While the Joint Chiefs’ front man claims the Iraqi insurgents are getting desperate, and that their bombs are “homemade,” Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant, gives us the straight scoop:
And now, Kohlmann says, many of the attacks are filmed — with real production values — and distributed by “Zarqawi’s Media Wing.” Some are filmed “from several different angles and at close enough range for the cameraman to be knocked down by the resulting blast.”
Worse yet, an army of jihadists is being created … below:
In “The Jihad in Iraq: An Engine for International Terrorism,” Kohlmann asserts:
Look at the photo in RubDMC’s diary. This is what Bush has wrought. That, and scores of new fighters willing to do anything to defeat the U.S.
Note: Kohlmann’s blog post also gets into the kinds of fighters attracted to suicide bombing, and more.
Our commander in theif has a handle on this and we are making great progress. Hmmm…don’t see any progress here? Maybe it’s under that desk in the Oval Office with the WMDs. Oops, I forgot Shrub thought that was a funny. He must have feeling “jiggy” that day too. What a cluster fuck. Excuse my language but damn these poor Iraqis. It is getting so that I am starting to believe them when they say that they were better off with Saddam in power. And where is that evil mastermind anyway? Have we torured him to death yet? Wow! didn’t know I would go off on a rant here. Sorry. My definition and Shrub boy’s definition of progress are much different. When will the madness end?
“I am starting to believe them when they say that they were better off with Saddam in power”
Don’t tell anyone, but I agree with you.
I love your rants. You have this capacity for saying it all with just enough words.
And I love your writing. Thanks for the compliment. Oooooo, love fest!!
Clearly the Chicago Tribune/Knight Ridder didn’t get the memo on how the increased desperation shows we’ve got the insurgency on the run. Their reporter James Janega wrote yesterday, “Marines Surprised by Insurgent’s Preparation for Attack” (the Trib version is behind a registration wall). According to the article, the tactics encountered by U.S. forces — where are all those Iraqi soldiers that are supposedly fully-trained, anyway? — seem to be showing a greater degree of sophistication:
The shock was that the enemy was not supposed to be in Ubaydi at all. Instead, American intelligence indicated that the insurgency had massed on the other side of the river. Marine commanders expressed surprise Monday not only at the insurgents’ presence but also the extent of their preparations, as if they expected the Marines to come.
— — —
But more surprising, [Col. Stephen Davis] said, was the insurgents’ preparation and tactical prowess, a development that he said reinforced intelligence that many of the insurgents have been trained by outsiders.
Davis described sophisticated attacks in which the detonation of a roadside bomb would be quickly followed by accurate mortar or rocket fire, then machine-gun fire as Marines raced to the area.
“They clearly have trained people,” he said. “It looks rehearsed.”
Yeah, everything’s peachy over in Iraq ever since the elections. In the 100 days since those elections, there have been 181 “coalition” deaths (172 of them American), at least 415 Iraqi police and military deaths, and well over 750 civilian casualties.
Another distressing item in the Janega article is this:
Other commanders said they had recovered few bodies but had seen blood trails that suggested insurgents were dragging away wounded or dead fighters.
Wasn’t Gen. Tommy Franks the one who said early on in the fighting, “We don’t do body counts”? That was then, of course. Now that we’re stuck in Iraquagmire, it’s important to show the world that we’re still awfully efficient at killing people. It makes me really proud to be an American.
Don’t you find it interesting how quickly Tommy Franks got out of Dodge soon after “Mission Accomplished”? I have a strong suspicion he knew Iraq was headed for major quagmire status and he didn’t want to be within spitting distance when it happened.
This recalls the confident way in which the McNamara Pentagon used estimates of dead Vietcong, not appreciating that the figures were meaningless guesses.
In any event in war the important figure is not the number of enemy you have killed but the number who are still trying to kill your people.
It seems Iraq is just full of people waiting for the opportunity to attack passing troops or assault fortified positions.
