My eyes quickly skimmed this part:

quote:

Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group. They operate mostly in Anbar province (Fallujah and Ramadi). These are mostly "foreigners", non-Iraqi Sunni Arab Jihadists from all over the Muslim world (and Europe).

Uhh, no. The majority of violence is sectarian-related, with some 90-95% comprised of Iraqi citizens and only a small portion from al Qaeda and foreign terrorist groups.

Here ya go:

quote:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army has replaced al Qaeda in Iraq as "the most dangerous accelerant" of the sectarian violence plaguing Iraq for nearly a year, according to a Pentagon report. Attacks by Iraqi insurgents and sectarian militias jumped 22 percent from mid-August to mid-November, and Iraqi civilians suffered the bulk of casualties, according to the quarterly report released on Monday. The average number of attacks reported each week jumped during that period from nearly 800 to almost 1,000, the report said. (Watch how insurgent and sectarian attacks have become a staple of Iraqi civilian life Video) The two most prominent militias -- the Mehdi Army and the Badr Organization -- are armed wings of Shiite political parties whose support is crucial to the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The Mehdi Army in particular "exerts significant influence in Baghdad and the southern provinces of Iraq and on the government of Iraq," and fights periodic battles with Badr supporters, according to the report. The Badr Organization is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The Pentagon report comes as Robert Gates takes over as defense secretary to replace Donald Rumsfeld, and as President Bush ponders major changes in the nearly 4-year-old war. (Watch what are Gates' chief challenges in Iraq Video) The number of attacks recorded in September and October were the highest on record, the report found, but it provided no specific figures. Nearly 70 percent of attacks targeted U.S. and allied troops, "but the overwhelming majority of casualties were suffered by Iraqis," the report concluded. (Full story)....... http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast...main/index.html

I'd love to break down the rest, but I don't think this story is off to a good start with a factually incorrect point such as this.

Yes, I know - the media is just so gosh darn librul and anti-war, ain't it? They really did their job bashing Bush and showing their dissent going into this sucker, didn't they? They really did their job challenging Bush's assertions on WMDs, didn't they?

Gosh, to think how rosy things are, and all us libruls (and, ugh, even a nice handful of Republicans and Conservatives) are just so gosh darn negative about how Jr. is conducting this war. Gosh, all my Christmas cheer just got used up.......

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

I'm sure the guys on the ground know who they're dealing with, I think I'll take their word for it because you know, the media is SO reliable and factual about everything...

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

quote:

Originally posted by Fir3start3r I'm sure the guys on the ground know who they're dealing with, I think I'll take their word for it because you know, the media is SO reliable and factual about everything...

The story I just gave you was from a PENTAGON REPORT.

Do yourself a favor and try to read the posts I give, please?

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Uhh, no. The majority of violence is sectarian-related, with some 90-95% comprised of Iraqi citizens and only a small portion from al Qaeda and foreign terrorist groups.

And who do you think started the sectarian fighting?
When zarqawi blew up the mosque that inflamed sectarian
tension and sunni on shia violence began. Before that
they were restraint. Also his letter to Al Queda bosses
said the only way to cause enough chaos to try to force
the US to leave was to start a civil war. That just targeting
Americans and Iraqi military wasn't doing much, they
had to kill muslims who would hopefully turn on each
other...

___________________

Electric Zoo 2010! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVE-RutexSE

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 The story I just gave you was from a PENTAGON REPORT. Do yourself a favor and try to read the posts I give, please?

This is AFTER terrorists who weren't effective against
coalition forces decided to inflame tensions and start
a civil war. Then the militias overtook the terrorists
in sectarian violence...

___________________

Electric Zoo 2010! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVE-RutexSE

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 The story I just gave you was from a PENTAGON REPORT. Do yourself a favor and try to read the posts I give, please?

Oh yea, I forgot the Pentagon is right there on the ground, silly me.

[edit]
Wait a tic...are you actually quoting a Pentagon report from this administration?
Be still my heart..

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

Last edited by Fir3start3r on Dec-30-2006 at 01:48

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 The story I just gave you was from a PENTAGON REPORT. Do yourself a favor and try to read the posts I give, please?

uh no, the Pentagon re, vealed that Mehdi has accelerated recently in attacks comprared to Al Queera and its sympathizers. prolly because we are focusing and getting more effective at nutralizing foriegn fighters that hid e among the pop..

the consensus, to which you prolly agree, is 50-60,000 in strength. = less than one quarter of one percent of Iraqi pop.=excruciatingly difficult to segregate assess and eliminate.

quote:

Originally posted by Fir3start3r Oh yea, I forgot the Pentagon is right there on the ground, silly me.

