Is Iraq in a state of Civil War? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

tecoyah · 02-23-2006, 04:16 AM

With the levels of violence , Mosque Bombings, and general mayhem we see in this country....do you think its actually a Civil War?

jwoody · 02-23-2006, 04:57 AM

I think we could be looking at the new United States of Iranistan.

roachboy · 02-23-2006, 05:38 AM

Quote:

Iraq slips towards civil war after attack on Shia shrine

Appeals for calm fail to halt reprisals

Michael Howard in Irbil
Thursday February 23, 2006
The Guardian

Iraq's political and religious leaders were engaged in a desperate effort last night to stop the country from sliding into civil war after a huge bomb shattered the golden-domed mosque in the city of Samarra, one of Shia Islam's most revered sites.

At least six people were killed as demonstrations and armed clashes erupted across southern Iraq, and there were retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques in Baghdad as thousands of furious Shia Muslims took to the streets. In an apparent reprisal attack, gunmen in police uniforms seized a dozen Sunni men suspected of being insurgents from a prison in the mainly Shia city of Basra and killed 11 of them, police and British forces said.

Appeals for unity and calm were made by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's senior Shia cleric, and the president, Jalal Talabani, who warned that Iraq was in "grave danger" and urged Iraqis to work together to prevent a civil war.

The calls were echoed in Washington and London. President George Bush pledged American financial help to reconstruct the mosque. "Violence will only contribute to what the terrorists sought to achieve by this act," he said. Tony Blair, who also promised help with the rebuilding, said the attackers' aim was to foment violence between Shias and Sunnis, and urged both communities not to "fall into the trap".

Tariq al-Hashimi, a leading Sunni politician, said 29 Sunni mosques had been attacked nationwide, and at least one cleric killed. He urged religious leaders and politicians to calm the situation "before it spins out of control". Other leading Sunnis condemned the blast.

The attack on the mosque in the mainly Sunni town of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, occurred shortly after dawn, when up to 10 gunmen dressed as police commandos burst into the compound, tied up the guards and triggered a series of explosions that brought the golden dome crashing to the ground. All that remained was the wall of the mosque, flanked by two minarets.

US and Iraqi forces sealed off the mosque - which contains the tombs of two ninth century imams - and searched local houses. There was no claim of responsibility, but the five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody, and Iraqi authorities said another 10 men "with links to al-Qaida" had been arrested.

It was the third large-scale attack in as many days aimed at Iraqi Shias, who in the postwar chaos have been targeted by Sunni extremists with hundreds of car and suicide bombs. Though no one was reported killed, the impact was immediate and far reaching.

Protests in Samarra were repeated and magnified in the Shia heartlands of Baghdad and cities throughout the south. In the capital, residents woke up to shouts of Allah Akhbar (God is great) booming out from loudspeakers at Shia mosques.

"The Takfiris [Sunni extremists] have destroyed our holy shrine in Samarra," imams informed their neighbourhoods before reciting verses from the Qur'an. Shopkeepers shut their stores as thousands of mainly young Shias took to the streets, urging reprisal attacks against Sunni targets.

"I am going to go and burn the Abu Hanifa mosque [a revered Sunni place of worship in Baghdad]," said one youth who was carrying a picture of the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "It is time to take revenge for the martyrs."

Police said that at least 17 Sunni mosques in the capital had been fired on and one cleric killed by Shia militants wearing the black uniforms of Mr Sadr's al-Mahdi army. A police spokesman said three other mosques had been set on fire, but could not provide details.

In Basra, Sadr militants surrounded and attacked the office of the mainstream Sunni Iraqi Islamic party. Smoke billowed from the building after an exchange of gunfire with the office's guards and a strike on the building by a rocket-propelled grenade. The number of casualties was unknown.

There were other angry demonstrations in the southern cities of Kut, Amara, Nassiriya, and Diwaniya, where one Mahdi army militiaman was killed in clashes with Sunni residents.

Despite the violence and horrific attacks on the civilian population, it is difficult to imagine an act more designed to stoke civil war than the destruction of one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines.

For the past 100 years the 72,000 golden tiles that form the mosque's famous dome have shone out across the rooftops of Samarra, attracting pilgrims from afar to the shrines of Imam Ali al-Hadi and his son, Imam Hassan al-Askari. It is one of Shia Islam's four major shrines in Iraq. Relics of the buried imams, including a helmet and shield, were reported damaged in the blasts.

Since the US invasion the city has fallen into the hands of insurgents and Islamic radicals, despite repeated claims by US forces to have removed them. Sunni militants have carried out lethal attacks on Shia pilgrims.

Such is the potential fallout from the explosion that the reclusive Ayatollah Sistani appeared on television. He said nothing, but later his office issued a statement legitimising protests "only if they are peaceful".

Another senior member of the Shia establishment, Grand Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi, told the Guardian he was "distraught by the events", but criticised those charged with protecting the shrine: "The attack is the work of Takfiris who blemish Islam, and who strike at the heart of Islam. It is an attempt to start civil war in Iraq. We warned the government and the US about protecting holy shrines. They should do their legitimate and national duty. If they are unable to, the people will take their security into their own hands."

President Talabani, said the perpetrators were bent on "driving a wedge" between Iraq's Sunni and Shia communities and wrecking talks to form a government of national unity. In a televised address, he urged all Iraqis to "stand together to avoid the most dangerous prospect we can think of".

· Additional reporting by Qais al-Bashir

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1715873,00.html

the ny times called it "civil strife"--the washington post "sectarian backlash"---the american press cant quite say it....

politicophile · 02-23-2006, 05:46 AM

Time will tell, of course. There has been a long history in Iraq of infighting between the nation's different religious and ethnic factions: such is the consequence of creating a nation with arbitrary borders. Al-Qaida may yet succeed in prompting a religious civil war, but the level of violence we are seeing now should certainly not be labeled in that way.

roachboy · 02-23-2006, 05:59 AM

but then again, a significant shi'a shrine had not been blown up.
in case this slipped by:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,,1715275,00.html

but let me say that i sincerely hope that you are right, politicophile, in the longer run---a civil war is the worst possible scenario.

aKula · 02-23-2006, 05:59 AM

There is not yet a level of orginisation in and between the different sunni and shiite groups for it to be a proper civil war. The attacks and killing at the moment are not real efforts to gain and consolidate control of territory. The groups that do have exert control over a local area do not have the means to project military power over other areas, only sporadic terrorist attacks. The Kurds do but it does not seem like they would take this option unless for the defence of their territory. For there to be a civil war I think the groups fighting at the moment would have to be much larger in scale (perhaps like the groups in Afghanistan). Time will tell I guess.

Sgoilear · 02-23-2006, 06:05 AM

I don't think Iraq is quite in a state of civil war yet but I don't see how one can be prevented from eventually breaking out. All that is needed is a very small number of unhappy people to commit one atrocity and then the other side has the excuse they need to fire right back. Eventually things will spiral out of control. That fact the conflict is religious in nature only serves to guarantee that each side will have some people unwilling to let the matter go and work towards peace.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-23-2006, 08:14 AM

Al Qaeda does very good work it would appear...

martinguerre · 02-23-2006, 08:21 AM

i think the answer comes in the question.

There is no "Iraq" outside of the western colonial powers that carved the map in that way to begin with....both way back when, and now. If i were a Kurd...i would have zero qualms about claiming the right to exist in a state that was responsive to my needs, and would bitterly oppose subjugating those interests to the outsider's pipedream of a united iraqi state. There is no such thing as an ontological iraqi...and i see no profit in pandering to that delusion.

There's no glue there...and plenty of cause for friction.

feelgood · 02-23-2006, 08:26 AM

I voted "Too soon to tell" simply because there's no evidence of outbreak of major fighting between two fraction the way it has been in any other civil wars in history. Judging from previous civil wars (British Civil War, etc) it looking like its going to civil war but how can it be a civil war when United States is occuplying the country?

There are some countries around the world that have problems dealing with 2 major fraction that are motivated by religion clause that clash with each other and still not face a civil war.

