Is there a civil war in Iraq? Let’s imagine that the events, which happened on Sunday, March 12, 2006 in and around Baghdad, occur tomorrow in and around New York City. The only thing I’ve changed are the place names. The events are real. Would we put up for a minute with President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld idly dismissing this events as mere sectarian strife?
03/14/06 AP: A roadside bomb hit a police convoy in White Plains, New York, 35 miles northeast of New York City, killing one patrolman and wounding four others, police said
03/14/06 AP: U.S. forces also clashed with gunmen Sunday afternoon in western New York City, Police Chief Falah al-Mohammedawi said.
03/14/06 AP: In Newark, about 20 miles south of New York City, gunmen ambushed and killed a police major as he headed to work, police said.
03/14/06 Eight bodies were found with their hands tied and gun shot wounds to the head in Brooklyn, a suburb in eastern New York City, police said.
03/14/06 Reuters: Gunmen ambushed and killed a local football player (Vinny Testaverde) in Newark 40 km (25 miles) south of New York City, local police said.
03/14/06 Reuters: At least 40 people were killed and 95 wounded in three apparently coordinated car bombs at two markets in New York City’s Jewish district of Brooklyn on Sunday, police said.
If it looks like a civil war, sounds like a civil war, and has casualties like a civil war it is probably a civil war. Now, imagine that these kinds of attacks continue to be the daily routine for the next thirty days (as it has in Baghdad for the last month). How would this effect the lifestyle of the average New Yorker? Do you think George Bush would still enjoy 37% favorable rating?
My point is this, until we understand what is happening in Iraq in terms of what those events would mean if they happened in the United States, we are living with the delusion that Iraq’s troubles are caused by grumpy reporters who just want to focus on the negative.
Vinny Testaverde!! Say it ain’t so.
I think this is a good way of making the point about just how chaotic things are in Baghdad.
If Iraqis are saying it is, who are we to doubt?
The Independent, UK is today citing that Iraqi police reported 72 bodies found in fresh wave of Iraq killings
Over here, the media sanitizes calling it ‘sectarian violence’ but over there,
Prof. Juan Cole reports young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadar said that “Iraq is in a state of civil war.”
What ever it takes, to get people to notice the obvious!
Insightful, maybe.
… unless of course they are living in Iraq and they know it as the Abu Ghraib/Guantanamo Bayquistion.
Reality is that Iraq is on the edge of a civil war. It is probably too far along to stop. Bush lost this war the day the mercs were killed in Fallujah and the American response was to “teach them a lesson.” The slim chance we had of something good come of this was lost in that moment.
It is time to let the Iraqi’s work it out for themselves. We ain’t helpin’ any.
I thought about responding like that, but held off because it felt “too negative”.
I think you are dead right.
The American reaction at this point is the same as it was going in — mob mentality.
Arabs killing each other? Fine by the mob. Fewer to deal with later. They’re so “uncivilized” they “deserve” it. What would push them to do this to each other? Oh, we don’t care what goes on in the mind of a terraist. Thems bad people, is all.
But now the sun is peeking over the horizon. The town is trashed. The mob leaders are just about out of things we can do to “win” the situation.
The mob doesn’t mind if they kill off a dozen or two of our soldiers each week. That’s what the soldiers are paid to do, it makes em all “heroes”. As if hero was a status conferred by wearing a uniform, or holding a job — and not the actions one takes in a given situation.
But eventually, if we aren’t going to “win” this thing, well, then it gets a bit boring. The mob breaks up and ambles on home.
And they don’t ever want to think of it again. Its a failure. Failure is bad. And weekly body counts and semi-annual “emergency” funding bills just reminds the mob that they didn’t win. Nope, they’re big losers.
Best to tidy it up as best possible, and move on.
Sure, in every mob there are the few die-hards who love the riot for rioting’s sake. Or can’t admit the riot was all for naught. But they’re in the distinct minority now.