Did anyone in the American government ever find out what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan? Perhaps they did not think their enemies were capable of organising effective asymmetric warfare without CIA guidance.
That’s precisely the point. I was particularly taken by the discrepancy between the figure of 100+ which came from HQ in Baghdad and the number barely one-third as large from the regimental commander in charge of the actual operation. Whose intelligence do you suppose is closer to reality?
As you point out, the most salient figure is not how many casualties we’ve inflicted, but how many more the other side is willing to absorb. Last night’s Nightline dealt with this in a fashion, as the program examined the upsurge of suicide bombings in Iraq, indicating that for every insurgent we kill (or capture) or who blows himself up, there is a steady stream of young men willing to step in for the next attack. What’s most disconcerting is the impression that the cycle of violence has sufficiently taken root so that even a U.S. pullout is not likely to make the situation any better for the Iraqis who are bearing the brunt of these attacks (at least 71 more dead today alone as the result of four attacks).
It’s hard to understand how anyone can be optimistic about the short-term in Iraq — the spiral is continuing ever-downward, and it’s becoming more likely that the only way to try to stanch the violence will be through even more brutally repressive measures undertaken by the new Iraqi government, if they have the stomach for it. If they don’t, they’ll lose whatever confidence they currently have from the population, and outright civil war becomes more likely. Neither alternative should be viewed as acceptable.
I just noticed that Kohlmann’s latest book, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network, is now available for purchase in Europe and North America … “is recommended by both former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and the final report of the bi-partisan Congressional 9/11 Commission.”
Might make for interesting reading if Clarke says it’s worthwhile.
Sounds like a must read to me. Thanks for the heads up.
As Iraq is one big “training camp”, as is Afghanistan.
Not meaning that all who are fighting the US and others there are ‘terrorists’ or anything, but I would imagine that the possibilities of ‘on the job training’, learning your opponent’s methods and how to counter them, and honing ones guerilla warfare skills against the ‘best militaries in the world’ are a big attraction for some.
What a mess.
Terrorism”
How do they know if they are all under Zarqawi?
Any anti-US fighter avenging the deaths of his
family in Iraq could get a hold of plastic explosives
and make a bomb. No great training or indoctrination
is required. Driven by hate with readily available
weapons any individual Iraqi can attack the US forces.
They don’t and I’d bet if we asked Kohlmann he’d agree with you. I’ve rather come to think of Zarqawi as a catch-all term. Look at how he uses Zarqawi’s name in the instances above.
As even the US propoganda machine admits that most insurgents are Iraqi, it could be argued that they are covered by the umbrella of “fighting for the freedom of their country”.
Interesting how all those volunteers from outside countries in Spain many years ago were never called international terrorists.
It is all a matter of labels. Exactly why the brand name Zarqawi is so beloved of the US administration.
Zarqawi is a mythic name. Made mythic by the administration. Like most myths, there’s some truth and a lot of fantasy.
one or two legs?
I don’t know much about him but recall that he’s supposed to have only one leg.
Btw, his film company has released some new movies.
There have in the past been very contradictory statements about him the most oft one quoted being about one leg/two legs. The serious question arising from this has been the questioning of whether he is a real person or a creation.
He’s a creation. He’s the all-purpose boogeyman for everything going wrong in Iraq.
He’s also real but I feel not anywhere nearly as powerful or omnipresent as Bush would have us believe.
I hope that man has two legs: The way he hops around, popping up everywhere like the Energizer bunny! Or maybe he’s the guy in the cell phone ads, popping up in every geographic spot: “Can you hear me now?”
in a dark humour way. Considering how difficult it is to
travel in Iraq, the guy must have supernatural powers, satelite positioning devices and a few cell phones.
(CNN) — Some 380 tons of explosives powerful enough to detonate nuclear warheads are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency says.
The Iraqi letter to the IAEA identified the vanished explosives as containing 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or “high melting point explosive,” 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or “rapid detonation explosive,” among other designations, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or “pentaerythritol tetranitrate.”
[Source: CNN, Oct ’04]