Seaver · 02-23-2006, 08:58 AM

Quote:

There is no "Iraq" outside of the western colonial powers that carved the map in that way to begin with....both way back when, and now. If i were a Kurd...i would have zero qualms about claiming the right to exist in a state that was responsive to my needs, and would bitterly oppose subjugating those interests to the outsider's pipedream of a united iraqi state. There is no such thing as an ontological iraqi...and i see no profit in pandering to that delusion.

Tell that to the Iraqis. Tell that to the Kurds who, less than one year after being massacred, signed up on mass to fight Iran under the Iraqi flag. Tell that to the Shi'ia who died in the millions to fight fellow Iranian Shi'ia under the Iraqi flag. Iraq may have been an invention, but there IS an Iraq in the minds of Iraqis.

This is not a civil war. This is no different than race riots that happen all over the world. Yes, it may spill over into a Civil War, but it's not at the moment.

ObieX · 02-23-2006, 11:33 AM

I picked "its more complicated than that" because this mess isn't 1 side vs another its a giant clusterfuck which should never have been started in the first place. Everyone always knew what would happen if we went in there and it is exactly what is happening, and has been happening. Apparently everyone knew this *except* the people who run our country. One would think that they would be the ones to know. I guess not. Gotta get that oil tho! So what if thousands of people have to die, we may get flowers thrown at us! Too bad the flowers have grenades hidden among them. Too bad for our troops that is.. the ones who sent them there couldn't care less. (ohyea, there's those Iraqis too.. but who cares about them, right? they're just in the way)

Willravel · 02-23-2006, 11:35 AM

They are and they aren't. The problem is that there are several groups that want several different outcomes in this, and not all of them are fighting. I think a better way to describe the situation is that the nation is in turmoil. I know it's a very general term, but I think civil war is too specific. Besides, it can't be 'civil' with an army from another country in the thick of it.

Poppinjay · 02-23-2006, 12:01 PM

I think it's inevitable. I heard one conservative commentator masterfully pitch the whole mess as a positive thing, but a mission that will never, ever be accomplished. He then said that because of the difficulty we’ve seen, it’ll be a long time until US troops set foot in the middle east again. Which I highly doubt. I think there’s at least one other country our troops will see in the near future.

Think Iraq is a quagmire? Just wait ‘til Iran.

martinguerre · 02-23-2006, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Tell that to the Iraqis. Tell that to the Kurds who, less than one year after being massacred, signed up on mass to fight Iran under the Iraqi flag. Tell that to the Shi'ia who died in the millions to fight fellow Iranian Shi'ia under the Iraqi flag. Iraq may have been an invention, but there IS an Iraq in the minds of Iraqis.

This is not a civil war. This is no different than race riots that happen all over the world. Yes, it may spill over into a Civil War, but it's not at the moment.

Not my point...to point out that Iraq is a historic construction is to say that some people may not choose to affirm it, because they see the particularity of it's origin...Others still choose Oz, even after seeing the man behind the curtain.

But the fact that this choice is made immediate by sectarian violence reduces the chance that enough people will affirm the concept of Iraqi over and against their other claims. It's ridiculous that we <i>expect</i> them to do so. If someone asked North Americans to affirm that over and against our national idenities...what would we say to that?

cyrnel · 02-23-2006, 01:28 PM

I have to go for the complexity choice. It's a mess, certainly, but almost inevitable with numerous radical groups trying to build kingdoms.

At what point does the chaos become "civil war?" I'd expect a wider involvement of citizenry participating in the conflict, and in ways other than being blown up at social gatherings. It still seems like a small minority of Iraqis, a bunch of foreign fighters, and a nasty group of leaders tormenting the general population. Prodding them toward war. If the larger population unites and begins fighting back then perhaps I'd call it war. The current action, which most frequently target civilians rather than military or police, fits more with terrorism than war.

That said, they may be on the cusp. The last few days have sucked with a vengeance.

aceventura3 · 02-23-2006, 02:07 PM

I guess it depend on how you define civil war. If you use the traditional definition - two sides having a government, territory and an army, the answer is no. But there is clearly a fight for power between groups in the country.

I supported our preemtive strike against Iraq and removing Sadaam from power. I am now at the point of believing it is time to bring our troops home. Iraqis need to get their own house in order, they need to take a more active role in defining their future. They need to decide what they are willing to fight for - good people need to take a stand against those who promote death, destruction and terrorism. I am concerned that they will forever rely on our military if they know it is available and that they will alway have an excuse by blaming America for death and destruction of Iraqi against Iraqi - Muslim against Muslim.

matthew330 · 02-23-2006, 07:39 PM

"I am concerned that they will forever rely on our military if they know it is available and that they will alway have an excuse by blaming America for death and destruction of Iraqi against Iraqi - Muslim against Muslim."

This hits the nail on the head. I'm following your point (I think), but I doubt if anyone can argue that this sentiment applies to Iraqi population. It makes perfect sense when applied to the rest of world (ROW). Everyone has a stake in how this plays out, yet few are taking an active role, for the reasons you described in your quote. The unfortunate thing is it results in this sentiment...

"I am now at the point of believing it is time to bring our troops home, Iraqis need to get their own house in order, they need to take a more active role in defining their future. They need to decide what they are willing to fight for"

I think Iraqi's have shown their willingness to do this. The ROW is in a very convenient position (well, at least for the next two years) of sitting back banking on the United States creating a situation that everyone can live with, cursing them all the way.

aceventura3 · 02-24-2006, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

"I am concerned that they will forever rely on our military if they know it is available and that they will alway have an excuse by blaming America for death and destruction of Iraqi against Iraqi - Muslim against Muslim."

This hits the nail on the head. I'm following your point (I think), but I doubt if anyone can argue that this sentiment applies to Iraqi population. It makes perfect sense when applied to the rest of world (ROW). Everyone has a stake in how this plays out, yet few are taking an active role, for the reasons you described in your quote. The unfortunate thing is it results in this sentiment...

"I am now at the point of believing it is time to bring our troops home, Iraqis need to get their own house in order, they need to take a more active role in defining their future. They need to decide what they are willing to fight for"

I think Iraqi's have shown their willingness to do this. The ROW is in a very convenient position (well, at least for the next two years) of sitting back banking on the United States creating a situation that everyone can live with, cursing them all the way.

What is going to take to get the ROW to relize than islamic extremists are like a cancer on this planet and that it is hurting everyone? And, what is it going to take for 1/2 of the people (the people who hate Bush so much that they can't see straight) in this country to realize the same?

I have to admit I am getting tired of people resenting this country and the Bush administration for doing what is right.

ratbastid · 02-24-2006, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I guess it depend on how you define civil war. If you use the traditional definition - two sides having a government, territory and an army, the answer is no. But there is clearly a fight for power between groups in the country.

I supported our preemtive strike against Iraq and removing Sadaam from power. I am now at the point of believing it is time to bring our troops home. Iraqis need to get their own house in order, they need to take a more active role in defining their future. They need to decide what they are willing to fight for - good people need to take a stand against those who promote death, destruction and terrorism. I am concerned that they will forever rely on our military if they know it is available and that they will alway have an excuse by blaming America for death and destruction of Iraqi against Iraqi - Muslim against Muslim.

Well, that's what happened. We went yeehawing in there guns a-blazing. Our plan was to be greeted as liberators. When that didn't happen, a massive black hole opened up where our leadership should have been. We've been targets and our presence has been incitement to violence ever since. Iraqis who supported and worked with the US are targets now too.

But here's the bad news: we can't just bail, either. We have a responsibility to rebuild what we destroyed. Leaving now would guarantee that we're forever seen as a force of cruelty, destruction and division in the muslim world. It's a deeply shitty situation, and neither solution is good.

aceventura3 · 02-24-2006, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Well, that's what happened. We went yeehawing in there guns a-blazing. Our plan was to be greeted as liberators. When that didn't happen, a massive black hole opened up where our leadership should have been. We've been targets and our presence has been incitement to violence ever since. Iraqis who supported and worked with the US are targets now too.

