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Originally Posted by Jamo
Ahem...I presume you meant to say [b]eating?  |
Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't...
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Originally Posted by Jamo
Ditto what CDC said.
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What CdC said:
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Originally Posted by cobra de capell
You've missed the point again, VRM as the point is that the majority or people are not fighting us - they want us there and want us to finish the job right. The majority of people fighting us want to kill us, either there or here.
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Jamo,
First off, I did not say that the majority of people are fighting us. However, in March of 2007 78% of Iraqis polled opposed the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq, and 51% thought that attacks on Coalition forces were acceptable. To be fair, some of the results are a bit contradictory - 35% want us to leave now, but 38% want us to stay until security is better.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...raqpollnew.pdf
From General Dannatt:
"So, because as an Army we are enemy focussed, some words on our adversaries in southern Iraq. The militants (and I use the word deliberately because not all are insurgents, or terrorists, or criminals; they are a mixture of them all) are well armed – certainly with outside help, and probably from Iran. By motivation, essentially, and with the exception of the Al Qaeda in Iraq element who have endeavoured to exploit the situation for their own ends, our opponents are Iraqi Nationalists, and are most concerned with their own needs – jobs, money, security – and the majority are not bad people. In amongst them, however, are a hard core of well trained, well motivated, ruthless individuals who have the capacity to organise and control a highly effective campaign, or perhaps better described as a matrix of campaigns, of violence and intimidation. They live amongst the people, are difficult to track and human intelligence, HUMINT, is difficult to obtain. They have the capacity to generate forces quickly, they will offer extreme violence against us in large urban areas through the use of complex ambushes and IEDs. They also offer violence against each other in the South, not just an account of any Sunni / Shia divide, but within the Shia community. We, meanwhile, are channelled in these urban areas, which makes the operational environment 3 dimensional, truly complex and challenging."
That majority does NOT sound like a bunch of people who want to hunt us down. There was no Al Quaida in Iraq before we arrived. They and the Iranians are there now, in some cases supplying the Iraqi nationalists because we are a common enemy of both.
Going back to that poll again, in 2007 88% of polled Iraqis said it was not acceptable to attack Iraqi government forces, so it sounds like if we leave the Iraqis to their own devices everyone except Al Quaida would benefit.
Steve