Self-Consumption

When the Nazi Wermacht invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, German soldiers were greeted as liberators by the Ukrainians who had been the victims of the collectivization-induced genocide that caused fifteen million of their countrymen to starve under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's brutal rule. If Adolph Hitler had taken note of that and treated the Ukrainians and other captive nations as allies, at least until the USSR had been conquered, the war on the Eastern Front might have turned out very differently.

In much the same way, when the Japanese began expanding into China and Southeast Asia, the peoples in the Phillipines, Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, and Malaysia greeted them as fellow Asians and liberators from Western colonial rule, only to be viciously treated as sub-human conquests, and turned against their new masters.

It seems that in modern warfare, when the bad guys win, their arrogance becomes uncontrollable, and always contributes to their eventual downfall.

Such it appears to be with al Qaeda in Iraq, where the sheer brutality inflicted on the populace in towns and areas where they've held sway - e.g. slaughtering children and making their grieving parents engage in cannibalism of their remains - has reaped great and growing numbers of sympathizers and allies for the U.S.-led Coalition.

Including, now, members of AQI itself:

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.

The sewage-filled streets of Doura, a Sunni Arab enclave in south Baghdad, provide an ugly setting for what US commanders say is al-Qaeda’s last stronghold in the city. The secretive group, however, appears to be losing its grip as a “surge” of US troops in the neighbourhood – part of the latest effort by President Bush to end the chaos in Iraq – has resulted in scores of fighters being killed, captured or forced to flee.

What Iraqi citizens and non-AQ "insurgents" alike have discovered for themselves is what the Afghan people could have told them after their horrific experience of life under the Taliban: bin Laden's sect of Sunni Islam is all about death and very little else. Whatever ordinary Muslims think of their god, Islamists make Allah look like, well, the demonic entity he really is. And that is doing more to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis to the Coalition's cause than any number of new schools or restored power grids.

The more progress the "Surge" makes, the more barbaric al Qaeda gets, the more Iraqis defect to our side, providing us with more intelligence, which fuels the "Surge" all the more. It is a vicious cycle working against the bad guys.

Except for two places our military can't conquer, which serve as bin Laden's aces in the hole.

al Qaeda must be confident of those cards (and why shouldn't they be?), because they've officially added a North African affiliate:

al-Qaeda threatened in an Internet statement on Monday to escalate attacks against the "enemies of Allah" in North African countries, warning Muslims to stay away from government sites.

"The Mujahedin (holy warriors)... have many hidden surprises for the enemies of Allah in the countries of the Islamic Maghreb, which will come in an escalating sequence," said the al-Qaeda Movement in the Islamic Countries of the Maghreb.

"We call upon all our Muslim brothers to stay away from the centres of the infidels and official apostates, as well as security (gatherings) of army and police," it added in the statement posted on a website used by Islamic militant groups.

"The Mujahedin are determined to target their quarters, centres and barracks with all available means of detonation, bombing and demolition," added the statement whose authenticity could not be verified.

The Admiral is not overly impressed with this expansion of the AQ brand, but I can't help thinking about Egypt being a part of this designated theater of terrorist operations. The tipping of the largest Arab power as the biggest domino of all to go as a Sunni counterpoint to Islamist Shiite Iran would become all too possible after a U.S. retreat from the Middle East. Looks to me like our enemies are making preparations in expectation of just that eventuality.

Put another way, we're winning the battle of Iraq, but in the minds of bin Laden, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, America - or should I say, Ameriqa - has already lost the war.