The Iraq "Civil War" -

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February 23, 2006

SouthAmerica: Finally the American mainstream media started to wake up. Suddenly they realized that Iraq is in the middle of a nasty “Civil War.”

And there is nothing the United States can do about it.

The Iraqi people will be the ones to sort out the chaos that we have in Iraq today.

I am not surprised about what is happening in Iraq today since I wrote about it before the US invaded Iraq 3 years ago. I compared Iraq with Yugoslavia and I said that when the US removed Saddam Hussein from power Iraq would engulf itself into a nasty civil war.

Today I have no idea what will be the outcome of this conflict and there is also the possibility that this civil war will spread to other countries in the area.


It seems to me that the only way out for the United States is – “American Exit Strategy:”


The only way the United States can bring this mess under control – it is if the United States returns the power back in Iraq - to Saddam Hussein.

Sorry but we don’t have a clue about anything regarding Iraq (and maybe the Middle East) – Here is your country back – see if you make sense of this mess and if you can sort things out – Good luck and good bye.


At this point - Saddam Hussein might be the only person capable of putting Iraq together into one piece and restore order in Iraq on a reasonable timetable.

The only other option is a nasty civil war in Iraq until someone comes up on top.



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“Mosque Attack Pushes Iraq Toward Civil War”
By ZIAD KHALAF, Associated Press Writer
AP – Associated Press – February 23, 2006


SAMARRA, Iraq - Insurgents posing as police destroyed the golden dome of one of Iraq's holiest Shiite shrines Wednesday, setting off an unprecedented spasm of sectarian violence. Angry crowds thronged the streets, militiamen attacked Sunni mosques, and at least 19 people were killed.

With the gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine reduced to rubble, some Shiites lashed out at the United States as partly to blame.
The violence — many of the 90 attacks on Sunni mosques were carried out by Shiite militias — seemed to push Iraq closer to all-out civil war than at any point in the three years since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein…


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It is funny how the neo-commie intellectuals, Perle and Wolfowitz and their PNAC buddies who created this mess in the first place have run away. Like fucking sewer rats scurrying away from a sinking ship. What they have left is a big stinking pile of shit that is getting bigger by the day. These leftist commie intellectuals turned right-wing fanatics failed in their utopian Communist plan for Russia and will fail in this one too. So much for your arc of democracy, you fucking god-damned maggots.
 
Quote from southamerica:


SouthAmerica: Finally the American mainstream media started to wake up. Suddenly they realized that Iraq is in the middle of a nasty “Civil War.”

And there is nothing the United States can do about it.
More...

this has been going on for a long time, whether reported or not. it was the obvious outcome from the beginning of the iraq fiasco.
 
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February 24, 2006

SouthAmerica: Today the American mainstream media drove themselves into a frenzy – they are almost catching up to the fact that there is a nasty civil war going on in Iraq.

Almost everybody is finally coming to this conclusion, but today when CNN interviewed some American general about the situation in Iraq – the guy was completely clueless; he was saying that Al Qaeda was responsible for the bombing of the Shiite Mosque in Iraq.

There are two possibilities here: 1) Or the people who give this propaganda out of the Pentagon are really in La La Land - Hello, is anybody home? – 2) Or they think the American people are completely “Brain Dead.”

On Thursday the Shiites destroyed 128 Sunni Mosques and there are reports of at least 150 deaths – Just God knows at this point what is really happening inside Iraq.

In the United States the mainstream media will try to downplay what is really going on in Iraq – the reality is they are in the middle of a nasty “Civil War.”

Today, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there is a civil war going on in Iraq.

I don’t know what kind of information the American mainstream media needs for them to figure out that the civil war is not about to start – the civil war has been going on for quite a while.

It is very clear to me what the Iraqi people are saying with this civil war to the United States – let me tell you what you can do with your brand of democracy – you can…..


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February 25, 2006

SouthAmerica: That might be the first act of an “Iraq Civil War” that is starting to spread to Saudi Arabia and also might end up engulfing other Arab countries in the area.

I am surprised that they used car bombs to attack that refinery – I thought that if they were going to attack one of these oil refineries – they were going to do in the same way that they did 9/11 – with major airplanes as their weapon just like a kamikaze.

That also means that they are going to start attacking the oil pipelines in Saudi Arabia.

The entire Arab world would explode like a nuclear bomb – if some terrorist group does manage to destroy the shrines in Mecca and Medina, Islam's two holiest places.


