as Malawi and Nepal have shown that despite conflict and poverty child mortality rates can be reversed."

Figures collated by the charity show that in 1990 Iraq's mortality rate for under-fives was 50 per 1,000 live births. In 2005 it was 125. While many other countries have higher rates - Angola, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, all have rates above 200 - the increase in Iraq is higher than elsewhere.

Is this an apples-to-oranges comparison?


According to figures from the CIA World Factbook there are roughly 864,588 live births in Iraq every year (about 31.44 for every 1,000 citizens). In 2003 there was an infant mortality rate in Iraq of 55.16 per 1,000 births, or about 47,690 infant deaths.

In 2006 that infant mortality rate has dropped to 48.64 deaths per 1,000 births. Or about 42,503 infant deaths/year. Or about 5,187 fewer dead infants every year than in 2003.

So is it safe to say that weÂ’ve saved roughly (and these numbers are, admittedly, very rough) 15,000 infant lives since invading Iraq?

Note that the statistics cited by Buncombe are addressing the death rates of children under five between 1990-today, and Port's information isolates infant mortality from the time period of 2003-2006. Those differences noted, there seems to be a huge possible discrepancy between the rough number of 2005 under-five deaths reported by Save the Children through Buncombe (125) and the infant mortality rate of 55.16-48.64/1,000 determined by Port.

Both numbers could be correct, but for Save the Children's figures to be accurate based upon the CIA estimate of 864,588 live births, it would mean that 12.5% of Iraqi children under five, or 108,074 Iraqi children, died before the age of five in 2005 alone.

Does that figure seem plausible?

If it does, why has the professional media done such a miserable job of reporting the staggering losses of children in Iraq, which would seem to dwarf most total estimates of combat-related deaths?

If it isn't accurate, why hasn't Buncombe done a better job of fact-checking his sources?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:15 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 492 words, total size 3 kb.

Clever Little Weapons



Rattlesnake D: The Missile

Michael Yon's latest dispatch Rattlesnake, chronicles the nighttime hunting of insurgent IED teams in southern Iraq.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

Six Arrested in New Jersey Islamic Terror Plot

Via WNBC.com:


Six men from New Jersey have been arrested in an alleged terror plot against soldiers at Fort Dix, according investigators.

Investigators said the men planned to use automatic weapons to enter Fort Dix and kill as many soldiers as they could at the N.J. base. Fort Dix was just one of several military and security locations allegedly scouted by this group, authorities said.

[snip]

The six suspects arrested Monday night will face terror conspiracy charges. Three of the men are brothers, all believed to be islamic radicals. Authorities have told Newschannel 4 that some of the men were born in Albania and the former Yugoslavia. Investigators said most of the suspects have spent several years here in the U.S.

According to WPVI, the six men attempted to purchase fully automatic AK-47s from an arms dealer working with the FBI. WABC describes the six men as all being ethnic Albanians. Their immigration status was not clear from news accounts. WCAU notes that the men traveled from South Jersey to the Pocano mountains "to practice firing automatic weapons." If accurate, this means that investigators allowed the men to obtain the fully automatic AK-47s before affecting an arrest. CBS News states that this was a "homegrown" terror plot, and that there were no known ties to any international terror organization, including al Qaeda.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger presents perhaps the most comprehensive account to date, which confirms that the attack busted in the planning stages was an intended act of jihad, that the men were arrested while attempting to purchase the AK-47s from the FBI informant dealer, and that the men did not practice with automatic weapons in the Poconos, but instead, used paintball guns and other "real weapons."

The Star-Ledger also shows that while the men may not have been part of an international terror cell, they were certainly inspired by al Qaeda:


The would-be attackers, ethnic Albanians who had been under surveillance by the FBI for months, practiced by shooting paintball guns and real weapons in a rural area of the Poconos, one source said. They also allegedly watched jihadist videos in which Osama bin Laden urged them toward martyrdom.

"They were prepared to die," said the law enforcement source. "We became increasingly convinced this was for real and these guys were ready to roll."

The FBI had the group under surveillance for more than a year, the source said. The men had scouted out Dover Air Force Base and Fort Monmouth before settling on Fort Dix, a base that is used to mobilize troops to Iraq, said the source.

The men - several of whom were in the same family - had videotaped their practice sessions in the Poconos, the source said. That videotape, in which they railed against America, led to their arrests.

