Quotes Of The Day: What Our Generals Say About The Insurgency

28 Jun, 2005 by John Hawkins

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“You have an insurgency with no vision, no base, limited popular support, an elected government, committed Iraqis to the democratic process, and you have Iraqi security forces that are fighting and dying for their country every day. Senator, that is not a quagmire.” — General George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, responds to Ted Kennedy’s assertion that Iraq is a “quagmire”

“The insurgency is in a no-win position. The insurgency can cause casualties, they can grab headline. But as long as the politics move forward in a positive direction that is considered to be legitimate by the majority of the Iraqi people, and as long as Iraqi security forces continue to develop at the rate that they’re developing, and as long as American forces continue to stay there to provide the strength for those Iraqi forces as they develop — we are, after all, the shield behind which politics takes place — the insurgency won’t make it.” — General John Abizaid

Exactly.

Look at the situation for the insurgents in Iraq.

The terrorists are relatively unorganized, are unable to hold territory, and in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, they’re proving to be largely ineffective.

Furthermore, do they have the support of the people? No, in Iraq their support is limited to a small percentage of Sunnis, who themselves only make up 20% of the population.

On top of that, the support the terrorists do have is inevitably doomed to spiral downward as the Iraqis continue to take over more and more responsibility for their own security. Many Iraqis may be ambivalent about seeing foreigners die (unfortunately, that’s the way of the world), but when you start murdering members of the home team, it’s a different story.

Moreover, unlike Hamas and Hizbollah, the terrorists can’t provide services to the local community that could build loyalty over time, nor do they offer any “great vision” that can hope to capture the support of the population at this point. To the contrary, it’s us, the good guys, who are providing the food, the jobs, the projects, and the realistic hope for a free and democratic society.

But, does that mean the “insurgency” will be over anytime soon?

No, the terrorists should be able to continue to convince mopes to strap themselves up with explosives and run into lines of people standing on the sidewalk & they also can pull off a few assassinations, but is that enough to conquer Iraq and bend it to their will?

No, it’s not.

At this point, the terrorists have no more chance of taking over Iraq than Al Capone’s gang had of turning Illinois into their own little personal fiefdom in the late 1920s. In fact, it’s likely that the only way the terrorists can win now is if we get so psyched out by our defeatist press that we just give up. That’s what Abizaid & Casey are trying to get across…