"Insurgency" compared with IRA on US National Public Radio

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Thursday February 24, 2005 20:51 by Our Los Angeles Correspondent - IMC Internationale

Interview with co-author of Time Magazine article

State Department correspondent for Time Magazine "Elaine Shannon" talks on National Public Radio about a recent story that she and Mike Weare were involved with reporting on talks between "US intelligence" and "insurgency leaders". During her interview she talks about how the Sunni resistance may model themselves on Sinn Fein/IRA. Audio up soon on http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/index.shtml
Time Magazine article on:

"Although they have no immediate plans to halt attacks on U.S. troops, they say their aim is to establish a political identity that can represent disenfranchised Sunnis and eventually negotiate an end to the U.S. military's offensive in the Sunni triangle. Their model is Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, which ultimately earned the I.R.A. a role in the Northern Ireland peace process. "That's what we're working for, to have a political face appear from the battlefield, to unify the groups, to resist the aggressor and put our views to the people," says a battle commander in the upper tiers of the insurgency who asked to be identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Marwan. Another negotiator, called Abu Mohammed, told TIME, "Despite what has happened, the possibility for negotiation is still open."

Juan Cole (U. Michigan professor of Middle Eastern History) and others point out that the US military cannot and is not controlling Iraq, that they can't travel on the roads etc and that talks with the insurgeny/rebels/resistance is a logical step.