Iraqi Insurgents Growing Stronger - and Wiser

[leftchick]

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3503838

<snip>

Instead, there are signs the Americans and their Iraqi allies are facing an enemy more determined than ever. Insurgents have learned from past mistakes and shifted strategy, co-operating more closely with each other and devising new ways to put their relatively simple arsenal to treacherous use.

Militants now follow up roadside bomb attacks with rocket-propelled grenades instead of fleeing, or fire mortar rounds to lure soldiers out of their base and into freshly laid mine fields.

In a July attack in Samarra, for example, militants detonated a car bomb and then hammered a military headquarters with a mortar barrage as troops fled the building. Five American soldiers died.

<snip>

Hours later, guerrillas used a car bomb to disable a U.S. patrol on a main Baghdad road before detonating a second car bomb that wrecked a Bradley fighting vehicle sent to assist the patrol. They then opened fire on the wounded crewmen as they fled the vehicle.

[mhr]

1. "Bring It On" Has Been Catastrophically Successful

Since Bush aided and abetted "The Enemy" does this make him a traitor?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. as our President grows dumber and dumber. eom

[knowbody0]

3. insurgents

im thinkin these insurgents are maybe the iraqi people who do not particularly accept the occupation, and perhaps we should stop calling them by that name.

[AlCzervik]

4. it's a full insurrection at this point and not groups of "Thugs" imho

[saigon68]

5. Its the Iraqi Resistance Forces

Resisting the Iron NeoCon Fascist Fist

[cliss]

6. Right. One of the political ploys

they use. When this first started happening, the press called them 'resistance fighters'. The Pentagon snapped into action and forbade them from using that term. It "romanticised" the Iraqis, and we wouldn't want that. I thought the term was a good one.

I also like plain old IRAQIS.

Welcome to the DU, by the way Know!!! :smoke:

:party:

[leftchick]

7. I prefer 'Iraqi Resistance Fighters"

after all, they just want their country back from the occupiers(another label the US doesn't like).

Welcome to DU Know! :)

[Bucky]

10. I say "insurgents" because it's a neutral term. BushCo say "terrorists"

Freedom fighter is almost as loaded a word as terrorist. I prefer "insurgent" because that's what they're doing, surging up against a foreign power that is, in the words of Mr Bush, "occupying" their country.

[shadu]

8. Where are all the good old fashioned land mines?

You would think the Iraqis would be laying land mines like crazy.

[wsswss]

9. Rooting for whom?

I'm new here and want to fit in. So are we all supposed to be rooting for victory by the Ba'athists/Iranians/Wahhabis and against elections and the formation of a secular democracy?

[Bucky]

11. Great question. We're probably divided on some issues, united on others

No one here wants to see the fascist Baathist thugs returned to power. But I think everyone on this board is pretty frustrated at watching the president drive patriotic Iraqis into the hands of thugs like the extreme Wahhabis of al-Qaeda or the Shiite extremists like Moqtada al-Sadr.

We almost universally opposed the war on this board and a few have fallen into the careless thinking that the enemy of my opponent is my friend. But mostly I think some comments come from the gut level suspicion that if the war steps up, the American public will demand our troops come home sooner, and the killing will stop.

Well, the killing of our troops would stop, anyway.

[cliss]

16. very good post, Bucky.

I agree with you. It's NEVER the Black and White Reality that Bush tries to portray. Some things, however, are VERY clear to me now.

I came to the DU 1 1/2 years ago because I was looking for answers. I found them here.

[leftchick]

12. most of us are rooting for our troops to come home....

"Ba'athists/Iranians/Wahhabis" and plain old Iraqis are not going to be getting any stinkin democracy. No matter what your aWol* chimp of a pretzeldent says. The war in Iraq is lost and it is time to stop killing Iraqis and bring the troops home. Stop watching fox and read a few threads in LBN and you might get a clearer picture of how bad things really are... :eyes:

[BrotherBuzz]

13. First things first

I suspect the citizens of Iraq are to busy fighting the terrorists occupiers to think about elections and democracy. I think they know what freedom is, though.

[wsswss]

14. Mixed views, I see

Thank you, Bucky, for your thoughtful reply.

Leftchick, you scare me. How did you know that I was watching "Good Day LA" this morning on Fox? I don't have cable, so my viewing options are limited.

Brotherbuzz, we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't consider our soldiers in Iraq to be terrorists (you'll have to refresh your memory and look up that word in the dictionary) -- regardless of the party of the civilian leadership at the Pentagon.

[BrotherBuzz]

15. I don't want to consider our troops terrorists, either

But that's neither here nor there. The Iraqi citizens are the ones who may view our troops as terrorists.

[leftchick]

17. Boo....

:)
Sorry if I assumed too much. Seriously, read the news here in LBN not just the comments, to get a better picture of the failure that Iraq is. I want the troops home, no more blood for the Military Industrial Complex!

[wsswss]

18. True, but

I do read the LBN, as well as many other left- and right-oriented sources. I prefer to act as my own editor, rather than reading only the news that somebody else sees fit to print. But I'm sure you are all like that as well.

In case you've never been exposed to Iraqis who don't consider Americans to be terrorists, check this out:

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/archives/2004_09_01_iraqthemodel_archive.html#109526698046079070

Complex issues are almost always grey and rarely black & white.

[leftchick]

19. Thanks for the link....

and Welcome to DU :toast: