Infidels Anonymous

In suburban settings a situation often seen occurring as home developments are built and strip malls pop up is the displacement of wildlife. We were just driving down the street in the middle of our suburb the other day at dusk and were surprised as we neared our post office and a coyote ran across the road in front of my truck. This wildlife displacement phenomena occurs for a few reasons, animals are territorial by nature and even an animal as small as a fox can sometimes have a “home range” of many miles. When they are displaced they begin to scout new territory equal or greater space that they can call their own. Another reason a coyote or fox may find itself in the middle of a neighborhood is that food supply is now limited because of the new construction projects. They will go where they can survive, find food and multiply.

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In the first half of this year (2007) Ramadi was by far one of the most violent locales in Iraq. I can’t even count on my hands the number of troops I know that have been WIA or KIA in Ramadi. However as this hot zone was identified and dealt with accordingly the number of dead and wounded troops lessened. What was once Zuraquawi’s stronghold in the province of Anbar felt itself loosing solid ground. As the surge mounted, the border has become less volatile and the presence of more troops became a constant threat to insurgents (Iraqi and otherwise). Zuraquawi’s minions once claimed this portion of Anbar as their rightful capital in Iraq. With the taking of Zuraquawi and his hierarchy scattering as sand in the wind it was a very welcomed sense of control that has settled over Ramadi.

Surprisingly as we watch the number of coalition troops flood into the nation’s “real” capital city, Baghdad we have seen the opposite effect. We have seen the Shia uprising and it seems as if no matter how many bodies we throw into the surge there is a hole in the dam and it’s just growing bigger each day. We see this evidenced everyday by a massive increase in RPG attacks, suicide bombers and now even the Blackwater incidents. It is a very tense with our troops on edge and a feeling of bad juju in the air. Even with house to house raids and lock down happening block by block it seems to be an uphill struggle to nail them down.

Has the wildlife of Ramadi just been shuffled from one side of the country and moved into the center of the country?

Will it come to a head soon?

Will the full force of the surge have any effect on this?

Will we be able to finish what we started ?

Do we have enough personnel over there right now to take care of this threat adequately?

Is Baghdad the new Ramadi?

-GRM