Anyhow, I think you’re right, Andrew. We lost it in Fallujah. Of course, the goal back then was still WMD and regime change, so trashing the nation-building wasn’t exactly the top priority for this mob’s leader.
sometimes. While it is undeniable that the Iraqis are not as grateful as many Americans would not only hope, but expect, and so naturally there is some resentment, American taxpayers have paid so much money, only to be met with such a widespread lack of appreciation, but it’s important to remember, and I think most Americans are aware, that US is exterminating a much larger number of Iraqis than the number of US casualty figures released by the Pentagon, and simply by virtue of being there with such superior weapons, US is is killing more Iraqis than the other way around by anybody’s count or estimate.
So in that sense, the US is definitely “winning,” and operations like the one in Fallujah and some of the subsequent projects, maybe less officially covered by embedded US reporters only increase the extent of that “win.”
Of course, in another sense, from another perspective, which while it is admittedly more reality-based, is not really relevant to US perceptions, and certainly not something that would have an impact on US domestic politics, this is a “war” that the US “lost” even before Sadaam Hussein was born.
…if the electricity was as sporadic in New York or L.A. as it has been in Baghdad, some Americans would start an insurrection.
Forgive me – I’m feeling very punchy tonight. But what you described doesn’t sound unbelievable for a day in New York…! 😉
Nah. I get your point. Of course there’s a civil war breaking out.
Why did CIA Director George Tenet allow those sixteen words to remain in the President’s State of the Union address? If he had forced the issue, maybe none of this would have happened…..
Once again…to the people who are running this country, ALL of that is acceptable. And more.
This is a Blood for Oil War.
THE blood of brown people. (This time.)
White people’s oil. (White people and their domestic servant underclasses.)
Do you REALLY want all of this violence to end?
Be careful what you wish for.
Turn off most of your lights and stop driving most of your car miles. End your indebtedsness and do not get into debt again. Do not fly anymore if at all possible. Stop buying nationally advertised products. Stop repetitive advertising and unnecessary duplication of product. Start buying domestically made products whenever possible. No matter what the added expense. Step away from the planned obsolescence game. Drive your automobiles 250,000+ miles. Fix that old refrigerator. Stop overeating. Insulate your houses properly. Start supporting alternative forms of energy AT EVERY TURN. Drive 50+ mpg cars. Ride bikes. Take public transportation whenever possible. Rein in the (regular and covert) military…economically…so that IT does not waste. Crack down on drugs. For REAL, even if that means hitting the parts of our intelligence agencies that have grown wealthy in the business. Pull our vast armies and energies back from their far-flung bases and put them to work rebuilding the infrastructure of the country. Make it clear that we will not be fucked with militarily and that nuclear force WILL BE USED if we are.
STOP WASTING.
Fat, stupid Americans we are.
Stop.
Then and only then…provided the whole country went on a serious austerity kick and stayed there for a decade or so…would we end the system of economic imperialism supported by overt and covert military force that FEEDS OUR GLUTTONY.
Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, belief that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. The grace of Life. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. We ain’t THAT good. Certainly no BETTER than the rest of humanity.
But we kill like we are.
Over the last 60 years, no country on earth has the blood on its hands that we do.
No contest..
Not even close.
Pride
Envy
Gluttony
Lust
Anger
Greed
Sloth
Our culture as it stands is almost UNIVERSALLY guilty of the Seven Deadly Sins, and we…as well as others… are paying for them by the hell that we are making here on earth.
Stop.
I am serious here.
Stop individually and repent…reform…or we all will eventually pay the ultimate price.
Sooner rather than later the way things are looking now.
They say that Hell is fire and brimstone.
Well…Iraq is hell now.
And Baghdad is coming to your neighborhood theater of war.
Soon.
Watch for it.
Malcolm X got in BIG trouble by suggesting that “The chickens have come home to roost” in response to a question about JFK’s assassination.
