How the U.S. Just Got Schooled by a 'Rag-Tag' Neighborhood Army in Iraq

[marmar]

from The eXile, via AlterNet:



How the U.S. Just Got Schooled by a 'Rag-Tag' Neighborhood Army in Iraq

By Gary Brecher, The eXile. Posted April 4, 2008.

A week ago, Bush called the offensive in Basra a "defining moment" for Iraq. Suddenly he's gotten very quiet.



What happened in Iraq this week was a beautiful lesson in the weird laws of guerrilla warfare. Unfortunately, it was the Americans who got schooled. Even now, people at my office are saying, "We won, right? Sadr told his men to give up, right?"

Wrong. Sadr won big. Iran won even bigger. Maliki, the Iraqi Army, Petraeus and Cheney lost.

For people raised on stories of conventional war, where both sides fight all-out until one side loses and gives up, what happened in Iraq this past week makes no sense at all. Sadr's Mahdi Army humiliated the Iraq Army on all fronts. In Basra, the Army's grand offensive, code-named "The Charge of the Knights," got turned into "The Total Humiliation of the Knights," like something out of an old Monty Python skit.

Thousands of police who were supposed to be backing up the Iraqi Army either refused to fight or defected to Sadr's Mahdi Army. In Basra, the Iraqi Army was stopped dead and clearly in danger of being crushed or forced to retreat from the city. In Baghdad, Sadr's militia was rocketing the Green Zone non-stop -- not a good look for the "Surge is working" PR drive -- and driving the Iraqi Army clean out of the 2.5-million-strong Shia slum, Sadr City. And in every poor Shia neighborhood in cities and towns all over Iraq, local units of the Mahdi Army were attacking the government forces.

Then, after four days of uninterruptedly kicking Iraqi Army ass, Sadr graciously announces that he's telling his men to end their "armed appearances" on the streets. Makes no sense, right? It makes a ton of sense, but you have to stop thinking of formal battles like Gettysburg and Stalingrad and think long and slow, like a guerrilla. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/81147/

[itsrobert]

1. The Iraqi Police can never be trusted

The Iraqi Police has been compromised.

[AlertLurker]

3. Would you fire on your next-door neighbour...

...just because your current puppet regime and their imperialist running dogs told you to?

[noamnety]

5. I would phrase it differently.

We're trying to demand that Iraq use its army to support our military in propping up an unpopular unelected leader whose views do not reflect the will of the people.

It's not exactly a matter of being "trustworthy" or being "compromised." I don't like that phrasing because it makes it sound like they are incompetent in some way, or corrupt. (which they may or may not be, but not for this reason.) The mission is not in the best interest of Iraq and they know it.

[arendt]

2. More good analysis in this one story than in five years of Corporate Media crap. K&R n/t

[mike_c]

4. Maliki seems not to have fully comprehended the lesson....

"Maliki vows to expand Basra crackdown."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=259x13085

[bemildred]

6. Al Maliki is covering his ass right now.

Al-Maliki ends security operations against Shiite militia - Update:

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/196763,al-maliki-ends-security-operations-against-shiite-militia--update.html