Okay, I have a question:

[vraiblonde]

Weekend of slaughter propels Iraq towards all-out civil war
So why not just let them? I'm not completely averse to civil wars, when people are just starting to try and put things together. I know I'm supposed to be horrified by this (according to the MSM) but I think it's the only way to settle it for good. Let the Shia go after the Sunnis - why are they being held back?

I mean, we're trying to get the Iraqis to fight for their own country, and the Shia are "on our side", right? So what's the problem?

 

[Mikeinsmd]

Weekend of slaughter propels Iraq towards all-out civil war
So why not just let them? I'm not completely averse to civil wars, when people are just starting to try and put things together. I know I'm supposed to be horrified by this (according to the MSM) but I think it's the only way to settle it for good. Let the Shia go after the Sunnis - why are they being held back? I mean, we're trying to get the Iraqis to fight for their own country, and the Shia are "on our side", right? So what's the problem?

You already know & mentioned the answer.... MSM.

 

[unixpirate]

So why not just let them? Shia are "on our side", right? So what's the problem?

 

[Larry Gude]

Glad you asked...

Weekend of slaughter propels Iraq towards all-out civil war
So why not just let them? I'm not completely averse to civil wars, when people are just starting to try and put things together. I know I'm supposed to be horrified by this (according to the MSM) but I think it's the only way to settle it for good. Let the Shia go after the Sunnis - why are they being held back?

I mean, we're trying to get the Iraqis to fight for their own country, and the Shia are "on our side", right? So what's the problem?

First off, no one wants the fight except for the insurgents and their benefactors, aka 'the bad guys', their money men in Syria, Jordan, Iran & Sauid. Iraq, as a nation, does not have trained masses of soldiers who can relaibly go after the bad guys and the Sunnis, as a participant in a civil war, have no forces at all which is why they don't put a stop to the insurgents; they can't.

So, a civil war would reduce down to Joe Shiia with an AK going after Fred Sunni with his AK. Brothers, unlces and fathers would be getting whacked, thereby setting the vicious circle of retribution, revenge and escalation of the violence. That's the kind of mayhem that the old Saddam loyalists may be looking for to create a power vacuum they can fill.

So, look for the violence to increase at least until Saddam is tried and, hopefully, executed. Ideally, his cronies in hiding will be identified, tried in absentia and become completely verbotten to the public, Kurd and Shiia, which they already are, but more importantly, the Sunnis as well.

It doesn't take long to train a man to operate his firearm in concert with his fellows, to be a basic soldier but absent effective command and control and leadership, they can become out of control very quickly. Converesly, it takes time to develop the leadership, the officers, who can lead their men not only to complete objectives but to do it without becoming a disciplined lynch mob.

Now, throw in time for the civilian leadership to mature and grow into effective controllers of the aremd forces.

Iraq is going in the right direction which is counter intuitive to the incease in killings but, think about it; the bad guys are going after more and more innocnets, kids getting candy. They wouldn't risk the alienation if they were winning. I'm not making light of the blood, just looking at what it means.

A civil war lets loose chaos and loses all the ground they've covered, that we've paid for in our blood to help them cover.

It's gonna take time.

 

[SamSpade]

Well, maybe two big things....

One is that the overwhelming majority of the people DO want democracy, DO want it to work but are a little peeved at the continued but admittedly necessary presence of American soldiers. Many feel as though the Americans have ruined their nation and plunged it into chaos, but a lot also know they are SO glad to be rid of the Baathists and Saddam - because they ALSO were IN Abu Ghraib, or had friends whisked away in the night. The slaughter they're seeing PALES in comparison to the daily slaughter under Saddam's brutal regime. You just didn't SEE it in the paper every day.

Iraq is broken down into 18 provinces, of which 15 have seen almost no violence - nearly all of it is centered in the "triangle of death" surrounding Baghdad. Any civil war that takes place is likely to have lots of civilian casualties - people that absolutely don't want the war. "All-out" civil war still means a huge portion of the people are just going to get killed over something they don't want to fight over. Allowing civil war between factions would be like letting the gangs of LA duke it out until they were all dead - maybe it would kill them off - but a lot of innocents who are caught in between would die also. Think of it as massive "drive-by".

But the second, to me, is even more important. Iraq borders on a handful of states that would LOVE to carve it up - the Kurds would love to have their own homeland, and the Turks would love to just TAKE it - as they clearly demonstrated with their troops at the beginning of the Iraqi invasion. This would be most of the Mosul vilayet - the northern part of Iraq.

Syria - despite being a small nation, has a fearsome military, and would be more than a match for our over-extended troops - would LOVE to grab the Sunni part of Iraq - the Baghdad vilayet.

Iran has repeatedly insisted its interest and rights to the Southern Basra vilayet, and their Shia brethren.

So, a country that MOSTLY wants to be a free democracy except for rival insurgencies - being slaughtered wholesale by two terrorist neighbor states, and one "ally" of ours that will never permit a Kurdish homeland that it perceives as being home to an antagonist group - one that has terrorized THEM the same way the Palestinians have terrorized Israel.

Civil war could spell the destruction of Iraq, the de-stabilization of the Middle East, most of the Persian Gulf controlled by nations openly hostile to the United States and supportive of terrorism - and with nuclear weapons. *Success* in Iraq could mean eventual overthrow of despotic regimes - including our "allies" - and create democracies. Democracies do not typically go to war.

I'm in favor of protecting Iraq.

 

[vraiblonde]

I guess I was thinking in terms of our own civil war, where you had the north and the south who disagreed on what was going on, so they fought it out. While there are some that speculate that the Civil War didn't have to happen, I disagree and don't see any other way it could have gone down, considering the extremism on both sides.

So if the Sunnis are already bombing civilians, what's the difference if they do it while the Shiites are firing back? What if the French had come over and taken over our Revolutionary War, then discouraged Americans from fighting?

For the record, I think we should stay out of Israel's business, too, and let them handle the Palestinians the way they want. The US should pick a side, then help them fight against the rest, instead of trying to manage the whole thing and not restrain the people that actually live there from fighting for their country.

 

[SamSpade]

So if the Sunnis are already bombing civilians, what's the difference if they do it while the Shiites are firing back? What if the French had come over and taken over our Revolutionary War, then discouraged Americans from fighting?

You realize the historical parallel doesn't *really* work very well; aside from the fact that both the French and the British were already combatants - and that the French were still smarting from the azz-whupping only ten years earlier - it would never have been in their best interest to discourage fighting against the British, even if the American Revolution could have conceivably been considered a civil dispute.

On the other hand - during OUR civil war - it WOULD have been in their best financial interests AND desire for resumed New World conquest, to *encourage* a split in the United States. (They chose Mexico instead; and STILL lost).

This isn't quite as much as Sunnis against the others, although most of the Iraqi insurgents are in fact, Sunnis. If groups of Latinos across the Southwest starting blowing things up, it doesn't follow that there'd be war against all Latins in the U.S. - but it could turn out that way, unchecked.

Last I heard, Rummy said that the insurgency forces are possibly in the low thousands - hardly the millions that comprise the Sunni minority.

They're attacking civilians in the Shia and Kurdish areas, because they're fomenting hatred for the *Americans* amongst groups that are somewhat cordial to them. The rationale is that, the presence of Americans is the cause of the bombings - if they turn against the Americans and urge them to leave, the violence will stop. Of course, if any of these groups realize what kind of power that is - they absolutely will not stop there.

Now you and I don't think that way. But others do. There are folks in Britain - not the majority - who are saying that those people died *BECAUSE OF THE AMERICANS*. So we become the bad guys - NOT the bombers who killed them. Cave in to the bombers, do what they want, and they'll stop. Stop being friendly to the Americans.

I can't think that way. I'm not terribly brave, but I refuse to embrace cowardice as a way of life.

 

[Bruzilla]

So, a civil war would reduce down to Joe Shiia with an AK going after Fred Sunni with his AK. Brothers, unlces and fathers would be getting whacked, thereby setting the vicious circle of retribution, revenge and escalation of the violence. That's the kind of mayhem that the old Saddam loyalists may be looking for to create a power vacuum they can fill.

Exactly why we need to just nuke the place.