The War of All Against All

HumanEventsOnline ^ | Dec 01, 2006 | Patrick J. Buchanan

[NapkinUser]

A few days back, the "Today" show, speaking for NBC News, declared Iraq a "civil war," and said the network and CNBC and MSNBC would henceforth use that term to describe it.

President Bush and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow angrily objected. A civil war, said Snow, is when two identifiable armed forces war with each other for control of a government and nation. And Iraq is not that.

Contradicting Snow and the president are most journalists and Colin Powell. Speaking in Dubai, Powell declared, "I would call it a civil war ... because I like to face reality," a smart slap across the face of the president who made him secretary of state by a soldier who feels badly used by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives.

Is this a matter of politics and semantics?

Yes, but it is also far more than that. Those who insist on calling Iraq a civil war are consciously undercutting Bush's case that Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror," that we fight them over there so that we will not have to fight them over here.

Believing him, half the country is convinced we cannot retreat, cut-and-run, for that would mean the terrorists win in Iraq and bring the terror war to the United States. But if Iraq is but a "civil war," most American would say that it's not America's war -- let's go home.

This battle over definitions recalls Vietnam. Those who wanted to stay the course in Vietnam argued that it was the central front in the Cold War against communism, which threatened Southeast Asia today but America tomorrow. Those who had supported the war, but concluded it was no longer worth it, suddenly changed their story to declare it was now a civil war and none of America's business.

What is happening today is that those who once cheered Tommy Frank's march to Baghdad to liberate Iraq from Saddam are trying to rationalize their throwing Iraq to the wolves that the invasion unleashed. America's elite does not wish to admit the truth: that it has no stomach for fighting this ugly and unpopular war into which it foolishly marched the United States.

The baby boomer elite arrogantly and ignorantly led us into a quagmire, as their fathers did in Vietnam -- and now, just like their fathers, they lack the stamina, courage and perseverance to see it through. As they don't want to be held accountable for losing the war, they have seized upon the rationale that it was never our war to fight.

Calling it "a civil war" is a cover for people who wish to cut and run.

What is the truth? Is it a civil war, like the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, when Franco led his armies out of North Africa into Spain to overthrow a regime and end an anarchic situation where priests and nuns were being murdered and Bolsheviks seemed about to ascend to power? No, it is not.

The war in Iraq consists rather of many small wars. The Kurds in the north are seizing and ethnically cleansing Kirkut in anticipation of a day of secession that will give them a nation. Al-Qaida and the Baathists in Anbar are fighting U.S. Marines to expel them from Iraq.

Al-Qaida attacked the Golden Mosque and perpetrated atrocities against Shia civilians to incite the Shia to reprisals and ignite a Sunni-Shia sectarian war. Zarqawi, before we got him, succeeded. He set off the chain reaction that has now a momentum of its own.

The Shia initially backed the Americans and Brits against the Sunni insurgents. Having won power, however, they now are fighting each other over how orthodox the regime should be, and whether the Shia should, like the Kurds, break away and set up an independent state.

The twin pillars of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government are the U.S. military and Moqtada al Sadr, mortal enemies who have fought bloodily before and may well be preparing for a decisive Battle of Baghdad.

Iraq seems to this writer less a classic civil war, like the Spanish and the Russian civil war between "Reds" and "Whites" from 1919 to 1921, than a version of bellum omnium contra omnes, the war of all against all. That is the Latin phrase Thomas Hobbes gave to human existence in the state-of-nature thought experiment he conducted in "Leviathan."

Even our War Between the States was not truly a civil war. For the South did not seek to overturn Lincoln's election, capture the capital or rule the country. The South wanted only to secede from the Union of Abraham Lincoln as their fathers had seceded from the England of George III.

Yet, this argument about whether Iraq is or is not a civil war is deeply consequential for what it exposes. Our elite senses this war is lost, and they are preparing alibis for their roles in what may yet prove the greatest strategic blunder in American history.

[sageb1]

Sometimes it just seems like the War of All against America.

[snarks_when_bored]

As long as savages choose to rip themselves to shreds on their own territory, allowing their blind rage to override reason and even the desire for self-preservation, we ought to allow it, meanwhile doing our very best to protect those of our own people who are in harm's way. Either the islamist madmen in Iraq and elsewhere will one day come to their senses, or else they'll go out in a paroxysm of violence, violence perhaps initiated by them, but certainly brought by us to a fearsome end for them.

Let it be written; let it be done.

[RedRover]

Calling it "a civil war" is a cover for people who wish to cut and run.

At least there's one thing I agree with.

[BW2221]

Last week, Glenn Beck said rather emphatically on his TV show, "Let's make no mistake about it. This is a civil war."

[digger48]

Well, gee Pat....Thanks to you for all the crap you've been throwing in the fan for the past several years.