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“Foiled Attack on Saudi Oil Sends Ominous Message”
Damage to the world's 'jugular vein' would have been disastrous. Anxiety is ever-present.
By Elizabeth Douglass, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times - February 25 2006

A suicide bomb attack at a huge Saudi Arabian petroleum facility rattled world energy markets Friday, sending crude prices soaring more than $2 a barrel in New York as it underscored the fragility of world oil supplies.

The massive Abqaiq processing plant was undamaged when at least two cars exploded outside its gates, Saudi officials said. Although operations weren't interrupted, the assault on the world's largest oil producer exacerbated the ever-present fear that the flow of oil could fall short of the globe's voracious appetite. Traders call that anxiety petronoia.

The concerns were heightened because the targeted plant is vital to Saudi oil operations, handling about two-thirds of the kingdom's output of 9.5 million barrels a day and 7% of the world's supply. Without the vast Abqaiq facility, about 25 miles inland from the Persian Gulf coast, the nation's ability to export oil would be crippled.

"This is a major-league deal," said Matthew Simmons, an oil-industry consultant who has written a book about Saudi Arabia's role in the world petroleum market. "This shows that the terrorists are acutely aware of where you want to go for the jugular vein."

Oil had grown cheaper recently, slipping below $60 a barrel last week for the first time this year as U.S. inventories swelled.

But unrest in Nigeria and other hot spots pushed prices higher this week, capped by Friday's thwarted attack. In New York futures trading, U.S. benchmark crude briefly jumped above $63 a barrel before settling at $62.91, up $2.37. The day's increase, equal to 3.9%, was the largest percentage hike since the markets cowered Sept. 19 as Hurricane Rita threatened the U.S. Gulf Coast, a major oil production and refining center.

Within the vast, sprawling infrastructure of oil production, it would be difficult to find a target more vital to the global marketplace than the Abqaiq plant. Saudi Arabia supplies 11% of world oil consumption and is the third-largest exporter to the United States, after Canada and Mexico. At Abqaiq each day, the equivalent of 6 million barrels is stripped of hydrogen sulfide and water and prepared for export.

"If there had been a hit … oil would be north of $80," said Stephen Leeb, president of Leeb Capital Management in New York. "With the wink of an eye you can turn what is a razor-thin surplus in the oil market into a dramatic deficit," said Leeb, author of a book titled "The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel."

Even though current U.S. inventories of oil are well above year-ago levels, oil traders fret about any sign that oil production may be interrupted, especially when it happens in Saudi Arabia, the home of a quarter of global reserves.

Saudi Arabia has seen terrorist attacks before, including two deadly assaults on oil company offices and employee housing in 2004. But Friday's strike at the complex in eastern Saudi Arabia was the first to come so close to a key facility, analysts said.

The attack was thwarted when guards fired on the suicide bombers' cars, causing the vehicles to explode. At least two militants died, and Saudi television reported that two security guards were killed. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility on a website often used by Islamic militant groups.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Ibrahim Naimi said Abqaiq's operations and exports "continued to operate normally."

Saudi Aramco, owner of the Abqaiq complex, said in 2004 that it had strengthened security at many oil facilities by adding electrified fences with barbed wire, surveillance cameras, bomb-sniffing dogs, helicopter patrols and thousands of guards. Abqaiq is surrounded by three fences; the attackers failed to breach the outermost barrier.

"I'm encouraged that Saudi security has been so good," said Andrew Lipow, a Houston-based industry consultant. "But you have to be mindful that terrorists can have many more opportunities, and you have to be concerned about another attack where they get through."

The Middle East kingdom is the focus of many doomsday scenarios thought up by the likes of Securing America's Future, an advocacy group that has simulated oil catastrophes to emphasize the vulnerability of the U.S. economy.

In August, the group tallied the repercussions of a fictional scenario in which sudden turmoil in Saudi Arabia caused 3.5 million barrels to be pulled from world markets. In the simulation, prices leapt to $161 a barrel, the economy lost 2 million jobs and the average U.S. household spent $5,214 on fuel annually.

In congressional testimony in July, Gal Luft of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security told lawmakers: "One scenario our economy cannot withstand is a major attack on one of Saudi Arabia's oil facilities."

Today, worldwide oil production is barely keeping pace with surging demand in the United States as well as in China and other nations. Even Saudi Arabia, with all its reserves, is producing near peak capacity.

"This is a reminder that we are out of spare capacity," said Simmons, the consultant and author. "We are not able to turn anything else on to make up for any shortfall."

