Originally posted by deltaboy

Originally posted by AlphaOfTheOmega
I'm not going to argue with that, although I guess there is the chance some may want to give in and make a peace bargain with them. Maybe if they terrorise enough people and enough people want to give in to the insurgents they think they can win by popular demand? ie - more people in favour of it than the government can handle.I guess we won't ever know, and if we ever do, it'll be more than a wee while before we do.

Once a political organization starts targeting civilians, they lost the war they just barely started. Name me a terrorist group that has won their demands...lets say Al Qaida, Basque, Tamil Tigers, IRA, KKK, etc. Most terrorist groups have been fighting for decades and are still fighting. Once you target civilians intentionally you dont have much popular support and most of them are going into hiding, true?

OK I see what you are saying, but its a little wrong.
What the insurgency and Al-Quada is doing in Iraq is somewhat different than what the IRA and others do.

By attacking Iraqi civilians the insurgency is essentially trying to build antiamerican sentiment. When they attack Iraqi civilians, the blame isn't being place on the insurgents. Instead, the Americans are taking indirect blame. The rationale is, "if America wasn't here we wouldn't have to kill you. Make them leave and we'll stop killing you." So every Iraqi life they take strengthens the antiAmerican sentiment in Iraq's civilian population.

More over, they are scaring people away from doing anything to help America. If you are an Iraq civilian and decide to join the local police force, you are also placing your family at great risk. Same goes for the military. The insurgents make it a point to track down 'traitors' and punish them or their families.

As for the weapons, you guys are off base. They aren't coming from anywhere. Initially they did come from Russia yes, 30 years ago! Russia made millions of RPG30's they are a fire and throw away weapon. Once fired the launching mechanism is usless. It cannot be reloaded. Thus a large quatity of them had to be manufactured by Russia in order to sell the one shot weapons abroad.

Those RPG's do figuratively grow on trees in pretty much the whole Asian continent. Not to mentiona that China and Russia have been churning out AK47's for nearly a half century.

I think you guys are overestimating the cost of running an insurgency. Imagine. If you were fighting a holy war for your god, would you dig into your own pocket to buy a couple Rifle Rounds? Or would you wait for a check from Al-Zarkawi? You'd pay yourself. Not to mention that they aren't exactly fireing a hundered rounds a day or anything. They fire a clip off when they mount an attack, there may be weeks between attacks for any given individual, so 100 rounds would probly last one insurgent for a couple months.

Not to mention that AK47's are pretty much a household commodity in the arab world. They are after all called 'arab fireworks'. You can buy an AK47 in Africa for 8 dollars USD. thats right EIGHT frickin bucks. There are quite literally millions of 47's and variants in circulation today.

As for the explosives. You could go into the cupord under your sink and make a decent bomb with the cleaning materials used for cleaning your stove microwave and floor. So don't think that getting explosives is costing the insurgants too much coin.

Like it or not, the insurgency is winning the battle for Iraq. They are doing it cheap and with little outside help. There really isn't any outside "players" they are fighting with what they have. Weapons a plenty.

OK seeker. I read the thread and see little more than speculation.

I am quite sure someone is supporting the insurgency. But you have to realize, alot of the weapons they are using there predate the Iraq/Iran war. Same goes for the rpgs and bullets. Cell phones, well thats different of course.

I think you guys should be thinking about WarLords more than Countries. Everyone has a couple rich doods in their city. Well, it's these # heads who are stirring up the insurgency.

Personally, I couldn't really care less who is supporting the insurgency, because to be truthfull, I don't think America should be in Iraq in the first place. I think the whole concept of external support for the insurgency is an excuse for the right wing rupublicans to use to rationalize their failure in Iraq.

They are ashamed to admit that the insurgency is winning and thus, they are making excuses, "there MUST be an outside antagonist". Let me guess, when we find out who it is, they'll(the right wingers) invade them too.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Iran and Syria, and probably factions within Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The above could be wrong, and there could undoubtedly be more players.

I am not sure that any of this will ever be entirely known or discovered, if revealed.





seekerof

YUP. All true but you didn't mention was Sudan or Yemen. There is evidence to support that more than a few weathy individuals from all Islamic states are funding the bad guys.

I don't buy the Iran arguement what so ever. Why do people persist in perpetuating this filth?

1) Iraqi's are ARAB, Iranians are PERSIAN, two completly different cultures on a fundamental level.

2)Iraqi's just elected a Shiite majority government. Iran is ruled by a Shiite government. If anything, America made Iran's wet-dream come true in Iraq. Why would Iran possibly fight having their sect of Islam installed in Iraq, (democratically no-less)? Can anyone tell me?

I think you are all forgetting the Iran/Iraq war. That was Sunni (Soviet allied) Iraq vs. Shiite(American allied) Iran. 1 Million casualties in that war in a dispute over the waters of Shatt al-Arab and to halt Iranian interferance in Iraqi internal affairs.