The men made the mistake of bringing it to a retail store, seeking to get a copy burned to a DVD, according to one of the sources. A store employee who later watched the tape called the FBI who began immediately investigating.

The one question I have about the above Star-Ledger account is perhaps a quibble, but something I'd like to have cleared up; did they watch a generally addressed martyrdom video extolling Muslims towards jihad, or as this account states, did they watch a video urging them towards martyrdom? I suspect the former, as if the latter is the case, it would seem to prove a direct al Qaeda link.

Note that the Islamists here were anything but intelligent, bringing their homegrown jihadi video to a retail store to burn it to DVD, where a concerned and alert employee contacted the FBI, which launched the investigation.

I hope President Bush will quietly award a Presidential Medal of Freedom to both the video store employee and the gun dealer for their roles in helping break up this attack in the planning stages.

Update: Heh. Did the tip come from Tony Soprano?

Update: Allah is tracking this story at well over at Hot Air.

Update: CNN reports that one of the suspects was Jordanian and another was Turkish, with the rest being Yugoslavian.

The Washington Post adds that the suspects have lived in the United States for "several years."

CBS3 provides more detail on the suspects:


Sources said the suspects included:

- Three brothers from Yugoslavia who came to the country illegally and were living in Cherry Hill.

- A Yugoslavian native who was living legally in Williamstown.

- A Turkey native who was arrested in the 2100 block of Tremont Street in Philadelphia

- A Jordan National living in Pennsauken who was working as a cab driver. He was taken into custody while in his cab at the Philadelphia International Airport.

Officials said the men attempted to purchase AK-47s from an arms dealer secretly cooperating with law enforcement agents.

Sources said the suspects trained for the plot in an area near Routes 30 and 380 in the Poconos. The suspects apparently had maps and had done surveillance on Fort Dix in preparation for the plot.

If the CBS3 account is correct, at least three of the six plotters were here illegally, and all were here for a least a year, if not several years.

Update: I formally move that we call this the "Duka, Duka, Mohammed Jihad."

Update: A total of ten men were seen on the video that launched the investigation, as reported in this document obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Update: A sampling of liberal blog reaction: The Agonist: "...when are these insignificant cases going to stop being blown out of proportion?" Talking Points Memo: "It's always hard for me to see how these aren't as serious as they appear. But there is a record." Middle Earth Journal: "This will probably turn out to be another José Padilla moment but it will be good for a lot of ape like chest pounding by the wingnut islamophobes." Mahablog: "The basic story is that six Islamic radicals were planning to attack Fort Dix and kill soldiers as part of a jihad against America. This is what the Department of Justice is saying, anyhow, so take that with a grain of salt."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:52 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment
Post contains 1042 words, total size 8 kb.

May 04, 2007

Because You Never Know When Global Warming Is Going to Fly Into a Building

A ship of fools, if ever there was one:


Senior House Republicans are complaining about Democrats' plans to divert "scarce" intelligence funds to study global warming.

The House next week will consider the Democrat-crafted Intelligence Authorization bill, which includes a provision directing an assessment of the effects that climate change has on national security.

"Our job is to steal secrets," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"There are all kinds of people analyzing global warming, the Democrats even have a special committee on this," he told The Washington Times. "There's no value added by the intelligence community here; they have no special expertise, and this takes money and resources away from other threats."

Democrats, who outnumber Republicans on the committee, blocked the minority from stripping the warming language from the bill.

Intelligence panel Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat, said the climate-change study is one of several shifts his party has made to intelligence policy.

"We're concerned that global warming might impact our ability to maintain national security," he told The Times, describing the idea as "cutting edge."

As Ace notes, Reyes, the chairman of Intelligence Panel, is the man that doesn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni, or or which al Qaeda is, and had no clue at all about the nature of Hezbollah.

Of course, he belong to a Democratic House whose Speaker doesn't even know that al Qaeda is in Iraq, so that bit of incompetence is sadly par for the course.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:29 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 283 words, total size 2 kb.

Lost War Updates

A. J. Strata reports that al Qaeda in Iraq has lost its second caliphate capital in recent months, first losing their stronghold in Ramadi, and now, their base in the Tahrir neighborhood of Baqouba.

The U.S. military has confirmed that not one, but two senior al Qaeda commanders were killed north of Baghdad earlier this week.

