When The "Coalition of The Willing" first breezed through Iraq and into Baghdad I wrote a post at Any Which Way which dealt with the ease of the Coaliton's invasion. I wondered where the Iraqi military had gone. Why was resistance so light? (Relatively speaking.) Where was the vaunted Republican Guard? Gee, I wondered, could they have simply removed their unifroms and gone home?
From the looks of things in Iraq today, I may have been right, but, why would they have abandoned the battlefield? Could it be, as some have suggested, that in truth they hated Saddam so much they simply refused to fight for him? Perhaps.
I have another theory. After the shellacking they took in the First Gulf War maybe they knew they couldn't beat us in the conventional military sense, so why die in a fruitless effort to beat back the invading forces? Why not just go home, let the Coalition in, and bide your time waiting for the appropriate moment to strike. Is it just a coincidence that the simultaneous uprisings against Coalition Forces came a year to the day those same forces toppled the statue of Saddam? I'm not saying they loved their former leader, (the fact that he was captured dirty, disheveled, disgraced and alone in a rat hole is testament to the fact that many didn't), but they do love their country and it is looking to many Iraqi's like they have merely had one evil leader exchanged for another, the Coalition Provisional Authority.
The recent, coordinated "uprisings" have all the earmarkings of well planned, military operations. It seems the Iraqi's have finally decided to show up for the War.
I have deviated from my usual format of posting original material to provide two articles following this post, which I believe lend credence to my position. While I hate George Bush for getting us into this useless, baseless war, I support our fighting men and women who are bearing the brunt of Bush's Folly. I only hope that the United States moves quickly to involve the United Nations in a meaningful way and takes whatever steps are necessary to gain some real support from our former allies to set up a true democracy in Iraq and to ease the military burden we now shoulder the weight of. This would go far to save many American lives and illustrate to the Arab World that we are sincere in our efforts and not merely colonialists. This would also free up valuable military resources that could be better used in Afghanistan finishing the real job at hand, the elimination of Bin Laden and Al Queda.
deuddersun
