[Rictor]

If you're so sure that the majority of the resistance is evil terrorists trying to take over the country, then how come for the first maybe 6 months of occupation there was barely any resistance, at least by today's standards, and how come it has progressively been ramping up the longer the US stays there? That's cause by and large Iraqis gave the US a chance to prove their legitimacy, and they failed spectacularly by wreaking havoc on the country and ****ing over the population.

Yes, different factions are playing for power in Iraq, including foreign governments and the US, but at the end of the day I think that the resistance in general better represents the wishes of Iraqis than the Americans do. You also have to take into account that Americans are more foreign than say, a Syrian or a Saudi. Thats cause the "foreign elements" of thre reistsance are all Arab Muslims, as opposed to Anglo-American Christians. If China occupied the US, who would you think is more foreign, the Chinese occupiers or the Canadian insurgents crossing the border to help their neighbors?

Originally posted by Liberator
To be perfectly honest Rictor, I don't know why we are in Iraq.  Most of the excuses we were given have been largely disproven or at the most proven to be of secondary importance.

The fact of the matter is we are there now, regardless of anything else.

And it is now our duty to see it through to the end.  The bitter end if necessary.

There are lots of foreigners fighting American/Iraqi forces, and killing LOTS of Iraqi civvies,  throughout the country, you can't tell me you think they are there to help the Iraqis throw off the yoke of American oppression, when we've said we're leaving an indefinate period in the near future.   Them killing and dying for something that's going to happen anyway is kind of pointless isn't it?

If you're walking to the store, and after 20 minutes you realize you're walking in the wrong direction, do you keep walking the wrong way with the hope that you will one day reach your destination, or do you turn around and start walking the other way?

As for the US troops withdrawl, I think you're naive to believe a word out of the mouths of the people who are saying the occupation will end any time soon. What you have to realize is that there is no job to do, the occupation isn't a means to an end, it is the end, at leasy in the foreseeable future. The "we're leaving" story has gone through about 10 thousand different versions, so I have no reason to believe the ten thousand and first, especialy considreing who its coming from...

[redmenace]

Even if we were to leave, they would still be attacking the provincial gov't and the Shiite. It is not as simple as we are there, therefore we would will be attacked. But if this resistance represents the wishes of the Iraqi people, why have they now begun attacking Shiite? Are we to believe that the Shiite want themselves to be visiously killed.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Maybe the insurgents were simply biding thier time and waiting?  A few attacks, emboldening themselves to the standards that they are today.  I don't think that they were afraid, i think that they were waiting, and have since changed plans because we didn't leave fast enough.

[Flipside]

To be honest, if anything or anyone had created a power-vacuum in Iraq then this would have happened, it was a massive free-for-all just waiting to happen. An oppressed people, and a leader who was a Wolf surrounded by Wolves.

What may need to be remembered is that, whilst being a Muslim Country, the religion in Iraq was actually far more liberal than, say, Afghanistan. However, it is surrounded by countries that would much rather see a far tighter grip on the country by it's religious leaders, and removing a strong military leader, regardless of his ethics, has left that void open to be exploited.

Remember, whilst Saddam was in control of Iraq, he had access to his own army, and little hope of relying on his neighbours for help. However, a state based on Fundamentalistic Islam would find supporters scattered around a far larger area.

America is far from the only country that dreams of Empire

[Janos]

Originally posted by redmenace
It wouldn't suprise me if in fact Syria is hiding the bathist leaders especially since Sunni Bathists and Syrian bathists are very closely related. As per funding it, wellI think they are not since Saddam had of money stored up. This is more evident by the fact they have found in Falujah crisp dollar bills on insurgents. These did not come from the contractors since they pay in the iraqi currency. It must have come from either cash stores or money from syrian banks.

Iraq and Syria are/were not very friendly towards each other, even though the origins of both Baath parties were pretty much the same. Syria supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and after that the diplomatic relationships between the countries have been cool-calm. Syria was also against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. They've been nitpicking about which country is runned by "true Baathists" (OK, were nitpicking). There were also differences between the stance on Palestinian issue and so on.

Recently there have been allegations about Syria supporting Iraqi insurgents/rebels/guerillas/whatever, but no waterproof evidence of Syria's government's part has been introduced.