Why re-write history? How many UN resolutions where there befroe we went in guns a blazing? How many times did Sadaam fail to cooperate with inspectors? How many times did Iraq fire at our airforce? How much money did Sadaam give to the families of suicide bombers? How many people did Sadaam kill in his own country? Where we the target when suicide bombers killed red cross volunteers, Iraqi children, women, etc? Did we cause Iraq to invade Kuwait?

The vacuum in Iraq was created because the Iraqi people, muslim people, good people in the ROW won't stand-up and condemn terrorist, they won't fight terrorist, they won't kill terrorists. Heck, in this country we have people who don't even want to "spy" on them.

martinguerre · 02-24-2006, 10:36 AM

How much money did we give him? How much poison gas did we hand over to a penny ante dictator?

The prohibition on re-writing history doesn't stop at 1991.

aceventura3 · 02-24-2006, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

How much money did we give him? How much poison gas did we hand over to a penny ante dictator?

The prohibition on re-writing history doesn't stop at 1991.

Do you suggest that Saddam was not responsible for his own actions? Or, am I missing your point?

martinguerre · 02-24-2006, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Do you suggest that Saddam was not responsible for his own actions? Or, am I missing your point?

Certainly he is responsible.

But that doesn't preclude responsbility of other parties who encouraged, facilitated, or allowed such actions to happen.

I'm sure you know the Edmund Burke quote, so i'll leave it there.

Ustwo · 02-24-2006, 02:28 PM

I'll be honest I'm not sure.

I don't really have the data I would need to claim one way or another.

Watching some of the news coverage it looks like a civil war, talking to some soliders I know who came back it doesn't sound like one.

Could it become one, absolutely.

ObieX · 02-24-2006, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

The vacuum in Iraq was created because the Iraqi people, muslim people, good people in the ROW won't stand-up and condemn terrorist, they won't fight terrorist, they won't kill terrorists. Heck, in this country we have people who don't even want to "spy" on them.

The problem now is that a lot of these "good people" are now being rounded up 12-40 at a time, bound blindfolded and shot by roving bands of gunmen and "death squads". Shop owners, religious leaders.. random people being pulled out of their cars.. it just doesn't matter anymore. You get abducted witha buttload of other people, killed, and dumped someplace where they'll find your piled up corpses.

aceventura3 · 02-24-2006, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

Certainly he is responsible.

But that doesn't preclude responsbility of other parties who encouraged, facilitated, or allowed such actions to happen.

I'm sure you know the Edmund Burke quote, so i'll leave it there.

I apologize but I am getting more confused.

Are you suggesting that we encuraged Saddam to invade Kuwait, kill his own people, reward suicide bombers, and defy the UN?

Are you suggesting that we facilitated, or helped him do these things? Do you think we are more responsible than the Iraqi people who let him rise to power and then left him unchecked? Do you think we are more responsible than his Arab neighbors? More responsible than his muslim brothers?

I am not sure how you relate Burke's quote, "Liberty without wisdom, and without virtue is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint." to your point. But I actually take it to mean that free people in the world are going to have problems if they lack clear objective thought. Right now I think many in the world and in this country lack wisdom when it comes to confronting evil people.

aceventura3 · 02-24-2006, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ObieX

The problem now is that a lot of these "good people" are now ...

Why don't these good people stand with us and fight?

ObieX · 02-24-2006, 03:14 PM

I can think of a few reasons:

1. We're occupying their country. I know if my country wre invaded i probably wouldn't want to fight with the invaders.

2. anyone who even seems like they're collaborating with the US is being rounded up and killed execution style.

3. they're actually a peaceful person/people as they claim and refuse to take up arms

4. they may not know who to follow. everyone is trying to grab power for themselves right now.

etc etc. i could probably go on for quite a while, but these are some good reasons why the good folks there aren't doing anything.

aceventura3 · 02-24-2006, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ObieX

I can think of a few reasons:

1. We're occupying their country. I know if my country wre invaded i probably wouldn't want to fight with the invaders.

You are correct. If that is what they think, we should leave. That is what I wrote a few posts back. If they think we are the enemy, I guess they will do better without us. Then they should make sure their next leader plays by the rules.

Yes - we make the rules.

martinguerre · 02-24-2006, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I apologize but I am getting more confused.

Are you suggesting that we encuraged Saddam to invade Kuwait, kill his own people, reward suicide bombers, and defy the UN?

Are you suggesting that we facilitated, or helped him do these things? Do you think we are more responsible than the Iraqi people who let him rise to power and then left him unchecked? Do you think we are more responsible than his Arab neighbors? More responsible than his muslim brothers?

I am not sure how you relate Burke's quote, "Liberty without wisdom, and without virtue is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint." to your point. But I actually take it to mean that free people in the world are going to have problems if they lack clear objective thought. Right now I think many in the world and in this country lack wisdom when it comes to confronting evil people.

I was going for..."All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

And i don't mean to exclude other parties from responsbility...but i will note that it's pretty sick to expect a people living under a dictator who is willing to gas his own people to rise up against that same government.

I don't think that the US bears exclusive responsbility for making this mess. I don't. It's not sane to think that. But it's similarly not sane to deny that we had a hand in arming Saddam. And that capability and support helped him accomplish his evil intents. Did we have a right to confront his evil by invading Iraq?

Maybe...and that strongly depended on our ability to do so with a positive outcome, something that seems rather in doubt at the moment.

Did we have a responsibility to consider the consequences before giving him support and arms in the conflict against Iran?

Definitively.

roachboy · 02-25-2006, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Iraq minister makes civil war warning

Saturday 25 February 2006, 16:30 Makka Time, 13:30 GMT

The attacks came despite an extraordinary daytime curfew

Iraq's defence minister says a civil war will never end if it erupts as violence escalates across Iraq since the destruction of a Shia shrine on Wednesday.

Speaking at a joint news conference on Saturday afternoon, Saadun al-Dulaimi also said Iraq would not hesitate to dispatch tanks to the streets to end violence and impose security.

"We are ready to fill the streets with armoured vehicles," he told a news conference televised live to the nation on state television.

Earlier in the day 11 bodies were found in five areas of Baghdad, police said. All were male and all had been shot.

Police said three people were killed and six wounded in mortar and rocket fire in al-Sadr City, the sprawling slum in eastern Baghdad which is a stronghold of Shia figure Muqtada al-Sadr.

Meanwhile, police said they body of a police officer with shotgun wounds was found near his home east of Tikrit.

Armed men opened fire on the house of Harith al-Dari, the head of Iraq's leading Sunni Muslim religious organisation the Association of Muslim Scholars,in an attack he blamed on government forces.

Police said al-Dari's security personnel opened fire and there appeared to be injuries on both sides.

Daytime curfew

The police further reported that 14 bodies of police commandos were found near one of the mosques attacked in southern Baghdad where clashes occurred overnight. Gunmen attacked the Qubaisy mosque and the Sunnis' revered Abu Hanifa shrine.

At least 12 members of a Shia family have been killed in Diyala province, and at least eight people were killed and 31 wounded in a car bomb blast in Karbala in an atmosphere of heightened tensions in Iraq.

The attack on the Shia family happened in Buhriz, about 60km north of Baghdad, provincial police said.

At least 200 people have died
Buhriz, near Baquba town, has seen repeated sectarian strife.

Saturday's attack came despite an extraordinary daytime curfew in Diyala province and three other flashpoint areas.

The curfew was intended to curb a wave of sectarian violence that has killed more than 140 people since the bombing of a revered Shia shrine in Samarra on Wednesday.

The car bomb in Karbala also wounded 25 people. It exploded on a busy shopping street in the west of the city, 110km south of Baghdad.

Funeral attacked

Earlier on Saturday, the funeral procession of Atwar Bahjat, a well known Al-Arabiya newswoman killed while covering the bombing of the Samarra shrine, was disturbed when armed men opened fire.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

An Al-Arabiya television correspondent, who sought sanctuary in a farmer's house, reported that about 150 mourners, including many journalists, were walking through Baghdad's western Abu Ghraib area when the attack happened.

Gun battles have been raging
Iraqi army captain, Jasim al-Wahish, said security forces returned fire and rushed 60 more soldiers to the scene, where sporadic clashes continued.

