In light of the Muslim holiday season of Ramadan and the escalation in the violence and now as the link below reports this breaking news, will Christmas and Hanukkah fuel the fire and bring "Iraqi Freedom" back into full scale war and possibly spread in the region?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?0cv=CB10

While not on the scale of Vietnam, Iraq is now in a full-scale guerrilla war. Its a guerrilla war that is being fought by a coordinated, well organized, well trained and armed homegrown force that has been able to engage the United States and the other foreign forces in every region in Iraq. The low level disruption and looting that went on right after the war was general instability, but what we're seeing now is guerrilla war in the most traditional sense where a guerrilla army organized into cells attempts to inflict causalities over time against a colonial power in order to drive the political and economic costs of conflict higher than the benefits to the mother country. The guerrilla war was planned by the Baath party in advance of the invasion according to found documents by weapons inspectors and interviews by western journalists. The Iraqi government knew it couldn't win a conventional tank war on the defensive so it opted to disband its army for a guerrilla war on the offensive. Baghdad was supposed to be guarded by the Special Republican Guard, the best trained most loyal force the Iraqi government had, and yet it didn't fight at all. It is safe to guess that it is fighting now.

About the war spreading to other countries in the region, I'm sure that wont happens. In the Vietnam War the Vietnamese Communists liberated Lao and Cambodia as well as Vietnam, but that was different because it was easier for them to go through Lao and Cambodia to attack South Vietnamese cities, and that isn't the case in Iraq. The Iraqis will try to keep the war as a low intensity conflict so they can make use of the urban terrain to eliminate American advantages, so they have absolutely no motivation to expand the war.

The United States won’t invade Iran or Syria because it already has too many troops committed to fighting the war in Iraq and occupying Afghanistan. The Powell doctrine of only fighting with overwhelming force just couldn't by brought to bear against Iran, and certainly not against a more powerful country like North Korea (DPRK). Israel could invade Syria, as it has sometimes threatened to do, but I can't imagine they will unless the Iraq war ends.

I see the holiday season being a very dark time. With the end of the Muslim holiday and the start of the Christian and Jewish holidays, I think the Islamic extremists will take this as an opportunity to attempt to demoralize us. They're hatred for the West and especially America might very well be shown with an intensifying assault, which actually has been growing durring Ramadan. I'm sure they are quite aware of how December and the New year can be capitalized upon as a catalyst for their Jihad.

It might bring the war and terrorists attacks to a head because of our religious holidays coming up because they want to see what they can do to destroy us. But they will fail because they have so far failed to do so.

Attacking oil pipelines in Iraq is nothing new because they don't want to see the Iraqi economy recover, thus seeing us succeed. That is how sick they are. They don't want their fellow muslims live a better life. They want them to be miserable.

Very true, but dragging dead American soldiers into the streets, shooting them at point blank range, bashing their heads in this stones, slitting their throats and looting their bodies is on a way different level then blowing up pipelines and taking pot shots at passing Hummers.

They are venting all of their hatred on our troops; it's not enough anymore to just kill soldiers, they are defiling their bodies now. How can any of them claim that their actions have to do with love of Allah?

Re: defiling their bodies.

These weren't al Qaeda doing the defiling. Or even Baathists....



That's from the AP article on the incident.

It doesn't have to be, they're angry Muslims.

How do we know? Just because they were reported as teenagers, doesn't mean they aren't involved with the unsavory elements in Iraq.

Some out there would like to paint the attacks as average, everyday Iraqi's rising up against the US forces. We know factually that large elements of the Special Republican Guards, and other Iraqi Army units disbanded, and went to ground.

I believe that the opposition knows their tactics weren't going to bring about our withdrawl, so they are stepping up the brutality to increase public dissent and calls for us to pull out.

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We are still at war there and we should remember that the bad guys are not dead and have not surrendered. Going after them hard is the right idea BEFORE they reorganize into a more formidable force.

