17 US Troops Killed in Iraq:
Baghdad Fuel Blockade and Possibility of "All Out Civil War;"
US Troops Storm Sunni Mosque
A US military Blackhawk helicopter went down near Tal Afar in nothern Iraq, killing all 12 persons aboard.
The question is whether they were shot down. The US assaulted the city of Tal Afar in August, emptying the city, leveling neighborhoods with air strikes, and sending in Kurdish and Shiite troops after Sunni Turkmen, their political rivals. A lot of Sunni Turkmen had been Baath Party members and supported the Saddam regime, and enough had serious military experience that they would know how to get hold of a shoulder-fired missile and how to use it (typically they use SA-7s, but on occasion the guerrillas have managed to get more sophisticated SA-14s.) At least one other Blackhawk was shot down this way.
Iraqi guerrillas killed five Marines on Saturday and Sunday with small arms fire and roadside bombs. Guerillas in Fallujah killed three of them.
Sunday morning at 3 am Iraq time, US troops stormed the influential Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad, which is affiliated with the hard line Sunni group, the Association of Muslim Scholars. Reuters says that US troops defaced some parts of the mosque, drawing crosses on cupboards.
The AMS is widely suspected of having links to the Sunni guerrilla movement.
But Muslims are touchy about having foreign troops stomping around their mosques painting Christian symbols on things, and this incident won't calm things down in Iraq.
This comment from Baghdad came in and was posted, but I think it is worth moving up here and repeating:
"I am an American currently working in Baghdad for a news organization. I’ve been here numerous times over the past 15 years.
The current security situation here has gotten much worse since the elections. We had a security briefing yesterday right after a fellow journalist was abducted. Besides the usual reminders to keep a low profile and going over our own unique security measures and procedures as to what to do in any given scenario we were told that there’s a high probability of all out civil war.
Iraq has been in a low level civil war since the end of 2003 that has been increasing in intensity ever since, but now our security team is telling us that should all-out war break out most, if not all of us, may have to be evacuated to safety in a nearby country. Instead of the scores of Iraqis dying each day as do now, thousands a day could perish. Most Sunnis have given up hope of getting adequate representation in the new Iraqi government and radical elements in the Shiite parties want to exact revenge on the Sunni for supporting Saddam over the years. Shiite death squads roam the city at night (in police and army uniform no less) dragging all the male members of a Sunni family out into the street and executing them in front of their women folk. Sunni insurgents (not in uniform) do the same to Shiite families in areas claimed as theirs.
The Sunni insurgents, it seems, are now determined to bring the new government to its knees by cutting off fuel supplies to Baghdad. The city’s supply of gasoline nearly dried up last week and local authorities literally shut the city down by banning all privately owned vehicles from the streets. They claimed it was to help hunt down the kidnappers of the Interior Minister’s sister but the real reason seems to be to reduce the demand for gas until supplies could be replenished. Electricity in most Baghdad neighborhoods has now been further reduced to as low as 1 hour per day. The black market rate for fuel for generators has doubled again and in many areas even that has run out. At this rate the city will go dark by the end of the month. Iraqi troops are reluctant to escort fuel trucks into Baghdad and American troops have their hands full escorting their own convoys.
Most US casualties are a result of trying to protect US military supplies. You can forget about the US military escorting civilian fuel convoys. So it all comes down to the Iraq army’s ability to get fuel into Baghdad and I don’t have much confidence they will succeed."
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/08/2006 04:07:00 AM
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7 Comments:
Juan ..your post of the news media worker's comment reminded me to tell you that I was chatting the other day with a Palestinian-American, several of whose friends saw your lecture at SF State.
He told me to pass along his regards and that he was excited because so many of his friends back home followed your blog.
Truly a world-class public service
The most urgent evacuation is the Green Zone. Putting thousands of Americans (blamed by both Sunnis and Shiias for the destruction of their country)in the middle of a city of millions requires levels of ignorance and stupidity only Bush can achieve. Perhaps someone should tell him about what happened in Tehran and Saigon.
Valentines for Soldiers/Supporting our Troops
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Background
While my wife was in Iraq, I started Operation: A Bit of Home. My wife called me and told me she had to put on 80 lbs. of battle gear, pick up her rifle, and walk 2 miles in 140 degree heat to buy soap and tampons and toothpaste. She told me that the government does not supply any sanitary or entertainment items to our troops. I decided that I would not have my wife doing that. I started shipping boxes to her unit in Iraq, in large quantities.
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They told me the government provides basic foods, linens etc., but all hygiene, snack and entertainment items come from donations, and asked if I could help. I am one of the few groups that actually have been asked to send supplies.
I know there are a lot of charities for the troops out there, but these facts set us apart from the rest:
1. We supply a facility for stressed troops, not individuals. We have eliminated the problem of NCO and officers hording the boxes. We do not send things to the same troops over and over,
2. Our website tells people how to send their own boxes, how to fill out the US Postal forms, gives packing tips and lists of needed items, and most importantly, we give out the address to send it to. We do not post names of individual soldiers, a very dangerous thing to do. If Al Qaeda knows where a National Guard unit is from, and has names, they could potentially find and endanger soldier’s families just by using a phone book!
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A short mention on people’s blogs could do more for us than months of our pounding the streets and working the phones. A link on your mail list or your homepage would work wonders also.
Please visit our website, google us, and tell your friends about us. Every dime of donations goes to shipping and buying needed items. No one is paid, we have no overhead, and we care about the troops. We continue to send even when donations are thin using our personal Credit Cards.
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Supporting the troops means more than placing a yellow ribbon on your car.
Thanks for your support
Ken Meyer
Founder
Operation: A Bit of Home
"drawing crosses on cupboards" would, I'd wager, refer to an X to show that cupboard had been searched.
While vandalous and offensive, I think you are reading too much into it (beyond their lack of respect for their hosts, which is obvious - I doubt they'd spraypaint anything on anything inside a church).
I find this absolutely stunning. We have absolutely no idea of what is going on and I consider myself one of the informed netizens. Unbelievable. The sanitized view we are receiving of the situation in Iraq is so unbelievably far from reality that I am speechless. What can be said?
US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist
The news is not as sanitized as everyone makes it out to be. The problem has more to do with little security combined with cautious foreign journalists, with little to no local journalists doing any reporting in Iraq. So reports come from emotional Iraqis, soldiers who mostly live in a vacuum, and people making assumptions with limited data. Plus there's a language barrier.
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