Taliban vs. Locals.
This news cycle saw a revenge attack in South Waziristan when a VBIED struck a crowd of 200 at a volleyball match in a neighborhood. At least 88 dead. This is a measure of the bad blood in the Northwest Provinces following the brutal but non-specific Pakistan Army offensive against the Pashtun Taliban over the last months. The Taliban threatened the locals after the locals offered information and armed resistance that led to driving out the Taliban. Everyone knows everything in the land of the Pashtuns, and if the people do not want you to succeed as an insurgency, you will fail. The Pakistan army has now withdrawn for the winter, and the Taliban reasserts itself with a gross certainty. By Spring, the Taliban will be back in charge of the region. In the Ummah, blood revenge works.
Blackwater vs. Locals.
A parallel story of revenge in Iraq arrived this news cycle when a court dismissed charges against a posse of Blackwater private soldiers who shot up Iraqi civilians in a grotesque over-reaction to threat in September 2007 that left 17 dead. The judge in the case has chided the prosecutors for mishandling witnesses and testimony. Why did this happen? Revenge explains the Blackwater conduct -- it was four Blackwater ops who were massacred at Fallujah in April 2004 that triggered the civil war in Anbar and Baghdad provinces -- but also revenge informs the Iraqi public opinion. After years of watching the troubled and worn American Army and Marines smash the Iraqi army and insurgency and gangsters, along with a vast number of civilians caught in the fighting, the Iraqi public is infuriated and the Iraqi media is unapologetic in its outrage. By Spring, the Iraqis may move. In the Ummah, blood revenge works.
Of the two clips above, one of them is bogus, the other is not. The first one is real. It is definitely a part of the proverbial Hatfields and McCoys' saga in that part of the world that gives revenge its narrative there. The second clip is the one that's bogus. It sounded to me like the Iraqi Government Spokesman Ali-Al Dabbagh was given one of Barack Hussein Obama's teleprompter scripts to read. It too is anchored in revenge. In the progressive mind, Blackwater has not one but two black marks against it. It's involved in Bush’s unjust war, and it's a private enterprise (like Haliburton) under contract by a criminally illicit American foreign policy.
The entire reason for Obama’s being is revenge. Not only does he view his mandate (such as it is) as one to change America (not necessarily for the better) but also to exact revenge on a whole host of perceived (internal) enemies. Revenge often requires a set-up. Why do you think Obama ordered a surge in Afghanistan that can not possibly succeed? It’s to discredit - humiliate; break; render ridiculous, a laughing stock - the American military.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/