Sunni/Shi'ite Jihad Update from AP:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb killed six people Saturday near a Shiite shrine south of Baghdad, and the death toll from the deadliest attack of the year rose to nearly 90. A senior official warned Iraq was in an "undeclared civil war" that can be curbed only by a strong government and greater powers for security services.With sectarian tensions rising, U.S. Marines on Saturday beat back the largest attack in weeks by Sunni Arab insurgents in the western city of Ramadi — another sign of the crisis facing this country three years after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces.
The car bomb exploded at a small shrine in the Euphrates River town of Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad. Police said most of the six dead and 14 wounded were Shiite pilgrims visiting the shrine.
A senior official warned Iraq was in an "undeclared civil war" that can be curbed only by a strong government and greater powers for security services.
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Greater powers for security services, like turn them loose to clean up the sunni mess.
We apparently didn't do too well in the 'winning the hearts and minds department', did we? Both Sunni and Shi'a are trying to kill us. I noticed that we sent Marines to the Shi'a areas, Najaf and others, to keep the peace and possibly confront Sadr's militia and at the same time we fight the Sunnis in Ramadi. I think it is high time to regroup in the Kurdish areas and let the two have at it. Let the Saudis and Iranians have their proxy war. We can pick up the pieces later.
Let's get the hell out and leave them to it.
And lets make sure they don't send us the Zarquawi's, the Sistani's and the Muqutada's as asylum seekers....
John Kerry said:
As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. It must be won politically. No American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi politicians refuse to resolve their ethnic and political differences.
I agree.
As for finding common ground with Kerry, even a cuckoo clock is correct twice a day.
"correct twice a day."
-- from a posting above
At most.
The war cannot be won until we name the enemy. That has not happened yet.
Kerry...As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. It must be won politically.
Which generals were those? Some of them, or all of them? Was there a 'general' concensus? Is this a declaration of surrender? 'The enemy is just to tough for us, lets fall back and converse.' The generals he refers to should be fired or demoted...we dont need 'cant do' incompetents running any wars...
As for finding common ground with Kerry, even a cuckoo clock is correct twice a day.
Posted by: Jim The Kafir at April 8, 2006 09:28PM
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The old adage: A broken clock is correct twice a day.
Another old adage: To find the cuckoos in a village just listen for the cuckoo clocks.
duh_swami,
Re: "Which generals were those"
To gain an appreciation of the quality of general officer fielded in the Iraqi campaign, see Protein Wisdom, 2 April 2006, "Strange Days."
Cutting to the chase, retired Major General Lambert writes, "The right's neocons orchestrated a war with Iraq that has destroyed national consensus..." The voluminous writings and public statements of Mr. Robert Novak and Mr. Patrick Buchanan have defined "right-wing neocons."
Note General Lambert's CV: Commander, Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) from 2001 to 2003. Do you think that his personal viewpoint might have influenced his professional assessment and command posture? How many more General Lambert's are in active service and how have they influenced the course of events in Iraq?
The "civil war" is "Made in the U.S.A." period. Yes there are murders and reprisals. Duh.
Scroll down The Dumb Ox. Nation-building, as wrong-headed as it may be, MUST succeed in Iraq. There is no alternative.
And look, population policy in the U.S. has to radically change. No citizenship based on place of birth. Zero. Child credits have to reward wage earners, not deadbeats. Bigtime.
Just ask me.
D. Ox
http://thomistic.blogspot.com
direct link to the Hamas piece from France:
http://thomistic.blogspot.com/2006/04/hamas-fu-eu-and-usa.html
my apologies for messing up the broken clock adage =^)
. . . of course any loss of human life is to be regretted, but better theirs at their hands than ours at their hands.
In the plus column, US Marines are gaining experience in how best to fight those who view all of us as only fit for subjugation, death or conversion. The armed forces of the US and of other civilized nations are becoming familiar with an enemy that unfortunately they will have to fight for some time before it can be vanquished and once again and relegated to the the trash heap of history.
Mind you, I always refer readers back to Jihad Watch. The single best source of news on the Jihadists.
Thank you Robert for what you do!
D. Ox
When US forces took on Sadr's 'Mahdi militia' about a year and a half ago in Baghdad and Najaf, I made repeated comments on Ibn Warraq's website (secularislam) that - as reprehensible a figure as Sadr was - we didn't invade Iraq to find ourselves fighting the long-oppressed Shia majority. I maintain that position.
I've argued strenuously on these pages with Hugh Fitzgerald over US Iraqi policy. The idea of leaving Iraq to our enemies (Iran on the Shia side, Al Qaeda on the Sunni) is antithetical to everything I've learned in my studies of great-power geo-politics.