Global oil production already has taken a hit in Nigeria, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, where rebels have attacked oil facilities and cut off 500,000 barrels a day of supplies. An additional 350,000 barrels a day of output from the Gulf of Mexico is still shut down because of hurricane damage.

"This is a very serious problem that's not going to be resolved anytime soon," Leeb said. "The bottom line is that oil is going to continue to go up."

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Associated Press was used in compiling this report.


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I think "quagmire" is the correct term.

Its a disaster, all of which has been accurately predicted, by greater minds than mine.

Now what?
 
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March 10, 2006

SouthAmerica: Before the United States invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein I wrote that that was a major mistake – I said that after the US removed Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – Iraq would explode into a civil war in the same manner that Yugoslavia exploded into a civil war after Tito’s death.

Before the US invasion, Saddam Hussein (a ruthless dictator) was holding that country together into one piece and I am not surprised that Iraq has engulfed itself into a nasty civil war after he was removed from power. I also have been saying for over a year that – Iraq is in the middle of a civil war.

The US government and the US mainstream media still in denial about recognizing that Iraq have been in the middle of a civil war for quite a while.

Finally, at least the British mainstream media started reporting the reality of what is happening in Iraq – Iraq is in the middle of an all out sectarian civil war.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Since 2001, the United States government has earned a reputation around the world for its incompetence and lack of common sense - The longer the American mainstream media takes to recognize that Iraq is in the middle of a sectarian civil war – they also might lose the little credibility that they still have around the world.

A lot of people are tired of US government spins and propaganda that people know that is not true and misinformation – in the age of the internet – most information moves around the world at the speed of light.

Only in the United States people believe that Iraq has a new constitution, and was able to elect a new democratic government. In Iraq the people who live in Iraq have rejected all this American wishful thinking and they are answering the US with a nasty sectarian civil war – there is no two ways about it – Iraq is in the middle of a “Civil War.”



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The Times - UK
March 10, 2006
The brutal truth: “it’s civil war”
By Ben Macintyre
America may be terrified of admitting it, but the Shia-Sunni violence has reached a new pitch

CIVIL WAR occurs when the last vestige of civility collapses. It is the merciless, intimate, internecine “war of every man against every man” imagined by Thomas Hobbes: “No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear of danger and violent death.” Civil war is the war of brother against brother, neighbour against neighbour, tribe against tribe. It often begins in ideology or ethnicity, but it is sustained by vengeance, feud building on feud, in a cycle of murder that can last for generations.

We think of civil war as the ultimate barbarity, yet it is the rule more than the exception in recent history. Over the past half century, about 3.3 million people have died in battle as a result of wars between countries, each lasting on average for three months; during the same period, about 16 million people perished in 127 civil wars, with an average duration of six years. Civil war is far more widespread, bloody and sustained than war itself.

In Britain and America, civil war comes freighted with historical resonance, the very antithesis of a society that is stable and free. Britain’s parliamentary democracy was profoundly shaped by a gruesome civil war; America’s ideal of nationhood was founded on the resolution of a civil war that nearly shattered the country.

For months, we have heard that Iraq is on the brink, the cusp, the verge of civil war. But the ugly truth is that by every practical definition — historical, numerical and political — Iraq is already in the grip of a civil war.

The White House and Downing Street studiously avoid this loaded term. Indeed, there is a Pentagon official whose task it is to take issue with academics who argue that civil war has begun. Instead, the conflict is described in the traditional language of conventional war and its aftermath: “insurgency” and “counter-insurgency”, “rejectionists” and “loyalists”.

True, we have not yet seen the nationwide conflagration of inter-communal killing and ethnic cleansing predicted by many after the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra on February 22. The civil war is not yet total, but it is active and expanding, gradually engulfing the rival Sunni and Shia communities that make up three-quarters of the Iraqi population.

This is not a just a matter of semantics. A civil war is qualitatively different from any other sort of conflict, a violent struggle between organised groups for control of the centre, characterised by conflict between rival militias, lethal inter-communal reprisals and the steady erosion of central control as the political fissures spread outwards. The US-led coalition continues to portray the violence as the work of a group of rebels seeking to oust a government, democratically elected by the Iraqi people and defended by US and British armed forces. The evidence, however, suggests that the war has moved into a new phase, with Shia battling Sunni regardless of the Iraqi government or the external military power, with each side operating its own death squads.

Sunni and Shia, inheritors of an ancient sectarian conflict dating back 14 centuries, are now competing violently, not just for political power, but for Iraq’s oil riches.

