[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Henry_VIII

I agree that they are many trying, but until the general population backs those who are stepping out to lead, they will not succeed. Compare the Kurdish response to the others. They have taken control of their region, kicked out those who don't belong there and maintained a certain level of vigilance. That is not happing just because of leadership but because of the support of the leadership.
Most of the problems are foreign influenced. The Iranian ties are not in the interest of a rebuilt Iraq and must be broken. Until the Iraqi population is willing to put their national identity above their political identity they will continue to undermine themselves.
The same can be said of Americans. We need to put our national identity ahead of our party or we will defeat ourselves as well.

However the kurdish folks had the us protecting them for 10 years. No saddam at all. I think it's quite a different story. Normal folks need to know they won't be harmed in their homes by roving gangs, it's the same with americas blighted areas.

Here is General Petraeus on what has been going on with the Iraqi's military. He doesn't even touch on the dangers of just going to work if you aren't aligned with someone (much like a prison yard I would expect).

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Trans...4-9e270a9ef0f2

occupation, General Petraeus. What are their, what’s their effectiveness now?

DP: Well, frankly, it is uneven. There are some exceedingly good units. The Iraqi special operations force brigade, a commando battalion, a counterterrorist unit, some other elements, national emergency response unit, the intelligence special tactics unit, SWAT teams in just about each of the provinces, and a variety of other sort of high end units that we have helped develop, each of these is really quite impressive, and almost at the level, certainly in regional terms, of the special operations forces of our own country, again, in relative terms, speaking in regional comparisons. On the other hand, at the other end of the spectrum, there are still some units that have a degree of sectarian influence exercised within them, and some that are still being cleaned up after having suffered from sectarian pressures, and given into sectarian pressures during the height of the sectarian violence in 2006, and into 2007. There’s also, there’s a vast number of units, frankly, out there just doing what I would call a solid job, manning checkpoints, going on patrols, in some cases in the lead, in some cases alongside our forces, in some cases, following. But I can assure you that the Iraqi forces are out there very much fighting and dying for their country, They, in fact, their losses typically are some three or more times the losses that we suffer.