Well, I thought I would add my own views on the current Iraq situation!  It seems to me that there are enough disconnects to warrant me putting out some of my own views and experiences.  I believe I will first touch on the Fallujah issue!

 

Now it appears to me that there is a lot of misinformation and disconnects on Fallujah!  When we first went into Iraq we were told that Saddam’s home town of Tikrit would be the tough nut to crack and was the town that had benefited the most under Saddam’s rule due to such as Family groupings there and the fact that Saddam sought out those there for personal loyalties himself, which meant that they were people Saddam could trust – with empty holsters of course!  So, Tikrit was the place were any change of regime would mean a definite loss of power and life style!  Now many also said that the Sunni population was also favored by the Saddam’s regime while the large Shiite population was totally repressed and controlled by Saddam!  This is all fine, but I see problems with the current logic of what is going on in Fallujah and the spin were are receiving from the US Government and the major News Media outlets in the US!

 

I believe that Stan Goff in his book Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century has come up with the real problem that such as Fallujah is giving us.  In Chapter Seven entitled Iraq: Wolves and Sheep, Stan reports that retired General Jay Garner excluded any Iraqi with a popular base from having any influence in the running of Baghdad!  Now we can begin to see the problem developing.  Stan says that at first we did not send out stabilization forces in the areas around Baghdad!  As a result, in such as Fallujah, once the original fighters had been dislodged, the local imams took responsibility and restored public order!  The looting and vengeance attacks were stopped!  Public services and a policing force were put in place by these imams.  In late April American forces came in and arrested these imams, put their own mayor in power and blockaded the whole city!  Not only did the Americans not understand the Iraqi culture; but when the Iraqis became mad over this and demonstrated, the Americans reacted by firing on the crowds and killing people!  The American Leadership and media there spread stories of weapons in the crowd and totally ignored the Iraqis and their version of the events!  With the Iraqis deprived of their traditional leaders, killed by Americans and lied about and discredited of their views of the events, the resistance that now controls the situation and area now stepped in to give the people an outlet for the killing of their people and a leadership and voice that the Americans saw fit to ignore!

 

Now, I hope that gives some justice to what Stan has written; but I think it totally explains what happened!  What is not yet explained is the spin the Administration and American Media has put on the Fallujah situation!  Now if Tikrit was the power base of Saddam where the privileged and elite lived, was this true of Fallujah?  The only reports, I have read, tell of an entirely different situation!  It paints a place of very poor and uneducated people who could easily be excited by the resistance to rise up against the Americans!  I would add that this would be especially true if the traditional imam leaders they had been ruled by had been taken out of the picture!  But during the recent fighting to take Fallujah, the American Authorities and the American media have portrayed these people fighting in Fallujah as elites who benefited under Saddam and were now fighting not to lose such privileges!  This may be true for some of the insurgent leaders; but apparently not for the majority of fighters!  Also, with the failure of the American authorities to provide any type of employment for the area, it was often said, by some, that a lot of the fighters were part times who had been in the Iraqi military; but had no job now and was fighting for money that the Insurgent leaders would give them!

 

So, it appears that the view put out by the American authorities and Media in Iraq is self serving!   Now, my view of a lot of the insurgents plays on the reports or them being impoverished with little education!  Now, if the US Military were to march up into Idaho with say German and French troops for whatever reason, what do you think would happen?  Well to me, with their large survivalist and anti-government populations, there would be resistance against this occupation – especially if peaceful demonstrations of outrage had lead to those protestors being fired on and killed and the issue was lied about afterwards to make those protestors look like the ones who caused the violence!  This, to me, would lead to the same kind of resistance that we see in Iraq today – The same kind of resistance, by the way, that Stan Goff says his units were trained to carry out!  I could see the Idaho resistance exploding roadside bombs and lining up wounded occupying troops and even captured candy stripers and executing them!

 

Is all this reasonable!  Well elsewhere on this Iraq Information Web Site, I have linked to a story, where the NEOCONs now say, that American troop strength is causing the insurrection and should be reduced!  Yea, I know that same NEOCONs who put us in Iraq and then said we would be welcomed there; however, I think for once they are right!  Of course their view leaves a big gap between views and reality!  If we reduce American presence in Iraq, the Insurgents may indeed loose support; but the South-Vietnamese like New Iraqi police and other security definitely seem reluctant to fight for the new American appointed leader and system!  The Insurgents could still lose support by such as the killings of people like Margaret Hassan and the killings of innocent civilians by random bombings and selected terror; but that would take something we don’t have in Iraq!  One can read the thesis Undermining Revolution:  Edward Geary Lansdale, Counterinsurgency and the Hukbalahap Rebellion by Kyle B. Mathews to see what it would take! 

 

The same News media has been reporting about the middle class Shiites in Iraq who hope to take actual control of Iraq in or after any election!  Now let us just view this from the proposition given!  Here we have reports of middle class Shiites in Iraq!  Now was not Saddam supposed to totally prostrate the Shiites of Iraq and see to it that the Sunni population was given the benefits!  Yet now there is a significant Shiite middle class, has to be so if they plan to take over, and a totally ignorant and impoverished Fallujah population who is fighting us!  Well that just brings up some disconnects!  We also have that story that the body found that was supposed to be Margaret Hassan’s was not her body!  And the most radical of the insurgents disclaimed that they killed her and said they wanted her released!  Maybe or maybe not; but the reports by the media is one of kidnappings for profit where a kidnapped person is sold to the highest bidder!  Then we had to report of Margaret being killed by the Brits as I have given out the link!  We had original reports of American assassination teams in Iraq and nothing since the original reports of this!  I will go more into that later; however, there appear to be many tantalizing stories nobody is reporting on!

 

So, there appears to be a lot of Spin, on the US part on Iraqi reality, by both Government and Media outlets!  The insurgents are indeed as bad as reported!  Since from day one they have been killing intellectuals and others they feel may cooperate with the Americans; but much like our Phoenix program in Vietnam, this is not new!  But the spin on what happened in Fallujah, who the fighters were and why they would fight appears to put a spin on the truth by the Government and News media that does not serve the interests of the US.  Because the citizens of the US need truth and honesty to make their decisions in our type of Democracy!

 

More to come later!