In Fallujah, Peace Through Brute Strength (Security Flows From Hussein-Era Tactics)

[sabra]

Source: WP

Iraqi City's Fragile Security Flows From Hussein-Era Tactics

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The city's police chief, Col. Faisal Ismail al-Zobaie, a husky man with a leathered face and a firm voice that resonates with authority, ordered an aide to shut his office door. He turned to his computer. Across the screen flashed a video, purportedly made by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In the video, branches are thrown into a pit the size of a coffin, then doused with kerosene and ignited. The camera pans to three blindfolded men, kneeling, mouths sealed with tape. Six armed men in black masks stand behind them. One declares: "These three men fought and killed al-Qaeda. We will punish them according to Islam." The masked men then kick the three into the burning grave.

Zobaie angrily turned off the video. "How can we show mercy to those people?" he asked. "Do you want me to show mercy to them if I capture them?"

Zobaie, 51, knows the nature of the men in black masks. He is a former insurgent. Now, as the police chief, he has turned against the insurgency, especially al-Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. military showcases Fallujah as a model city where U.S. policies are finally paying off and is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the region to promote the rule of law and a variety of nation-building efforts.

But the security that has been achieved here is fragile, the result of harsh tactics recalling the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown five years ago. Even as they work alongside U.S. forces, Zobaie's men admit they have beaten and tortured suspects to force confessions and exact revenge.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/23/AR2008032301990.html

[gratuitous]

1. Yes, Mr. Zobaie, violence will surely drive out violence

Your men beat and torture suspects, and you get angry when your adversary burns people alive. Surely the way out of this heinous situation is more violence. Good to see that the High Church of Redemptive Violence has found such eager practitioners of its mythical ways.

[Igel]

4. I've seen postings when the US kills an Iraqi that said,

in effect, You try to kill a "terrorist" and all you do is kill somebody's friend and relative--and that just creates more "terrorists".

"Blood feud" and "thirst for revenge" is what the posters are often after. Most don't put it that way, even though some acknowledge that such things exist and can go on for decades.

The subtext is often that what the relatives do when they take up arms is somehow justified--it varies by poster, sometimes it's just attacks against the US that are both understandable and ok, sometimes attacks against others are just left under the radar.

What I've never heard is such a response when a car bomb goes off, when "terrorists" kill somebody: "They've killed somebody's brother or sister, and all that's going to do is create more anti-terrorists, AQ's created a blood feud with these people and they'll continue to attack the so-called terrorists. It's a cultural thing." Instead, when Iraqis turn on the people that have killed relatives, and it's the US, it's just; when Iraqis turn on the people that have killed relatives, and it's not the US, it's because the US is bribing them.

Even in your post, the ultimate wrong-doers aren't the people hurling others into burning graves, but the people angry at it. Those doing the torture must be wronged, must be oppressed and humiliated, and only they can properly respond to violence. This seems a bit one-sided. In a cycle of violence, you have a cycle. And in Fallujah, the Islamists took over in the chaos left when the US didn't send troops in to secure the city properly after the invasion--perhaps the Islamists took over with the majority's acquiescence--but in the end they acted badly and lost support. Chaos bad, Islamist oppression worse. The populace largely turned against them, and the burning-grave business is the response to rejection. Money helped in the rejection (just as it helped in the initial acquiescence); additional troops on the ground helped.

[uppityperson]

6. Perhaps that is because families of those killed by "terrorist" car bombs

blame the USA for invading/occupying Iraq?

"Instead, when Iraqis turn on the people that have killed relatives, and it's the US, it's just; when Iraqis turn on the people that have killed relatives, and it's not the US, it's because the US is bribing them."

Of course people will turn on others killing their families, even not the US. But I think they can ALSO turn on the USA for what our country has done. I don't see it as a choice of simply hating 1 or the other.

[tularetom]

2. Eventually we'll find a strongman dictator who'll cut a deal

with our oil companies and keep the natives in line. Then the door won't hit us in the ass on the way out. Until the next time.

[Supersedeas]

7. U.S. taxpayer dollars can buy almost anything....for now

[sam sarrha]

3. i didnt think there was anything left undestroyed in Fallujah >link

probably graphic photos in these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlS7sXauIhE

[Solly Mack]

5. Surprised?

I hope no one is ....

[Voice for Peace]

8. however you look at it, it's a mess. Al-qaeda is in Iraq at the invitation of GWBush. nt