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November 17, 2004
The Plot Unfolds as Predicted
Here's a little AP snippet that sums up where we are after the predictable military victory:
No one expects the capture of the former Sunni Muslim stronghold to halt the insurgency even within the city itself. One military official said Fallujah would probably wind up like Baghdad, a city under ineffective government control where insurgents have little problem mounting attacks.By any account, the United States and Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, will have a tough time making friends among Fallujah's surviving residents.
The brutal assault has crushed homes and mosques and ground much of the southern neighborhoods into rubble. Survivors are hungry and aid convoys have been unable to reach them.
Reports of civilian suffering, expected to spread after the Americans loosens its grip on the city, could transform Fallujah into a shrine to Muslim warriors killed in the fighting.
Already the fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed man in a Fallujah mosque by a Marine has incensed Sunni Muslims, complicating efforts by Iraqi authorities seeking to contain a Sunni backlash to the invasion. Many Sunnis saw the Fallujah assault as a plot by the Americans and the Shiites against religious Sunnis and Saturday's shooting strengthened that view, intensifying the hostility there, as elsewhere, to U.S. troops.
As factual events morph into legend, the battle could become a key tool for guerrilla recruiters, already adept at running information campaigns, who want to replace the 1,600 or so fighters killed.
Fallujah remains home to many in the insurgent recruiting pool, including unemployed soldiers from of Iraq's disbanded military. And the city is a key stopping point on the guerrillas' route into Baghdad.
Outside Fallujah, the vast and tough Anbar province, which lacks any credible Iraqi security force or government control, seethes with Sunni discontent and growing poverty.
Is there anything here that wasn't completely predictable and predicted by many? No. Unfortunately, it looks like it's just going to get worse from here on.
I can visualize remembering this moment two or three years down the line, when people are arguing whether it was the first or second assault on Fallujah that was the turning point towards whatever disastrous consequences we will be experiencing then. Remembering that everything was done while many, many people trying to shout how wrong it all was, not just morally and legally, but pragmatically.
Posted by zeynep at November 17, 2004 01:34 PM
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Comments
As mutch as i can see from reports out of iraq: The first assault on Fallujah left the iraqi civil society enraged but divided about how to get rid of the occupation. The second assault left no divide: general armed uprising at the time of their choice.
Posted by: Peter Hofmann at November 17, 2004 04:10 PM
look at fallujahpictures.blogspot.com for some awful, but truthful, pictures.
I now think of myself (and others who read and know what is happening in Iraq) as part of the "armed nonsleeper cells"... we are armed with information, words, and our ability to reason and think.
We have got to continue to work to stop this. I will be in DC on 01/20/05 to protest.
Posted by: Susan at November 17, 2004 06:05 PM
so why do 'progressive' americans let this happen? why do they think they should be exempt from resistance? 'peace rallies' have done nothing to stop the war/occupation.
Posted by: kornel at November 17, 2004 07:09 PM