I cannot see this conflict “spreading in the region” - Who else in this region or any other wants to take us on?

That's true. The islamic group in the Phillipines use kids as young as 13 to do their dirty work.



The RG went down with Uiday and Qusay after they were killed. I think they were the main organizers of what was left of the RG. Anyway, the media is usually the one to paint attacks as average.


TED:


Not many. The Kurds love us and so do the non-radicals in the rest of the nation.

And, sometimes, the military and the media get ahead of things:

What happened to those two american soldiers in Mosul wasn't the guerrilla's dirty work, it was random violence by teenagers. The American's were already dead.

I don't see any reason to believe that the Republican Guard "went down" when Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed, the two will killed along with a teenage son and a single Iraqi soldier. It doesn't really matter though, the vast majority of the Iraqi army disbanded itself and much of it seems to have remobilized, likely under General Izzat Ibrahaim Al-Douri rather than Saddam Hussein. Whether or not the guerrillas are primarily Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, or Feyadeen seems sort of irrelevent; they are Baathists fighting to rid their country of the United States.

And, in terms of the Kurds loving "us", the teens who ripped those americans apart where Kurds.

Do you have a link verifying that?

GA,

Do you have a link supporting this claim?

Iran?

Do keep in mind that right next door is another Pandoras Box itching to be opened... And isn't it true that terrorists have been coming into Iraq from Iran and neighboring countries? Lets also keep in mind that Mecca is nearby, the sead of Islam and the homeland of OBL.

http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/news/infoc...ture=8VnduL.var

I provide this as further evidence that the violence in Iraq during the last month is due in part to Ramadan. of course I speculate further that we will see a significant rise of terrorist activity around the world and attacks against our troops occupying Iraq as we enter our own holiday season. The reason being? The Islamic terrorists will have been reaffirmed in their resolve because of their recent successes in Iraq and spiritual reconstitution from Ramadan. I also conclude that because of their radical hatred for all things non-Muslim, Christmas and Hanukkah will naturally be the first time frames in which to exact Jihad.


http://www.msnbc.com/news/997146.asp?0cl=c1


Lets also remember, that Istanbul, in Turkey, where those recent truck bombings took place, used to be Constantinople, the first Christian city in Constatine's empire. A very significant target.

In Iraq, it seems that the terrorists and loyalists to Saddam have given up on attacking our troops since we have said multiple times that we aren't pulling out. So they are targeting civilians in hope to make civilians mad at us. That is what will occur during the holidays in Iraq. As for Afghanistan, maybe. As for elsewhere in the world such as Europe or here, strong possiblility

Ha. The guerrillas will always attack your troops. Just because "we" have said "multiple times" that "we" will stay in Iraq does not mean that has any baring in reality. They said that about Vietnam and they still withdrew in defeat. The Baathists do not target civilians, they target soldiers and police. Police are armed men in uniform who hold rank and do not have the rights of private citizens, they are not civilians. In recent attacks against collaborator police stations, while many police have been killed some civilians have been accidentally killed as well. These are unintended collatoral damage, they where in the wrong place at the wrong time, the intended targets where clearly the Provisional Authority police. Neither the Americans nor the Baathists intend to kill civilians, it is in neither's best interest.

The attack on the PUK in Kurdistan was also a military target, the PUK is not just a political party, it is an army that fights the PKK.

Of coures some suicide bombers have targeted civilians in Iraq, most notably the Najaf bombing against the collaborator Shitte leader. That was probably the only real act of terrorism in Iraq (not counting American terrorism), and Saddam Hussien condemned that particular attack.

And, no, nothing will come to a head by the holidays. Colonial powers have never defeated a home grown resistence movement so quickly, and it wont be any different. The Iraqi goverment was a first generation revolutionary goverment, and those are almost always prepaired to fight a second revolution. Further the US will not lose enough troops by the holidays end to withdraw.