Iraqi police said armed men - some firing rockets - attacked Sunni mosques overnight in two Baghdad districts, including the Sunnis' revered Abu Hanifa shrine.

The Iraqi government has extended the daylight security clampdown with a ban on cars on Monday morning. The overnight curfew is still in effect.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...0F52AFA71E.htm

it appears that the situation continues to teeter near the edge of civil war.

Quote:

Sectarian Bloodshed Reveals Strength of Iraq Militias
By EDWARD WONG
and SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 24 ? The sectarian violence that has shaken Iraq this week has demonstrated the power that the many militias here have to draw the country into a full-scale civil war, and how difficult it would be for the state to stop it, Iraqi and American officials say.

The militias pose a double threat to the future of Iraq: they exist both as marauding gangs, as the violence on Wednesday showed, and as sanctioned members of the Iraqi Army and the police.

The insurgent bombing of a major Shiite shrine on Wednesday, followed by the wave of killings of Sunni Arabs, has left political parties on all sides clinging to their private armies harder than ever, complicating American efforts to persuade Iraqis to disband them.

The attacks, mostly by Shiite militiamen, were troubling not only because they resulted in at least 170 deaths across Iraq, but also because they showed how deeply the militias have spread inside government forces. The Iraqi police, commanded by a Shiite political party, stood by as the rampage spread.

Now, after watching helplessly as their mosques and homes burned, many Sunni Arabs say they should have the right to form their own militias.

For their part, Shiite political leaders and clerics say they are justified in keeping ? and even strengthening ? their armies, including those units in the government security forces, to prevent insurgent attacks like the one that destroyed the golden dome of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra on Wednesday.

That stance threatens to derail recent American efforts, especially those of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, to persuade Shiite leaders to dissolve their militias and weed out police officers and soldiers whose allegiances lie with their own sect and not with the state. That is essential for the process of forming a government that would be credible to all of Iraq's religious and ethnic groups.

Shiite leaders' denunciations of Mr. Khalilzad, who hinted Monday that Americans might not pay for security forces run by sectarian interests, made it clear that positions had hardened. "We have decided to incorporate militias into the Iraqi security forces, and we are serious about this decision," Hadi al-Amari, the head of the Badr Organization, a thousands-strong Shiite militia, said in a telephone interview. Since the Shiites took control of the Interior Ministry last spring, Badr members have swelled the ranks of the police.

Mr. Khalilzad was trying "to prevent the Shiites from getting the security portfolio," he added. "The security portfolio is a red line, and we will never relinquish it."

Since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, American officials tried unsuccessfully to disband Iraq's myriad private armies, from Kurdish pesh merga in the mountainous north to the black-clad Mahdi Army patrolling poor Shiite enclaves in Baghdad and Basra. The Coalition Provisional Authority had plans to force Iraqi leaders to dissolve their militias, but never followed through. Nor did the Americans press the case even after putting down two uprisings by the Mahdi Army in 2004.

The persistence of the Mahdi Army, the militia of Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shiite cleric, illustrates the challenge facing the Americans in Iraq. A grass-roots organization, it operates both openly in the streets, as it did this week, when young men with Kalashnikov rifles attacked Sunni mosques, and inside the system, where members serve as police officers wearing uniforms and cruising around in patrol cars.

Though many Shiite leaders denounced the anti-Sunni reprisals this week, none of them chastised the Mahdi Army or called for disbanding it. That itself was a clear indication of how the politicians were looking to the militia as a protector of Shiite interests in the wake of the shrine attack.

Those political leaders who have no militias, particularly Sunni Arabs, say they feel more helpless than ever in this shifting landscape of private armies.

"Anybody who has a militia now has power," said Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister and member of the newly elected Parliament. "The Mahdi Army, Badr, the insurgents, these are the ones who wield power. They have weapons, they can move around and they are determined. It's not a question of political personalities, but of arms and weapons."

Mahmoud al-Mashhadany, a senior official in the main Sunni political bloc, said the rampaging Shiite militiamen this week, and the passivity of the police, showed that "we have been left alone in the field." He added: "The Kurds have their militia, and they're part of the army. The Shiites run the government. We've been left alone with our mosques in the field."

Even before the eruption of violence, Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad were holding discussions about organizing their own neighborhood protection forces. In Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, the western stronghold of the insurgency, reports have emerged of people forming a private army called the Anbar Revolutionaries.

Mr. Khalilzad has been trying to assuage Sunni fears by pressing for conservative Shiites to give up control of the Interior Ministry, which oversees the 120,000-member police and commando forces. They are being trained by American military advisers who monitor them but do not directly control them.

The shrine attack has left the ambassador with considerably less leverage, because the Shiites now say their welfare depends on their command of the security forces. On Friday, Mr. Khalilzad, speaking to reporters, did not lay out any American plan to deal with the militias, and simply said the problem would have to be solved by the four-year Iraqi government, which has yet to be formed.

"The militias are an issue that the next government will have to deal with," he said. "Iraq needs a strong national army, a strong national police. It needs weapons in the hands of those who are authorized to have them."

On Friday, the Pentagon released a quarterly assessment report required by Congress that included a warning about the continued sectarian nature of the police forces. "Insurgent infiltration and militia influence remain a concern for the Ministry of the Interior," the report said. "Many serving police officers, particularly in the south, have ties to Shia militias."

The ascent of the militias inside the security forces was quick and quiet. Soon after the Shiite-led government swept into power last spring and Bayan Jabr, a senior Shiite politician, become interior minister, a housecleaning began, in which about 140 high-ranking officials were dismissed and political allies of the Shiites were put in their place, according to several former ministry officials who feared reprisals if they gave their names. In addition, recruitment drives brought hundreds of ordinary Shiites into the security forces, many of whom identified more strongly with their political parties than with the Iraqi state.

By summer, an American government adviser to the ministry, Mathew Sherman, recalled writing in his notes that "the ministry is quickly being infiltrated by militia and by Badr people."

When Mr. Sherman brought up his concerns, Mr. Jabr, a bookish, fluent English speaker, pledged to address them. Mr. Jabr has acknowledged that 2,500 members of the Badr Organization have been added to the payroll, but American and Iraqi officials say the number is far higher.

"There was a lot happening behind the scenes," said Mr. Sherman, who left his job in December. "By the time we put all the pieces together, everything was falling apart."

Even if it wants to do so, the new government will face a serious challenge in extricating the militias from the security forces. In the last two months, a new round of purges has taken place in the ministry, according to Mr. Sherman and three Iraqi officials who still work in the ministry. About 20 senior officials, mostly Sunni Arabs, have lost their jobs, including the Baghdad police chief, who was widely respected among Iraqis and American military officials. The move, the former officials said, was an attempt by Shiite parties to strengthen their grip on the ministry before the new government is assembled.

The militias use their police positions to further the ambitions of their political parties. Mahdi Army fighters ? most often found in Baghdad among the city police and a paramilitary force called the Public Order Brigade, as well as in police units in the south ? were discovered last fall using police patrol cars to enforce the rulings of so-called Islamist "punishment committees," according to a senior American military official whose forces discovered the practice but was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

In addition, the official said, the transportation minister, a Sadr aide, tried to consolidate control over Baghdad International Airport by recruiting Mahdi members into security forces protecting it.

Beyond the now-familiar reports of death squads and torture chambers operated under government cover, there have also been instances of men dressed in police uniforms committing ordinary crimes, further undermining public confidence in an already weak institution.

Fatin Sattar, a homemaker in southeast Baghdad, said her husband was shot and killed last year by several men dressed as Iraqi policemen who were carrying out a robbery at a neighbor's home. Assuming they had come as police officers, the husband, himself an official in the Interior Ministry, had approached the men in a friendly manner.

