A serious question: Why did violence in Iraq decrease lately?

[thereismore]

Is it because

1) ethnic cleansing is finished in large part

2) they ran out of ammo

3) Iran stopped supplying ammo to the Shia

4) Americans do not patrol as much

5) ?


Which is it? Is there something deeply positive going on in there or what is going on?

[TwilightGardener]

1. I think everyone's afraid to declare this a trend--one bad incident could fuck things up.

[OwnedByFerrets]

2. I believe its two reasons......

the population is scared to come out of their homes.....and the population is 5 million less than it has been in the past. One million dead, and counting, and 4 million displaced from their own country. We need to displace this current Washington regime out of OUR country.

edit: In an in depth interview this morning on NPR, neither of these possibilites was even brought up, much less discussed.

[truedelphi]

9. Once most of the Iraqis are gone or dead

The Bush Admin. can declare the war there a success.

NPR can slant things to the whims of the Right Wing Administration - during fall 2004 I heard very few things on NPR positive twoards the Kerry camp. Haven't listened to it much since.

[FormerDittoHead]

24. ...we have a winner! n/t

[tridim]

3. We already know #4 is true..

Stories about troops parking their vehicles to avoid getting killed appeared late last week.

[truedelphi]

6. Can you elaborate at all?

Are you saying they don't actually go out on the missions or something else??

Robert Frisk said a while ago that the Administration's whole strategy has been to have our service people drive up and down the Dusty Highways until they get blwon up - that's our way of rooting out the "insurgents"

[Javaman]

4. #5...

None of the screwy ass operations to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. Which instead, only increase the dead and wounded soldiers.

You piss off the iraqi's, people die. you don't piss them off, no one dies.

usually how it works.

However, look around for the little reported incidents going on in Basra since the Brits pulled out, it's not pretty.

[Robbien]

5. Violence is only measured in American deaths so the ethnic cleansing

is not really a factor in this new drop in violence count. Most of the surge activity this month has been air warfare. Troops on the ground go in sometimes to "mop up", but basically most of the articles I've been reading this month are about warplanes dropping bombs and then leaving declaring XX number of dead militants.

[OwnedByFerrets]

27. Militants, meaning Iraqi citizens.

[Basileus Basileon]

7. Here's my take on it.

1. Ethnic cleansing is largely complete in Baghdad. Tensions are simmering, but haven't erupted yet.
2. Sunni tribal leaders are sick of terrorists, and have temporarily aligned with American forces to combat al-Qaeda.
3. The "surge" and increased focus on fighting out-of-control militias has probably helped a bit.
4. With lowered threat of terrorism and ethnic cleansing complete, (as well as fear of American retribution) Shi'a militias are less aggressive.
5. Everyone is now in wait-and-see mode. Nothing has fundamentally changed. There are still the same fears, tensions, and lack of central authority. Nothing has changed since '06. We're in a cease-fire now, not a peace.

Whether the positive trends continue or not is something that remains to be seen. I honestly don't know if they will. I hope they do, but hope has seldom worked out well in Iraq.

[Selatius]

8. Many neighborhoods have already been ethnically cleansed and b/c of US patrols in Baghdad.

Many vulnerable people have either been forced out or have moved into ethnic/sectarian enclaves, the insides of which are hard to penetrate from the outside by guerrillas/militiamen who belong to other enemy groups.

Simply put, many of the easy targets have been eliminated in the urban areas. It's the countryside that's turning into the war zone now.

[nightrider767]

10. Nobody Knows If The Violence Has Gone Down

Who's reporting those numbers?

US Government. They simply can't be believed. From my angle, the level of violence may have gone down, but it's also possible it may have gone up.

I'd say only the Iraqi's would know and they're too busy fighting amongst each other to post a figure.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. 5. Violence didn't really decrease lately.

[billyoc]

12. The soldiers are refusing their missions.

Search and Avoid missions are the order of the day. Worked in Viet Nam.

[Catchawave]

13. If violence is decreasing, why are the diplomats whining

about the Baghdad Embassy duty :shrug: I think this a false sense of the surge working before Bush asks for more money?

[FogerRox]

21. Right on, exactly

[Atman]

14. Because BushCo is lying.

Remember Kasparov on Bill Maher's show? Bill mentioned Putin's high poll numbers and Kasparov just laughed at him. Who is reporting the numbers, and how did you confirm them?

.

[baseballhead]

15. I'll go with number 3

Maybe Iran thinks Bush is crazy enough to come in there next.

[bdamomma]

16. I'm going to say number 1

and who is to say it is decreasing??? our media????


to those who want to check out other news sources.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/55ABE840-AC30-41D2-BDC9-06BBE2A36665.htm

[riverdeep]

17. There's fewer people left to kill.

They've been liberated. Or part of the 4 million or so refugees.

[FogerRox]

18. There aint no cure for the summer time blues

Has it been hot in Iraq recently ?


maybe 3 months of 120 degree weather..... its called summer...... has something to do with it.


Seriously.... WTF.

[spanone]

19. How do we know it has? We only have the state departments word and we know what that's worth.

[FogerRox]

22. worthless spittle

[Joe Fields]

20. Number 4.

The troops have pulled back, aren't patrolling as much, and when some of the troops are sent out on patrol they park somewhere and do not patrol. Can you blame them? They're like ducks in a shooting gallery. We have also handed a lot of patrols off to the Iraqis.

[leftchick]

23. increased use of air fire power decreases us deaths

while increasing Iraqi deaths that are then not counted. easy war criminal math here.

[stillcool]

25. because independent reporting...

is non-existent?

[jody]

26. #4 n/t