Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Your coworkers are whom I should give a fuck about?
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My coworkers (and I) are military intelligence collectors and analysts, and fluent arabic linguists (among other things).
The fact is, while I do make a point of reading about this subject A LOT, so much of the things I've read distort the information they receive or receive previously distorted information. A lot of the time we're told by some local schmo 'those al-qa'ida guys over there are killing everyone,' and it turns out to be some other group. A lot of the time, we never get a chance to verify the information before we, well, kill everyone that's shooting.
The number of attacks on US forces that can be verified to come from Al-Qa'ida are slim to none. We're talking single percentage points. The number against civilians is somewhat higher, which is why I say if we're actually trying to stabilize the country we do need to count them amongst our enemies. But, that being said, they have a pretty tedious hold on what little ground they actually DO control, and the whole of Iraq is against them.