Apparently empowered by the recent election, Iraqis who are fed up with terrorists are taking things into their own hands. According to a report from Ali Fahdil when terrorists tried to attack citizens in the small town of Al Mudiryiah to punish them for voting, the townsfolk turned on them in a mob, killed 5 terrorists, wounded 8 and burned their cars.
The success of the elections has really given Iraqis confidence and raised the level of resentment against the terrorists who tried to intimidate and kill voters. Voters who were killed have been enshrined as martyrs with thousands attending their funerals, and the level of anti-terrorist rhetoric coming from regular Iraqi citizens is astounding. It looks like we're seeing the start of a backlash which might just purge Iraq of the terrorist scourge.
Dave
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Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
Oh Dave - you are a genius among foolish mortals. YOU told us it would happen. No-one else. Good job. Attaboy. Much appreciated and great deep, can't-express-it-enough thanks for deigning to share your wisdom.
/sarcasm >
PS They were doing this before.
2 - Dave Nalle
Hey, I never said I was the only person who said it would happen, did I?
Dave
3 - Temple Stark
No just messing with you and yout title :-)
4 - David Flanagan
Dave,
I agree with you. It became quite apparent right after the Iraqi election that they were feeling, finally, a sense of ownership regarding their communities and their nation. One of my recent blogs mentions that Iraq has finally become an "ownership society." :-)
This is good news for sure.
Thanks,
David
5 - Dave Nalle
Once freedom is unleashed it's a difficult beast to tame.
Dave
6 - SFC SKI
One of the hardest things for soldiers to deal with was discriminating between weapons in Iraqi homes for legitimate and unfortunately necessary home defense, and weapons caches.
I am glad to see the Iraqis defended themselves against the thugs. I have said it before and I will say it again, of all the ME countries I have been to, I believe the Iraqis have the guts, ability, and desire to make a functioning democratic society work.
7 - Eric Olsen
very good to have your hard-won inside information Ski, much appreciated, and I sure hope you are right
8 - Shark
Yes, but the big questions are:
Will they buy Coke?
Levis?
Rock and Roll?
Deperate Housewives?
These HAVE TO BE the next steps on the road to Democracy; we'll win when they're as corrupted by mindless consumerism as we are.
I'll celebrate with you boyz when the first HOME DEPOT goes up in Sadr City.
Before that, I believe it's premature.
Continue to Fight the Good Fight, My Patriot Brothers!
~Shark
9 - Shark
re: Coke, Levis, Rock-n-Roll
I believe our leaders should consider that the LONG TERM issue in Iraq will be the danger that the Iraqis find out they can get those products DIRECTLY from China at much lower prices.
My hope is that Bush, Cheney, Wolfy, and Co. are taking measures to prevent this future apocalyptic scenario.
(In fact, I'm praying over it.)
10 - Shark
By the way, Dave, while it's already been pointed out, I thought a psychological dogpile was in order.
Posting an "essay" celebrating a war-torn population's "empowerment" with the title:
"I TOLD YOU IT WOULD HAPPEN!"
paints you as a petty, despicable, small-minded, egotistical prick.
Say it ain't so, comrade!
11 - Eric Olsen
The Clash foresaw it all over 25 years ago:
By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that craazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the shareef
Had cleared the square
They began to wail
The shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The shareef don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
12 - SFC SKI
Saudi Arabia is not the model for the Arab world, you'd be surprised.
"Will they buy Coke?" They already do, and they sell it, sometimes cold, thank God, from the counter of their DIY internet cafes and pizza places that seem to spring up wherever Americans stop."
"Levis?" Yes, but like most places other than the US, jeans are more expensive than good pants. In my opinion, not enough Iraqi girls wore Levis, and some of them might have been wearing them under the robes, who knows? Now, Kuwaiti, Qatari, and Bahraini girls love Levis, whereas the Lebanese and Tunisian girls usually go for French knock-offs. Oh yeah, guys wear 'em, but who cares about the guys?
