← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · weisbrot
Thread ID: 20363 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2005-09-23
2005-09-23 16:47 | User Profile
It sounds as if the few foreign insurgents in Iraq are using their involvement to train and network. Sort of like a huge convention and vendor expo for Amway vendors, except they bring AK's.
Meanwhile the "US government" attempts to convince us that the Amway convention is being taken over by secret agents from The Fuller Brush company in hopes that we'll take over the entire door-to-door sales industry. Seems like the WalMart of governments is being led about by the nose by another brand of foreign influencer...
[url]http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0923/dailyUpdate.html[/url]
The 'myth' of Iraq's foreign fighters
Report by US think tank says only '4 to 10' percent of insurgents are foreigners.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
The US and Iraqi governments have vastly overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and most of them don't come from Saudi Arabia, according to a new report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS). According to a piece in The Guardian, this means the US and Iraq "feed the myth" that foreign fighters are the backbone of the insurgency. While the foreign fighters may stoke the incurgency flames, they only comprise only about 4 to 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgents. The CSIS study also disputes media reports that Saudis comprise the largest group of foreign fighters. CSIS says "Algerians are the largest group (20 percent), followed by Syrians (18 percent), Yemenis (17 percent), Sudanese (15 percent), Egyptians (13 percent), Saudis (12 percent) and those from other states (5 percent)." CSIS gathered the information for its study from intelligence services in the Gulf region.
The CSIS report says: "The vast majority of Saudi militants who have entered Iraq were not terrorist sympathisers before the war; and were radicalized almost exclusively by the coalition invasion." The average age of the Saudis was 17-25 and they were generally middle-class with jobs, though they usually had connections with the most prominent conservative tribes. "Most of the Saudi militants were motivated by revulsion at the idea of an Arab land being occupied by a non-Arab country. These feelings are intensified by the images of the occupation they see on television and the internet ... the catalyst most often cited [in interrogations] is Abu Ghraib, though images from Guantánamo Bay also feed into the pathology."
The report also gives credit to the Saudi government for spending nearly $1.2 billion over the past two years, and deploying 35,000 troops, in an effort to secure its border with Iraq. The major problem remains the border with Syria, which lacks the resources of the Saudis to create a similar barrier on its border.
[B]The Associated Press [/B] reports that CSIS believes most of the insurgents are not "Saddam Hussein loyalists" but members of Sunni Arab Iraqi tribes. They do not want to see Mr. Hussein return to power, but they are "wary of a Shiite-led government."
[B]TheLos Angeles Times [/B] reports that a greater concern is that 'skills' foreign fighters are learning in Iraq are being exported to their home countries. This is a particular concern for Europe, since early this year US intelligence reported that "Abu Musab Zarqawi, whose network is believed to extend far beyond Iraq, had dispatched teams of battle-hardened operatives to European capitals."
Iraq has become a superheated, real-world academy for lessons about weapons, urban combat and terrorist trade craft, said Thomas Sanderson of [CSIS].
Extremists in Iraq are "exposed to international networks from around the world," said Sanderson, who has been briefed by German security agencies. "They are returning with bomb-making skills, perhaps stolen explosives, vastly increased knowledge. If they are succeeding in a hostile environment, avoiding ... US Special Forces, then to go back to Europe, my God, it's kid's play."
2005-09-23 17:18 | User Profile
Add the whole "foreign fighters" meme onto the pile of exaggerated and mystified claims made by BushCo concerning the Iraq debacle.
Furthermore, the US making claims of alleged "foreign fighters" in Iraq strikes me as the mother of all pot-kettle-black scenarios.
2005-09-23 17:43 | User Profile
While they raise an interesting point, these folks make the cardinal error: they treat the "insurgency" as though it were a monolithic movement. It is not. It is a multi faction civil war going on over there. Some are home grown factions, some rely on friends from across the borders. They do seem to point to the Sunni motivation as "anti Shi'ite" versus Pro Saddam in a general sense, but even those distinctions strike me as far too Mickey Mouse. It's way more complicated than that, the inter clan deals and cooperative ventures.
