Were the situation not so grim, it might be amusing to note the continuing reluctance of the Bush administration to call the spiraling violence in Iraq what it is: civil war.
The White House has reacted sharply to NBC News’ landmark use of the phrase Monday. Even United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan seemed reluctant to go there, saying only that Iraqis had “almost” reached the critical point.
But let’s not split hairs. When you have opposing factions killing hundreds at a stroke with car bombs and mortar fire, in an escalating cycle of attack and reprisal, the situation has gone beyond a troublesome insurgency.
Evidently, a number of experts on the subject agree: An analysis in the New York Times notes that most American scholars believe the bloodshed “already puts Iraq in the top ranks of the civil wars of the last half-century.”
Posted by Dave Knadler
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30 Comments
A Rose by any other name…. It will not be a “pull out” it will be a “strategic with draw” like in oh what policing action was that? But there can be no comparisons.
Well, whee! I was way ahead of the curve.
Fornication.
Why do I feel like crying?
Collin Powell says face reality, it’s a Civil War. Too bad he didn’t speak up before the war.
The panel recommends non combal roles; but stay there. Hey, that’s what Bush 1 did to the Kurds and Shiites, when he encouraged their revolt. Guess this time it’ll be the Sunni massacred in front of us.
I still keep on hearing about a study that the murder rate is higher in D.C. than Iraq.
Where would you rather live Joe, DC or Bagdad?
Joe Williams,
Well, of course. “Sectarian killing” isn’t “murder,” after all; it’s sectarian killing.
If you can find the report, post a link. I’m very much in the mood to debunk some feel-good, right-wing bullshit regarding how great things are going in Iraq.
Bush has lost his mind. He’s Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. He’s Caligula, marrying his horse. He’s Hitler, marrying Eva Braun in the bunker.
U.S. out of Iraq–while we still have an army.
You go, CF
Saddam was a brutal bastard, but by being one, he kept the sects from killing each other.Tito was a brutal bastard who did the same thing in the former Yugoslavia.The various Roman Emperors were brutal bastards that did the same for the Roman Empire.Maybe brutal bastards are necessary to keep the world’s religions from killing each other. Nothing else seems to work!
The British were brutal bastards in Ireland and that has finally worked itself out. Unless Ian or the IRA get a new hair up their backsides.
Here’s the latest:
Report: Panel to call for U.S. pullback
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan commission next week will unveil long-awaited recommendations for a new U.S. policy in Iraq that a published report said would call for a gradual pullback of U.S. troops there — without a timetable — and direct diplomacy with Iran and Syria.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061130/ap_on_go_ot/us_iraq
The article also says that the Pentagon is planning to send another (approx) 3500 troops to Iraq early next year.
Such recommendations would require a shift in policy for the Bush administration that President Bush has shown no hint of implementing.
“already puts Iraq in the top ranks of the civil wars of the last half-century.”
And just think. WE helped start this.
“I still keep on hearing about a study that the murder rate is higher in D.C. than Iraq.”
There were 3,000 people murdered in Washington D.C. last month?
I must have missed that in the newspaper.
WSClark -It’s about Joe and the “Voices”.
To paraphrase an old one from the Vietnam Era:
Neither George W Bush or his father knew when it was time to pull out.
It’s nice to see some in the conservative media like the Eagle to come around to what people in the reality community have been saying for a couple years now. Maybe now corporate media will apologize to Howard Dean for calling him crazy for suggesting this illegal occupation would turn into a civil war. Or is it going to far asking conservative, corporate media from showing impartiality.
Hey, CF…please, by all means send me some documented information on the “shit hole” that is Iraq.
Do you have ANY information on what sort of Governmental sanctioned violence was going on during the Saddam regime? No?
Let’s see “iraqbodycount.org” estimates at most 50,000 civilians killed in what the all-knowing media has described as “the worst civil war in the last century”? WHAT?
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Guess what? Saddam and his buddies killed more than 182,000+ in less than a YEAR following Gulf War I.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3320293.stm
Guess what? Saddam and his cronies GASSED more than 100,000 Iranians in an illegal (Geneva Convention) attack using Chemical Weapons during the Iran/Iraq war (1980-1988).
It is estimated (and I say estimated because they really haven’t finished digging up the fucking bodies in the desert) that Saddam was responsible for more than 400,000+ deaths during his reign. More than HALF of which were killed in less than a two year period (total sum of time).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War
Saddam spent his LIFE defending against sectarian violence. Why in the hell do you think he was one of the least visible dictators in history…he was afraid to go outside.
You don’t KNOW about the sectarian violence during his reign because IT WASN’T REPORTED IN THE U.S.!
Worst civil war in the last century, right. Try Ethopia / Eritrea (1961-1991) where more than 500,000 people were displaced and more than 250,000 were killed.http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/eritrea.htm
How about Rwanda? 800,000 people killed in 100 DAYS! How about the former Yugoslavia? Tens of thousands of people killed…
Give me a break. You see it on the news and you think it’s the harshest reality of war. The U.S. kills more people in DUI related accidents in a year than have died in Iraq in the last 3 years. Why don’t you get on that soapbox and preach.
It sucks. I wouldn’t wish that kind of agony on anyone, but don’t stand there and act like this is some sort of biblical dooms-day killing field.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Barzani:”When I was in the United States recently and read the negative news in the Washington Post, New York Times and in the network TV broadcasts, I even wondered if things had gotten so bad since I had left that I shouldn’t return,”
~Dubya
Hearing a comment from a reporter on MSNBC referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The Iraqi people call him,”The Mayor of the Green Zone,”
as that is the only place he is effective.
