Is the “Resistance” Legitimate? - Part III

In a sick show of hatred, the bodies of civilian security contract workers are abused in Fallujah, 2004.




Parts I & II of this series concluded that the insurgency desires to reinstate an Arab/Sunni dictatorship and is aroused by religious bigotry. This post will tie up the loose ends and focus on the many atrocities committed by the insurgents.

Militarily the insurgency is completely frustrated by the resolve and efficiency of the US military. They never really had much of a chance against the American’s superior firepower, but they have made some spectacular attacks on unarmed civilians. Therefore, they don’t need to be militarily effective to make the nightly news. As a matter of fact, their complete incompetence doesn’t even matter. The insurgency has primarily focused on attacking Iraqis not US troops. It makes sense, why focus on attacking soldiers with guns when killing innocents will spark more outrage against your enemies than yourself? This is why they attack the coalition from afar while concentrating on killing as many civilians as possible.

In the month of March the US military suffered 31 deaths while Iraqi civilians have suffered 901, the overwhelming majority of these civilians were deliberately targeted by the insurgents. These numbers come from the iCasualties website compiled by the bloodthirsty activist, Pat Kneisler, who has a morbid fondness of casualty counts like many other moonbat activists. Clearly the insurgents are killing many more Iraqis than US soldiers. While the numbers can be disputed, even if they were off by over 50% they would still prove the point that this insurgency is not geared towards fighting foreign oppression. They are fighting for political dominance over their fellow Iraqis. I have no problem with the term Civil War, but it is nothing new. These attacks have been occurring since the beginning of the insurgency.

One of the first large scale terrorist bombings in this conflict was the attack on the Baghdad UN headquarters on August 19, 2003 . Almost all of the victims were civilians who were involved in humanitarian projects. This attack set the agenda for the Iraqi insurgency. It was to focus on destroying the civilian infrastructure and eliciting anger from Western society against the coalition. A second attack on the UN led to a drastic withdrawal from Iraq and the end of many of their humanitarian efforts. In the minds of the terrorists this was a stunning victory. For Iraqi civilians it was an ominous sign of the insurgency’s intentions to destroy the country and make it as uninhabitable as possible.

To further such goals the insurgency has attacked charities that are involved primarily for humanitarian efforts. On October 27, 2003 a bomb went off in front of the Baghdad Red Cross offices killing 12 innocents. The bombing had been preceded by a campaign of assassinations targeting Red Cross staff members and this attack was enough to convince the organization to move its Iraqi headquarters to the safety of the Kurdish north and Jordan.

The most high profile attack on a neutral humanitarian aid organization was the abduction and killing of Margaret Hassan, the Iraqi director of the relief agency CARE. She was actually a British woman who had married an Iraqi in the 70s and became an Arabic speaking citizen of the country. While the international community was outraged over her killing, it wasn’t an isolated incident.

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul a humanitarian worker named Muhammad Hushiar of the relief and development organization, World Vision, was gunned down in cold blood in September of 2004. He had been warned by insurgents to quit his position with World Vision, but he refused. Two months later the charity shut down all of its humanitarian projects in Iraq.

On November 3, 2004, Ala Andraus, an employee of Caritas Iraq (a Roman Catholic organization helping underprivileged families) was shot and killed in the charity center where he worked. Due to the attack and a number of threats against it, the center was closed and their efforts to treat malnourished children were discontinued.

These and other attacks on humanitarian agencies are clearly aimed at destroying the quality of life for Iraqi civilians. The suffering that results from these actions has no direct effect on the occupation forces led by the US. If all occupation forces were to leave Iraq it is not likely that such attacks will stop until the insurgents get the upper-hand in this conflict.

Unfortunately, Iraq has never had a government that was representative of its people. Throughout its history it has been ruled by Caliphs, Ottomans, Monarchs and dictators. It is only natural that free elections were a threat to the legitimacy of the insurgency and so they made some miserable attempts to stop them. In August of 2004 about 30 insurgents attacked a car carrying Iraqi election workers. Three of the workers were dragged out of the car, forced to kneel down and were brutally executed (two managed to escape). Such assassinations and many more threats of violence led the entire 13-member electoral commission of the Anbar province to resign and go into hiding in January of 2005. Despite all of the insurgents attempts to deny the Iraqis their right of self-determination, two internationally supervised legislative elections have taken place, as well as a referendum to ratify a new constitution.

Meanwhile, in its commitment to violate every single right that the Iraqi people deserve to enjoy, the insurgents have waged a sinister campaign of violence against the freedom of press. They have attempted to dictate the content of all news stories that come out of Iraq, even for foreign press agencies. The worst of their attacks against the press was the bombing of the Al Arabiya television in October 2004 that killed seven Iraqis.

While US critics have accused the Americans of intentionally targeting the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists (an organization very hostile to the US military) stated, “CPJ has not found evidence to conclude that U.S. troops targeted journalists in these cases. While the cases are classified as crossfire, CPJ continues to investigate”. The same organization has found that Iraqi insurgents have intentionally murdered 34 journalists and kidnapped at least 39. These violations of the freedom of the press are just more nails in the coffin of the insurgency’s legitimacy.

This illustrates that the control of information is so important to the insurgency that they do not hesitate to use violence in such efforts. If you follow the trail of blood you will discover an article on ABC News entitled, “Academics become casualties of Iraq War”. It states that 182 university professors and academics have been killed during the insurgency and 85 have been kidnapped or survived assassination attempts. While a large amount of the kidnappings were criminal enterprises strictly for profit, many of the assassinations were for political reasons. Unfortunately, under this insurgency your political views can make you a target for murder.

In this bloody environment the Shiites have been a primary target and Sunni terrorists have been emboldened by the success of their recent attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra. However, attacks on the Shia are nothing new. In the same month as the first UN bombing there was an attack on a Shiite mosque in Najaf. The Imam Ali Mosque bombing on August 29, 2003 resulted in the murder of between 85 to 125 Shiite worshippers. This was the first of a long string of attacks by Sunni insurgents against the Shia and they are a testament to the religious bigotry of these thugs.

Many have argued that US support for an Iraqi government led by Shiites (some with ties to Iran) alienates the Sunni and drives them to the insurgency. Although this is an oversimplification, there is some truth to the accusation. However, there can be no long term peace in Iraq without justice for the Shia and fair representation of all Iraqi ethnic groups.

If you believe that the insurgency continues because the US occupation is unjust you should examine a different angle. The insurgency continues because it has hope. Even while wallowing in prison Saddam Hussein dreams of victory. This hope is derived from the belief that terrorism can defeat a militarily superior foe. They believe that Western peace activists will erode America’s will to fight, even while our troops win in the field. It happened in Vietnam and they are banking on the same thing happening once again. Terrorism is not emboldened by the oppression of its enemy, but by its own success. The 9/11 attacks made a folk hero out of Osama bin Laden, not his military defeat in Afghanistan. Terrorism will continue to be a problem as long as Islamists think that it is an effective tactic.

In Iraq Al Qaeda and the Baathists didn’t win any victory by getting evicted from Fallujah. Their major victories came from Congressman Murtha, Cindy Sheehan, the NY Times, movies like “V is for Vendetta” and countless protest marches. Although terrorism has had no success against US troops and only limited success preventing Iraqis from cooperating with the US occupation, they still have one hope that still sustains them. It is the “anti-war” movement that causes terrorism, without them terrorists would have no means of victory.