Yeah, that worked really well (NOT!). Hundreds of thousands slaughtered in communal riots. Three wars. Now a nucular mexican-standoff.
Posted on 06/03/2006 5:43:57 AM PDT by churchillbuff
...Physical separation is therefore the only way to limit the carnage. That process has begun, to some extent, because the violence is driving out the members of one sect or the other from the many mixed villages, towns and city districts. This is a painful and very costly way of interrupting the cycle of attacks and reprisals, but that is how civil war achieves its purpose of eventually bringing peace. ...
...the U.S. and its allies ...should disengage their troops from populated areas as much as possible, give up the intrusive checkpoints and patrols that are failing to contain the violence anyway and abandon the futile effort to build up military and police forces that are national only in name.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I don't remember Luttwak or other invasion supporters predicting that this would be the outcome, when they were arguing for an invasion. No, it's was supposed to be a sweetness-and-light "liberation," not a hellish civil war.
Pat Buchanan, a lot of people owe you an apology.
There's a difference between a civil war and a religious war. I think this situation tends toward the latter. And therefore, there is little "sorting out" to be accomplished, just decades of slaughter. Can't support that strategy.
Honestly, back in 2002/2003, I thought the intention was to precipitate chaos and instability in the Middle East, so that the nutballs would fight it out and kill themselves.
I've never, ever taken seriously that these people are capable of having a peaceful democracy.
If Luttwak is serious about letting Iraq sort things out for itself then the only sane solution is to pull our troops out altogether. The idea of leaving them there to keep other countries from interfering is ridiculous because as long as they're there then they'll be targets for one side or the other.
This civil war hasn't come as a surprise to opponents of the invasion - myself included - who warned that it would happen. We were scoffed at by invasion supporters. It's not fun being proved right, because the price is being paid, in blood, by Iraqi civilians - and by American troops.
Yeah, that worked really well (NOT!). Hundreds of thousands slaughtered in communal riots. Three wars. Now a nucular mexican-standoff.
Maybe because they would also have to mention that the separation resulted in over a million deaths as Hindus and Muslims slaughtered each other during the process? Hardly a ringing endorsement for allowing a civil war to occur.
Nation building is a failed experiment. "Nation Gutting" (invading, killing and imprisoning all of the government officials and uprooting terrorist organizations) seems to work pretty well, though. The US can handle the invading and killing part, and whoever's left of the invaded state can rebuild a government as they see fit, with the smoking ruins of their terrorist-supporting predecessors there to remind them of the folly of supporting terrorism.
Yes, it's worked well in creating chaos, establishing an Islam government in Iraq, getting 2500 Americans killed and 10000-plus wounded, taking Iraqi oil off the world market (so helping to drive up gas prices), and costing taxpayers more than $1 billion a week when we've got a stagggering deficit.
All this, and yet Iraq didn't pose a threat to the US - it had no military, no WMDs, no part in 9-11.
Come to think of it, does anyone even remember 9-11 or Flight 93. Osama Bin Laden was the culprit - and we haven't even caught him. Instead, we invaded a country that had nothing to do with it, and we've got a civil war on our hands as a result. When government screws up - our government included - it screws up big time, and there was never more evidence of that than the invasion of Iraq.
You are probably right. If the Hindus and Muslims of India had settled their differences in a full blown civil war, it would now be over. Millions would now be dead, but the victor would own the spoils.
There is civil unrest, which the Islamists would like to turn into a civil war but have been unable to do so. If they suceed, or if we pull out and let it happen as you are suggesting, then we have general slaughter of hundreds of thousands akin to Rwanda, total loss of face and trust from any ally again, plus a perfect state for the Islamists to re-Talibanize and use as a base to terrorize and conquer the rest of the world .
Congratulations.......
As Jeff Foxworthy would say....."Here's your sign"
And as we depart, we give them a stern warning, "Don't make us have to come back. Because if we do, we'll be obliged to kill you all next time."
So is your real name John Murtha or is it Michael Moore? This comment would be right at home at DU or the Academy Awards.
Millions have already been killed. The Cult of Death has been slaughtering Hindus for a thousand years. Time for payback -- and the elemination of their cult for good.
You called me names, but you didn't refute what I said. That's pretty typical, because everything I said was true. Iraq was no threat to the US. Saying that doesn't make me a liberal - because Wm F. Buckley, a fellow conservative, says the same thing. And supporting the invasion, as you do, doesn't make one a conservative - if it did, then we'd have to call Hillary a conservative because she, like you, supports the invasion.
Luttwak is ignoring a vast amount of major points.
There is some, isolated but very little Kurd-Sunni ethnic violence going on. There is almost no Kurd-Shia ethnic violence going on. So, there really is not grounds to say that, even in the background there is a full-fledged three-way military ethnic contest going on. There's not.
The vast amount of the ethnic violence is Sunni-Shia and even that is not spread evenly across the entire country nor even accross all the provinces that both Sunni and Shia have a sizeable presence.
The vast majority of the ethnic violence is in the Sunni triangle, where Sunnis long had a majority of the population and had supreme power under Saddam. That power was most onerous in places like Baghdad which had some areas within them that had a majority of Shia, out of power influence Shia.
The vast majaority of the ethnic violence is Sunni-Shia and it radiates out from the power center of the country - Baghdad yet it extends mostly only to the surrounding provinces with majorities of Sunni.
The ethnic violence in Iraq is not a three-way contest. It is elements of the Sunni, no longer with a monoploy on power, and elements of the Shia and together they are trying to "settle scores", claim turf and protect turf, outside of the ballot box - because the Sunnis, out of power are also outmanned in the population by a considerable margin.
