| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Goddess Lives" |
| Date: |
17 Nov 2007 01:35:53 PM |
| Object: |
Encouraging Iraq news - the liberals don't want you to hear |
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Nov07/0,4670,IraqANeighborhoodTransform
ed,00.html
A Baghdad Neighborhood Returns to Life
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD — Twilight brings traffic jams to the main shopping district of
this once-affluent corner of Baghdad and hundreds of people stroll past
well-stocked vegetable stands, bakeries and butcher shops.
To many in Amariyah, it seems little short of a miracle.
Just six months ago, this mostly Sunni neighborhood was one of the
centers of al-Qaida in Iraq operations. The district in western Baghdad
was hit by more than a dozen bombings and shootings some days. Few
people dared to venture onto the streets.
On Tuesday, women shopped and men drank tea in sidewalk cafes.
Occasionally, U.S. soldiers walking the streets were greeted with
salaams and smiles.
What is happening here reflects similar trends across Baghdad and parts
of Iraq, where civilian and U.S. military casualties have dropped
sharply in the past two months. But the speed of the turnaround in
places such as Amariyah has taken almost everyone _ including U.S.
military forces in the area _ by surprise.
"The progress that we made is almost unbelievable," said Capt. Brendan
Gallagher, 29, of Columbia, Md., who serves with the Army's 2nd Brigade,
1st Cavalry Division.
The neighborhood is still nowhere near its former gloss at the Beverly
Hills of Baghdad, as it was called before the 2003 U.S. invasion. A six-
foot-high concrete wall rings the two-square-mile neighborhood, many
villas stand empty with broken windows and the streets are littered with
trash. There is 70 percent unemployment, U.S. military officials say.
But residents are making the first small steps toward trying to rebuild.
Ismail Hussein mixed cement across the street from a line of shops blown
up by the U.S. military after a huge cache of arms, ammunition and
explosives were discovered there in late summer.
Hussein greeted a passing U.S. military patrol as he rebuilt a curb in
front of a relative's home, shaping the fresh concrete with a trowel. A
few months ago, he might have been shot by insurgents for this modest
effort, as they tried to discourage anything that smacked of
reconstruction.
Now the violence has ebbed to the point that U.S. forces _ in the
absence of much help from Iraq's Shiite-dominated central government _
have begun planning to rebuild.
Water mains have been ruptured or cracked by bombs and the passing U.S.
tanks and 25-ton Bradley armored vehicles. Sewers are clogged with
refuse and, Capt. Gallagher said, some human remains.
Sunni residents are afraid still to go to the area hospital, run by
Shiites, complaining of poor treatment and the fear of Shiite death
squads. So the U.S. military authorities plan to build a health center
using a building designated for dental offices by the regime of Saddam
Hussein.
U.S. officials say it's impossible to understand how far the situation
improved in Amariyah without explaining how far it deteriorated.
"Amariyah was one of the first places where things got real bad," said
1st Lt. Schulyer Williamson, 24, of Pensacola, Fla., part of Gallagher's
unit. "My platoon sergeant and I would pick up six dead bodies a day."
Once, Williamson said, he was ambushed by snipers stationed in 12
positions along a stretch of road, trying to force the column to a choke
point where insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades lurked.
"It rained," he said, describing the intensity of the shooting. "I
grabbed my gunner out of the gunner's hole because he was taking too
much fire." They managed to escape.
The violence peaked in May, U.S. officials said, as al-Qaida in Iraq
fighters killed 14 U.S. military troops in a series of bombings. Six
soldiers and their interpreter died May 19 when a massive bomb detonated
in the road under their Bradley, flipping it over.
Several U.S. military officials here said the most important factor in
reducing the violence in Amariyah was the U.S. troop increase, which
quadrupled the number of U.S. military forces patrolling the
neighborhood in mid-June.
Another key to progress, they say, was the formation in late May of a
local anti-insurgent alliance, the Farsan al-Rafidayn, which in Arabic
means "Knights of the Land of the Two Rivers."
The organization, called the FAR by the U.S. military, has recruited
hundreds of Amariyah residents to fight against al-Qaida in Iraq _ which
takes inspiration from Osama bin Laden, though its direct links to his
terror network are unclear. Similar groups have been formed across
former insurgent strongholds in other parts of Iraq.
The FAR "Knights" are led by Abu Abed, the nom de guerre of a 40-year-
old Amariyah resident who says he served as an officer in the Iraqi Army
for 17 years before 2003, but otherwise is reluctant to talk about his
background.
He has told friends in the U.S. military that he is the sole survivor of
seven brothers, four of them victims of the sectarian violence in
Baghdad in recent years.
Abu Abed started the revolt in Amariyah, he and U.S. military officials
say, by confronting an al-Qaida in Iraq leader in one of Amariyah's main
shopping districts. Abed told The Associated Press that the leader _
known by the nickname "the white lion" _ pointed a pistol at Abed and
pulled the trigger, twice. Twice, the gun misfired.
