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Iraq
U.S. Sends Expert Peacekeepers to Iraq
2003-05-03
With public resentment at military occupation supposedly running high across Iraq, the U.S. Army is sending its most experienced peacekeeping unit.
Kurds don't seem to resent us much. Wonder why?
Over the next two weeks, the 1st Armored Division — based in Wiesbaden, Germany — will start arriving in Iraq to take up duties as a ``stabilizing force,'' said its commanding officer Maj. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez. The 16,500-member division has assisted in many international peacekeeping operations since 1991, when it first deployed to the Middle East to help expel the invading Iraqi army from Kuwait. It also was the lead unit of the 60,000-strong NATO force that entered Bosnia in 1996 after warring Serbs, Croats and Muslims signed a peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio.
Notice how the Serbs got all peaceful once the 1st Armored arrived. Something the Dutch and French had been unable to accomplish.
In 1999, the 1st Armored led the U.S. contingent deployed to Kosovo to safeguard the U.N. Security Council resolution that brought peace to Serbia's southern province.
In two successive paragraphs the Guardian acknowledges that the introduction of US troops is followed by peace. That's got to be a record.
The troops' experience in the Balkans may have prepared them for some aspects of postwar Iraq, where ethnic and sectarian tension and sporadic armed resistance are keeping the situation volatile, Sanchez said. Coalition forces still could encounter guerrilla resistance from militias that emerged after the breakdown of government authority, Sanchez and experts said. ``The challenges of peace could prove much more daunting than the war itself,'' said Ken Conboy, an American military author and expert on insurgencies in Third World countries.
Nice cliche. Mind if I used it?
In separate incidents earlier this week, U.S. Army soldiers in the central Iraqi town of Fallujah twice fired at anti-American protesters, killing 18 people after the soldiers said they were shot at first. In what appeared to be a direct reprisal, seven soldiers were injured when someone lobbed grenades into their compound.
I've heard that these were the pro-Sammy factions...
Iraq also has a long tradition of resistance to Western rule. Tens of thousands died in the 1920s and 1940s when the Iraqis organized uprisings in an effort to overthrow colonial rule and the pro-British monarchy imposed by London. ``That will not happen again,'' said Maj. Scott Slaten, the 1st Armored Division's spokesman and its unofficial historian. ``We will not repeat the mistakes of British (rule).''
Nor will we pillage the place the way the Belgians did the Congo. Or divide the place up based on a decree from Paris.
Posted by:Steve White

#3  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Baba Yaga   2003-05-03 13:10:36  

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Posted by: Frank G   2003-05-03 11:22:13  

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Posted by: Allah Akhbar   2003-05-03 04:43:00  

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