[Kaminyu]

Iraqis say Basra quieter after British troop pullout:

Residents of Iraq's southern city of Basra have begun strolling riverfront streets again after four years of fear, their city much quieter since British troops withdrew from the grand Saddam Hussein-era Basra Palace.

Political assassinations and sectarian violence continue, some city officials say, but on a much smaller scale than at any time since British troops moved into the city after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. ...

So much for the idea that a troop pullout would somehow make the situation worse. It seems to have actually made it better.

[roberto]

Originally Posted by Kaminyu

Iraqis say Basra quieter after British troop pullout:
.

Having trained up the local police etc to look after the city, the British, as planned, moved out , another success of the coalition bring peace and justice to the troubled land of Iraq

Mission Accomplished

[Variable]

It doesn't sound like either of you read the article.

[wheelworks]

Yea..go into a city and kill a bunch of people and the city gets quieter. The dead don't make no noise donchaknow

[Khairan]

Originally Posted by roberto

Having trained up the local police etc to look after the city, the British, as planned, moved out , another success of the coalition bring peace and justice to the troubled land of Iraq

Mission Accomplished

Um, too bad the article doesn't support a word of what you said.

[MossadConspiracy]

The militias control the city, the coalition is gone, and the few Sunni residents of the town are all dead or expelled and other sunnis cannot venture there for fear of joining them. why shouldnt it be quieter?

[Kaminyu]

Originally Posted by roberto

Having trained up the local police etc to look after the city, the British, as planned, moved out , another success of the coalition bring peace and justice to the troubled land of Iraq

Mission Accomplished

If this were true, then the British troop withdrawal shouldn't have made any difference at all, yet it has.

Originally Posted by Variable

It doesn't sound like either of you read the article.

I've read the article. However, Mr. Roboto (as usual) has not, which explains his inability to sufficiently respond to links, and even going so far as to ignore them.

[Kaminyu]

Originally Posted by MossadConspiracy

The militias control the city, the coalition is gone, and the few Sunni residents of the town are all dead or expelled and other sunnis cannot venture there for fear of joining them. why shouldnt it be quieter?

Exactly. The coalition is gone.

[MossadConspiracy]

Originally Posted by Kaminyu

If this were true, then the British troop withdrawal shouldn't have made any difference at all, yet it has.

Well, technically its just the perception of quiet, not a documented reduction in violence. They're two different things

[MossadConspiracy]

Originally Posted by Kaminyu

Exactly. The coalition is gone.

Along with murder of an entire community of the town's residents, illegal gangs controlling the town, and an entire religious community of people being barred from entering it on pain of death. There are multiple factors involved

If all of Iraq went through a similar process of ethnic cleansing and ceding of control to local warlords i'm sure much of the country would be quieter

ws

[Kaminyu]

Originally Posted by MossadConspiracy

Along with murder of an entire community of the town's residents, illegal gangs controlling the town, and an entire religious community of people being barred from entering it on pain of death. There are multiple factors involved

If all of Iraq went through a similar process of ethnic cleansing and ceding of control to local warlords i'm sure much of the country would be quieter

True, but now there's fighting between shia factions, so there's still fighting going on. However, the withdrawal of the British troops, seems to make some residents feel safer.

[MossadConspiracy]

Yeah, some people might feel safer in Basra and other similar towns and cities. The in-fighting between shia gangs seems to be sparing civilians. But just because things may be seen as quieter by some people doesnt mean the situation is better. Actually, its just the opposite. I'm sure that if UN forces and NATO air cover had withdrawn from some parts of Bosnia that had been completely cleansed of muslims and were fully controlled by the bosnian serb militias, the situations there would have been pretty quiet too (actually, that tended to be the case). The real problem is that cities are controlled by warlords and death squads and have been ethnically cleansed or are in the process of being cleansed.

The way things are going, Baghdad will be pretty quiet too after some years, when all the sunnis living in shia areas are dead or gone, and all the shias living in sunni areas have been killed, and giant blast walls cut the city up into seperate regions. These kind of developments are not signals that the country is getting better and they arent anything to brag about or celebrate. Its the product of a myopic view of Iraq that is completely fixated on one thing and defines everything that happens in that country in respect to that one thing, in this case the presence of coalition forces. Look at the kind of city that Basra is right now and what it implies for Iraq's future, and I dont think anyone in their right mind can say that it signals a positive development

ws

[Variable]

Originally Posted by Kaminyu

If this were true, then the British troop withdrawal shouldn't have made any difference at all, yet it has.



I've read the article. However, Mr. Roboto (as usual) has not, which explains his inability to sufficiently respond to links, and even going so far as to ignore them.

Well, you're leaving out the part where someone said that the only thing quieter about it is that no one is mortaring the British base any more, and the people around it feel safer. There are still rival factions duking it out, and someone else in there said they feel less safe. There was more... I don't know why the article was even titled the way it was.

[Kaminyu]

Originally Posted by Variable

Well, you're leaving out the part where someone said that the only thing quieter about it is that no one is mortaring the British base any more, and the people around it feel safer. There are still rival factions duking it out, and someone else in there said they feel less safe. There was more... I don't know why the article was even titled the way it was.

There's nothing wrong with the title, as that is what some Iraqis are saying. Even if is just the mortaring around the Palace, the fact remains that some of the violence has left with the British troops.

A title more descriptive of the article might be "Some Iraqis say Basra quieter after British troop pullout, while others say the opposite", but then there's the problem of excessive wordiness. Titles shouldn't be so long.

[MossadConspiracy]

well technically all they really had to do to make the title more accurate was add the word "some" to the beginning of it, not all that other nonsense

ws