The Mystery of the Insurgency

New York Times ^ | May 15, 2005 | JAMES BENNET

[DeweyCA]

Doesn't this article sound a lot like all those articles that keeping what the Dem Party has to do to win again? To me, it seems like this writer is hoing to help the "insurgents" do a better job just the NYT always keeps trying to give advice to the Dems. Of course, the Dems and the "insurgents" have a common enemy, GWB. So in that way, they truly are allies.

[DeweyCA]

Correction:

Doesn't this article sound a lot like all those articles that keep telling the Dem Party what it has to do to win again? To me, it seems like this writer is hoing to help the "insurgents" do a better job just the NYT always keeps trying to give advice to the Dems. Of course, the Dems and the "insurgents" have a common enemy, GWB. So in that way, they truly are allies.

[Cicero]

Exactly. They are giving exasperated advice to their friends. And they obviously regret the stupidity of the Greek Communists in failing to take over Greece, too.

[Logical me]

This article makes no sense because the word insurgents is in error. They are terrorist. Substitute please. Still, a lot of horsesh@@ here.

[Rockingham]

The insurgency is not so hard to understand. They are fighting in order to prevent the US from establishing a functioning democracy in Iraq. Indefinite chaos and a weak Iraqi government without popular legitimacy accomplish the insurgents' purpose without. They do not have a need for a unified command, ideology, or program. They win if they beat the clock and American patience runs out. The insurgents can then fight among themselves to control or carve up Iraq and its oil riches.

Iraq and the region provide the insurgents with plenty of raw material: Al Queda and a stream of foreign terrorists; regime loyalists hoping for a return to power; enduring tribal and sectarian animosities; pervasive criminality and corruption; a devil's storehouse of readily available weapons and explosives; hate and self-loathing among the populace in consequence of Saddam's tyranny and atrocities; hostile, predatory neighbors; the frustrations and humiliations of foreign occupation, no matter how necessary and well-intended; and Islam's perverse tendency toward extremism, violence, and terrorism.

Against that, we have: strategic necessity; a resolute administration; a reasoned belief that democracy can work, even among Muslims; and the best military on the planet.

We win in full if we and the nascent Iraqi military beat all comers and stand up a pro-American Muslim democracy in the heartland of terrorism. We still mostly win even if Iraq effectively fissions into a hostile Sunni region and two pro-American dependent statelets with all the oil wealth and based on the Kurds and the Shias.

I do not see the insurgents as genuinely winning -- unless the Democrats return to power and we give up.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

This article makes no sense because the word insurgents is in error. They are terrorist. Substitute please. Still, a lot of horsesh@@ here

The NYT is one confused puppy. Once they figure out that they are not insurgents but terrorists then their confusion will evaporate.

Choosing words according to the dictates of PC is muddling their minds.

[reformedliberal]

We have a winner!

This is precisely how I read it, as well: a primer for the islamofascists. Unfortunately, the NYT, while making liberal (intended) use of the f-word, have never really seemed to understand just who is the fascist.

[AFPhys]

Sometimes I wish that people like you guys would stop telling these fool analysts the simple reasons they completely miss because they try to be such eggheads. I find their thrashing around rather entertaining as they miss the obvious.

[Tom Bombadil]

there is no logic here...

Oh yes there is.

Intimidation is the tactic used by Saddam's monsters to control old Iraq and it is the preferred tactic of most jihadists. Cutting out tongues and beating women are tactical first cousins to bombing innocents.

[Deetes]

Translation: "Hey, if you guys can't manage to run a decent insurgency in Iraq, how on earth are we going to work up another Vietnam quagmire? Come on, let's have a little useful help, guys! We can't keep bashing Bush on Iraq all by ourselves. Now, these are the insurgency manuals you should be reading. .

You got it !!!!

[Deetes]

Maybe becuase they are not "insurgents " they are "terrorists" .... DA DA DA !!!!

[noblejones]

>>
. . . will no longer buy their particular brand of bovine excrement.
<<

For the love of Pete, will you get it right? It's *equine* excrement that the NYT puts out. Pay attention.

Sheesh.

[finnman69]

"Instead of saying, 'What's the logic here, we don't see it,' you could speculate, there is no logic here," said Anthony James Joes, a professor of political science at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and the author of several books on the history of guerrilla warfare. The attacks now look like "wanton violence," he continued. "And there's a name for these guys: Losers."