Insurgents showing no sign of letting up

[NeoConsSuck]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-08-22-iraq-cover_x.htm

BAGHDAD — Nearly two months after the establishment of a sovereign Iraqi government, the violent attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces show no sign of flagging.

<snip>
U.S. officials had said they expected the attacks to drop as Iraqis re-established control over their country. Their thinking: Iraqi security forces would be better at gathering intelligence, and support for militants would erode because insurgents would be attacking Iraqis rather than U.S. occupation forces.

The officials still hold that view. But U.S. officers say the continuing attacks suggest that it will take time, possibly years, to crush the insurgency.

[bluestateguy]

1. I have a question for world historians out there

In all of recorded history has there ever been a time when an occupying power successfully suppressed an insurgency by the natives?

[shawcomm]

3. The United States...

pretty much decimated and crushed the Native Americans.

[truthisfreedom]

5. oh, well that's cheery news. so we just have to kill all of the Iraqis

and everything will be peachy, right?

[shawcomm]

6. Heck, I didn't say it was right.

Just that it's happened before and needs to be stopped from happening again. It's already gone way too far, but then you know that already.

[Enraged_Ape]

8. The Romans did it all the time

By killing every last man, burning every structure to the ground, and spoiling the fields so that nothing could grow there.

So yeah, it's possible.

[Massacure]

9. Rome crushed a lot of groups.

Edit: Argh! I'm 1 minute slower than Enraged Ape. :(

[htuttle]

12. A Better Question

Has a modern military ever successfully supressed an 'insurgency' by force SINCE the invention of portable machine guns and RPGs?

I think sometimes technology can change the balance, and that submachine guns and RPGs have made it impossible to beat an guerilla army by force alone. In the same way that air power has made 'set piece' battles almost obsolete, I think modern infantry weapons have made urban warfare impossible to win for the occupying side.

[jmcgowanjm]

14. 4th GenerationAsymetricWarfare has never been defeated

A fifth marine also died when his vehicle crashed into a US tank, causing it to flip over and crash.

Now how the hell did this happen? They should've just
said he died conducting safety and security operations....

'cause this makes no sense.

[jmcgowanjm]

13. Only thru genocide n/t

[leftchick]

2. 9 soldiers died since Friday....

Reported on ABC news last night surprisingly. I think the Resistance Fighters are getting new recruits daily. Clue for you "US Officers"..You ain't gonna crush any "Iraqi Insurgency"......

sheesh, still with the neo-con talking points... :eyes:

[thebigidea]

4. b-b-b-but... we're "makin' good progress," says the Chimpy Chump

[jimshoes]

7. It's depressing how these US officials

never get what they expect.

[Vladimir]

10. The problem is that at the moment

the security forces are seen as collaborators, because the government is seen as a puppet cabinet. If they could hold these elections it might move things forward but I doubt it.

[PATRICK]

11. Within the US dilemma, no it is not

possible. You can't possibly enforce the positive, liberating side of American policy and then also use the crushing cruelty(Iraqis are inured to worse from Hussein) needed to have a chance. In the past it had to be clear(or often the conqueror simply annihilated and relocated populations) that the occupying terror would never let up and worse would come. These years they are talking of is a bloody, useless delusion.

What they mean is, keep grinding away until we get all the oil, then dump
them.

The belief in the pacification of Iraq is patently absurd on its face. To make Iraq "Iraq" we would have to make a greater transformation of America into Nazi Germany and beat the world, making the pious claim pointless and irrelevant in the process.

A few seconds of rudimentary common sense would blast this dream into mist. It's a weak come on to poorly informed American voters.

[gatlingforme]

15. international news reports show a much different story than what

we hear in the US. The first thing the news points out is Rumsfeld's lies about not hitting the temple Sadr is holed up in. Yet, they show pictures of the temple with holes and gunfire shots in the doorway... etc.. which shows this temple being plummeted by US/Iraq fire. This administration lives in a bubble.

[jmcgowanjm]

16. Something really bad stupid this way comes

He claimed shells fell in the vicinity of the Imam Ali shrine and
a tank round caused a big hole in the outer wall of the shrine.

Several people were also killed and injured inside the shrine,
he added.

It doesn't have to be this way. The US is behaving in
profoundly offensive ways in Najaf. U.S. military leaders
appear to have no idea what Najaf represents. I saw one
retired general on CNN saying that they used to have to
be careful of Buddhist temples in Vietnam, too. I almost
wept. Islam is not like Buddhism. It is a far tighter civilization.
And the shrine of Ali is not like some Buddhist temple in
Vietnam that even most Buddhists have never heard
of.

http://www.juancole.com/