Saving Al Qaeda: Collective Punishment and Curious Policy in the "Surge"

Chris Floyd , Atlantic Free Press

The Bush Administration's hideously named military offensive in Iraq's Diyala province ("Arrowhead Ripper" — there's a real hearts-and-minds moniker for you) is having the same effect we've seen in all the other many pushes and surges and crackdowns during the botched conquest: killing innocent people, alienating the locals, strengthening the insurgency — and allowing the ostensible targets of the operation to escape long before the action begins. Arrowhead Ripper has been tearing through Diyala's capital city, Baquba, since June 18, Inter Press Service reports. The announced goal of the operation is to cleanse the area of "al Qaeda terrorists" — the term of art now given to anyone who's not down with the Bushist program...

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IRAQ: 'Arrowhead' Becomes Fountainhead of Anger

Ali al-Fadhily*, IPS

Ongoing U.S. military operations in Diyala province have brought normal life to an end, and fuelled support for the national resistance. Baquba, 50km northeast of Baghdad, and capital city of the volatile Diyala province, has born the brunt of violence during the U.S. military Operation 'Arrowhead Ripper'. Conflicting reports are on offer on the number of houses destroyed and numbers of civilians killed, but everyone agrees that the destruction is vast and the casualties numerous. The operation was launched Jun. 18 "to destroy the al-Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people," according to Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding officer of the 25th Infantry Division. But most Iraqis IPS interviewed in the area say the operation seeks more to break the national Iraqi resistance and those who support it...

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