California Conservative

Last November I wrote an article entitled Break with Al Qaeda.
In it I stated…

Iraq is being “divided” but it is not the division that the Mainstream Media predicted (and possibly hoped for). This is not a “civil war.” A line has been drawn in the sand. The teams are…

A) The new Iraqi government with its army and police
B) Former Saddam Loyalists
C) Sunni Insurgents
D) Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda thugs

My prediction is that group “A” will continue to grow, as Iraqi forces continue to be trained up, and as former insurgents and Saddam loyalists accept the “New Iraq” and assimilate into society. The Sunnis and the Shi’ites may never be best friends, but they will learn to work together. The “insurgency”, like a candle in the wee morning hours, will flicker and be extinguished. Zarqawi and his thugs will be captured or killed- as even the last throes of the insurgency will hopefully see that it is Al Qaeda who are the invaders, the killers, the takers- and it is America who has liberated them and helped them to start a new life.

In the article I went on to document that the murdering brutality of Zarqawi was not winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi’s. Beheading public servants and construction workers only disgusted the majority of Iraqi’s. And when Al Qaeda thugs continued to strap bombs to themselves and blow up innocent Iraqi men, women and children even much of the insurgency said “enough.” The Sunni insurgency began gunning it out with Al Qaeda on the streets of Iraq, and even turning them in to the Americans.

My theory is simple. I assume that the average Iraqi on the street is a man much like me. We make our decisions based on the best information available to us. For months Al Jazeera has been broadcasting into homes that it is the American occupiers who are wrecking Iraq and killing women and children. But while the propaganda machine grinds out an alternate reality through the matrix of television land, the man on the street sees the real world.

In the real world in Iraq, the American troops are going to great lengths to be respectful of culture, and to avoid civilian casualties. The man in Iraq knows what many Americans do not, that is, when a precision guided missile takes out a house of “women and children”, it is a home where insurgents and terrorists were gathering to plot ways to kill American troops and wreck the future of the decent people of Iraq. And when an insurgent’s truck is hit, and a crowd gathers and we hit it again, those were not “innocents” just looking for a few loose Iraqi dinars that may have fallen from the truck.

No, those that gather to the truck are insurgent and terrorist sympathizers, looking to retrieve the wounded, bury the dead, and pick up a few grenade launchers if possible. Is it horrible that kids are involved? Yes it is. But many Iraqi’s view it the way I do when I hear that the LAPD has raided a crack house, taken gunfire, and shot up a few women and children while securing the house. I shake my head and say, “That’s a darn shame. It’s too bad that the parents brainwashed their kids and pulled them into that situation.”

Parents in Iraq have a choice. Go with the majority, with the newly elected Iraqi government, and choose peace and prosperity, or go with the terrorist fanatics and the insurgent groups, and risk your whole family being blasted to bits when the rockets come crashing through your living room.

So despite what Senator Kerry has said and implied, the U.S. Military has shown themselves to be serious, professional, and deadly, yet compassionate, kind, and helpful. While the propaganda machine grinds on, we have spent 8 billion dollars rebuilding Iraq, and the man on the street sees the fruit of our efforts.

In contrast, what does the man on the street see when he looks at Al Qaeda? He sees a group who has used Islam to justify the vicious homicides of innocent men, women, and children not only in public places like markets, but also holy events such as weddings and funerals. Al Qaeda, through their murdering brutality have alienated the man on the street in Iraq, much the same as the Brits did the Colonists. Remember Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot”? One British officer warned another that if they were overly brutal, they would lose the hearts of the Colonists. And they did.

In the same way, Al Qaeda in Iraq not only has no sympathy from the majority, but they are quickly losing support from the insurgency. This has been continuing since last November, and I have a few more recent articles to share with the reader.

First, from the New York Times.

(I am posting a large section of this story, for it sheds much light on the mindset of the Iraqi insurgent)

By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DEXTER FILKINS
Published: January 12, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 11 - The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency.

An armed local man guarded the entrance to a polling place on Dec. 15 in Ramadi, where turnout was heavy in defiance of threats by Al Qaeda. In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.

Across from the Iraqis stood the men from Al Qaeda, mostly Arabs from outside Iraq. Some of them wore suicide belts. The men from the Islamic Army accused the Qaeda fighters of murdering their comrades.

“Al Qaeda killed two people from our group,” said an Islamic Army fighter who uses the nom de guerre Abu Lil and who claimed that he attended the meeting. “They repeatedly kill our people.”

The encounter ended angrily. A few days later, the insurgents said, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army fought a bloody battle on the outskirts of town.

The battle, which the insurgents said was fought on Oct. 23, was one of several clashes between Al Qaeda and local Iraqi guerrilla groups that have broken out in recent months across the Sunni Triangle.

American and Iraqi officials believe that the conflicts present them with one of the biggest opportunities since the insurgency burst upon Iraq nearly three years ago. They have begun talking with local insurgents, hoping to enlist them to cooperate against Al Qaeda, said Western diplomats, Iraqi officials and an insurgent leader.