Some factions (and Zarqawi's is one of them) rely on foreigners more than others. Sadr's fighters, on the other hand, tend to be wholly Iraqi. It doesn't take large numbers to make an impact in the kind of guerilla war they are fighting.
The key number to consider is how many willing allies any small core of "acting members" in a particular region have in the local population bases. Enablers. Folks who turn a blind eye. Folks who put others up for the night. Folks who act as eyes and ears.
The comment on Iraq now a training ground for anyone who has the balls to play, and take their lessons elsewhere, strikes me as a reasonable conclusion. [QUOTE=weisbrot]It sounds as if the few foreign insurgents in Iraq are using their involvement to train and network. Sort of like a huge convention and vendor expo for Amway vendors, except they bring AK's. That's an interesting way to put it. :huh:
AE
2005-09-23 19:07 | User Profile
According to that great geopolitical thinker, Conservative and Republican Rush Limbaugh, the resistance are all Iranians and Syrians. There are no Iraqis save Saddam dead enders, who support it. [url=http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/]"Baghdad Bob"[/url] has nothing on Limbaugh when it comes to really stupid lying. Of course, the "Dittoheads" were calling up on both days he said this telling him just how right he is.
2005-09-23 19:21 | User Profile
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]Add the whole "foreign fighters" meme onto the pile of exaggerated and mystified claims made by BushCo concerning the Iraq debacle.[/QUOTE] You mean to tell me that the Iraq war wasn't really a brilliantly-executed plan specifically designed to draw every terrorist or potential terrorist on the whole planet towards Baghdad like moths to a flame, so that we could conveniently fight them all in one single place, while the homeland would remain totally and completely safe, because not a single terrorist would be able to resist Iraq's hypnotic call? I'm so disillusioned. :rolleyes:
2005-09-23 19:39 | User Profile
I've always thought that the claim about lots of foreign fighters coming into Iraq was complete BS and a pre-justification for taking military action against Iraq's neighbors once Iraq was brought under control (or maybe even before).
The Zionists and neocons don't merely want Iraq brought under US (and therefore Israeli/Jewish) control. They want Syria, Iran, and the better part of the Middle East in general as well. Iraq was meant to be a stepping-stone. Maybe it still is, although enough has gone wrong in Iraq that the neocons just might think twice before extending the war.
2005-09-23 20:54 | User Profile
Angler,
I wouldn't put it past the Neocons to have deliberately taken that into consideration. They coined the term "Operation Flypaper" for the ignorant knowing damn well that once the US went into Iraq it would not only attract some outside help, but more importantly, give them the [I]pretense[/I] to justify invading these other countries. I don't recall them addressing this point (with good reason) prior to the Iraqi invasion.
2005-09-23 21:52 | User Profile
I don't think Rush would be comfortable with a thing like "truth on the ground" in a combat zone. It would jar him out of his comfortable world. So long as he has someone to poke fun at, he's happy. The "Excellence In Bullsh**ing"(EIB) Network" seems to thrive on fantasy, I wonder if they will start having Rush read Harry Potter books aloud for story hour! :shocking:
Iranians? Sure, there are Iranian agents (overt and covert) in Iraq, but where does he get his stuff? Iran seems to me to be playing their hand rather close to the vest for the moment. So long as Iraq is week, their posisition improves.
AE
2005-09-23 23:17 | User Profile
AE,
At one time I would say Rush gets his nonsense from DEBKA. However, even he has said he considered them to be accurate 25% only of the time. He claims to be a Stratcom subscriber, so I know he didn't get it from them.
I think he pulled it out of his butt from desperation of being exposed as a liar.
I can see the Iranians running intelligence agents inside of Iraq. They have a vested interest. Other than possibly some elements within the Revolutionary Guards, I don't think they are behind any of the attacks. (1) With the passing of time they will realize their objectives, if they haven't already, (2) they don't want to give the Neocrazies an excuse to bomb them.