Bill Roggio notes the continued expansion of the Anbar Salvation Council, and notes that one of the original tribes that supported al Qaeda in Iraq has flipped and joined the war against the terrorists. Ten Sunni tribes have turned to war against al Qaeda in the last month alone.

And last but by no means least, Lawrence Kaplan notes what most of us have long known: Congressional Democrats approach the Iraq War from a position of willful ignorance.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:28 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 140 words, total size 1 kb.

Iraqi EFPS Prove to Be Duds; Iranian EFPs Still Lethal Threat

Several month's ago, Andrew Cockburn attacked President Bush and the United States military in the Los Angeles Times, for the President saying that the EFPs --explosively-formed penetrators--being used successfully against American military forces in Iraq with a great degree of effect came from Iran:


PRESIDENT BUSH HAS now definitively stated that bombs known as explosively formed penetrators — EFPs, which have proved especially deadly for U.S. troops in Iraq — are made in Iran and exported to Iraq. But in November, U.S. troops raiding a Baghdad machine shop came across a pile of copper disks, 5 inches in diameter, stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order. This ominous discovery, unreported until now, makes it clear that Iraqi insurgents have no need to rely on Iran as the source of EFPs.

The truth is that EFPs are simple to make for anyone who knows how to do it. Far from a sophisticated assembly operation that might require state supervision, all that is required is one of those disks, some high-powered explosive (which is easy to procure in Iraq) and a container, such as a piece of pipe. I asked a Pentagon analyst specializing in such devices how much each one would cost to make. "Twenty bucks," he answered after a brief calculation. "Thirty at most."

Cockburn's venom and naked partisanship were obvious. What wasn't so obvious is that Cockburn didn't know what he was talking about.

While crude Iraqi machine shops can manufacture crude components, the EFPs they can manufacture are no serious threat to American armor.


Iraqi fighters have been making their own versions of the weapons, but so far none has been effective against U.S. forces, Odierno said. The Iraqi-made projectiles, using brass and copper melted on stoves, have failed to fully penetrate U.S. armor and are more likely to be used against Iraqi forces, whose vehicles often have thinner armored protection than U.S. vehicles, U.S. military officials said.

"We have not seen a homemade one yet that's executed properly," Odierno said, adding that such weapons are not a major concern "as of yet."

In short, Cockburn's assertion that "EFPs are simple to make for anyone who knows how to do it," betrays his ignorance of the difference between theory and practice. Theoretically, anyone could presumably find plans to build an EFP, but without the right materials, training, and manufacturing equipment, they could not make an EFP with the capability of defeating advanced armor.

It is not as simple to manufacture a competent EFP as Cockburn and others have mislead. Someone should alert the media, but then again, the majority of the media doesn't really care.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
Post contains 463 words, total size 3 kb.

May 03, 2007

Two Arrested Smuggling Iranian EFPs in Sadr City

Oui?


US forces arrested two Iraqis suspected of smuggling weapons and armour-piercing explosives from Iran in a dawn raid Thursday into Baghdad's Shiite slum Sadr City, the military announced.

The arrests came ahead of a possible first meeting between the foreign ministers of Iran and United States since 1980, at an international conference on the future of Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"The individuals targeted during the raid are suspected members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq," the military said.

The statement said the network was also training Iraqi militants in Iran.

The CENTCOM release this story was based upon is here.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 138 words, total size 1 kb.

Pressure

The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq has been killed:


US and Iraqi forces have killed the head of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents which includes Al-Qaeda, Iraq's deputy interior minister said Thursday.

Minister Hussein Ali Kamal said the insurgent leader known as Omar al-Baghdadi was killed in western Baghdad. "His body is under the control of the interior ministry. His body has been identified," he told AFP.

Separately, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver said the military would hold a news conference later on Thursday to announce a "recent success against a senior leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Unlike the claimed but unconfirmed killing of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who was reportedly killed earlier this week in a firefight with one of a number of Sunni tribal militias formerly aligned with al Qaeda, who have now joined with Coalition forces, al-Baghdadi's body has been claimed and apparently identified.

For the roundup of this story, go to Pajamas Media.


al-Baghdadi's death is properly categorized as a "big fish;" al-Masri, as Dan Riehl noted, once declared allegiance to al-Baghdadi.

