The jihad in Iraq continues to escalate in advance of the elections, clearly targeting and intending to terrorize innocent civilians. From CNN, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A suicide bomber on a bus in Baghdad killed at least 30 people and wounded 25 others Thursday, police said.The bus was packed with passengers traveling home for the weekend, authorities said....
In August the bus station was the scene of a horrific triple car bombing which killed at least 43 people and wounded 89, The Associated Press said.
Officials have warned attacks could increase as Iraq's December 15 parliamentary elections draw closer.
The strongest force to suppress the two kinds of Sunnis -- the Al-Zarqawi kind, and the local kind -- is not the American troops. The American troops, for all of their excellence, carefully target a limited number of enemy troops, and try to kill or capture them. Sometimes, but only sometimes, do they round up others whom they suspect of collaboration with those the Americans call "terorrists." But it is a civil war, with those "terrorists" sharing certain aims to keep the Sunnis on top, most simply because they are Sunnis, and the outsiders because they oppose the very idea of democracy but especially the idea that Shi'a "Rafidite dogs" could, as they (the al-Zarqawites) see it, be allowed either to rule over, or to dismember, Iraq, a state that rightly should be ruled by Sunni Arabs forever.
The American kid-glove treatment would end if only the Americans would get out of the way. The Shi'a are simmering, but at the moment their leaders, and many of them, are content to have the Americans do almost everything, to fight and die for them, and to rebuild the country. The same unwillingness to do anything themselvesyet at the same time complain about the "pace of reconstruction" and to assume that the Americans were going to give Iraq a complete makeover (and constant displays of ingratitude, and whining about everything when any man from Mars can see that the Americans have accomplished wonders, reflects this), is all part of inshallah-fatalism. Let Allah, or if not Allah the Infidels, take care of things.
This is an attitude that some of the American officers and men have begun to realize is not simply a matter of this or that individual Iraqi. It is too widespread not to be seen as part of their mental makeup, even if, at present, no Americans dare connect this inability to do much of anything, this damned reliance on the Americans for everything (think of how Europeans set to work, with American aid, after World War II; think of how the Israelis set to work, a country full of refugees, with no aid from any other government, for the first few decades of its existence).
But if the Americans leave, the inshallah-fatalism will have to end. Either the Shi'a will fight for themelves, or they will not. They outnumber the Shi'a 3 to 1. They have had training from the Americans. They control the major ministries. They control the weapons left by Saddam Hussein -- or many of them. Let the Shi'a deal with those who bomb them in their own way. They will do things that the Americans would never let themselves -- or the Shi'a -- do.
"It's their country." Let them loose.
Hugh you comment above sounds logical, you do not see how leaving now, with not enough trained Iraqi's
would creat a worse problem and a bigger mess to clean up? look at the killing fields of Cambodia, and Afganistan left alone with the Taliban gaining power and allowing the likes of BinLaden in their country.
l think some patience and with more trained Iraqi's who can take over for the US/Brit forces, there can be a gradual withdrawl. the media likes to keep on bringing up those US killed, but look also at the Iraqi forces/ police being killed in much higher numbers. you comparisions of Europe and Israel gaining their countries back from a war, is like comparing apples and oranges. Europe endured over 4 years of war, with the pounding of their countries such as in Dresden. Germany's forces were totally spent, as well as most of the rest of Europe. and unfortunately you had the Soviets take over half of Europe. some US general, l think it was Patton who wanted to take on the Soviets..back them into Russia proper. He should of been allowed to do, but as usual you had politics and armchair cronies take.