Probably a fair assessment at the moment
~Dubya
Dubya,
Some have set the current Iraqi body count at over 350,000.
There isn’t verifiable proof that it was only Saddam used gas on the Kurds.
Didn’t the U.S. encourage the Iran/Iraq war? We certainly gave them the “stuff” with which to do it.
We’ve all already agreed that Saddam was a bad man. Apparently it takes a bad man to keep control of the warring factions in Iraq. How would YOU keep the peace in that country? IOW, you’re not a bad man.
Actually the estimate of Iraqi dead since the U.S. invasion is 600,000. See this pdf:http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/images/10/11/human.cost.of.war.pdf and this article that explain the methodology and findings:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
Empirically, one cannot say the Iraqis were worse off under Saddam. Sad to say, but none-the-less true.
Dubya,
My request was for claims regarding the positive things being accomplished in Iraq. You, rather, provided evidence of the legion atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, which I presume you intended for one of two reasons, or perhaps both:
-as a measure of comparison to show how the current situation in Iraq isn’t as dire as possible;
-as a justification for the U.S. invasion and occupation. That is, more people died during Saddam’s reign than have died under U.S. occupation, so we’re still better than the worst thing that Iraqis have experienced.
The silliness of your post consists largely in the fact that it attributes claims to me that I’ve never made. Among these is the claim that I have no awareness of the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, and that the current civil war in Iraq is, measured in numbers of people killed, not as significant as other like conflicts.
Well, news flash, Dubya: I remember the massacre of the Shia in 1991, and I also remember the massacre of the Kurds in 1988. I read the papers and stuff.
So, what’s your point, Dubya? That it’s bad in Iraq, but that it could be worse? Or, more specifically, that it’s better now than it was under Saddam? Thus, the U.S. invasion was justified?
Well, Iraqi citizens don’t seem to agree with you. 1.6 million have left to become refugees in neighboring countries. That’s 1.6 million. The estimates are that 100,000 per month are fleeing.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/13/iraq.main/index.html
If things are so much better now than then, Dubya, why are whole populations on the move? Why, in particular, is the professional class of doctors, educators, and technical professionals, leaving in droves?
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/11/30/iraqs_violent_brain_drain_called_a_threat_to_future/
Iraqi society is melting down. It’s dissolving into a failed state. What makes this unprecedented and apocalyptically scary is that we aren’t talking about Ethiopia, Rwanda, or even Yugoslavia. We’re talking about a nation of 26 million in the heart of the Middle East. A nation, I do not need to remind you, that holds the world’s second largest proven reserves of crude oil.
To be frank, I don’t know what your point is, Dubya. I do know that your namesake, “W”, has shit the bed in Iraq, that all the reasons he gave for invading were all lies, and that he’s utterly and irretrievably delusional.
The only reason he insists that we stay in Iraq is to satisfy his ego. I don’t think we can afford to keep him around as President much longer.
W doesn’t give a shit about anybody else, Dubya. Iraq is all about him and holding together his fragile ego.
Thanks for correcting my number, Steven. My short-term memory is sometimes faulty.
Sure, R.D. For these data, the 95% confidence interval is between 426,329 to 793,663. That means that with 95 random samplings of the population, the deaths result will be in between the above numbers.
People, including non-terrorists, in the MidEast will hate our guts for a long time. Justifiably, I would say.
should have said “with 95 out of 100 random samplings of the population…”
OMG…I had an entire post written up to respond and for some reason decided to hit the “Pop-ups allowed” button…which refreshed the page. *sigh*
OK, in VERY brief terms. There are good things happening in Iraq. My ONLY point (in that I am neither for nor against the invasion and would never attempt to justify it) was that your view of the war in Iraq is skewed by what the media does and doesn’t want to report.
Iraq IS better off without Saddam regardless of what you may or may not think. It has spurred change in the reason…chaos amid change, but change nonetheless. Iran and Iraq committing to a security agreement? Unheard of in Saddam’s day.
Thank you very much for the sensible argument and subsequent links to back up your statements. I find the 600,000 count a bit extreme given the unreliability of surveys in the region…BUT not entirely discountable either. I will definitely pay closer attention. Thank you.
I’m not about to re-type everything I had before, but I’ll leave you with a little bit of a feel-good:
http://www.spiritofamerica.net/cgi-bin/soa/project.pl?rm=view_project&request_id=119
~Dubya
What would happen if the U.S. were to redeploy nearby, wait for the end of Iraq’s civil war, then go back in to make reparations? And I’m not talking political reps, either. Rebuild the schools, hospitals, help with homes, streets, mosques, the whole shebang.
It seems that most of those reasonable people (Mary Caruso comes to mind) who aren’t wholly in favor of leaving Iraq ASAP, are concerned with the devastation of the country that our invasion and occupation have caused.
Not that I believe anyone would be believe a promise we made to come back and fix things…
“I still keep on hearing about a study that the murder rate is higher in D.C. than Iraq.”
Voices in yor head again Joe?
RD, we’ll tell them that the check is in the mail and that we’ll respect them in the morning.
Sorry, W, but that survey and its methodolgy has been scrutinized sufficiently.
Choose not to believe it? I would not be surprised by that, based on your prior postings.
And remember, you are the one who is concerned about media bias?
Interesting, is all I have to say.