"Rock and Roll?" Now, I have posted somewhere on a thriving rock and roll scene being a precursor to democracy, look at Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the insidious gangsta and B-Boy sound is the 21st century clarion call of freedom. still, it's loud and scares parents and authority figures, so I'd give it a yes.
"Deperate Housewives?" Probably, once someone dubs it or subtitles it, there is a Spanish Soap Opera, I can't remember the name, but it's on Telemundo. Anyway, it's dubbed version is one of the most-watched shows throughout the ME, with a huge following, work stops, the whole family gathers around the box, even in coffee shops this show is on.
"Home Depot" Giant superstores and malls are uniquely Ammerican, but go to the markets in any Arab city and you will find all the hardware you need, and the Iraqis had really good schools, so many of them have the skills to use them.
I am not dumb enough to espouse Shark's theory that commercialism advances freedom, but they do seem to keep company.
13 - JR
SFC SKI: One of the hardest things for soldiers to deal with was discriminating between weapons in Iraqi homes for legitimate and unfortunately necessary home defense, and weapons caches.
So you're saying Iraqi civilians owned guns? Even under Saddam Hussein's rule?
14 - urthshu
I'll celebrate with you boyz when the first HOME DEPOT goes up in Sadr City.
No no- a Space Program. Nothing less.
15 - SFC SKI
I should clarify, it was primarily in the Sunni sections that guns were available, many stashed away, some handed down from grandfather to grandson. I don't remember the exact rules, but an Iraqi household was allowed something like one rifle and one pistol, and a small amount of ammo in case bandits tried to break in. Some guys had old British Enfields from the 1920s.
I can't answer for the Shia sections, I did not work in those parts of Iraq, but I know that weapon smuggling was common even before the war, Iraq's borders were very open, and smuggling is a way of life, has been for centuries. It only got more open after tthe fall of Baghdad.
16 - RJ
Guns + Sunnis = Bad News...
17 - SFC Ski
It is impossible to define Iraq in 25 words or less.
Outside of Baghdad, most of the cities are really just big rural towns, or villages, somewhat like the American Midwest. The (Sunni) homeowners had guns like their daddies did, like any farmer anywhere would.
The thing to realize is that Iraq has the legacies of most post-colonial lands, the minority were elevated to keep the majority in check, and now the pendulum is swinging the other way. The upper level politicians, civil servants, and almost all military officers were Sunni. Many of the Sunni Iraqis are not rich or elite, but they were less persecuted under the old regime, a Sunni village was likely to have it's infrastructure maintained, whereas a Shia village was not.
A key factor in Iraq is the tribal lines, something alien to many Americans, though instances can be found in America. The various leaders of the tribes, from village, to town, to ctiy to province, etc, were more strongly bound by tribal lines. Unlike the US, many Iraqis live in one area where their tribe is, it is much less common for a man from Al Anbar province west of Baghdad to Ninevah province in the north, for example, it is as if your tribe came from Iowa, were predominant in Iowa and stayed in Iowa. Not only that, you had to get permission to leave that are to go to another, or could be forcibly resettled, as was done in the Kurdish regions in the north. Not a lot of individual free will under the old regime. Tribal leaders do hold tremendous influence over their people, because the civil governorates might admnister a province, but the money and influence would still run down from them through the sheiks. Many challenges.
A counter point to that is that many Iraqis did have the opportunity for education, of course more Sunnis than Shia, so there is an educated class of Iraqis, there had actually been a middle class of sorts on a colonial pattern, but the differences were not as marked as they would be in other former colonies.
Add to that the centuries old religious schism, secondary in many ways to the tribal lines, it is another facet of the challenges that the new Iraq faces.
You have to remember, too, that while the Shia have ties to Iran, they also bore the brunt of the casualties in the Iran-Iraq war, and many of them are aware, even more than we are, that an Islamic theocracy a la Iran and dominated/led by the Iranian mullahs is NOT the government they want.
Iraqis actually do have a strong nationalistic streak against non-Iraqis, but Saddam played on that as well to maintain control over the populace as a whole. He kept all the factions, tribes and religious leaders off balance to keep any other challenger from rising up against his regime.