What America essentially did in 2003 was win the 1980 Iran/Iraq war for Iran. Iran is tickled pink about the invasion of Iraq and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

The insurgants are mostly Ba'athist and mostly Sunni. This places both Saudi Arabia (for being ruled by Sunni's) and Syria(for being ruled by Ba'athists) as suspect if anything.

I think the upper echelon of this Hawk administration is scared #less because they #ed up big time, in two ways. One, they never should have invaded in the first place for a littany of reasons (not to mention its illegality) and more importanly because they have just about created a super-Iran.

We are going to see a push for Iran not because they are trying to build WMD or are funding the insurgency, but because if America creates a monster in the middle east they will forever be the laughing stocks of the world (which they are close to being already).

Oh, yeah I almost forgot. China, yeah they are frikkin loving this war. America drives itself further and further into debt. China has an insane trade surplus with America. They also have something on the order of 1 Billion + American dollars in its foreign reserves. It could dump them on the market at will and all in its debts on America and destroy the American economy in a matter of weeks.

I don't want it to happen, no one does. But if things keep going the way they are, I'd start learning Chinese, because they'll be on our doorsteps pretty frikkin soon. All the while, THEY (and Russia)reap the rewards of an alliance with Iran and the newly elected Iran friendly Iraq government.

A Sino-Russian power move, sound Clancy-ish? Sounds more "gonna-happen-ish" to me.

The citizens of the U.S. who pay taxes are the main source of revenue to funding the war. Then you have our coliation members who are paying what they can but America is footing most of the bill.

I think that some of you here still don't see the big picture we have over there. True that most of the funds comes from the middle east be it the governments, other terror cells or wealthy businessmen. However, did you know that there is a respectable percentage of that fund comes from countries outside the conflict radius.

For example, there's known reports that some of EU's money has allegedly "accidentally" went to the terror groups in the middle east. Other than that, the recent UN scandal involving the oil-for-food program also contributes to the list of who funded the insurgents/terror cell in the middle east and Iraq. Some corporate companies and businesses worldwide too without knowingly contributes to the terror fund through investments.

Originally posted by deltaboy

Originally posted by AlphaOfTheOmega
One thing the US most certainly did give them was training. The reason the insurgents are meeting with such success is that having been trained by US soldiers, and seen US soldiers in other countries, they know what makes them tick and can use both military and political attrition to wear the troops down. Wear down the army, and wear down support for the coalition. A neat little strategy, no?

Well it seems to me that the insurgents are pretty much killing thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police who have those American training so its not a neat little strategy when you may have killed your own brothers who are on the insurgent side, true? Its called fratricide. Not to mention I have yet to see any stingers being used. So far its Russian made and since Saddam bought alot of them, no point in hunting down Stingers. Success don't always account for everything as well, since the insurgents are targeting civilians intentionally, makes you wonder why. Can't kill American forces enough and afraid of getting yourself killed so go attack civilians and Iraqi Army and police more.

No the Iraqi security forces are not on the resistane's "side" they are fighting eachother unless you know something we dont? You say the "insurgents" target innocent civilians, you forget to mention its the UK/US special ops setting up these mosque and market bombings.

Funny how you dont consider carpet bombing a city purposely targeting civilians, i guess in your head tho its not targeting civlians, there just getting in the way?

You are probably right there are not many US weapons in the arms of the resistance, but hopefully with every US invader slained this increases, the resistance gets access to the new shiny toys of the invading cowardly infantry.

Its sad to feel joy over the death of a human i know, but its sure does make me happy hearing of these "brave" marines being blown to pieces, maybe after another couple of thousand americans are blown up your people will realise you cannot go throwing your wheight around whenever anre however you like, because there are brave people who will fight back with whatever they have.

Originally posted by HiddenReality


Funny how you dont consider carpet bombing a city purposely targeting civilians, i guess in your head tho its not targeting civlians, there just getting in the way?

Do you even know what 'carpet bombing' is? Provide me ONE example of a wave of b-52s coming over the cities to bomb an area target in Iraq. This hasn't happened since Vietnam (read about 'Rolling Thunder')

I really wish people in other countries taught world history in school.


[edit on 3-12-2005 by SourGrapes]

Let's call a spade a spade here. You and I are paying for the Iraqi Insurgency. Everytime you fill up your gas tank, heat your house, use electricity or use dozens of other products. People have posted that Middle Eastern Governments or wealthy citizens of those countries are sending the insurgents money. Well where did those governments and people get their money? Oil. Who buys the oil? Enough said.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
Let's call a spade a spade here. .

Is that a racial slurr?

Originally posted by OneGodJesus

Originally posted by JIMC5499
Let's call a spade a spade here. .

Is that a racial slurr?

As far as I know it is a term that came from the card game Bridge. To me a spade is a marking on a card or another name for a type of shovel.