Top US officials publicly condemned today’s anti-Shi’ite bombings across Iraq, which killed at least 50 and wounded hundreds of others. Still being the second major string of bombings in the past few days, many are beginning to doubt the Obama Administration’s narrative that these are isolated incidents that do not represent a broader trend.
With nearly 1,000 reported casualties across the nation in the past week, top adviser Colonel Timothy Reese’s admonishment that the continued presence of 132,000 troops “isn’t yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition” must be ringing in the administration’s ears, even if publicly they have dismissed the colonel’s call to withdraw from the nation as soon as possible.
Ever growing popular opposition and a rising death toll don’t seem to be hindering the claims of dramatic progress being made in the war over six years after the initial US invasion. Still, while the president claims the pullout is “on schedule” he has actually withdrawn relatively few from the nation, even as he dramatically escalates the US war effort in Afghanistan.
Iraqi officials have been at least as confident, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki repeatedly insisting that the bombings would fail to return the nation to the level of violence it saw in previous years. Yet he too is leaving the door open to keeping US troops in the nation beyond 2011, suggesting the rising conflict is throwing their timetables into doubt, at least unofficially.
America created the religious violence because they thought it would prolong the occupation: The myth of sectarianism – The policy is divide to rule. It may be worthwhile to consider that prior to the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq there had never been open warfare between the two groups and certainly not a civil war. In terms of organization and convention, Iraqis are a tribal society and some of the largest tribes in the country comprise Sunni and Shia. Intermarriages between the two sects are not uncommon either.
Soon after arriving in Iraq in November 2003, I learned that it was considered rude and socially graceless to enquire after an individual’s sect. If in ignorance or under compulsion I did pose the question the most common answer I would receive was, "I am Muslim, and I am Iraqi." On occasion there were more telling responses like the one I received from an older woman, "My mother is a Shia and my father a Sunni, so can you tell which half of me is which?" The accompanying smile said it all.
Large mixed neighborhoods were the norm in Baghdad. Sunni and Shia prayed in one another’s mosques. &
"Those Americans thought they would decrease the resistance attacks by separating the people of Iraq into sects and tribes," announced a thirty-two-year-old man from Ramadi, who spoke with al-Fadhily on terms of anonymity, "They know they are sinking deeper into the shifting sand, but the collaborators are fooling the Americans right now, and will in the end use this strategy against them."
America created the religious violence because they thought it would help to prolong the occupation: The myth of sectarianism – The policy is divide to rule. It may be worthwhile to consider that prior to the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq there had never been open warfare between the two groups and certainly not a civil war. In terms of organization and convention, Iraqis are a tribal society and some of the largest tribes in the country comprise Sunni and Shia. Intermarriages between the two sects are not uncommon either.
Soon after arriving in Iraq in November 2003, I learned that it was considered rude and socially graceless to enquire after an individual’s sect. If in ignorance or under compulsion I did pose the question the most common answer I would receive was, "I am Muslim, and I am Iraqi." On occasion there were more telling responses like the one I received from an older woman, "My mother is a Shia and my father a Sunni, so can you tell which half of me is which?" The accompanying smile said it all.
Large mixed neighborhoods were the norm in Baghdad. Sunni and Shia prayed in one another’s mosques. &
"Those Americans thought they would decrease the resistance attacks by separating the people of Iraq into sects and tribes," announced a thirty-two-year-old man from Ramadi, who spoke with al-Fadhily on terms of anonymity, "They know they are sinking deeper into the shifting sand, but the collaborators are fooling the Americans right now, and will in the end use this strategy against them."