What the hell are you smoking? You mean to tell me that Pentagon reports are somehow irrelevant? Are you really trying to tell me how this report by an ANONYMOUS email at Cliff's corner at the fucking Bush-boot-licking National Review is somehow more relevant?

quote:

[edit] Wait a tic...are you actually quoting a Pentagon report from this administration? Be still my heart..

Why is that news? Pentagon, CIA, State Dept. analysis are quoted by me quite often, especially in regards to the Iraqi situation.

And BTW, Fire, you might want to check your sources again on this little letter. This was, in fact, a DATED email from around November of 2005, maybe even earlier. This was also kinda revealing:

quote:

[M]orale among our guys is very high. They not only believe that they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them.

Considering Bush said last week that the U.S. isn't winning the war:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6121900880.html

that might have been a bit of a giveaway hint to you.

But if that didn't work, perhaps you should go to the source of your email itself. See, here's some fun excerpts from around Nov. 2005 - look familiar?:

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/133585.php

http://schadenfreude.cogitox.com/archives/000457.html

And wait a fucking second, let's look at another quote:

quote:

"Lately, they are much more sophisticated "shape charges" (Iranian) specifically designed to penetrate armor. Fact: Most of the ready made IED's are supplied by Iran, who is also providing terrorists (Hezbollah types) to train the insurgents in their use and tactics.... Who are the bad guys…? Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group. They operate mostly in Anbar province (Fallujah and Ramadi). These are mostly "foreigners", non-Iraqi Sunni Arab Jihadists from all over the Muslim world (and Europe)."

So wait, we're supposed to believe that the Shiite Iranians are supplying Sunni insurgents with IEDs? What a fucking joke. How could such an expert like Cliff May on foreign politics conflate the Iran/Shia/Sunni/al Qaeda into one gigantic fucking boogeyman? Incredible.

I digress a bit. Anyway, I guess this is why your boy, Cliff, had to apologize for his bullshit?:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/po...ZDk1OWFkNjEzZTk

It's funny in his apology how he says an expert advising the ISG shared this year-old anonymous chain email with the group, and that group had a bit of a tiff over it.

I don't know if I should be mad or scared over the idiocy of the whole thing. I guess a bit of both. In either case, you've been had.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

Originally posted by DevilDogUSMC This is AFTER terrorists who weren't effective against coalition forces decided to inflame tensions and start a civil war. Then the militias overtook the terrorists in sectarian violence...

Boy, I'm sure glad it's because you said so.

And by the way, when are you going to stop raping your dog? That's really sick, you know.

What, I can't back that up? Gosh, how silly of me to make such an assertion, ain't it?

And lastly, the question being posed by this anonymous letter dated over a year ago was not the origins of the insurgency, but what comprises the bulk of the blood spilled from the insurgency itself. I appreciate your straw men arguments quite lot, but since we are on the topic you are welcome to expound further on the origins with a bit of evidence to support your assertions.

Otherwise, I'd still maintain you raping your dog is pretty disgusting.

Added in edit: A very quick google came up with this:

quote:

Insurgency begins (May-June 2003) In May of 2003, after the Iraqi conventional forces had been defeated, the U.S military noticed a gradually increasing flurry of attacks on U.S troops in various regions of the so-called "Sunni Triangle," especially in Baghdad and in the regions around Fallujah and Tikrit. These consisted of small groups of suspected guerrillas firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at U.S patrols and convoys in attacks that were often poorly planned and demonstrated poor marksmanship and training. In many cases the insurgents were killed in the return fire. The attacks were blamed by the U.S military on remnants of the Ba'ath Party and the Fedayeen Saddam militia. http://pedia.nodeworks.com/H/HI/HIS...raqi_insurgency

Now bad marksmanship, poorly planned attacks and training does not define al Qaeda and foreign terrorists very well, do they? In any case, I'll be waiting for any verifiable evidence (albeit off the beaten path of this article and point I made) that demonstrates the origins of the insurgency stemming from foreign terrorists.

