Thank you, Kevin. May God keep you safe in your journeys and endeavors. Maria

We should get out of this place and let the Iraqis have what they are used to--chaos,bloodshed, followed by totalitarian rule and probably genocide.

You can blame their predicament on a lot of things, but not the Americans. We've only been there for a year, and we'll soon be gone.

We've killed maybe 10,000 Iraquis in the year we've been there. Saddam's average was about 40,000 per year.

I prefer the Stratfor explanation that the week's events. This latest "rising" is simply the continued jockeying of Shia leaders for power, leading up to June 30. The Shia want to leverage their majority power to rule the country, not share authority with the minority tribes. Their leaders want a more Iranian style theocracy in which to impose their social order on the rest of the nation.

They fear the Americans will try to install a balanced government, and thus they are flexing their muscles through their puppet, Al-Sadr. The Americans have undoubtably gotten the message, and will scramble to give Al-Sistani what he wants, as long as they can preserve basing privledges. The Sunni are bound to get shafted in this process. No wonder their pissed.

In the mean time, regular people are sick of all this bloody power playing, and just want to get on with their lives.

The Americans have indeed learned from Vietnam. They've come the understand the gradual stages of guerrela insurgency warfare. They know that things don't get dicy until the divided and apathetic elements in a society unite against the invader. They'll do everything they can to keep the tribal powers balanced and suspicious of one another until a exit strategy can be arranged, at the earliest opportunity.

Edited by author 04-10-2004 09:50 AM
Thank you, Kevin, for your informative summation of recent events and trigger points. That together with Hans Blix's damning comments this past week provide much food for thought. There are certainly more questions than there are answers. The most troubling aspect of most North American media reports is showing every event through western eyes ... filtering everything through western values and logic. This does little to aid our understanding of the life, influences and politics that the entire region responds to and with. I appreciate your efforts to break through that and provide something of a balance. Stay safe.