steph kollmer- occupation in fragments

stephanie kollmer
Occupation in Fragments- after 5 years US occupation cannot provide stability in Iraq
Al-Ahram Weekly
4-10-08

summary: This article talks about how the United States's occupation of Iraq is basically failing. The political system that has been set up by the US is not respected enough to be successful. There have been internal battles between the Iraqi government's armed forces and other Iraqi militias that prove disloyalty to the government. These battles also show that it is possible for other people to overthrow the government in a battle.

reactions:
a) This article relates to the AP theme impact and interaction among and within major societies. There is interaction among Iraq and the US because the US is trying to impose new political systems in their country without the support of all of the citizens. There is also interaction within the country itself because there have been fights between the Iraqi government's army and other Iraqi militias.
b) Iraq and the US have been interacting with each other ever since the War On Terror began. The US has been trying to create a better democratic government in Iraq in order to prevent terrorism. The fights explained in this article were not the first ones; there have been many previous revolts and rebellions of various Iraqi groups that do not agree with what the US is doing.
c) This article written by an Egyptian reporter for an Egyptian newspaper. Since he does not live in Iraq or the US, he is probably familiar with the topic, but is an outsider.
d) The author of this article tends to take the side of the Iraqis. He comments mostly on how the US is failing to set up a successful political organization in Iraq. He says that this is because the US is not respected and extremely unorganized. Throughout the article, he only states the things that the US has failed to accomplish, and never says their opinion of the situation.
e) The missing voice in this article is that of the US. I think that to better understand this situation it would be important to hear from a US representative in Iraq because they would probably not have the same opinion as the one stated in this article. A US representative could most likely give me an idea of how hard it is to govern over people who may not want to be governed over, which could help me better understand the situations that they are dealing with every day.
f) I think that there may be some truth in the fact that the US has not yet imposed a perfectly functioning government in Iraq, but I also think that this is probably a lot harder a job than it sounds. The US's opinion of the situation would probably be that they are trying their best to make a government and that it is not easy to control so many people, which is not stated anywhere in the article. I think that this conflict is very important in today's world because it seems like an ongoing and influential one. I think that both the opinion of the Iraqis and the US should be represented in the article because it would help me to better grasp what is going on.