Behind the scenes, the American military has been making efforts to rein in the police units heaviest with militiamen. American officials say they are considering a plan that would place more American advisers with the Iraqi police and commando units. Last fall, American officials even proposed transferring oversight of the often unruly commando forces from the Interior Ministry to the Defense Ministry, where the American military has direct operational control. Shiite leaders resisted.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Robert F. Worth, Qais Mizher and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi from Baghdad, and Thom Shanker from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/in...rtner=homepage

roachboy · 02-27-2006, 06:07 AM

this piece from yesterday's washington post is interesting in that it provides something like an account of the context---and some concessions from american command-types that they are, in fact, operating within a context.

sometimes i think we forget about the extent to which information from/about the bushwar in iraq is controlled. the new outline of the scenario in iraq is doubly interesting because of this: the situation begins to take (another) turn for the worse---but this one poses potential trouble for the whole of the project--so new context is required.

Quote:

In the Battle for Baghdad, U.S. Turns War on Insurgents

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 26, 2006; A01

PATROL BASE SWAMP, Iraq -- Here, in a half-ruined house bristling with dull black machine guns and surrounded by green sandbags, shin-deep mudholes, and shadowy palm groves, lies the leading edge of the U.S. war in Iraq.

This remote outpost, manned by Bravo Company of a unit in the 101st Airborne Division, is the forwardmost American position in the so-called Triangle of Death southwest of Baghdad. Some U.S. commanders say the region is now the focal point in their campaign against Iraq's stubborn insurgency. It's a tough fight: Just getting U.S. troops established here in the canal-laced fields of the Euphrates River Valley meant running a gantlet of roadside bombs, with one platoon encountering 14 in a three-hour stretch.

Interviews with U.S. soldiers -- from top generals to front-line grunts in Tall Afar, Mosul, Ramadi, Balad and throughout Baghdad -- as well as briefings at the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, reveal a markedly different war from that seen in 2003 and 2004, or even last year.

Current U.S. military commanders say they have come to understand that they are fighting within a political context, which means the results must first be judged politically. The pace and shape of the war also have changed, with U.S. forces trying to exercise tactical patience and shift responsibilities to Iraqi forces, even as they worry that the American public's patience may be dwindling.

The war also has changed geographically. Over the last three years, it has developed a pattern of moving around the country, from Fallujah to Najaf to Mosul and Samarra and back to Fallujah. Last summer and fall it was focused in Tall Afar, in the northwest, and in the upper Euphrates, in the remote western part of Anbar province near Syria.

This year the war seems to hinge on the battle for Baghdad. Inside the capital, that promises to be primarily a political fight over the makeup of the future government of Iraq -- and whether it can prevent a civil war, a threat that appeared much more likely this week with the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra and retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques and clerics.

U.S. officials don't talk much about the prospects of civil war. It is unclear what role the United States would play if such a war broke out, but military strategists said American forces would be used to try to minimize violence but not to actually intervene between warring groups.

On Baghdad's outskirts, the war remains very much a military campaign. The flat agricultural plain south and southwest of the capital "is what I would call the most lethal area in Baghdad," said Col. Todd Ebel, the brigade commander there.

This is the war of the Iyahs, as American troops call the cluster of hard-bitten towns named Mahmudiyah, Yusufiyah, Latifiyah and Iskandariyah that over the last two years became insurgent strongholds. Not coincidentally, these towns, between Baghdad and Karbala, also are on the fault line between Sunni Iraq and Shiite Iraq and likely would be a flash point for a civil war.

"The insurgency belongs to the 4 ID and the Marines -- it's Baghdad and the west," said a senior U.S. military intelligence official in Qatar who declined to be identified by name because of his line of work. (Ebel's 101st Division brigade running Patrol Base Swamp and operating southwest of Baghdad is attached to the 4th Infantry Division, which has responsibility for the Baghdad area.) Senior military officials describe the Marine Corps' fight in western Anbar province more as an effort to contain an insurgency they expect to remain chronic in that area.

Here in the area south and west of Baghdad, the push by the Army's 4th Infantry was launched in recent months to give the capital some breathing space. "My job, above all things, is to keep them out of Baghdad," said Capt. Andre Rivier, the Swiss-American commander of Patrol Base Swamp. "The important thing is to keep them fighting here. That's really the crux of the fight." By taking the battle to rural-based insurgents, the Army hopes to gain the initiative, pressuring the enemy at a time and place of the Americans' choosing, rather than simply trying to catch suicide bombers as they drive into the capital.

Despite its proximity to the city, this area was visited surprisingly sporadically by U.S. troops over the last three years. Even now there are pockets where no American faces have been seen, and there still are no-go areas for U.S. troops where the roads are heavily seeded with bombs. Following counterinsurgency doctrine, Ebel doesn't want to take areas and then leave them. So he moves his forces slowly, first establishing a checkpoint, then conducting patrols to study the area and its people, and then, after a pause, pushing his front line half a mile forward and putting up another checkpoint.

It is a difficult way to wage war. On one typical day this month, there were 24 "significant acts" -- small-arms attacks, bombings and other noteworthy events -- recorded in one relatively small part of Ebel's area of operations. "We got ambushed all over" but didn't suffer any casualties, said Maj. Daniel Morgan, operations officer in a 101st battalion southwest of Baghdad. "We've been pushing into the west," into insurgent havens along the Euphrates River southeast of Fallujah, "and they don't like it."

A drawback in this slow-motion war is that some soldiers find it frustrating. At the medic's station in Patrol Base Swamp -- which with its bare cots and hanging light bulbs feels like a scene from World War II -- three soldiers of the 101st said they loathe their time here, especially since the death of a beloved squad leader a week earlier.

"It's like trying to track down a bunch of ghosts," said Sgt. Chad Wendel, sitting on an Army cot under a window frame shielded by a blanket.

"I think it's the way we're losing more soldiers" that is most bothersome, added Spec. Frank Moore, a medic from Lynchburg, Va. "It makes you wonder, what do you gain by sticking around?"

"I don't like anything about being here," agreed Spec. Matthew Ness.

Pursuing this sort of slow-moving campaign also raises the question of whether the political clock will run out on the effort, either here in Iraq or back in the United States, before the American military and its Iraqi allies can become militarily effective in large parts of the country. "That's what I worry about," said Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 U.S. commander here.
Round Three

The war here has gone through three distinct phases, each with its own feel and style of operation.

The first period, from May 2003 to July 2004, was characterized by drift and wishful thinking, military insiders say, with top U.S. officials at first refusing to recognize they were facing an insurgency and then committing a series of policy and tactical blunders that appear to have enflamed opposition to the U.S. occupation.

The second phase began in the summer of 2004, when Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. replaced Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and developed -- for the first time -- a U.S. campaign plan. That plan, which looked forward from August 2004 to December 2005, gave U.S. operations a new coherence, directing a series of actions intended to clear the way for Iraqi voters to establish a new government.

Now, after parliamentary elections held in December, the U.S. effort has entered a third stage. The current emphasis is on reducing the U.S. role in the war, putting Iraq army and police forces in the forefront as much as possible -- but not so fast that it breaks them, as it did in April 2004, when a battalion ordered to Fallujah mutinied. Eventually, Casey said, the hope is that U.S. forces will be able to focus on foreign fighters, while Iraqi security forces take on the native insurgency. But that hasn't happened yet. The hardest fighting, especially in rural areas, still is being done by U.S. troops.

Several aspects make this third phase different from the war of a year or two ago:

Â· The U.S. effort now is characterized by a more careful, purposeful style that extends even to how Humvees are driven in the streets. For years, "the standard was to haul ass," noted Lt. Col. Gian P. Gentile, commander of the 8th Squadron of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, which is based near a bomb-infested highway south of Baghdad. Now his convoy drivers are ordered to move at 15 mph. "I'm a firm believer in slow, deliberate movement," he said. "You can observe better, if there's IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on the road." It also is less disruptive to Iraqis and sends a message of calm control, he noted.

Â· U.S. commanders spend their time differently. Where they once devoted much of their efforts to Iraqi politics and infrastructure, they now focus more on training and supporting the Iraqi police and army. "I spent the last month talking to ISF [Iraqi security force] commanders," noted Gentile, who holds a doctorate in American history from Stanford. "Two years ago I would have spent all my time talking to sheiks."

