AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Insurgency: Neighborhood Watch
“Gen. George Casey, the U.S. commander of the multinational coalition in Iraq, told reporters on [June 27] that the worst-case estimate of the size of the Iraqi insurgency is less than one-10th of 1 percent of the country’s population — that is, a top end of 26,000 people supporting the insurgency.” — The Guardian
If you’ve been following guerrilla wars as long as I have, you have to laugh when you hear Army PR guys say that the Iraqi insurgents are just a teeny-tiny bad apple in a big barrel of shiny Red Delicious Iraqis. One bad apple — that little beady-eyed Al Qaeda operative Zarqawi — is supposedly responsible for the whole mess. Sorry, folks, but insurgencies just don’t work that way.
Of course, you can’t blame US Army guys for doing their job — lying to the press. But you sure can blame the press for buying it. I can’t believe how pig-ignorant reporters are about the basics of guerrilla warfare. This planet has been bursting with guerrilla wars for the past century, but the perky, smiley guys ‘n’ gals reporting from Iraq still know more about hair spray and “Dating Do’s & Don’ts” than they do about urban warfare.
Must read.
How about we just get the hell out of Iraq right now?