Backing a Democratically-elected government against an insurgency trying to provoke Civil War is one thing. Shedding American blood and guts in an actual Shia-Sunni civil war is quite another. I think the response of the Iraqis to the lastest provocations is pivetal to our future course of action. If the country descends into unrestrained fratricide, then it clearly makes little sense for us to continue our commitment to a lost cause.
Should we withdraw, our ability ro support Iraqi Kurdistan becomes problematic. We will be dependent upon the Turks for access to the region....and it is well-known that the interests of the Turks do not necessarily coincide with those of the Iraqi Kurds.
I'm not quite ready to conceed Hugh, but it's certainly possible you were right all along. The hole in your argument and what continues to concern me is the aftermath of a US withdrawal: will we be empowering the most fanatical elements in the Muslim world - Iran and/or Al Qaeda? Or will your predictions of a long and exhaustive Shia-Sunni proxy war in Iraq provide the West with a welcome respite from the Jihad imperative?
Cornelius
Another way out for the Administration is to declare victory and withdraw. Regardless of whether the Shia or Kurds prevail (the Sunnis can't), just call the policy a success. For future confrontations with Islam, use Kosovo (where we supported the wrong side) as the model - simply use air power to level the places, and don't even send troops afterwards. Keep them fighting.
Kurdistan is de-facto independent. If Syria or Iran invade, they can and should be bombed. In fact, both countries could risk getting their entire armies wiped out if they were to invade (as opposed to their being invaded. And the reason they need to be supported is to demoralize the Arabs, not because they themselves are good people. They're not - see the thread a few days ago on their Salman Rushdie being forced to flee to Sweden
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/010797.php
Remember, just because American troops are withdrawn doesn't make future retaliation for future misdeeds impossible. Au contraire, should anything happen that requires the US retaliating against Iraq, such an action would be easier. Unlike in the case of Saddam, where one could at least make the argument that Iraqis hated Saddam as much as we did, in this case, once the target is Islam, no one can make the argument that the Iraqis (Shia, Sunni or even Kurd) hate Islam as much as we do.
One more point. The reason there have been all these casualities has been the determination by the US to minimize civilian casualities. That is fighting with one hand tied. The Iraqis terrorists or other insurgents - be it Zarqawi or al Sadr - don't have any compunctions using this fact against the Americans. Once this stupid policy is ended, you'll see US military operations a lot more effective.
It's like 2 people playing chess, with one of the players forbidden from taking pawns, while no such limitation is placed on the other. Guess who'll win.
They have been killing each other for thousands of years and part of what we are doing there is to instill some form of humanity. All most of them know is what has been told to them over the years but if we succeed with some sectarian motives then maybe they will see fox news or one of the history channel's programs and take it upon themselves to find out the TRUTH,when they start to see what the free world enjoys maybe they will come to the shocking realization that they are being foolishly mislead by those in power. We are arming them with weapons of knowledge and choices, we're enticing them goods and services never before known to them, and once this ideology takes hold then it would be curtains for those who hold onto the old ways.
The first thing to do with such reportage is to tell the truth accurately.
This is not a "civil war", but a religious war between competing cults of the warlord pedophile "prophet".
Nothing civil about it.
To also eupemize it as "sectarian conflict" (how many of the general public know what the word "sectarian" really means?) is to distort a hardcore intra-religious conflict.
Islam is schizophrenic.
They are killing one another because one Muslo-mafia family (Shi'ites) claims blood-ownership of the cult to those with direct descent from Mohammad, while the other gang members (Sunnis) say that the "religion"'s leadership should be opened up to directorship by distant cousins and converted neighbors.
Unholy war it is.
Civil implies secular.
Inaccurate reporting leads to false premises and delusional conclusions.
Islam is at war with itself since the S/S schism of 1350 years ago.
Let's encourage this cult of death to splinter and eat its own.
It'll keep them off our necks while we educate our citizenry about the psychopathic suras in the killer Koran.
The 'religion of peace' myth must end.
I don't know what so many of you guys are concerned about. American casualties have gone steadily down. The Iraqis are stepping up.
The Shiites have kept their retaliation narrow and focused. The Sunni's should be forced into exile.
The trick will be to keep Iran out of the equation, but that's the next fight. It's coming.
D. Ox
http://thomistic.blogspot.com
This is not a "civil war", but a religious war between competing cults of the warlord pedophile "prophet".
Posted by: profitsbeard at April 9, 2006 01:10AM
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If only the US government was smart enough to see this and allow the civil war to proceed to its conclusion and then we force democracy on Iraq and destroy Iran.