Irak

[Merowig]

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'I killed two and felt very proud. Now I just want to kill more'
(Filed: 24/05/2004)

A dead man lay face down on the road from Baghdad to the holy city of Kufa, spiritual heart of the Shia uprising against the Americans.

He was wearing a crumpled, camel-coloured robe and had just been killed, perhaps by a mine, by one of the area's many bandits, or by a stray American bullet. A mob swarmed around him like wasps, intent on revenge.
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Und wenn sowas ein GI sagt regen sich alle auf

:bonk:

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Don't give Iraqis self-rule all at once

May 23, 2004

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Here's a story no American news organization thought worth covering last week, so you'll just have to take it from me. In the southern Iraqi town of Amara, 20 men from Scotland's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders came under attack from 100 or so of Muqtada al-Sadr's ''insurgents.'' So they fixed bayonets and charged.

It was the first British bayonet charge since the Falklands War 20 years ago. And at the end of it some 35 of the enemy were dead in return for three minor wounds on the Argylls' side.
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By comparison, a Cruise missile, an unmanned drone, even a bullet are all antiseptic forms of warfare. When a chap's charging at you with a bayonet, he's telling you he's personally willing to run you through with cold steel. The bullet may get you first, but, if it doesn't, he'll do it himself. To the average British squaddie in the 21st century, the bayonet's main practical purpose is for opening tinned food. But when you need it on the battlefield, it's still a powerful signal of your resolve, your will.

When coalition forces engage the foe in Amara, in Najaf or Fallujah, that's always going to be the rough ratio: three light wounds to 10 times as many enemy dead.
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There are some 8,000 towns and villages in the country. How many do you hear about on the news? For a week, it's all Fallujah all the time. Then it's Najaf, and nada for anywhere else. Currently, 90 percent of Iraqi coverage is about one lousy building: Abu Ghraib. So what's going on in the other 7,997 dots on the map? In the Shia province of Dhi Qar, a couple hundred miles southeast of Baghdad, 16 of the biggest 20 cities plus many smaller towns will have elected councils by June. These were the first free elections in Dhi Qar's history and ''in almost every case, secular independents and representatives of nonreligious parties did better than the Islamists.'' That assessment is from the anti-war anti-Bush anti-Blair Euro-lefties at the Guardian, by the way.
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Eigentlich ein vernuenftiger Ansatz - das es innerhalb des Iraks zu verschiedenen Abstufung von lokalen unabhaengigen "Regierungen" kommen soll - sowas praktizieren selbst die Briten.