USA in Iraq resembles USSR in Afghanistan every day

[kalazh]

I was thinking about it today and the longer it drags, the longer our troops stay in Iraq, the more it reminds me the Soviets in Afghanistan. Of course, we know that Soviet little adventure over there break their backbone and destroyed the USSR. It all started with puppet government, “rebuilding schools and kindergartens, introduction of the socialism, military assistance” and so on. But then resistance got a hold of Stinger and they started knocking down helicopters, which was a crucial air support for ground operations. Then three soviet soldiers a day average were killed. In response, soviets dropped 500 and 1500 pound bombs to scare them……………………………………… Doesn’t it sound familiar?
MY POINT IS THAT EVENTHOUGH DIFFENENCES BETWEEN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN ARE THERE, THERE ARE STILL STAGGERING SIMILARITIES IN BOTH CASES ( the make up of the country, religion, geopolitics, inept leadership, enemy tactics ( disperse, regroup and destroy ). Don’t we have to learn a lesson by now?
Here is the link to confirm what I just said and the rest is for you to think. http://www.theestimate.com/public/113001.html

When the Soviets intervened originally in 1979 they may have intended their occupation force — always, for propaganda purposes, called the "Limited Contingent" even when it reached 120,000 men — to provide internal security in the cities while the Army of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), the client local Communists, handled counterinsurgency. (Another element in the calculus was the Soviet desire for forward deployment of forces in the direction of the Indian Ocean, a historic Russian strategic goal.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Try the correct history

State Entry Exit Combat Forces Population Losses
Britain 1920 1920 50000 45000000 3000
Iraq 1920 1920 75000 3750000 10000

Local outbreaks against British rule had occurred even before the news reached Iraq that the country had been given only mandate status. Upon the death of an important Shia mujtahid (religious scholar) in early May 1920, Sunni and Shia ulama temporarily put aside their differences as the memorial services metamorphosed into political rallies. Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, began later in that month; once again, through nationalistic poetry and oratory, religious leaders exhorted the people to throw off the bonds of imperialism. Violent demonstrations and strikes followed the British arrest of several leaders.

When the news of the mandate reached Iraq in late May, a group of Iraqi delegates met with Wilson and demanded independence. Wilson dismissed them as a "handful of ungrateful politicians." Nationalist political activity was stepped up, and the grand mujtahid of Karbala, Imam Shirazi, and his son, Mirza Muhammad Riza, began to organize the effort in earnest. Arab flags were made and distributed, and pamphlets were handed out urging the tribes to prepare for revolt. Muhammad Riza acted as liaison among insurgents in An Najaf and in Karbala, and the tribal confederations. Shirazi then issued a fatwa (religious ruling), pointing out that it was against Islamic law for Muslims to countenance being ruled by non-Muslims, and he called for a jihad against the British. By July 1920, Mosul was in rebellion against British rule, and the insurrection moved south down the Euphrates River valley. The southern tribes, who cherished their long-held political autonomy, needed little inducement to join in the fray. They did not cooperate in an organized effort against the British, however, which limited the effect of the revolt. The country was in a state of anarchy for three months; the British restored order only with great difficulty and with the assistance of Royal Air Force bombers. British forces were obliged to send for reinforcements from India and from Iran.

Ath Thawra al Iraqiyya al Kubra, or The Great Iraqi Revolution (as the 1920 rebellion is called), was a watershed event in contemporary Iraqi history. For the first time, Sunnis and Shias, tribes and cities, were brought together in a common effort. In the opinion of Hanna Batatu, author of a seminal work on Iraq, the building of a nation-state in Iraq depended upon two major factors: the integration of Shias and Sunnis into the new body politic and the successful resolution of the age-old conflicts between the tribes and the riverine cities and among the tribes themselves over the food-producing flatlands of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The 1920 rebellion brought these groups together, if only briefly; this constituted an important first step in the long and arduous process of forging a nation-state out of Iraq's conflict-ridden social structure.

The 1920 revolt had been very costly to the British in both manpower and money. Whitehall was under domestic pressure to devise a formula that would provide the maximum control over Iraq at the least cost to the British taxpayer. The British replaced the military regime with a provisional Arab government, assisted by British advisers and answerable to the supreme authority of the high commissioner for Iraq, Cox. The new administration provided a channel of communication between the British and the restive population, and it gave Iraqi leaders an opportunity to prepare for eventual self-government. The provisional government was aided by the large number of trained Iraqi administrators who returned home when the French ejected Faisal from Syria. Like earlier Iraqi governments, however, the provisional government was composed chiefly of Sunni Arabs; once again the Shias were underrepresented.

At the Cairo Conference of 1921, the British set the parameters for Iraqi political life that were to continue until the 1958 revolution...


It will go further, by the way in the end the UK did pull out... it took decades but they did, quick somebody hand Wolfowitz a history of Iraq