Well…he was right. And there are now many MORE chickens and a whole LOTTA roosting about to hit the fan if we do not set things right here.
Immediately.
FIERY chickens.
Crispy fried.
Will all of this happen?
Not without a real crisis, as far as I can see, and maybe not even then.
We are well sot in our sinful ways.
Gonna take a real shot to dislodge us.
Buckle up.
It’s going to be a rough, rough ride.
AG
I think the US has made it pretty clear to the rest of the world that it will not hesitate to invade and occupy countries at will, and that every human being on the planet is subject to seizure and extermination by US gunmen, and/or being carted off to one of America’s many fine “interrogation facilities” that dot the globe. And nations know that they can either cooperate in the US establishing these facilities on their soil, or face the consequences.
The consequences of disobeying America are available for viewing anytime, all one has to do is watch TV, or read the papers, and the papers in other countries are not always as complimentary of US policies, including wetwork, as those in the US.
So given all that, it is hard not to wonder if the threat of being nuked by the US is really as much of a threat as it might be otherwise.
In other words, one could say that the world is rapidly being turned, in a sense, into a large Palestine, or a large South Central, if that is more accessible an analogy.
Once you reach a critical level of certainty that I will kill you whether you do what I say or not, I have lost quite a large pile of negotiating chips.
All of them, in fact, death being seen as somewhat final, even by the most devout. In fact, the most devout are less likely to view it as such a formidable deterrent as the most secular.
By establishing itself as more of a promise than a threat, what the Americans might do to one has become what the Americans will do to one, it would appear that the commercial break, so to speak, has ended, and we are back for Double Jeopardy, where the values double and the scores can really change…
Larry Johnson is exactly right, as usual. Of course it’s a Civil War, and to add insult to injury, the Neo-Cons aren’t concerned in the least. Perhaps the only person genuinely surprised to learn this would be George W. Bush. His character has always revealed him to be akin to a self centered juvenile, who cannot recognize the broader consequences of his actions, which also means that he hasn’t understood the forces that enabled him to assume higher office. The Neo-con movement is, in fact, a corporate agenda, and their call to abandon Iraq is due to the fact that the country has been plundered and is no longer of any use to them. The way in which the war was conducted now looks more like the actions of a corporate raider than an army intent on liberation and security. Mission accomplished, their attention is now turned to Iran.
They just can’t show it. Don’t want to crack the façade, and all that. “Everything’s going swimmingly!” But i’m sure the closed-door meetings are full of fear & despair.
Too bad those fuckers won’t feel it the way the poor bastards in Iraq are feeling it, though.
Great diary that points out what should be an obvious fact, but “obviously” is not. Transcendence is the political virtue “par excellence.” Without the ability to look at what is happening to other people and imagine what we would do if the exact same thing were happening to us, we will have no end to the current Bush diseases that have infected our country.
The ancient Greeks called this ability andreia which is conventionally translated as bravery. But it has a nuance of meaning that suggests righteous indignation at the injustice suffered by others, because we use our ability to put ourselves in their shoes, evaluate how we would act in their place, and then act upon that evaluation.
Operationally define civil war. Anyone?
My self educated definition is that it requires not just fighting in the street and general anarchy. In fact I think that’s call anarchy.
I think it requires a rival government to be set up with loyal armed militia actively trying to force the will of their aspiring government.
Short of that it requires two or more somewhat self identified factions, backed by militia, either protecting their interests or trying to achieve a political objective.
War differs from simple violence and acts of anger and revenge in that it implies some strategy and organized tactics to achieve it.
Today’s wars are certainly more asymetric than, say, the American Civil War, but it seems that it still must meet these criteria to be called civil war.
Is Iraq in civil war? No, but they are very, very close. The second the armed militias hit the streets in organized attempt to control territory or force their will, civil war will have started.
As of this second those factional objectives are being met through legislative means.
Check back in a second