If there does come something of a "civil war" it will not be a three-way civil war, just as it is not now. It will be the Shia who will finally say to the Sunni - quit or we will end this for good, which they have the numbers and the means to do. It has not happened yet because the top Shia religious leader is a real moderate in an Iraqi sense and he has tried to steer the Shia away from any such "final" solution with the Sunni. I imagine his dream of peaceful change with the Sunni will end when his patience runs out.
When it does, I imagine any "civil war" will be (1)extremely violent, bloody and gruesome, (2)very limited geographically and (3)very short (a slaughter). It will result in a forced peace with the remaining Sunni who will probably be the moderates who are trying to work with the government now.
The only thing the U.S. should do is prevent the Saudis from defending the Sunni and Iran from supporting any Shia millitias for its own sake.
The Shia can and will end this if they have to.
Revisionist history BS. Fact is, no one knew what Iraq had as far as weapons went before the second Iraq War, because Saddam Hussein constantly bamboozled Hans Blix and his inept clown-squad of UN inspectors. The French-Russian-German triumvirate were going to let Saddam continue do so because it was in their economic interest. For Saddam, it was more important to be seen by his fellow Arabs as defying the US and the UN than it was to be seen as a truly disarmed country.
Remember the media's breathless anticipation of the "first chemical weapons strike"? Even Saddam's greatest allies in America (the MSM) didn't truly know what he had.
Iraq also had Al-Queda and other terrorist training camps within its borders. Even if Iraq wasn't our enemy (doubtful at best), they were harboring our enemies.
Come to think of it, does anyone even remember 9-11 or Flight 93. Osama Bin Laden was the culprit - and we haven't even caught him.
Remembered that. Parts of Hamas, Al-Queda, etc. are also found in the US. Does that mean we shouldn't go after them, because they aren't in a country opposed to us? Just because Osama himself doesn't greet people at the "Islamic Cultural Centers" that these people work out of? Kicking over the Iraq anthill was a good first step.
The only reason Osama is still loose is because he is a hero to some people, and he can hide amongst them in their sovereign territories (Pakistan).
Buckley has been wrong before and he's wrong now. Iraq was Afghanistan terrorists lite with a side dish of heavy oil funding for operations including "Blessed September" that was never completed.
The stench from Hussein was consistent and needed to be put out, once and for all.
History will show the Iraq conflict as one festering sore of one conflict with a period in-between the conflict of a wound of pus that got worse and needed to be finally destroyed.
Bush and Blair are confident they will be on the right side of history. Then the liberals and leftists can go back to criticizing the US for its policy of not supporting threatening totalitarian dictators.
Bunch of crybabies. They'd still be in the streets protesting on Saddam's behalf if they could help him. Scum.
Nation building is a failed experiment. "Nation Gutting" (invading, killing and imprisoning all of the government officials and uprooting terrorist organizations) seems to work pretty well, though. The US can handle the invading and killing part, and whoever's left of the invaded state can rebuild a government as they see fit, with the smoking ruins of their terrorist-supporting predecessors there to remind them of the folly of supporting terrorism.
That's why the US Soldiers, et al., should be lauded for their work there. The War in Iraq was fine, but we have no tightly defined exit strategy! That was an enormous miscalculation on the part of W.
Secondly, he, along with many others that refuse to look at Islam realistically and practically, have the cart before the horse as it were. They view Islam as a "religion of peace," when it's A, not a religion at all primarily, rather a socio-political ideology when it's boiled down; and B, on the loosest connecting of the dots if it is defined as a religion, then it's a violent one whereby the "peaceful" muslims, really apostate ones to one degree or another if the Koran is to be believed, are the deviants, not the "radical" muslims. Islam itself is radical. Therefore, the "radical" muslims are "party-line" muslims that take their Koran seriously.
It's not difficult to understand that there are plenty of muslims, perhaps even a majority of people that claim to be muslim, that want out from under it's clutches, but b/c it is so violent to those that are not muslim, and worse yet, to those that convert from muslim to other religions, they are literally scared for fear of death of investigating and even more so of converting from Islam.
But here's the kicker, almost no matter how you slice it, Islam is lock, stock, and barrel, entirely incompatible with life in the U.S. as defined by the U.S. Constitution that guarantees first and foremost, freedom of religion. So how on earth an ideology that does not allow freedom of religion, openly, can be substantially integrated into the fabric of a society, yea, an entire nation that was founded on the exact opposite belief, is oxymoronic and the two are definitely mutually exclusive.
But people, and politicians, continue on as if they can mix good and evil successfully. It's the fruit of people that have such a poor understanding of human nature and humanity that it'd be laughable if it weren't so dire.
As to the War in Iraq, we've done what we went to do. We can be there infinitely if the "lack of internal conflict" is the goal there. We'll never leave if that's the goal. At some point we're going to have to let go of the hand of the Iraqi's and let them do their own thing.
Bush is likely afraid of doing that b/c if it fails, then his single largest legacy item begins to collapse to an extent, be it large or small. Think about it, his second biggest "contribution" to his time in office is the massive growth of the federal government and the budget due to greater entitlement programs and to the creation of a joke of a new department, DHS, which is incredibly less effective than it should be with a pork budget as a rule.
The one thing that they say about wars is that you must have an exit strategy. Ours right now is so loosely defined that it makes moral relativism appear to be a concrete standard.
Anyway, throw in Bush's support for the illegal invasion and what will eventually be the foreign takeover of our country, and well, it would appear that he's nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing. He certainly isn't conservative and far from what many of us thought we were getting upon voting for him. Naturally the choices were limited with Kerry being the option. Anyway...
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