PC - your confusion on who we are fighting is understandable as the situation is complex and ever changing.. As it stands now, we are fighting multiple groups and there are other groups that conduct violent attacks that we are not actively fighting. We are primarily fighting foreign jihadists- terrorists who are not Iraqi nationals but are members of or affiliated with Al Qaeda. Zarqawi was the most famous example. We’re also fighting Iraqi Sunni insurgents. You can break this group down into two main factions. The first are radical former elements of Saddam’s regime. They have largely allied themselves with Al Qaeda, so they tend to get grouped together. They’re Rumsfeld means when he talks about “dead enders”. The other Sunni insurgents/militias are disaffected Sunni’s who are against the coalition and current Iraqi government, but could be brought into the political process. Some parts of this group actually have joined the political process, but they play both sides of the fence by talking politics and supporting violence at the same time. A large focus of the new Iraqi government is on bringing these Sunnis fully into the process and get them to end violent action.

There are also several Shia militias. The largest is Muqtada Al Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia. Sadr basically speaks for a large majority of disaffected Shia youth and his Mahdi army is pretty powerful. He’s the most powerful Shia figure next to Sistani. He’s managed to infilitrate loyalists into most of the army and police force, which has led to accusations that government forces are actively murdering Sunnis. He’s not actively fighting the coaltion (though he did back in 2004). Mostly he conducts reprisal attacks against Sunnis. Finally, there are the usual criminal gangs that you’ll find in any society, except they are very well armed in Iraq. Many of the gangs have associations with or are directly part of militias. At that level, it’s really hard to tell who is a street thug and who is an insurgent since they often look and act the same.

I hope that clears things up

Here is what constitutes al Donka’s three-pronged counterattack against the three big U.S. victories in Iraq over the past week (the newly-elected Iraqi government, the righteous detonation of “Emir” Zarqawi (man, but that name is difficult to type)…

Amnesty has been proposed before. And much like the current discussion, many of the comments then as now center on who would be given the opportunity for amnesty. Those who have targeted civilians, targeted Americans, etc. The bottom line is the issue is not Liberal versus Conservative but ultimately an Iraqi one. And as I said in my previous post (#7), Maliki and his administration will have to make those decisions.

Now when a troll enters into a discussion such as this one, a good bitch slapping is in order. Are you next?