Edit 2: Another quick Google search came up with this:

quote:

How and when did the insurgency begin? A former Iraqi general, who now leads an insurgent group in Baghdad, told us he and others were planning resistance even before the U.S. invasion. The general, who goes by the alias Abu Omar, said: "Six months before the occupation, we started training and exercising resisting the American army in small groups." U.S. intelligence and military officials say many of the groups now making up the resistance were factions who benefited under Saddam Hussein, including army officers, a paramilitary group called the Saddam Fedayeen, and various Sunni tribal groups. They had their own networks for communications and even for financing to get around U.N. sanctions before the fall of Saddam. Does that mean the insurgency was inevitable? "The insurgency was not inevitable," said former Maj. Gen. James "Spider" Marks, who headed intelligence for U.S. ground forces in Iraq before and after the invasion. He and the Iraqi ex-general, Abu Omar, both say that what might have made the difference was the decision by U.S. administrator Paul Bremer in late May 2003 to disband the Iraqi army, throwing hundreds of thousands, mostly Sunnis, out of work. At about the same time in May 2003 -- the month after the regime was overthrown -- Saddam Hussein's deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri held a meeting in a car in Baghdad with four other top Saddam loyalists, where they decided to activate an insurgency, according to U.S. intelligence sources. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/12/schuster.column/index.html

Don't worry, DevilDog, they're just sources and quotes, so keep covering your eyes and ears.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

Last edited by MisterOpus1 on Dec-31-2006 at 21:11

And in regards to what comprises the insurgency, let's take a look at some more sources (since some folks disagree with a Pentagon assessment ):

Major General Joseph Taluto, head of the 42nd Infantry Division stated:

quote:

"99.9 per cent" of captured insurgents are Iraqi. http://archive.gulfnews.com/article.../09/168406.html

Another Pentagon analysis (*gasp*!) confirms this with over a 1000 insurgents captured in Fallujah, only 15 were non-Iraqi:

http://www.despardes.com/articles/sunnishia-1123.asp

Military commanders engaging in battles around Ramadi mention that out of around 1300 insurgents captured, in 2005, none were Iraqi:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...4/ixportal.html

Ken Katzman, a Middle East expert on the Congressional Research Service had this to say in June, 2005:

quote:

"I still think 80 percent of the insurgency, the day to day activity, is Iraqi - the roadside bombings, mortars, direct weapons fire, rifle fire, automatic weapons fire...[but] the foreign fighters attract the headlines with the suicide bombings, no question." http://www.ecssr.ac.ae/CDA/en/Profi...1250-00,00.html

In a battle at Tal Afar in Sept. of 2005, U.S. Army commander Colonel H. R. McMasters said the "vast majority" of insurgents captured there were "Iraqis and not foreigners.":

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exe...06EA2D48668.htm

Have a lovely New Years.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 What the hell are you smoking? You mean to tell me that Pentagon reports are somehow irrelevant? Are you really trying to tell me how this report by an ANONYMOUS email at Cliff's corner at the fucking Bush-boot-licking National Review is somehow more relevant?

No, I just find it funny that you quote the administration you so hate.
Just find it ironic that's all.

quote:

And BTW, Fire, you might want to check your sources again on this little letter. This was, in fact, a DATED email from around November of 2005, maybe even earlier. This was also kinda revealing:

Yea, it sure does, thanks for pointing that out.
Strange that NRO would have posted that as something new?
I'll have to be a little more leery of that now as I actually have come across this kind of time-crossing before too...

quote:

I digress a bit. Anyway, I guess this is why your boy, Cliff, had to apologize for his bullshit?: http://corner.nationalreview.com/po...ZDk1OWFkNjEzZTk It's funny in his apology how he says an expert advising the ISG shared this year-old anonymous chain email with the group, and that group had a bit of a tiff over it. I don't know if I should be mad or scared over the idiocy of the whole thing. I guess a bit of both. In either case, you've been had.

Possibily yes, however:

quote:

TPMmuckraker.com says “that sentiment seems a bit out of place, given that the president himself admitted last week the United States isn't winning the war.” To which I’d reply: Huh? The morale of the Marines, their perspective on media coverage, and their view of whether they are making progress may rise and fall with the President’s evaluation of the situation – or it may not.

>>Source is the same as in the quote<<

Point being that I'll leave it to the guys on the ground to make their own assessments on who they're fighting exactly and how they're feeling.
The generals there have a slight advantage over a president that has no idea IMHO. (Something I'm sure we can both agree on)

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."