According to a New York Times survey, towns around Baghdad that were once home to a mixed population of Sunnis and Shia, are splitting along sectarian lines. There is strong evidence that if US troops pulled out, full-blown carnage would ensue; but it is now doubtful that third-party force alone can now stop it. The internal conflict has already developed the self-propelling momentum of a classic civil war, but the occupying forces have yet to acknowledge it.

Asked recently about the mounting violence, George Bush stolidly insisted: “The troops are chasing down the terrorists.” But in a civil war identifying the terrorists becomes much harder, while the troops risk being seen as pro-Shia partisans in the spiralling conflict. The Bush-Blair collation has put its faith in strengthening the Iraqi security forces, but those forces are themselves dominated by Shia, and thus regarded as a tool of oppression by many Sunnis.

As Paul Starobin points out in a bleak but brilliant assessment in The National Journal, civil wars tend to end only when one side crushes the other. If it came to an all-out communal war, the majority Shia would probably win, but at a cost of inflaming the entire region, for the implications of Iraq’s civil war extend far beyond her borders. Like the Spanish Civil War, the conflict would surely draw in neighbours: Sunnis from Saudi Arabia and Jordan in support of Iraqi Sunnis, Iranian Shia backing their co-religionists.

The civil war in Bosnia was ended by outside intervention, but in Iraq it was military action by outsiders that created the power vacuum into which civil war erupted. Civil wars may peter out through sheer psychological exhaustion, when the cycle of reprisal and revenge finally runs its course, as happened in Algeria; boredom played an important part in subduing the conflict in Northern Ireland. In Iraq, that point seems bloodily distant.

Up to 20,000 Iraqis have been killed since the end of combat operations in April 2003, yet the US and Britain remain locked in the belief that this is still a situation analogous to Vietnam, with brutal terrorist insurgents dedicated to overthrowing the government.

Abraham Lincoln observed of the American Civil War: “All dreaded it. All sought to avert it. And the war came.”

The same elements of wishful thinking are evident today in Iraq. We dread civil war, and rightly, but no amount of dread has been able to avert it.

There may still be time to prevent the civil war in Iraq from spreading into anarchy, and on to a regional scale.

Iraq has a long history of communal peace between Sunnis and Shia. But resurrecting that peace requires a supreme effort by Iraq’s sectarian leaders to pull back from the point of no return, and a clear-eyed realisation in the US and Britain that civil war in Iraq is no longer just a grim prospect, but a reality.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2078650,00.html


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Civil war my butt. Where is the civil war so many people hope to happen? Dozens of people get killed and a Shiia mosque gets blown up and we have a “civil war.” LOL. There are 26 million Iraqis. Do you think they are all stupid animals dying to kill each other? Do you think they are all so stupid they can’t run their own country? Do you think the Islamists and Iran have so much power and influence in Iraq they can get 25 million Iraqis to tear at each other’s throats?

U.S. had just over 30 million people when our Civil War began. Around 620,000 Americans died. Iraq has 26 million people today. If there is going to be a civil war, we should see cascading events at magnitudes beyond the tiny little coals the Iranian government and the Sunni Islamists are trying hard to light since the beginning of the occupation. There is no civil war because the Iraqis are putting out these coals before they catch fire.
 
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March 11, 2006

SouthAmerica: Reply to Sam123

You should watch Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO – the latest show broadcasted on March 10, 2006 – one of his guests was The New York Times reporter John Burns and he just returned to the US from Iraq – he has been there covering the war since the war started 3 years ago.

John Burns said on the program what I have been saying for a long time – He said that the Iraq has been in the middle of a civil war for a while.

There is an all out sectarian civil war under way in Iraq for over one year – and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to come to that conclusion.


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Quote from Sam123:

Civil war my butt. Where is the civil war so many people hope to happen? Dozens of people get killed and a Shiia mosque gets blown up and we have a “civil war.” LOL. There are 26 million Iraqis. Do you think they are all stupid animals dying to kill each other? Do you think they are all so stupid they can’t run their own country? Do you think the Islamists and Iran have so much power and influence in Iraq they can get 25 million Iraqis to tear at each other’s throats?

U.S. had just over 30 million people when our Civil War began. Around 620,000 Americans died. Iraq has 26 million people today. If there is going to be a civil war, we should see cascading events at magnitudes beyond the tiny little coals the Iranian government and the Sunni Islamists are trying hard to light since the beginning of the occupation. There is no civil war because the Iraqis are putting out these coals before they catch fire.
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That is the dumbest f#n arguement ive ever heard.

You are beyond help.
 
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