Â· Real progress is being made in training Iraqi forces, especially its army, according to every U.S. officer asked about the issue. One of the surprises, they say, has been that an Iraqi soldier, even one who is overweight and undertrained, is more effective standing on an Iraqi street corner than the most disciplined U.S. Army Ranger. "They get intelligence we would never get," noted Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East. "They sense the environment in a way that we never could."

An afternoon spent with one Iraqi army brigade in west Baghdad showed that while it occasionally was poor at communicating, it was capable of carrying out basic military functions. When it set up a checkpoint on a busy thoroughfare in a neighborhood known for its hostility to U.S. forces, it maintained consistent security, with soldiers on the perimeter facing outward, and was able to control civilian movements. Underscoring Abizaid's point, the soldiers checking each automobile engaged in friendly conversation with drivers in a way that Americans can't.

Despite such signs of hope, huge questions hang over the U.S. effort. Foremost is the question of whether Iraq is moving toward civil war, which could cause the situation to spin out of U.S. control. That in turn raises the issue of whether Iraqi forces believe they are training to put down an insurgency or preparing to fight a conflict that pits Shiites against Sunnis. "I can't argue with that," said Col. James Pasquarette, who shares a base at Taji, north of Baghdad, with the Iraqi army's only tank division.

In an ominous sign of the growing rift within Iraqi security forces, the first thing an Iraqi army battalion staff officer did as he briefed a reporter this month was denounce the Iraqi police and its leaders at the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry. "The army doesn't like the Ministry of Interior," said the officer, who asked that his name not be used for fear of retaliation. "The people don't like the police, either."

Also, there is no question among U.S. military intelligence officers that the insurgency remains robust. No one argues it is spreading, but many say it is intensifying in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, with a steady increase in violence for much of last year. These officers note that there are still about 1,000 roadside bombs detonated a month, with another 500 detected before being exploded.

But the dominant view, especially among senior officers, is that the insurgency committed a key misstep by allowing a foreign terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, to become its face in Iraq. "They could have done much better," said one Army officer who works on Sunni political issues. "If I was in charge of part of them, I think I could have done better."
Off the Radar Screen

The biggest difference in Baghdad from two or three years ago is the nearly total absence of U.S. troops on its streets. In a major gamble, the city largely has been turned over to Iraqi police and army troops. If those Iraqi forces falter, leaving a vacuum, U.S. pressure elsewhere could push the insurgency into the capital. "I think they're going to go to Baghdad" next, worried Morgan. But other U.S. officers argued that such a move is unlikely because it is more difficult to intimidate a city of 5 million than a rural village.

The streets of the capital already feel as unsafe as at any time since the 2003 invasion. As one U.S. major put it, Baghdad now resembles a pure Hobbesian state where all are at war against all others and any security is self-provided.

Army Reserve Capt. A. Heather Coyne, an outspoken former White House counterterrorism official, said, "There is a total lack of security in the streets, partly because of the insurgents, partly because of criminals, and partly because the security forces can be dangerous to Iraqi citizens too." When this reporter was permitted to review an in-depth classified intelligence summary of recent "significant acts" occurring in the capital, it appeared surprisingly incomplete, generally listing only two sorts of events: anything that affected U.S. troops, and the killing of Iraqis. Other actions affecting Iraqis -- kidnappings, rapes, robberies, bombs that don't kill anyone, and a variety of forms of intimidation -- don't appear to be on the U.S. military's radar screen. As one soldier put it, that's all "background noise."
'Too Little Too Late?'

One cloudy evening this month, several hundred 101st Airborne troops gathered in a hangar on their base in Mahmudiyah for a memorial service for four soldiers -- three killed by a massive bomb, the fourth shot dead while fighting insurgents. An Army chaplain, Capt. Primitivo Davis, chose as the theme of his homily the thought that Moses served his God well, yet wasn't allowed to enter the promised land and only saw it from afar before dying. So, too, he preached, did these four dead soldiers serve well and catch "a glimpse of promise" in Iraq.

The mission of their assembled comrades was to achieve the "completed victory" of a free, stable and peaceful Iraq, he said. "Like Joshua, who followed Moses, we must pick up where they left off," Davis concluded.

Then a soldier slowly sang "Amazing Grace," and from the distance came a haunting version of "Taps." The service concluded, soldiers filed out of the hangar, many with tears streaming down their faces, and some crusty old sergeants embraced. It was at once very public, with senior officers present and rank observed, and searingly personal.

But some question whether the U.S. effort here ever will reach the conclusion Davis described. "It seems to be getting better, but you really can't tell," said Cpl. Toby Gilbreath, posted to Patrol Base San Juan, an imposing bunker west of Baghdad.

"I would like to think that there are still possibilities here," Army Reserve Lt. Col. Joe Rice said in the coffee shop of the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad's Green Zone. "We are finally getting around to doing the right things," said Rice, who is working on an Army "lessons learned" project here but who was expressing his personal opinion. "I think we're getting better, I do."

But, he continued, "is it too little too late?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...501738_pf.html

aceventura3 · 02-27-2006, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

...but i will note that it's pretty sick to expect a people living under a dictator who is willing to gas his own people to rise up against that same government.

I do expect people living under a dictator who is willing to gas his own people to rise up against that same government. That is what I would do, wouldn't you?

Quote:

I don't think that the US bears exclusive responsbility for making this mess. I don't. It's not sane to think that. But it's similarly not sane to deny that we had a hand in arming Saddam. And that capability and support helped him accomplish his evil intents. Did we have a right to confront his evil by invading Iraq?

Yes, we have the right and the obligation to confront his evil by invading Iraq. Leadership comes with great responsibility. There have been far too many occations when we have done nothing to confront evil, or we have waited too long.
If we want to play a secondary role in world leadership, that is o.k. But we can not assume the lead role and then not lead.
Occationally leading requires doing things that are unpleasant and unpopular, but they are things that need to be done.

Quote:

Maybe...and that strongly depended on our ability to do so with a positive outcome, something that seems rather in doubt at the moment.

If we lose our resolve the best outcome won't be realized. However, there have already been positive outcomes. In '91 we did not finish the job and now we are paying the price. I admit - I am losing my resolve. If this happens across the board and our nation again fails to finish the job, we will have another price to pay in the future.

Quote:

Did we have a responsibility to consider the consequences before giving him support and arms in the conflict against Iran?
Definitively.

I don't understand your logic on this. If we used this logic you come to weird conclusions. Example: If Hitler's mother loved him, nurtured him, supported him, etc., based on that you would hold her responsible, in part, for his actions as an adult? I would not.

Charlatan · 02-27-2006, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I don't understand your logic on this. If we used this logic you come to weird conclusions. Example: If Hitler's mother loved him, nurtured him, supported him, etc., based on that you would hold her responsible, in part, for his actions as an adult? I would not.

There is a big difference between raising a child who becomes a madman and enabling someone who is already a madman.

The US knew that Saddam was a dictator willing to hold power through any means neccessary. In supplying him with the tools to make poison gas did the US not think he was going to use those weapons?

Sure, the ultimate responisibility is his but the US takes some blame in enabling their one time ally.

Furthermore, the whole April Glaspie fiasco has not yet been mentioned. It seems to me that her words did more to encourage Saddam that it was OK to proceed with invading Kuwait than anything. He was being supplied with US arms, had a sweet deal with the US. Why would he do anything to disrupt that?

martinguerre · 02-27-2006, 11:03 AM

If Hitler were already killing people in his spare time at the time his mother was supporting him....yes, that would be an issue.

Saddam was already a strongman dictator with questionable human rights policies by the time we armed him

And congratualtions on Godwining yourself there.

Charlatan · 02-27-2006, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

And congratualtions on Godwining yourself there.

Sorry couldn't resist.

martinguerre · 02-27-2006, 12:31 PM

didn't actually see your comment...that was for ace.

Elphaba · 02-27-2006, 01:56 PM

I chose that the situation is far more complicated than the prospect of civil war. I have been following Dahr Jamail's posts from Iraq for some time and I find his observations far less restricted than our imbedded press. While the Western press wails about civil war, Jamail sees an entirely different set of machinations in play hoping to foment sectarian strife.