Go back to your buds at PMSNBC and STFU

[jmcenanly]

It is not so much a civil war than an attempt to raise a nation from anarchy. think of prohibition-era Chicago, with complications.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

First, in any circumstance in which people of very different beliefs and allegiances are thrown together as the result of conquest or politics (e.g. the Soviet Union, much of the Middle East), while there may be pseudo-stability in the setting of a dictatorial central power, the minute that power is removed the preexisting tensions surface (e.g. the Balkans, and now Iraq). This is not an argument for continuing the dictatorial status quo. Something had to give in the Middle East, and Iraq was high on the list.

Patrick, for what it's worth, I don't care what a bunch of journalists have to say about ANYTHING, unless they are simply reporting the facts. In a situation as complex as the middle east no one is an 'expert'. Not you. Not me. And certainly not the media. Give it a rest. If you have a solution to offer, do so. If you just want to self-aggrandize by proselytizing, spare me.

[YOUGOTIT]

NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC and anything else associated with NBC I consider anti-American and supporters of the terrorist. They are scum and should be in jail or moved to their beloved country of Iran or Saudi or North Korea.

NBC has been blocked from my TV and when and if i buy another computer it will be Apple and not that left-wing idiot Gates.

[NicknamedBob]

Trust Buchanan to rush up to the fallen victim and twist the knife.

[sageb1]

The civil war between Shia and Sunni has been raging for 1400 years. This particular "sectarian war" is being deliberately incited and fed for one reason. To get us out of Iraq so Iran can expand its caliphate. Iran is on a roll. If the U.S. leaves, Iran is counting on the Saudis to not have enough manpower to fight the Shia. Israel and the Straits of Hormuz will be next.

[SkyPilot]

Why don't we just call what is happening in America a "Civil War" then.

On one side, we have the Democrats, Liberals, Mainstream Media, Atheists, Homosexuals, Feminists, Academia, Race Hustlers, and Abortionists.

On the other side are Republicans, Christians, Conservatives, Observant Jews, and the Military.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

Agree.

[D.P.Roberts]

Civil, schmivel, as long as they're killing each other...

[KarinG1]

I invite everyone to correct and insult me if I'm wrong, as you would anyway, but I seem to remember from history class that the Indians waited for the white men to settle their civil war, hoping to take an advantage. It didn't work out for them. It was a great strategic blunder, as the white eyes reunited and conquered. Thus, America. I'm not taking sides in a war that ended long ago, but I will take sides now.

[GSlob]

The war effort could be criticized from completely different directions, three of which are summarized below in a deliberately cartoonish fashion:
Criticism direction 1 [from the "lefties"]: too well known and repeated to deserve further mentioning. Criticism direction 2 [from the "realists"]: not enough troops. More troops would resolve everything. [Israelis somehow have not been able to resolve everything after 60 years of conflict while enjoying overwhelming superiority]
Criticism direction 3 [from the "troglodytes", or "huntingtonians"]: the nature of intercivilizational war is such that any lasting success [measured in the breaking the enemy's WILL to fight - i.e. in breaking that enemy's civilizational identity in which that will is rooted] in it would have to be of genocidal nature. Thus not dusting up erstwhile Lieutenant William Calley, jump-promoting him to Lieutenant General, and sending him there as a theater commander was the first error. Everything else followed from it.
Buchanan's criticism could be seen [or interpreted[ as a weak-kneed variant of #3

[GSlob]

Sorry for the poor formatting, tried to correct it.
The war effort could be criticized from completely different directions, three of which are summarized below in a deliberately cartoonish fashion:
Criticism direction 1 [from the "lefties"]: too well known and repeated to deserve further mentioning.
Criticism direction 2 [from the "realists"]: not enough troops. More troops would resolve everything. [Israelis somehow have not been able to resolve everything after 60 years of conflict while enjoying overwhelming superiority]
Criticism direction 3 [from the "troglodytes", or "huntingtonians"]: the nature of intercivilizational war is such that any lasting success [measured in the breaking the enemy's WILL to fight - i.e. in breaking that enemy's civilizational identity in which that will is rooted] in it would have to be of genocidal nature. Thus not dusting up erstwhile Lieutenant William Calley, jump-promoting him to Lieutenant General, and sending him there as a theater commander was the first error. Everything else followed from it.
Buchanan's criticism could be seen [or interpreted] as a weak-kneed variant of #3

[sageb1]

Good point.

[onedoug]

Our elite senses this war is lost, and they are preparing alibis for their roles in what may yet prove the greatest strategic blunder in American history.

If this war is lost then America is lost. Those of yet living had better decide.

[uncbob]

Well what about the War in Afganistan

NOBODY including Buchanan is even talking about that

And just what will these geniuses do about IRAN

And Israel and its enemies are getting ready for the big one

And what about Kadafy giving up his NUKE Program

Easy to Criticize

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION