The media formed the conclusion that the war was unjustified long ago & have been doing everything they can to make their case ever since, spectacularizing everything that supports their preformed opinions and ignoring most everything else. I'm sad that Mod has fallen victim to them. - Daiwa

Possibly. However, the speculation that Iraq would fall into civil war doesn't necessitate an agenda. The mere fact that it is such a plausibility is what held some from supporting our involvement in Iraq in the first place - not mere politics, e.g.; Bush bashing.

Finding the reasons behind possible civil war in Iraq will be tomorrow's debate - it should have been yesterday's debate had there been thoughtful consideration of all the elements involved before going to war with Iraq. Unfortunately we only received scare tactics and some heart-string pulling to soothe bleeding hearts.

I very much hope it has not been only the recent reports of unrest in Iraq that has persuaded ModerateMan to change his position. I would be curious to hear what has been going through his mind that made him come to this decision.

"Perhaps it would confuse them if we ran away more!" ~ Monty Python & the Holy Grail. - ParaTed2k

Very, very funny.

You can't lay that on the average Muslim, though. If the average Muslim in Iraq were killing people, there would be blood running in the streets - Bakerstreet

Self-cleaning oven, anyone?

Everything is the end of the world. We can't continue making huge policy changes based on single incidents anymore. - ParaTed2k

This, however, is not funny, but equally as true as your other quote I commented on. This is the way I saw 9/11. Everyone running scared, making huge detrimental policy changes based on a single incident - with no looking to the future.

"It is headed for civil war baker, no matter how you cut it, for too long the people of Iraq were subjugated and to many feuds that will boil over. We over threw Saddam, let them work it out."

You have to ask yourself WHY they are headed for a civil war. Because they want to kill each other? If these splintered factions wanted to do that, there would have been a heavy toll in lives from day one, and bombs like the one we have seen would have been going off daily.

You said it yourself. Iraq is full of armament. Why haven't they been using it? Because the average Iraqi wants peace. What is happening now is they are being goaded into civil war by people who aren't even Iraqis, preying on the splintered nature of their nation. Why do you think that insurgents have been targeting Iraqis since day one?

So, do we make it a success for al Qaeda and Iran and the rest that will benefit for a destabilized Iraq? The only way it would end is from Iraq being torn into three peices and ceasing to exist. Those pieces will then just become puppets for larger powers like Lebanon has been for 30 years, and they'll be strongholds, jumping-off points for terrorist organizations.

That would be an utter failure of what we are trying to do there. If you want to give up, fine, but accept that it is defeat and admit that we are surrendering Iraq to those who want to bust it up and use the pieces against us.

#25 by Daiwa Friday, February 24, 2006

I'm sad that Mod has fallen victim to them, though I certainly respect his right to change his mind after consideration.

not really, I am fully aaware of the MSM and how they twist things to suit there own agenda.

My change came from serious consideration of all the facts and the fact is these nutjobs {iraq} are going to get there revenge on each other.

"my brother and i against my cousin...my brother and cousin and i against the stranger. "

The problem I have with that is the brother and the cousin really haven't been fighting. You really don't see sectarian violence all that much. You see baiting. You see well-planned strikes intended to start people fighting each other.

If MM's idea was correct, at least to me, you'd have been seeing Shia Mulims killing Sunnis a lot more than they have been. There would have been much, much more back-and-forth involved. Sure, all the sides remain armed and dangerous, like the Sadr example you cite. I believe, though, that were people motivated towards civil war the way MM relates, we'd have seen seiges like that weekly.

No, I think if we give up and call this a civil war, we're playing into the hands of the small percentage of Iraqis and the insurgents that have been trying to PROVOKE civil war. Maybe we should back off a bit. Maybe we should be a lot more stern with areas that are strongholds for violence. I can't for a moment believe that giving the people trying to subvert peace what they want will benefit anyone, though.

Enlightening article, Kingbee, thanks for the link. It's depressing, and I wonder at our lack of attention on the trouble spots in Iraq in the same way I do about the trouble spots we have here in America. Still, we have huge police presence in neighborhoods with little crime and leave the projects to destroy themselves.

I just don't think more of that is good. If anything I think we need to concentrate MORE on the kind of violence that the article relates, not abandon them. Heck, even the article itself ends thusly:

"If the Shiites are in fact given carte blanche to fight the insurgents, it would likely remove one of the last remaining obstacles to civil war in Iraq. The country would then descend into years of the kind of carnage that once consumed Lebanon, bloodshed on a much greater scale than the attacks, kidnappings, and general increase in lawlessness seen today. "

...which is about what I was saying above. I'm in no way saying that we are doing all we should be doing in Iraq. I just take issue with the idea that we should leave and do nothing at all. I tend to shy away from giving those who oppose me exactly what they want.

32 by BakerStreet Saturday, February 25, 2006

No, I think if we give up and call this a civil war, we're playing into the hands of the small percentage of Iraqis and the insurgents that have been trying to PROVOKE civil war. Maybe we should back off a bit. Maybe we should be a lot more stern with areas that are strongholds for violence. I can't for a moment believe that giving the people trying to subvert peace what they want will benefit anyone, though.

now if we started to fight this war with a purpose and went after the terrorist hard! real hard, kill them all, never let them rest or regroup I might see things a little differently.

I don't know if I would necessarily label myself anti-war, because in the past I have felt that if the U.S. withdrew, it would be a dishonor to those fallen or injured soldiers who actually believed in the war...not to mention the fact that we would be seen as a lesser force for leaving.

But I have to ask myself...how many more young men and women are going to get killed before the job they went in to do gets "done"? And you wonder if it IS realistic to think that it CAN get accomplished...it just makes me have mixed feelings about it all.

Do you know what one of the saddest things about this all has been to me? It's the fact that many people have become so desensitized to hearing about fallen soldiers. It's such an expected and regular occurence that it doesn't even seem to phase or touch some people anymore...it's awful.

all of it slanted one way.

i don't mean to be presumptious, so i'm gonna keep an open mind as to which side you believe the news, pictures and stories slant.

if one approaches coverage by the major networks in the same way--with an open mind--and one considers the fox network one of the majors, only one of the four has a stated agenda. it ain't cbs, nbc nor abc.

i realize there are a lotta people here who are convinced it's just the opposite, but please consider the following:

this country's major newspapers--most of which are owned by corporations such as gannett, the tribune company, knight-ridder, hearst corporation, cox, copley, etc--each has its own editorial pov. no editor is gonna thrive for long if his or her view is in constant opposition with the publisher's interests. while some of the major us dailies lean left, others (most notably the tribune and hearst papers) have historically done the opposite. still others (the atlanta journal-constitution) are agressively moderate.

if you combine coverage of this war and the situation in iraq by any 20 of the country's major dailies and then compare it with reportage provided by cbs, nbc and abc --and i urge you to do this to see for yourself--the 'facts' as well as the presentation don't generally conflict.

(that can't be said of the fox network btw; news corporation is the ultimate tabloid media presence and fox news is--no matter whether you love it or hate it--purely 'anything that can be sensationalized will be' tabloid.)

my point is this: either there's some huge media conspiracy as your not-so-moderate brethren constantly claim--one in which large, traditionally conservative corporations are prime participants--or the fact that major dailies generally report the same events in much the same fashion as those three non-fox broadcasters is valid evidence against such claims.

too bad the bush administration had already decided to invade iraq before taking office so your united kurdistan proposal was never considered. if we hadda piss off most of our allies we woulda been better off pissin em off doing something that appeared to make sense.

the biggest problem would be turkey altho i truly can't imagine turkey or iran relinguishing kurdish territory peacefully. if only the kurds hadda prospective homeland that wasn't so badly cursed with all that water and oil.

i love how you snuck this in btw.

Either OPENLY support the US and recognise Israel or the Kurdistan-option it is.

even tho i'm sure it's not your intention, i doubt even the nazi high command coulda come up with a more effective means of taking anti-israeli hatred to a higher level.

too bad the bush administration had already decided to invade iraq before taking office so your united kurdistan proposal was never considered. if we hadda piss off most of our allies we woulda been better off pissin em off doing something that appeared to make sense.

The Bush administration didn't exist before taking office. You are talking about the Clinton administration. You are right though, because regime change in Iraq was already a goal under that administration.

the biggest problem would be turkey altho i truly can't imagine turkey or iran relinguishing kurdish territory peacefully. if only the kurds hadda prospective homeland that wasn't so badly cursed with all that water and oil.

There is a lot that Turkey wants. The US can help them get some of it. They want in the EU, they want a profitable solution to the Cyprus conflict, they want weapons technology, and they want investment.

With a Kurdistan allied to the US at the far side, Turkey will be a prime target for investment. The Turkish government knows that. If Turkey can join the EU without Kurdistan they probably will. And Kurdistan, an American ally, will likely not join the EU anyway.

i love how you snuck this in btw. "Either OPENLY support the US and recognise Israel or the Kurdistan-option it is." even tho i'm sure it's not your intention, i doubt even the nazi high command coulda come up with a more effective means of taking anti-israeli hatred to a higher level.

Many Arab countries are often asked to recognise Israel. It never changes anything.

The way to do it would for the US to withdraw to Kurdistan and advocate the Kurdistan option as described above. And Israel would offer to mediate. At the end I am only looking for a way to make it appear as if whatever happens to (Arab) Iraq afterwards was an Iraqi decision. All I needed was an offer they could not accept. (And if they did anyway, we'd be even closer to victory.)

Kurdistan will recognise Israel. Arab Iraqis know that. They also know that the "Palestinians" and the PLO openly supported Saddam. And the other Arab countries have done everything in their power to lower the prestige of Arab nationalism in Iraq over the last few years.

They will still say no, but a "no" is all we need for the Kurdistan option.

" I agree; I think Bakerstreet is being much too apologetic in behalf of passive Muslims."

And yet if I suggested that folks in the projects pool their arms and start ridding themselves of gangs, I doubt you'd be so quick to offer your wrestlemania "Hell Yeah!" After all, we're sick of protecting the projects, and tired of their crime spilling over into our neighborhoods. Why don't they just take care of their own problems? They've got guns, right? It would be awful there, and it would be awful in Iraq.

Anyone who reads my blogs knows that I have little sympathy for Islamic apathy, but I don't think any one of us can imaging what it is like to be trying to raise a family in Iraq right now. It's easy to say you'd take off to fight those nasty insurgents, but I don't think you're really considering how you'd feel walking out the door knowing you are leaving them unprotected and open for retaliation.

I'm desperately annoyed that Muslims around the world get outraged over cartoons and not terrorism, but these particular folks are living in a war zone. We have claimed that we were going to fix this, and the goofballs in charge of our Iraq policy aren't interested in doing what it takes. That isn't the fault of the people who have to worry about getting killed every time they leave the house.

And before you say it is apples and oranges, remember that much of inner city crime is committed by organized gangs. Many are lucrative organizations that supply their lackies with guns and fund themselves with the drug trade. What do you propose we do about that, as citizens sitting at home?

But is it naive to demand more cops on the beat to the extent that real gang-busting is in effect? Had Rumsfeld not assumed the war a cakewalk we would have done it right then perhaps more Iraqis would have placed more faith in our efforts. As I've said before we have American kids stuck in lost battalions.

Let's either drop all the PC tip-toeing and clean house or get the hell out of there. Why is this our responsibility?

Despite "changing minds" they still won't listen, Texaii, to your message that you've been giving for almost three years.

The Bush administration didn't exist before taking office. You are talking about the Clinton administration. You are right though, because regime change in Iraq was already a goal under that administration.

i'm sure you thought this was a witty response...even though all you've really accomplished is providing one more reason not to take anything else you say too seriously.