When the occupiers leave, the violence goes down
George McGovern has been saying this for over a year. Once the occupiers leave, the violence will drastically go down:
Attacks against British and Iraqi forces have plunged by 90 percent in southern Iraq since London withdrew its troops from the main city of Basra, the commander of British forces there said Thursday.
The presence of British forces in downtown Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, was the single largest instigator of violence, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns told reporters Thursday on a visit to Baghdad's Green Zone.
"We thought, 'If 90 percent of the violence is directed at us, what would happen if we stepped back?'" Binns said.
Britain's 5,000 troops moved out of a former Saddam Hussein palace at Basra's heart in early September, setting up a garrison at an airport on the city's edge. Since that pullback, there's been a "remarkable and dramatic drop in attacks," Binns said.
"The motivation for attacking us was gone, because we're no longer patrolling the streets," he said.
posted by storiesinamerica @ 3:56 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Apparently you missed it, but the violence has been decreasing for a while now:
http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/briefingslide/317/071101-D-6570C-007.jpg
http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/briefingslide/317/071101-D-6570C-006.jpg
Christopher Hitchens brought up this very subject at Slate recently:
After all, if the usual peacenik logic were to be pursued, and it was to be assumed that "we" are chiefly responsible for magnetizing "them," then it would follow that if we were to leave, they would either give up or go elsewhere. Is there anybody who can be brought to believe anything so fatuous? Well, then, if this logic is self-evidently false in the case of Afghanistan, why should it be any more persuasive in the case of Iraq?
http://www.slate.com/id/2177482/
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