This news comes as Evan Kohlmann notes that the al Qaeda coalition continues to fracture:


In the wake of the recent and very public rift between the Sunni Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) and Al-Qaida's "Islamic State", yet more cracks are suddenly beginning to show in the unified jihadist coalition that Al-Qaida has been trying to assemble in Sunni regions of Iraq. Today, the IAI--along with factions from at least two other predominant Sunni militant groups, the Mujahideen Army and the notorious Ansar al-Sunnah Army--have officially announced the formation of their own separate political coalition: "The Reformation and Jihad Front" (RJF). This new front would seem to be a direct challenge to the authority of Al-Qaida's "Islamic State" and is said to enjoy support from Sunni Islamist circles (like Ansar al-Sunnah) which have, in the past, worked closely with Al-Qaida.

Kohlmann goes on to note that while the RJF is no ally of American nor Iraqi democracy, it poses a significant political threat to the future of al Qaeda in Iraq, perhaps even more significant than the formation of the Anbar Salvation Council.

Marc Lynch notes of the RJF that:


While the language is typically religious, the focus is exclusively Iraqi, and says nothing about wider global jihad.

As a result, the group should have more appeal to the various Sunni insurgent factions that are more nationalistic in their goals, and thus lessen support for al Qaeda in Iraq.

"Divide and conquer" was the original aim al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency, as they hoped to capture popular Iraqi support and use that support against the Iraqi government and the Coalition. It will be very interesting to see how the media decides to note the now obvious fact that it is al Qaeda and it's aligned Sunni groups that are fracturing, factionalizing, and turning on one another.

Update: A "Twofer?" Over at Hot Air, Bryan is running with a Washington Post article where General William Caldwell has confirmed that Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, al-QaidaÂ’s information minister, has been killed, a fact confirmed by DNA tests on the body:


Caldwell said the U.S. does not have the bodies of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, or Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, and doesn't know of "anybody that does."

He said the military had conducted numerous operations against al-Qaida in Iraq in the last six days.

Al-Jubouri was killed while trying to resist detention in an operation about four miles west of the Taji air base north of Baghdad early Tuesday, and the body was initially identified by photos, then confirmed by DNA testing Wednesday, he said.

Meanwhile, Bryan notes that Iraqi media sites such as Aswat al Iraq are still claiming al-Baghdadi's death, and even purport to have video of the body.

Who is right?

IraqSlogger isn't sure, but states that CNN is claiming that al-Baghdadi and Al-Jubouri may very well be the same person. I couldn't find that claim at CNN, so the statement only adds to the confusion.

The overall facts remain the same, regardless of which al Qaeda leader specifically died: al Qaeda in Iraq is being hunted, cornered, and killed or captured, and the pace of such operations seems to be increasing.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:37 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 737 words, total size 5 kb.

May 02, 2007

Risible Tensions

If al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was killed in Iraq in a clash yesterday as reported, it appears that tribes that are part of the Sunni Awakening will get credit for the kill:


A local leader from a village near Taji, Muhammad Fadhil of Nibaie, said he heard explosions and gunfire from Monday night through Tuesday morning. He believed the sounds came from clashes between al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and men from the Falahat tribe and a tribal coalition known as the Anbar Salvation Council. Fadhil also said U.S. and Iraqi forces eventually cordoned off the area.

The Anbar Salvation Council is a Sunni group formerly loyal to al Qaeda and the insurgency that has since joined forces with the Iraqi government and coalition forces. The tribal militias have fought pitched battles against al Qaeda, and has killed or captured hundreds of terrorists over the course of the past few months.

CNN, as befitting their political bias, arrives to the party late:


Reports of fighting between al Qaeda in Iraq and Sunni militants surfaced Tuesday, the latest hints of rising tensions between the two allied groups.

Other reports have emerged this year of tensions between Sunni fighters and the Sunni-dominated al Qaeda in Iraq, particularly from Anbar province, long a favored turf for indigenous Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq from Syria.

The Awakening has been fighting tooth and claw against al Qaeda for months in battles involving hundreds of men at a time, (see the Roggio links above, and feel free to Google others), and CNN sees "hints of rising tensions?"

One can only wonder what maelstrom would force them to actually use the word "combat."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:53 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 285 words, total size 2 kb.