It is my firm belief that the US and Britain are not going to leave without what they came for, that being oil, of course. Bush has declared that we are not leaving Iraq until there is a peaceful and stable government. Bombing a mosque serves to stir the hornets nest necessitating our continued presence, while we at home wring our hands and agree that we can not abandon the Iraqi people. We are being lied to, people.

Dahr Jamail

Quote:

February 24, 2006
Dahr Jamail
Who Benefits?

The most important question to ask regarding the bombings of the Golden Mosque in Samarra on the 22nd is: who benefits?

Prior to asking this question, let us note the timing of the bombing. The last weeks in Iraq have been a PR disaster for the occupiers.

First, the negative publicity of the video of British soldiers beating and abusing young Iraqis has generated a backlash for British occupation forces they’ve yet to face in Iraq.

Indicative of this, Abdul Jabbar Waheed, the head of the Misan provincial council in southern Iraq, announced his councils’ decision to lift the immunity British forces have enjoyed, so that the soldiers who beat the young Iraqis can be tried in Iraqi courts. Former U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer had issued an order granting all occupation soldiers and western contractors immunity to Iraqi law when he was head of the CPA…but this province has now decided to lift that so the British soldiers can be investigated and tried under Iraqi law.

This deeply meaningful event, if replicated around Iraq, will generate a huge rift between the occupiers and local governments. A rift which, of course, the puppet government in Baghdad will be unable to mend.

The other huge event which drew Iraqis into greater solidarity with one another was more photos and video aired depicting atrocities within Abu Ghraib at the hands of U.S. occupation forces.

The inherent desecration of Islam and shaming of the Iraqi people shown in these images enrages all Iraqis.

In a recent press conference, the aforementioned Waheed urged the Brits to allow members of the provincial committee to visit a local jail to check on detainees; perhaps Waheed is alarmed as to what their condition may be after seeing more photos and videos from Abu Ghraib.

Waheed also warned British forces that if they didn’t comply with the demands of the council, all British political, security and reconstruction initiatives will be boycotted.

Basra province has already taken similar steps, and similar machinations are occurring in Kerbala.

Basra and Misan provinces, for example, refused to raise the cost of petrol when the puppet government in Baghdad, following orders from the IMF, decided to recently raise the cost of Iraqi petrol at the pumps several times last December.

The horrific attack which destroyed much of the Golden Mosque generated sectarian outrage which led to attacks on over 50 Sunni mosques. Many Sunni mosques in Baghdad were shot, burnt, or taken over. Three Imams were killed, along with scores of others in widespread violence.

This is what was shown by western corporate media.

As quickly as these horrible events began, they were called to an end and replaced by acts of solidarity between Sunni and Shia across Iraq.

This, however, was not shown by western corporate media.

The Sunnis where the first to go to demonstrations of solidarity with Shia in Samarra, as well as to condemn the mosque bombings. Demonstrations of solidarity between Sunni and Shia went off over all of Iraq: in Basra, Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah, Kut, and Salah al-Din.

Thousands of Shia marched shouting anti-American slogans through Sadr City, the huge Shia slum area of Baghdad, which is home to nearly half the population of the capital city. Meanwhile, in the primarily Shia city of Kut, south of Baghdad, thousands marched while shouting slogans against America and Israel and burning U.S. and Israeli flags.

Baghdad had huge demonstrations of solidarity, following announcements by several Shia religious leaders not to attack Sunni mosques.

Attacks stopped after these announcements, coupled with those from Sadr, which I’ll discuss shortly.

Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, shortly after the Golden Mosque was attacked, called for “easing things down and not attacking any Sunni mosques and shrines,” as Sunni religious authorities called for a truce and invited everyone to block the way of those trying to generate a sectarian war.

Sistani’s office issued this statement: “We call upon believers to express their protest ... through peaceful means. The extent of their sorrow and shock should not drag them into taking actions that serve the enemies who have been working to lead Iraq into sectarian strife.”

Shiite religious authority Ayatollah Hussein Ismail al-Sadr warned of the emergence of a sectarian strife “that terrorists want to ignite between the Iraqis” by the bombings and said, “The Iraqi Shiite authority strenuously denied that Sunnis could have done this work.”

He also said, “Of course it is not Sunnis who did this work; it is the terrorists who are the enemies of the Shiites and Sunni, Muslims and non Muslims. They are the enemies of all religions; terrorism does not have a religion.”

He warned against touching any Sunni Mosque, saying, “our Sunni brothers’ mosques must be protected and we must all stand against terrorism and sabotage.” He added: ‘The two shrines are located in the Samarra region, which [is] predominantly Sunni. They have been protecting, using and guarding the mosques for years, it is not them but terrorism that targeted the mosques…”

He ruled out the possibility of a civil war while telling a reporter, “I don’t believe there will a civil or religious war in Iraq; thank God that our Sunni and Shiite references are urging everyone to not respond to these terrorist and sabotage acts. We are aware of their attempts as are our people; Sistani had issued many statements [regarding this issue] just as we did.”

The other, and more prominent Sadr, Muqtada Al-Sadr, who has already lead two uprisings against occupation forces, held Takfiris [those who regard other Muslims as infidels], Ba’thists, and especially the foreign occupation responsible for the bombing attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

Sadr, who suspended his visit to Lebanon and cancelled his meeting with the president there, promptly returned to Iraq in order to call on the Iraqi parliament to vote on the request for the departure of the occupation forces from Iraq.

“It was not the Sunnis who attacked the shrine of Imam Al-Hadi, God’s peace be upon him, but rather the occupation [forces] and Ba’athists…God damn them. We should not attack Sunni mosques. I ordered Al-Mahdi Army to protect the Shi’i and Sunni shrines.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, urged Iraqi Shia not to seek revenge against Sunni Muslims, saying there were definite plots “to force the Shia to attack the mosques and other properties respected by the Sunni. Any measure to contribute to that direction is helping the enemies of Islam and is forbidden by sharia.”

Instead, he blamed the intelligence services of the U.S. and Israel for being behind the bombs at the Golden Mosque.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that those who committed the attack on the Golden Mosque “have only one motive: to create a violent sedition between the Sunnis and the Shiites in order to derail the Iraqi rising democracy from its path.”

Well said Mr. Blair, particularly when we keep in mind the fact that less than a year ago in Basra, two undercover British SAS soldiers were detained by Iraqi security forces whilst traveling in a car full of bombs and remote detonators.

Jailed and accused by Muqtada al-Sadr and others of attempting to generate sectarian conflict by planting bombs in mosques, they were broken out of the Iraqi jail by the British military before they could be tried.

aceventura3 · 02-27-2006, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

There is a big difference between raising a child who becomes a madman and enabling someone who is already a madman.

The US knew that Saddam was a dictator willing to hold power through any means neccessary. In supplying him with the tools to make poison gas did the US not think he was going to use those weapons?

Sure, the ultimate responisibility is his but the US takes some blame in enabling their one time ally.

Furthermore, the whole April Glaspie fiasco has not yet been mentioned. It seems to me that her words did more to encourage Saddam that it was OK to proceed with invading Kuwait than anything. He was being supplied with US arms, had a sweet deal with the US. Why would he do anything to disrupt that?

I apologize for not being able to let this issue go. But I have heard this argument and have never been able to understand it.

If the US is to take blame for Saddam's actions how do you allocate that blame, 50/50, 60/40, 30/70? And if the US is responsible in someway, do you think the people of Iraq, Arabs, Mulims are justified in seeking punishment or revenge against the US?

View Poll Results: Is Iraq in a state of Civil War?
Yes...there is no doubt	24	38.10%
No...its just random violence	3	4.76%
Maybe....its too soon to tell	24	38.10%
Its more complicated than that (please explain)	12	19.05%
Voters: 63. You may not vote on this poll

02-23-2006, 04:16 AM	#1 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	Is Iraq in a state of Civil War? With the levels of violence , Mosque Bombings, and general mayhem we see in this country....do you think its actually a Civil War? __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

02-23-2006, 04:57 AM	#2 (permalink)
jwoody Shackle Me Not Location: Newcastle - England.	I think we could be looking at the new United States of Iranistan. __________________ .

