Conventional wisdom among U.S. military leaders and the mainstream American press seems to be that the killing of Saddam's sons will reduce, and possibly even stop, the guerrilla war in Iraq.
The Independent's Robert Fisk -- who, dare I say, knows a lot more about this sort of thing than the LA Times' Robin Wright -- argues that the opposite is likely to happen:
... there is a fundamental misunderstanding between the American occupation authorities in Iraq and the people whose country they are occupying. The United States believes that the entire resistance to America's proconsulship of Iraq is composed of "remnants" of Saddam's followers, "dead-enders", "bitter-enders" - they have other phrases to describe them. Their theory is that once the Hussein family is decapitated, the resistance will end.posted by dack
But the guerrillas who are killing US troops every day are also being attacked by a growing Islamist Sunni movement which never had any love for Saddam. Much more importantly, many Iraqis were reluctant to support the resistance for fear that an end to American occupation would mean the return of the ghastly old dictator.
If he and his sons are dead, the chances are that the opposition to the American-led occupation will grow rather than diminish - on the grounds that with Saddam gone, Iraqis will have nothing to lose by fighting the Americans.
Let me be blunt - any politically motivated and marketed event on the Iraqi front that gives Wall Street specialists the opportunity to dump inventory at higher prices for a few hours is likely to have the shelf life of a piece of sushi dropped on the sidewalk on a hot day. Robert Fisk may just know a thing or two about smoke, mirrors, and conventional "thinking"...
Posted by: Dave on July 23, 2003 10:49 PMThe second paragraph you quote is a little unclear about who's killing who:
But the guerrillas who are killing US troops every day are also being attacked by a growing Islamist Sunni movement which never had any love for Saddam.
The guerrillas are being attacked by a growing Islamist Sunni movement? I don't think that's what he meant to say.
Posted by: * on July 24, 2003 01:29 AMSo two of the region's biggest scumbags have been rubbed out and good riddance, I say. After killing a few thousand innocent people, the military finally got some guys that we can all agree deserved to be croaked.
That said, something smells funny about the official story. After the whole scam where they tried to make the Jessica Lynch "rescue" look like some sort of ninja commando operation (when in fact they faced no armed resistance and the hospital was in friendly territory), I'm starting to mistrust anything they tell us. I mean, three adults and one teenage kid in a house fought off over 200 troops with missile launchers and air support for 4 hours? Really?
Is it possible they actually found these guys' bodies a while back and pulled them out now to distract us from the latest State of the Union lie, similar to the way they sat on the "dirty bomb suspect" story for a month until a smokescreen was needed for the corporate crime / white house connection?
It's possible they'd been keeping tabs on the sons, hoping for a lead to Saddam, then word came: smoke 'em NOW, we need corpses NOW, Dubya's in hot water!
Posted by: Jeff on July 24, 2003 02:52 PMThom has right, but thing he speaks about is not new. Capacty of public to process stories presented by media is limited, and all the time nough "stories" must be produced to fill this capacity, otherwise public could start thinking. Brains could start work unloaded with poison load and results of that are unpredictable. Mainstream media are factories for producing sleeping pills for masses. Discussing such "stories" exaust mental energies of citizens and it is the only purpose they are designed for.
Good night :-)
Posted by: expression370@yahoo.com on July 24, 2003 02:52 PM