Iraqi Military Spokesman Says Al Qaeda the Only Source of Order in Fallujah

Reason

According to Iraqi General Mohammad al-Askari, Al Qaeda fighters have set up a government in the city of Fallujah. Gen. al-Askari added that, "There is no police and no order there other than those of Al Qaeda."

That War on Terror really has worked out great, hasn't it?

From UPI:

BAGHDAD, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- There is no sense of order in the restive western Iraqi city of Fallujah apart from that imposed by al-Qaida, a spokesman for the Iraqi military said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, said Monday area tribes and local residents should work to regain control over parts of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province. Iraqi military spokesman Gen. Mohammad al-Askari said Fallujah, one of the largest cities in the province, is in the hands of fighters loyal to al-Qaida.

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Comments

[anon]

Entirely not surprised.

[Doctor Whom]

+1 nation built

[sarcasmic]

At least it's safer than when Saddam was in power!

[Killaz]

He had to be contained. With Saudi oil fields in his hands, could you imagine the problems that would have caused if he offered the world a better deal?

[prolefeed]

There is no sense of order in the restive western Iraqi city of Fallujah apart from that imposed by al-Qaida, a spokesman for the Iraqi military said.

For values of "order" that equate to "armed gangs claiming to be the government lording it over civilians", sure.

Anyone know if "order" is a derivative of "lord", BTW?

[Capt. Rimmer]

Sounds about right.

[GILMORE]

Origin of LORD

Middle English loverd, lord, from Old English hl?ford, from hl?f loaf + weard keeper ? more at loaf, ward; Middle English, from Old English weard & Anglo-French warde, garde, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German warta act of watching, Old English warian to beware of, guard, w?r careful

Origin of ORDER

Middle English, from ordre, noun
First Known Use: 13th century
---------------------------------

I would have made same assumption as you - that "Lord" was simply a noun made out of the French verb 'to order' = as in, 'The Order', or "L'ord".

Then again, Merriam Webster could be dicking it up. OED is the real deal.

[Almanian!]

I blame Bush

[Pro Libertate]

Al Qaeda = cops? Ah, ha!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Just wait til you see their version of the TV show 'SWAT'.

[Floridian]

What difference does it make? One group of armed thugs setting arbitrary rules vs another. This is how the world works. Wake me when there is a free country.

[anon]

But SOMALIA!!!!11?

[MOFO.]

That nation? You didnt build that.

[Ken Shultz]

"That War on Terror really has worked out great, hasn't it?"

One of the problems with invading Iraq was that it was a distraction from the War on Terror.

Even leaving aside the question of whether the Al Qaeda in Iraq today is the same organization that hit us on 9/11, I wasn't willing to pretend the Iraq War was about terrorism back when this site started back in 2003, and I'm not about to start pretending it was about that now.

The bigger threat to American security isn't about Al Qaeda in Iraq, anyway. It's effectively putting much of Iraq into Iran's orbit, and how that's playing out for Iran in Syria and elsewhere.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I am no supporter of OIF, but this is a really lazy article:

[Notices bad thing]

LOLZ IRAQ WAR WAS DUMM

[Excerpt of real news article]

Of course, it is a Feeney article -- don't know what I was expecting.

[Ken Shultz]

Does he think Iraq was about terrorism?

70% of the American public still did six months after we invaded, but that's largely because they were misled:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com.....iraq_x.htm

There's no shame in being lied to ten years ago. But still pretending that Iraq was about terrorism ten years after the fact is something else entirely.

[Ken Shultz]

And I opposed Iraq!

People used to think of me around here as a Bush-basher.

It often seems to be the case in Feeney threads that I feel like I have to stand up for the people I completely oppose.

If he wants to go with an "I told you so" moment, why not go with the fact that Bush Sr. didn't invade Iraq in 1991--specifically because he was afraid that all of this would happen.

The occupation (Powell Doctrine), the Iraqi Civil War, the strengthening of Iran's position in the region--it feeding into what amounts to an international ethnic conflict!

Why focus on an "I told you so" based on Bush Jr.'s lies, when there are a dozen legitimate "I told you sos" to wade through--just to get the bad one?

[The Late P Brooks]

Maybe we should arm the Iranians.

[Ken Shultz]

We are effectively playing both sides in this conflict--but it's not just an Iraqi conflict anymore.

We're supporting the Iraqi government, which in turn is actively fighting the Assad regime in Syria.

We're also supporting the Sunni rebels in Syria.

We have to stop looking at this conflict on a country-by-country basis. When the Arab Spring hit Syria, it combined with what amounted to an ongoing ethnic conflict in Iraq, and it became a regional conflict.

This isn't one country with a problem. This is Europe in 1848.

[Dr. Frankenstien]

What do you mean? The wars in Afganistan and Iraq went great. We even got Bin Laden, eventually. It was the occupations that were a clusterfuck. In a way it comforts me that our military is so bad at occupation and pacifiction.

[Old Man With Candy]

^This. Whether or not knocking over those governments was a good idea, we did it quickly and effectively, with relatively little collateral damage. The problem was the overweening Top Man syndrome.

[SugarFree]

Mission accomplished.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, suckers just didn't know what the mission was.

[Ken Shultz]

Somebody should point out, too, that a lot of these people in Iraq, who call themselves Al Qaeda now, were actually in the Iraqi military circa 2001.

They're calling themselves Al Qaeda for the same reason the fundamentalist kids I used to know would listen to black metal and scribble pentagrams everywhere.

These "Al Qaeda" fought against the United States during the invasion, and then the Bush Administration foolishly disbanded the Iraqi army. So they call themselves "Al Qaeda" because they want to be America's worst enemy--and they know it drives us crazy...

The typical, American knee-jerk response to fundamentalist kids scribbling pentagrams everywhere is to have a moral panic over Satanic ritual abuse. And what does the moral panic do? Makes more kids download Burzum--and freak out their parents.

It's the same kind of dynamic with Al Qaeda, and the way to put a stop to it is to stop being so easily manipulated by other people pushing our silly buttons.

[Citizen Nothing]

All the cool kids are Al Qaeda.

[Ken Shultz]

Over there, I bet a lot of them see it that way.

Like kids walking around with Che t-shirts. Losing their hearts and minds.

We built that.