‘River’ published a passionate and frustrated post at Baghdad Burning about the current situation in Iraq and more specifically the Lancet Study.
It’s very difficult at this point to connect to the internet and try to read the articles written by so-called specialists and analysts and politicians. They write about and discuss Iraq as I might write about the Ivory Coast or Cambodia- with a detachment and lack of sentiment that- I suppose- is meant to be impartial. Hearing American politicians is even worse. They fall between idiots like Bush- constantly and totally in denial, and opportunists who want to use the war and ensuing chaos to promote themselves.
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For American politicians and military personnel, playing dumb and talking about numbers of bodies in morgues and official statistics, etc, seems to be the latest tactic. But as any Iraqi knows, not every death is being reported. As for getting reliable numbers from the Ministry of Health or any other official Iraqi institution, that’s about as probable as getting a coherent, grammatically correct sentence from George Bush- especially after the ministry was banned from giving out correct mortality numbers. So far, the only Iraqis I know pretending this number is outrageous are either out-of-touch Iraqis abroad who supported the war, or Iraqis inside of the country who are directly benefiting from the occupation ($) and likely living in the Green Zone.
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We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons – with so many different ways to die, is the number so far fetched?There are Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since 2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around, some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.
Please read the whole thing.
Meanwhile the Washington Times reports that “the escalating violence raking Baghdad and other Iraqi cities is pushing that nation’s leaders, neighboring Arab countries and U.S. advisers to consider a dramatic change of direction in the conduct of the war.”
It’s about darn time.
Some potential plans:
The most talked-about scenarios for a “Plan B” include:
• Phased withdrawal: Under this plan, U.S. troops would be gradually withdrawn over a period of months and a reserve force would be redeployed elsewhere in the region.• Partition: Under this plan, notably advocated by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, Iraq would be divided into Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish regions, each enjoying a high degree of autonomy.
• Coup in Baghdad: While given little credence in Washington, this scenario is being widely talked about in Iraq and in neighboring countries, both on the streets and among senior political and military officials.
That coup in Baghdad option, sounds a terrible lot like installing a new dictator who will aggressively restore order, doesn’t it?
“The army scenario is not a bad scenario for the United States,” said Robert Killebrew, a retired Army infantry colonel and national security analyst who predicted civil war in Iraq more than a year ago. “U.S. policy issues in the Middle East and Iraq do not require a democratic Iraq, it only requires a stable and friendly Iraq,” he said.
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According to most coup talk, the United States would publicly condemn the move but support the new government after a decent interval.
Personally, I see a lot in the plan of dividing the artificial country of Iraq up in three separate nations. The problem is, of course, that the West cannot simply decide to do this. It must be done and accepted by the majority of Iraqis themselves.
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