May 01, 2007

Yon: Desires of the Human Heart

A two-part photo essay from embed Mike Yon, embedded with I-4 Cavalry (Fort Riley, Kansas) at COP Amanche, Baghdad:

Part I

Part II


Proud Mother

Mike writes of this photo, taken from Part II:


"I asked the woman above if she was the mom, but the camera had already captured the answer."

Cute Kid. Beaming Mom. These are among the people I worry about when I see Harry Reid declare the war "lost." If Reid and others are allowed to force a loss, what kind of future can this mother and child have?


Looking Out

No photo touches me more than these Iraqi children, particularly the girl in red, that Yon photographed last year in Iraq near the Iranian border.

Something about her haunts me. Perhaps it is her strength and sadness, or her passing resemblance to my niece.

I want these children to have a future that is better than their nation's horrific past decades or bloody present. I simply don't understand how we can help provide anything like that by declaring they aren't worth it, and running away.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 188 words, total size 2 kb.

al-Masri's Rumored Death Shows Fruits of Sunni Awakening

The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was reportedly killed in a firefight today between al Qaeda and what has been described as a battle between insurgent groups by the Guardian, or by local Sunni tribesmen according to CNN. The account remains to be confirmed, and it must be noted that similar accounts in the past have been incorrect.

Both claims of who carried out the attack could be accurate, but the CNN account, which describes the site of the conflict as "a bridge in an area under Sunni tribal control," sounds like a description consistent with the Sunni tribal militias aligned with the al-Anbar "Awakening" movement, as described by combat filmmaker and blogger JD Johannes in this recent entry to his blog at Outside the Wire:


Driving along the four-lane highway from Habbaniyah to Ramadi there are the usual coalition check points, Iraqi Army Outposts, markets, black market gas stations and Police Stations.

But, off the main highway, on the access roads leading back into the Euphrates canal country, every half mile, gun men wearing Keyfahs and wielding AK-47s man road blocks--and they are the best allies we can have against the jihadists.

[snip]

Last Summer few Sheiks, notably around Ramadi flipped to the coalition and government side of the conflict.

The tribes sent levies to the Police Academies in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. They have also started taking matters into their own hands with some men from each clan and tribe defending their villages.

What I saw in Husabayah Jawal was not the Iraqi Police or the Iraqi Army, but the beginings of the end of the insurgency in Iraq.

Whether they are the Sons of Al Anbar, Sawa, TAA, the militia or the Tribal Neighborhood Watch, tribes and clans across the Euphrates river valley are taking charge of their own security with back up from the Marines.

[snip]

The Iraq variant of the Home Guard emerged last year as many of the top sheiks, some who had opposed the coalition and some who had a foot in both camps saw that AQIZ was not following through on their promises and that the coalition was following through on their promises.

The other point that flipped the Sheiks is the simple fact that no one except for the hard core jihadists want to live under Sharia law--which is all the jihadists have to offer.

The Sheiks, sub-sheiks, former military leaders including a hero of the Iran/Iraq war who lived in the Khalidiayah area began the process of standing up neighborhood watch check points.

The neighborhood watch is supported by the Police District and Mayor. The Marines keep a close eye on the volunteers who man the check points but have no official involvement in their activities.

The Anbar Awakening is allowing one of the key aspects of counter insurgency operations to begin--population control and control of movement in and out of areas.

This firefight may have either been "red-on-red" fighting between an insurgent group and al Qaeda, or it could be the action of a tribal militia loyal to the "Awakening" and the Iraqi government.

If the former is correct and the firefight was a "red-on red" between insurgent groups, then it shows more evidence of a widening, lethal rift between various elements of a Sunni insurgency, an insurgency that has been showing increasing signs of fragmentation for months.

If the firefight was between al Qaeda and local Sunni militiamen loyal to the Awakening, then this battle is part of a trend that shows the vulnerability of al Qaeda and mobile insurgents to the "Home Guard" militias, local groups loyal to Sheiks aligning with the Iraqi government and coalition forces that know on sight whether or not people belong to a certain area. It is also worth mentionthat both accounts could very well be true, as these are not exclusive states of being with Sunni tribes in a state of flux.

This battle is one of many that has occurred in Iraq in the past few months as the Sunni Awakening that started last summer continues to bear fruit, further fracturing the insurgency as they turn on al Qaeda and the increasingly fewer number of Sunni tribes that see fighting the Iraqi government and coalition forces as a viable strategy.

