“WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news – web sites) said that the insurgency in Iraq (news – web sites) “will not end,” as insurgents are determined to derail the country’s democratic transition.
Powell reiterated that Iraq’s January 30 elections will take place as scheduled and that the US and Iraqi forces are working to have security in place for the polls.
But, he told CBS television, “the insurgency will not end.”
“These insurgents are determined to have no representative government. They want to go back to a tyranny,” Powell said.
And so the insurgency will continue and the insurgency will have to be defeated by coalition forces, but increasingly the insurgency will be defeated and brought under control, if not completely defeated, by Iraqi forces that we are building up as rapidly as we can,” he added.”
There are numerous questions here, we can all be armchair quarterbacks, but I sometimes wonder if we have been too soft. I expect that many of you will be alarmed at this comment and consider it to be barbaric, but war is barbaric.
One could argue that the way to bring peace is to bring the hammer down so hard that people submit so that the violence will end. There are some real challenges and pitfalls with this approach, but since this is a basic hit-and-run post I will not address them right now.
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