Iraq's Insurgents Are Ordinary People

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/72984/

Molly Bingham says the information most people in America are getting about the insurgents who oppose the U.S. backed occupation of Iraq is very different from what she found when she talked with those insurgents.

"There are two impressions we seem to have here," Bingham said. "The first one is the majority of violence is against civilians, and they are on the brink of a huge civil war, and the Sunnis and Shias hate each other, and the Americans are standing between these two groups that are just going to kill each other. The next one is that the people fighting against us are some radical fringe group who can be isolated and killed."

After 10 months of interviewing insurgents, Bingham, an American photojournalist, and Steve Connors, a British photojournalist and former soldier, found that these impressions aren't true. The insurgency is mostly ordinary Iraqis. Doing the interviews for their documentary Meeting Resistance, Bingham says they tried to approach the subject with no preconceptions.

"We've both been conflict journalists for our careers," she said. "We didn't go in with any sense of what we were going to find. If we'd found this is Al Qaeda and teenage thugs, that's what film would be about. We weren't trying to prove anything -- that's who they are."

What Connors and Bingham discovered has been corroborated by Department of Defense reports, which found that over 70 percent of the attacks in Iraq from 2004 to 2007 targeted U.S.-led coalition forces, and by BBC/ABC polls, which said all the Iraqis polled disapprove of attacks on civilians, but the majority approve of attacks on the U.S. troops.

"What the U.S. is facing in Iraq is highly nationalistic," Connors said. "It's not an issue of outside forces coming in to try and screw up an American project."

[TwilightGardener]

1. Wow, hard to believe native Iraqis would resent us and want us to

stop bombing and killing them, and controlling their every move through traffic barriers and checkpoints, and opening up their oil to multinational companies. Hard to believe--who could have foreseen this?

[MedleyMisty]

2. I would think that it's pretty obvious

I mean, let's say someone came and invaded and bombed us and took over our government and basically made us a colony. How would we react?

[NNN0LHI]

3. Some Americans would collaborate with the invaders

Others wouldn't.

Don

[JuniperLea]

4. Blast them all for trying to save their homes and country!

I'd do the same. That's why this won't happen in the US... too many people have guns. I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm just saying that's the way it is.

[jaksavage]

7. They have guns

I think both Iraq and Afghanistan are quite well armed. Ak-47's, real ones, fully automatic, are cheap and most households keep one behind the door. The US tried to outlaw then and enforce gun control in Iraq.

We in the US would fall like cord wood in the face of occupation. We are weak and unwilling to suffer. The battle is already over actually.

Wars are BIG BUSINESS.

[JuniperLea]

16. South Central Los Angeles would never give up...

And neither would the hunters of the OC and Simi Valley.

The only way an invasion would work on US soil is for someone to bomb the hell out of us and get every last one.

I don't know where you live, but my neighbors are fairly bad ass.

[I work for workers]

8. You would kill people from the next state over?

The insurgents' primary victims haven't been members of the US military, they have been innocent Iraqis.

Unless you consider murdering your neighbors ordinary, no one should consider Iraq's insurgents to be "ordinary people".

[NNN0LHI]

9. If someone came in here and disbanded our police and military what would happen?

Don't think no one would be killing anybody?

You think we would just act all civilized and sing Kumbaya together?

Don

[I work for workers]

11. I didn't ask what somebody would do, I asked what you would do.

The Iraqi insurgency is killing innocent Iraqis first and foremost. Is that what you would do to defend your country?

[NNN0LHI]

22. Why I would act all civilized and sing Kumbaya

Until the invaders and their collaborators turned their backs once.

Don

[JuniperLea]

15. You missed the point entirely...

I was speaking of an outside invasion, such as the one we imposed on Iraq.

[I work for workers]

18. I got the point. The problem with your analogy is that

the insurgency spends more time killing Iraqis then it does combating the US. The various insurgent groups are not fighting an invasion as much as they are fighting for sectarian gains against their own countrymen.

[JuniperLea]

20. No, you didn't get the point... clearly... eom

[madokie]

14. and thats a good thing.

I'm not a present gun owner and have only actually owned only one in my life but we are thinking of investing some money in guns now though. air rifles and pistols I have ;-) and I can still light a match at 10 paces too

[JuniperLea]

17. I'm with you, madokie!

I was raised in a hunting family and learned to shoot guns and rifles very early on, and I tell you, my aim is true! ;) I can shoot as well as my buddy who is a SWAT officer! I don't have his nerves of steel thought, that's for sure. I was fairly anti-gun by the time I hit my 20's, but the weirder the world gets, the more I want to go out for target practice.

[sam sarrha]

5. when our soldiers are told to enter Iraqi' homes and put handcuffs on them and interrogate them, the

men are humiliated in front of their children, wives, extended family, friends and neighbors that they are supposed to protect

the only recourse they have to regain their lost Honor is to kill Americans.. i pity the women who can not regain their honor..

we are causing the problem.. every civilian killed has lots of family, clan and friends that have to kill Americans to avenge those killings..

it will never end..

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Unfortunately, I think you're right.

After GWI, they had no huge resentments against Americans. Yes, we killed a whole lot of them in the war, but that was war, and a national defeat is not the same as personal humiliation. This is evidenced by the fact that despite the war, the terror attacks in the following decade included NO Iraqis. They had no vested interest in revenge upon Americans.

But with GWII and the occupation it became personal, and we have made it a generational problem. When soldiers kick down doors and rough up the women and kids, that's not the same as a 500lb bomb from 20,000 feet. There's no being philosophical about that - it's not just "bad things happen in war".

I think we may well be faced with exactly what the Bushies say they are trying to prevent - when we leave, they WILL follow us home. And the longer we stay, more more individuals we personally humiliate, the more will hate all Americans for all their lives, and that will be passed down the generations.

[sam sarrha]

21. i got my info from an anthropologist talking about iraqi culture

[madokie]

12. yep Sam you are so right

imagine if the tables were turned as how we would be, for me I'd be just like the Iraqi fighting us, just like 'em. harming every fucking occupiers I seen with every ounce of energy I had and by any means possible.

[JuniperLea]

19. You nailed it, Sam...

There was no other alternative for them. Just one more stupid idea from BushCo... don't think about what you are doing, what the effect might be on a culture steeped in honor, just go in and blast them all to hell.

Avenge the Americans will keep this going just like Bushie's idea that we can't give up the fight because that would make a waste of those who died before. Senseless circular reasoning, with no end in sight. Just some hideous Möbius strip...

[tuckessee]

6. I talked with one of the well known refuseniks last night.

and that is exactly what he said.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

13. K&R n/t

[Tom Joad]

23. SF Bay Area People. See the Movie "Meeting Resistance" This next week

Monday, January 14th, 6:00pm in CUPERTINO
Conf. Room A in Campus Center
De Anza College, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd

Sponsored by Students for Justice and SouthBayMobilization

More info: [e-mail] or 408-998-8504
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, January 15, 7:30pm in OAKLAND
Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand Ave
Tickets: $10, buy online or at the door
Wheelchair accessible.

Sponsored by Middle East Children's Alliance

More info: http://mecaforpeace.org/article.php?id=273