Some claim that “cutting and running” (and by some I mean any Republican not named Chuck Hagel) would lead to severe consequences for the Iraqi people. Chaos and civil war would break out they claim. Iraq would become a breeding ground for terrorists. To which I can only reply, how could things get much worse?
We have detained innocent civilians, tortured many of them, murdered many of them, and used napalm-like and white phosphorus munitions on them. By staying we are providing targets and a justification for foreign jihadists who enter the country and then kill our soldiers as well as (again) more Iraqi civilians. In other words we are fostering a terrorist training ground for future operations against our interests worldwide.
In addition, our American intalled government has followed our lead and created more facilities for the torture of Sunnis, and indeed, if reports are accurate, that torture is even more brutal than what has been discovered at Abu Gharaib. We have trained Iraqi “death squads” who operate in Sunni dominated areas, and our representatives, military and diplomatic, have turned their backs on those whom these “commandos” are selecting for their personal brand of ethnic cleansing:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms shot dead an aging Sunni tribal leader and three of his sons in their beds on Wednesday, relatives said, in the latest attack to highlight
Iraq’s deep sectarian rifts ahead of a December poll.A Defense Ministry official denied Iraqi troops carried out the pre-dawn slayings in the Hurriya district of Baghdad and said the killers instead must have been terrorists in disguise.
“Iraqi army uniforms litter the streets and any terrorist can kill and tarnish our image, killing two birds with one stone,” the official said.
The Hurriya attack follows the discovery last week of more than 170 malnourished and beaten prisoners, many of them Sunni Arabs, locked in a bunker belonging to the Shi’ite-dominated Interior Ministry. Together, the incidents have ratcheted up fears Iraq is heading for civil war.
Headed for a civil war? Excuse me, this is a civil war. It’s the same thing we saw practiced in the Balkans between Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. We are way past the “leading up to” stage, in my view. It will continue to worsen whether we stay or not. Indeed, our complicity in training the Badr Brigade commandos makes us an active participant in the sectarian slaughter. We are making the civil war a reality because of the Pentagon’s and Bush administration’s policies, folks. Us, the so-called good guys.
U.S. and Iraqi forces in turn have killed more than 700 suspected insurgents in less than two months during operations in western Iraq which the U.S. military described on Wednesday as “very successful.”
Western Iraq and the Euphrates valley leading from the border with Syria have been the scene of operations against insurgents and foreign fighters which the military says have been aimed at securing the region for the December vote.
The latest and largest of those operations in the mainly Sunni desert province of Anbar, dubbed “Steel Curtain,” ended on Tuesday.
Iraqi doctors and residents say civilians, including women and children, have been among those killed but the U.S. military says it uses precision-guided weapons and only attacks militants hiding out in safe houses.
We only target militants in safe houses? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. Fallujah.
Leaving Iraq as soon as possible won’t make matters any better, but let’s be honest with ourselves: they can’t possibly make them any worse.