02-23-2006, 05:46 AM	#4 (permalink)
politicophile Addict	Time will tell, of course. There has been a long history in Iraq of infighting between the nation's different religious and ethnic factions: such is the consequence of creating a nation with arbitrary borders. Al-Qaida may yet succeed in prompting a religious civil war, but the level of violence we are seeing now should certainly not be labeled in that way. __________________ The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

02-23-2006, 05:59 AM	#5 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	but then again, a significant shi'a shrine had not been blown up. in case this slipped by: http://www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,,1715275,00.html but let me say that i sincerely hope that you are right, politicophile, in the longer run---a civil war is the worst possible scenario. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-23-2006, 05:59 AM	#6 (permalink)
aKula Psycho	There is not yet a level of orginisation in and between the different sunni and shiite groups for it to be a proper civil war. The attacks and killing at the moment are not real efforts to gain and consolidate control of territory. The groups that do have exert control over a local area do not have the means to project military power over other areas, only sporadic terrorist attacks. The Kurds do but it does not seem like they would take this option unless for the defence of their territory. For there to be a civil war I think the groups fighting at the moment would have to be much larger in scale (perhaps like the groups in Afghanistan). Time will tell I guess. __________________ "I am the wrath of God. The earth I pass will see me and tremble." -Klaus Kinski as Don Lope de Aguirre Last edited by aKula; 02-23-2006 at 06:06 AM..

02-23-2006, 06:05 AM	#7 (permalink)
Sgoilear Tilted Location: Colorado	I don't think Iraq is quite in a state of civil war yet but I don't see how one can be prevented from eventually breaking out. All that is needed is a very small number of unhappy people to commit one atrocity and then the other side has the excuse they need to fire right back. Eventually things will spiral out of control. That fact the conflict is religious in nature only serves to guarantee that each side will have some people unwilling to let the matter go and work towards peace. __________________ "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -George Bernard Shaw

02-23-2006, 08:14 AM	#8 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	Al Qaeda does very good work it would appear... __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

02-23-2006, 08:21 AM	#9 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	i think the answer comes in the question. There is no "Iraq" outside of the western colonial powers that carved the map in that way to begin with....both way back when, and now. If i were a Kurd...i would have zero qualms about claiming the right to exist in a state that was responsive to my needs, and would bitterly oppose subjugating those interests to the outsider's pipedream of a united iraqi state. There is no such thing as an ontological iraqi...and i see no profit in pandering to that delusion. There's no glue there...and plenty of cause for friction. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16

02-23-2006, 08:26 AM	#10 (permalink)
feelgood Free Mars! Location: I dunno, there's white people around me saying "eh" all the time	I voted "Too soon to tell" simply because there's no evidence of outbreak of major fighting between two fraction the way it has been in any other civil wars in history. Judging from previous civil wars (British Civil War, etc) it looking like its going to civil war but how can it be a civil war when United States is occuplying the country? There are some countries around the world that have problems dealing with 2 major fraction that are motivated by religion clause that clash with each other and still not face a civil war. __________________ Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

02-23-2006, 11:33 AM	#12 (permalink)
ObieX Pickles Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)	I picked "its more complicated than that" because this mess isn't 1 side vs another its a giant clusterfuck which should never have been started in the first place. Everyone always knew what would happen if we went in there and it is exactly what is happening, and has been happening. Apparently everyone knew this except the people who run our country. One would think that they would be the ones to know. I guess not. Gotta get that oil tho! So what if thousands of people have to die, we may get flowers thrown at us! Too bad the flowers have grenades hidden among them. Too bad for our troops that is.. the ones who sent them there couldn't care less. (ohyea, there's those Iraqis too.. but who cares about them, right? they're just in the way) __________________ We Must Dissent.

02-23-2006, 11:35 AM	#13 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	They are and they aren't. The problem is that there are several groups that want several different outcomes in this, and not all of them are fighting. I think a better way to describe the situation is that the nation is in turmoil. I know it's a very general term, but I think civil war is too specific. Besides, it can't be 'civil' with an army from another country in the thick of it.

02-23-2006, 12:01 PM	#14 (permalink)
Poppinjay You had me at hello Location: DC/Coastal VA	I think it's inevitable. I heard one conservative commentator masterfully pitch the whole mess as a positive thing, but a mission that will never, ever be accomplished. He then said that because of the difficulty we’ve seen, it’ll be a long time until US troops set foot in the middle east again. Which I highly doubt. I think there’s at least one other country our troops will see in the near future. Think Iraq is a quagmire? Just wait ‘til Iran. __________________ I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

02-23-2006, 01:28 PM	#16 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	I have to go for the complexity choice. It's a mess, certainly, but almost inevitable with numerous radical groups trying to build kingdoms. At what point does the chaos become "civil war?" I'd expect a wider involvement of citizenry participating in the conflict, and in ways other than being blown up at social gatherings. It still seems like a small minority of Iraqis, a bunch of foreign fighters, and a nasty group of leaders tormenting the general population. Prodding them toward war. If the larger population unites and begins fighting back then perhaps I'd call it war. The current action, which most frequently target civilians rather than military or police, fits more with terrorism than war. That said, they may be on the cusp. The last few days have sucked with a vengeance. __________________ There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

02-23-2006, 02:07 PM	#17 (permalink)
aceventura3 Junkie Location: Ventura County	I guess it depend on how you define civil war. If you use the traditional definition - two sides having a government, territory and an army, the answer is no. But there is clearly a fight for power between groups in the country. I supported our preemtive strike against Iraq and removing Sadaam from power. I am now at the point of believing it is time to bring our troops home. Iraqis need to get their own house in order, they need to take a more active role in defining their future. They need to decide what they are willing to fight for - good people need to take a stand against those who promote death, destruction and terrorism. I am concerned that they will forever rely on our military if they know it is available and that they will alway have an excuse by blaming America for death and destruction of Iraqi against Iraqi - Muslim against Muslim. __________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

02-23-2006, 07:39 PM	#18 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	"I am concerned that they will forever rely on our military if they know it is available and that they will alway have an excuse by blaming America for death and destruction of Iraqi against Iraqi - Muslim against Muslim." This hits the nail on the head. I'm following your point (I think), but I doubt if anyone can argue that this sentiment applies to Iraqi population. It makes perfect sense when applied to the rest of world (ROW). Everyone has a stake in how this plays out, yet few are taking an active role, for the reasons you described in your quote. The unfortunate thing is it results in this sentiment... "I am now at the point of believing it is time to bring our troops home, Iraqis need to get their own house in order, they need to take a more active role in defining their future. They need to decide what they are willing to fight for" I think Iraqi's have shown their willingness to do this. The ROW is in a very convenient position (well, at least for the next two years) of sitting back banking on the United States creating a situation that everyone can live with, cursing them all the way.

02-24-2006, 10:36 AM	#22 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	How much money did we give him? How much poison gas did we hand over to a penny ante dictator? The prohibition on re-writing history doesn't stop at 1991. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16

02-24-2006, 02:28 PM	#25 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	I'll be honest I'm not sure. I don't really have the data I would need to claim one way or another. Watching some of the news coverage it looks like a civil war, talking to some soliders I know who came back it doesn't sound like one. Could it become one, absolutely. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

02-24-2006, 03:14 PM	#29 (permalink)
ObieX Pickles Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)	I can think of a few reasons: 1. We're occupying their country. I know if my country wre invaded i probably wouldn't want to fight with the invaders. 2. anyone who even seems like they're collaborating with the US is being rounded up and killed execution style. 3. they're actually a peaceful person/people as they claim and refuse to take up arms 4. they may not know who to follow. everyone is trying to grab power for themselves right now. etc etc. i could probably go on for quite a while, but these are some good reasons why the good folks there aren't doing anything. __________________ We Must Dissent.

02-27-2006, 11:03 AM	#36 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	If Hitler were already killing people in his spare time at the time his mother was supporting him....yes, that would be an issue. Saddam was already a strongman dictator with questionable human rights policies by the time we armed him And congratualtions on Godwining yourself there. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16

02-27-2006, 12:31 PM	#38 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	didn't actually see your comment...that was for ace. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16