The "Reality-Based Community" Strikes Again
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Counterinsurgency | Iraq | Nancy Pelosi Misses The Boat | The Surge | War — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an "extraordinary crisis". Last year's mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military "created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight". The terrorist group's security structure suffered "total collapse".
These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province -- once the group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.
The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.
That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. "I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector," the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.
"We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers," he says. "Those people were nothing but hypocrites, liars and traitors and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them most."
Assuming the two documents are authentic -- and the US military insists that they are -- they provide a rare insight into an organisation thrown into turmoil by the rise of the Awakening movement. More than 80,000 Sunnis have joined the tribal groups of "concerned local citizens" [CLCs] that have helped to eject al-Qaeda from swaths of western and northern Iraq, including much of Baghdad.
This doesn't, of course, mean that the reconstruction effort in Iraq is over and successful, but it would, at the very least, say something complimentary about the surge and the attendant counterinsurgency strategy being pursued by the U.S..
All of which would blow a hole in recent arguments made by Speaker Pelosi, would it not? Will those who call themselves "reality-based" even bother to notice the incongruity?
The "Reality-Based Community" Strikes Again 4 Comments (0 topical, 4 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
As others have pointed out, Iraq has a better record on benchmarks than Congress to date.
Next softball pitch from your Talking Point-O-Matic™?
The price of freedom, . . . courage.
Uhhhhm, yeah, . . it never ceases to amaze me how eager the dems in congress are to throw stones at the Iraqi parliament . . . I mean, its not like THEY are getting anything done in DC . . . sheesh.
The Mahdi Army pulled 60,000 fighters off the street. Sunnis started killing Saudis and North Africans on sight. Things calmed down as surge guys cleaned out NW Baghdad.
What is happening now ???
The foreign suicide bombers are rare. Downs Syndrome bombers, got to be last resort.
Hard to imagine that "al-Qaeda" is a threat to take over Iraq. There is no Sunni population ready to follow a Saudi Arabian-based religious leader.
Usama bin Laden is a dead man. For Iraq, anyway.
So what now ???
How many of the benchmarks have been met?