I still can't get the ex-Generals words out of my mind. I know that just having a top job does not guaruntee that a person has astute judgement and a grasp of all the relevant facts, but it worries me that the British Army, an institution I respect and revere, has men like this at its apex. These are men in whom we entrust the safety of our nation. Sir Michael, when you find that you share an opinion with Sindy Sheehan, you may want to consider revising that opinion.
"I answered the soldier and explained carefully to him the distinction between a "terrorist" and an occupied person in a sovereign country who is fighting for his/her freedom from an oppressive foreign country. I tried to get G.I Joe to recall his lessons about the American Revolution when our founding fathers and mothers did the same thing."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/4/9342/06995
The Sunni minority ruled Iraq without pause from the point that Britain left until 2003. They did so by utilising extreme brutality and a pervasive and total climate of fear. This minority were not happy to be expelled by Britain and America in 2003, and have spent the four years since blowing up Kurds and Shia to express that unhappiness. What part of that do Sindy Sheehan and Gen Rose not understand? Let me get this right... who are the 'freedom fighters' in Iraq? In the Shia and Kurdish parts of Iraq, virtually no coalition troops have been killed. 147 British soldiers have been killed in the Shia south, mainly by Shia militias who resemble the Corsican mafia more than they do a religious organisation. The Iranians are happy to supply these Shia mafiosi with high tech IED equipment because the Iranians want dead British soldiers. But the Iranians do not have a free Iraq in mind. They have a dismembered Iraq as their goal, with the Shia portion firmly under the control of Iran. Most Shia in the south don't want this, and most Shia in the south don't belong to the Mahdi army or the other mafiosi groups. Which is why only 147 British troops are dead, and not 10 times that number, which is the casualty rate we'd expect if the Shia felt that the British army was an oppressive invading army intent on colonising Iraq.
The Kurds have not killed any coalition troops. To them, we are their bastion and salvation from the Sunni minority who savagely repressed them for many decades. So who are the 'freedom fighters' Sir Michael and Sindy Sheehan are talking about? Could they be the Sunni minority? To believe that the Sunni minority are fighting a just insurgency against the coalition as a service on behalf of all Iraqi's is not just to ignore their history over the last six decades, it is also to ignore their current actions and their stated intentions for the future. A large proportion of Sunni Iraqis were wealthy and educated, in stark comparison to the rest of the Iraqi population. They completely dominated the government, army and police in Saddam's Iraq. Does that sound like a group of people who properly represent the interests and future of all Iraq?
The Sunni insurgency is (sadly for Sindy and Sir Michael) currently winding up, mainly because the Sunni have realised that they are destined to fail. Their numbers are too few, the Shia have grasped many of the reins of government and military power, and there is no going back. The Sunni are not stupid and they aren't suicidal. They increasingly recognise that only a united Iraq in which their interests are protected by a benign central government can protect them from physical extinction. Is it just too much mental effort for Sindy and Sir Michael to get their heads around these relatively simple facts?
There are no 'patriots' in Iraq, not in the sense that there were in colonial America. There are three separate and distinct cultures who have to arrange some kind of relationship between each other that protects the future existence of all. This precludes the domination of two of them by the third, whoever that happens to be. It is the task of Iraqi's, with British and American help, to find that accomodation. Congratulations to Sindy and Sir Michael from escaping from confines of the 'BIG TWO' historical analogies beloved of the lefty eejits (Nazi Germany and Vietnam), and graduating to the American war of Independence, but you are going to have to venture a bit further into history to find an analogy for Iraq that makes genuine sense. Try India. India is a country comprised of many races and religions tied together by a shared experience of British colonial rule, and a faith in the institutions that were introduced during that era. There may need to be a period of benign imperial rule in Iraq before the Iraqi's can graduate to fully fledged peaceful co-existence like the Indians have, and Britain and America must be willing to foot the bill for that.
But the eventual settlement is worth the effort and cost.
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