Michael Totten sat down for an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman of the 3rd Infantry Division in Ramadi.
“What’s the most important thing Americans need to know about Iraq that they don’t currently know?” I said.
“That we’re fighting Al Qaeda,” he said without hesitation. “[Abu Musab al] Zarqawi invented Al Qaeda in Iraq. The top leadership outside Iraq squawked and thought it was a bad idea. Then he blew up the Samarra mosque, triggered a civil war, and got the whole world’s attention. Then the Al Qaeda leadership outside dumped huge amounts of money and people and arms into Anbar Province. They poured everything they had into this place. The battle against Americans in Anbar became their most important fight in the world. And they lost.”
It's not likely we'll be hearing that played over and over by the MSM.
Posted by: Ol' BC | September 24, 2007 at 08:50 PM
The idea that Al Qaeda caused the civil war in Iraq is straight out of Al Qaeda’s talking points manual.
Foreign fighters have taken advantage of the instability to stir the pot even more.
But they did not cause it.
Anyone who thinks so doesn’t have a basic understanding of the area.
Posted by: FrankC | September 24, 2007 at 09:25 PM
Right. One could hardly expect people who are actually there in Iraq to have a basic understanding of the area. How silly of me to think they would.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | September 25, 2007 at 07:09 AM
There are plenty of people in the military who understand that the civil war in Iraq was utterly predictable and was predicted by anyone with a basic knowledge of the area. And they are in Iraq.
I consider this soldier a hero. He is given a mission and he carries it out. But that does not mean he is well versed in the history of Messopotamia or understands the root causes of the instability there.
Posted by: FrankC | September 25, 2007 at 12:57 PM
A number of articles like this one continue to pop up on marinescorpstimes.com and the other millitarytimes.com web sites. They all reference our heroes on the ground in Iraq.
It is getting so ridiculous that articles by Reagan administration officials are now popping up on web sites like the Huffington Post.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/01/tnsRedress070116/
Posted by: FrankC | September 25, 2007 at 02:39 PM