The cigar-smoking commander said he wrestled the gun away from his
adversary and shot him dead.
FAR has been so successful in disrupting operations of the terror group
that al-Qaida in Iraq has put a $500,000 bounty on Abed's head, U.S.
military officials say.
U.S. military leaders are currently paying FAR the equivalent of a $300
monthly salary for about 260 of its members to provide security. FAR has
received permission to distribute the total grant among more than double
that number of its members, the military says.
American officials and Abed, a Sunni, are also pushing to get FAR
integrated into the Iraqi security services. But Abed said he was
discouraged by recent conversations with a representative of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"She asked me how many Sunnis you have, how many Shiites," he said.
"That's close to sectarianism."
Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st
Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, has said that at least two members of
FAR were former allies of al-Qaida. Others, he has said, were part of
the Islamic Army in Iraq, the 1920s Revolution Brigades and Tawhid and
Jihad _ all Sunni insurgent groups responsible for past attacks on U.S.
troops in Iraq.
Asked about this, Abed said that "not all" members of his group were
former insurgents.
But Kuehl, 41, from Huntsville, Ala., and other military officials here
argued that any successful counterinsurgency requires recruiting
supporters from the ranks of former adversaries. Several U.S. military
officers here said there had been no suspected insurgent attacks on U.S.
troops in Amariyah since early August.
"I can live with that, I think," Williamson said.
At least in part, the FAR rebellion came in reaction to the brutal
punishment the al-Qaida fighters meted out for violations of their
strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Militants cut off the thumb and forefingers of people who smoked, Abed
and U.S. military officials said, allegedly raped and killed two women
for wearing short skirts and slaughtered hairdressers who gave their
clients Western-style haircuts.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil told reporters Tuesday that violence in many parts
of Iraq began to decline in June and has "continued to come down
steadily since then."
He offered several factors for the reduction in bloodshed. "Perhaps even
most significantly, the Iraqi people have just decided they've had it up
to here with violence," he said.
He said all but 12 to 13 percent of Baghdad is under control by the U.S.
military and other security forces, and that there is no part of the
city where the U.S. can't operate.
"But I also will say, Baghdad's a dangerous place," he said. "And al-
Qaida, while on the ropes, is not finished by any means. And they could
come back swinging if they're allowed to."
--
Libertarianism: The "insane" ( according to the majority of people )
philosophy that it's wrong to initiate force against others, and that
slavery and involuntary servitude are wrong as part of that.
Amendment XIII.
1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.
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| User: "Phlip" |
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| Title: Re: Encouraging Iraq news - the liberals don't want you to hear |
17 Nov 2007 02:58:44 PM |
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A Baghdad Neighborhood Returns to Life
With the same residents, in the same ethnic mix, as before?
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| User: "Goddess Lives" |
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| Title: Re: Encouraging Iraq news - the liberals don't want you to hear |
17 Nov 2007 11:56:38 PM |
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"Phlip" <phlipcpp@yahoo.com> wrote :
A Baghdad Neighborhood Returns to Life
With the same residents, in the same ethnic mix, as before?
You have a point?
Should we be social engineering Iraq now?
--
Libertarianism: The "insane" ( according to the majority of people )
philosophy that it's wrong to initiate force against others, and that
slavery and involuntary servitude are wrong as part of that.
Amendment XIII.
1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.
.
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| User: "Phlip" |
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| Title: Re: Encouraging Iraq news - the liberals don't want you to hear |
18 Nov 2007 12:53:29 AM |
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Goddess Lives wrote:
A Baghdad Neighborhood Returns to Life
With the same residents, in the same ethnic mix, as before?
You have a point?
Saying a neighborhood "returns to life" is the sickest and most
disturbed spin imaginable, if nearly everyone from one of its former
ethnicities is now dead.
These neighborhoods are "peaceful" now because they have been ethnically
cleansed. Our country helped support genocide. That was the secret deal
behind The Surge - helping some Iraqis move or kill others, to provide
the illusion of success.
--
Phlip
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| User: "Defendario" |
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| Title: Re: Encouraging Iraq news - the liberals don't want you to hear |
18 Nov 2007 11:30:57 AM |
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Phlip wrote:
Goddess Lives wrote:
A Baghdad Neighborhood Returns to Life
With the same residents, in the same ethnic mix, as before?
You have a point?
Saying a neighborhood "returns to life" is the sickest and most
disturbed spin imaginable, if nearly everyone from one of its former
ethnicities is now dead.
Many have escaped, but are homeless. They might be back later, armed
and ready to reclaim what's theirs.
These neighborhoods are "peaceful" now because they have been ethnically
cleansed. Our country helped support genocide. That was the secret deal
behind The Surge - helping some Iraqis move or kill others, to provide
the illusion of success.
Exactly.
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