While civilian and military casualties continue to mount in Iraq, the essential nature of the conflict has radically evolved, a fact under-reported in a world press that can understand simple concepts like body counts, but cannot or will not understand the underlying motivations and actors.

The original Sunni insurgency in Iraq that fought to overthrow or undermine the fledgling Iraqi government is not dead, but it is certainly, unequivocally, in the process of dying.

Today, the body counts continue to be high, but those dying in the string of horrific string of car and truck bomb attacks over the past few months are not being killed by popularly-supported Sunni insurgents, but instead, are being attacked by elements of al Qaeda. 80 to 90-percent of those carrying out suicide bombing in Iraq are not Iraqis, just as so many of the lethal EFP attacks being carried out against Coalition forces are the work of Shias that receive training and weaponry in Iran. Foreign actors are increasing taking the lead from the locals in the war against the Iraqi government.

Why does this matter?

Native-borne insurgencies are among the toughest of conflicts to bring to a successful resolution. The French learned this hard lesson in Vietnam and Algeria, as we learned that lesson in Vietnam. But native insurgencies can be defeated, as French Lt. Col. David Galula demonstrated in the areas under his control in Algeria, and as the British showed in the Malaysian Emergency.

Insurgencies that receive more external support than internal support are far more vulnerable to be defeated, for obvious reasons. Without internal support, foreign fighters and insurgent groups run a far greater risk of being identified, fixed, and destroyed. As a result, the current situation in Iraq is more winnable than it was a year ago.

Those critics that maintain that the war in Iraq is "lost," or that refuse to admit that al Qaeda or Iran are the key, driving forces behind the remaining Sunni and Shia militias and insurgent groups, are deluding themselves. Saying that "nothing has changed" is not only an abdication of responsibility, it is an abdication of reality.

Sunnis tribesmen engaged with al Qaeda this morning, as they have time and again and with increasing frequency over the past year as the Awakening grows. Allah's important influence aside, they are also undoubtedly switching sides because Iraq is their home, and they want to be on the winning side when this war concludes. Many have determined that the Iraqi government and their coalition allies must and will be that winning side.

Much as changed in Iraq since the Sunni Awakening began last summer.

We have a radically new strategy for fighting the war, being implemented by a new commanding general, under a new Secretary of Defense. We have crucial new allies, as tribes that formerly supported the insurgency have rebelled against it to form a new political party and re-engage in the political process, even as they hunt and kill al Qaeda. These Sunni tribes have engaged the Iraqi government and coalition troops as allies, declaring:


"We have decided that by helping you," he said, "we are helping God."

The war, it seems may be in the process of being won in Iraq in mid-2007, even as war critics declaring this war "lost" are stuck in time, in a much different Iraq War of early 2006.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:58 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 1290 words, total size 9 kb.

<< Page 2 of 2 >>
122kb generated in CPU 0.0308, elapsed 0.18 seconds.
61 queries taking 0.1578 seconds, 257 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.

Search Thingy



Recent Comments

  • penis advantage reviews Yet, the best male enhancement method acting that is proved to be the mastering the items infra good... entry
  • tubal reversal The simplest way to evade being disliked is to mind your own business and keep from giving goo... entry
  • mia clarisonic mia coupon Absolutely no person is really worth the cry, and then the an individual who is going to be gotâ€... entry
  • clarisonic mia best price Sale Under no circumstances lour, even when you happen to be sorry, for those who can't say for sure who ... entry
  • Jim BAGHDAD, Iraq — The United States launched its opening attack against Iraq Thursday morning, a... entry
  • Michael Smith Jim - Your argument is so specious that I don't know where to start. The US did not specific... entry
  • Jim You have it completely backwards as usual Brando. A better analogy for what I actually wrote abo... entry
  • brando Jim believes that the Nanking Massacre wasn't murder because it was part of War. Jim, all good ... entry
  • megapotamus I think the pushback on Jim is a bit gratuitous. But there is a third designation of less than ancie... entry
  • Jim Neo, Nuremberg is tricky for a number of reasons, the court was a mix of civilian and military, the ... entry

Categories

Archives

Blogroll

Sample link

Monthly Traffic

  • Pages: 6961
  • Files: 91
  • Bytes: 107.2M
  • CPU Time: 7:26
  • Queries: 287327

Content

  • Posts: 3653
  • Comments: 35960

Feeds


RSS 2.0 Atom 1.0