It is impossible to say just how far the split extends within the insurgency, which remains a lethal force with a shared goal of driving the Americans out of Iraq. Indeed, the best the Americans can hope for may be a grudging passivity from the Iraqi insurgents when the Americans zero in on Al Qaeda’s forces.

But the split within the insurgency is coinciding with Sunni Arabs’ new desire to participate in Iraq’s political process, and a growing resentment of the militants. Iraqis are increasingly saying that they regard Al Qaeda as a foreign-led force, whose extreme religious goals and desires for sectarian war against Iraq’s Shiite majority override Iraqi tribal and nationalist traditions.

While American and Iraqi officials have talked of a split for months, detailed accounts of clashes were provided by men claiming to be local insurgents.

Abu Lil was one of four Iraqi men interviewed for this article who said they were fighters for the Islamic Army, one of the main insurgent groups. Despite its name, its members have nationalist and largely secular motivations. While their membership in the insurgency could not be independently verified, the descriptions the four men offered of themselves and their exploits were lengthy, detailed and credible.

The four men interviewed are, by all accounts, ordinary Iraqis. One worked as a trash collector. Another was a part-time mechanic in an ice factory. All of them said they had children. While they claimed to be members of the same group, different members provided lengthy accounts of operations in an array of cities in the Sunni Triangle. The men gave Iraqi nicknames and noms de guerre. Some of their assertions, including specific examples about clashes with Al Qaeda’s forces, were confirmed by American and Iraqi officials.

According to an American and an Iraqi intelligence official, as well as Iraqi insurgents, clashes between Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Iraqi insurgent groups like the Islamic Army and Muhammad’s Army have broken out in Ramadi, Husayba, Yusifiya, Dhuluiya and Karmah.

In town after town, Iraqis and Americans say, local Iraqi insurgents and tribal groups have begun trying to expel Al Qaeda’s fighters, and, in some cases, kill them. It is unclear how deeply the split pervades Iraqi society. Iraqi leaders say that in some Iraqi cities, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and local insurgent groups continue to cooperate with one another.

American and Iraqi officials believe that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is largely made up of Iraqis, with its highest leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian. Even so, among Iraqis, the group is still perceived as a largely foreign force.
Evidence of the split is still largely anecdotal, and from most available evidence, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia remains the most virulent and well-financed group fighting in Iraq. But in most Sunni cities, Iraqis defied Al Qaeda’s threats and turned out to vote in large numbers on Dec. 15.

Abu Marwa, an Iraqi guerilla leader, said he turned against Al Qaeda when its sectarian war against Shiites touched a Shiite relative of his.

So in some areas, the insurgency continues to work with Al Qaeda. But in many others, the Iraqi minority (the insurgency) has joined the Iraqi majority (whose army and police fight alongside our Marines and Soldiers) in defeating the foreign led group Al Qaeda. I am not alone in my analysis, in fact, take a look at the following USA Today interview with Maj. Gen. Richard Zahner, deputy chief of staff for intelligence for multinational forces in Iraq.

General sees rift in Iraq enemy
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — A deepening rift between radical foreign-led fighters and native Iraqi insurgents has turned violent, the top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq says. That creates an opportunity for American forces to try to persuade local guerrillas to put down their weapons and join the political process, he says.

“Now you actually have a wedge, or a split, between the Sunni population and al-Qaeda in Iraq,” said Maj. Gen. Richard Zahner, deputy chief of staff for intelligence for multinational forces in Iraq. “It poses a significant crossroads for these groups as they look at where they head.”

The U.S. military cited incidents of insurgent infighting in a rare public description of a split:

• At least six ranking members of al-Qaeda in Iraq have been assassinated by Sunni insurgents or tribal gunmen in separate incidents since September, Zahner said. The killings are usually in retaliation for al-Qaeda’s role in violence, such as the execution of local police officers, he said.

• In Ramadi, in western Iraq, he said, armed clashes have erupted between local Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda operatives in recent months. At least one high-ranking al-Qaeda member, Abu Khatab, was recently run out of Ramadi by insurgents loyal to the local tribe.

• Near the Syrian border, members of the Albu Mahal tribe, which attacked U.S. positions as recently as March, have lately been pointing U.S. troops to al-Qaeda hideouts, Zahner said.

Iraq’s national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, also said there is a rift in the insurgency, calling it a “a major step forward in our fight against terrorism.”

Great credit goes to our military, for not losing one battalion or even battle in Iraq, for the Army PSYOPS and others working to win the hearts and minds of the people, for our Marines and Soldiers training up the Iraqi army and police, and for the Coast Guard and Navy transporting men and supplies and guarding the Iraq’s most precious resource: billions of dollars in oil.

And great credit goes to our military, that while being a strong and lethal fighting force, the Iraqi majority and now even insurgency can clearly see that we are not the enemy, that we are trying to help them, and that Al Qaeda in Iraq is the real enemy, murderer of women and children, and foreign occupier.

Keep your eye on the split between the insurgency and Al Qaeda. As Iraqi troops increase, and as ours come home, Osama and Zarqawi will continue to alienate the Iraqi’s and eventually completely lose their welcome in Iraq.

Cross-posted at Rightfielder

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Author: RightFielder, Iraq, Middle East, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.