Massive Return of Iraqis to Iraq

[GostHacked]

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/25/i...ualty-figs.html

The Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the United Nations, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine the coalition's security efforts, UN officials said Wednesday.

Working with its own figures, the UN released a new human rights report saying that sectarian violence continued to claim the lives of a large number of Iraqi civilians in both Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods of Iraq's capital, despite the coalition's new Baghdad security plan.

It is a civil war. US troops are just getting caught in the middle now.

ScottSA

I don't recall any civil wars ever on the planet conducted soley by IEDs, carbombs and kidnappings. More like postwar gang battles.

You don't seem to recall the generals who told Bush that it is indeed a civil war. Bush replaced those generals. One of the dumbest things he has done.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6080300277.html

"The sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it," Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. military operations in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "If not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."

Not sure how relavent this is, or how much truth there is in it buuuut.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2062426,00.html

The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Sounds like Berlin Germany. Sounds like Jerusalem, Isreal. If the violence was that low (like McCain said then just a week later, 180 people dead in 4 seperate care bombs in Baghdad.

I'd like to see videos of US troops freely walking the streets. Without their guns/trucks/ammo. I'd really like to see footage of all of Baghdad to show how peacefull it is. I'd like to see how those rebuilding projects are going.

If the Iraqi government complains to the UN saying their numbers are not accurate, who is actually right here?? And please explain why?

And then you can explain how anything release by the UN can be tagged as false statements. So the UN says no civil war? The Iraqi government is probably saying it is.

[ScottSA]

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/25/i...ualty-figs.html

The Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the United Nations, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine the coalition's security efforts, UN officials said Wednesday.

Working with its own figures, the UN released a new human rights report saying that sectarian violence continued to claim the lives of a large number of Iraqi civilians in both Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods of Iraq's capital, despite the coalition's new Baghdad security plan.

It is a civil war. US troops are just getting caught in the middle now.

ScottSA

I don't recall any civil wars ever on the planet conducted soley by IEDs, carbombs and kidnappings. More like postwar gang battles.

You don't seem to recall the generals who told Bush that it is indeed a civil war. Bush replaced those generals. One of the dumbest things he has done.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6080300277.html

"The sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it," Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. military operations in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "If not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."

Not sure how relavent this is, or how much truth there is in it buuuut.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2062426,00.html

The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Sounds like Berlin Germany. Sounds like Jerusalem, Isreal. If the violence was that low (like McCain said then just a week later, 180 people dead in 4 seperate care bombs in Baghdad.

I'd like to see videos of US troops freely walking the streets. Without their guns/trucks/ammo. I'd really like to see footage of all of Baghdad to show how peacefull it is. I'd like to see how those rebuilding projects are going.

If the Iraqi government complains to the UN saying their numbers are not accurate, who is actually right here?? And please explain why?

And then you can explain how anything release by the UN can be tagged as false statements. So the UN says no civil war? The Iraqi government is probably saying it is.

Not one thing you presented indicates civil war, and in fact the general you sourced tacitly admits that there is not, in fact a civil war. You mentioned Jerusalem and Berlin. Were there civil wars in Jerusalem or Berlin? Must have been quick ones, because I didn't notice them.

[August1991]

Not one thing you presented indicates civil war, and in fact the general you sourced tacitly admits that there is not, in fact a civil war. You mentioned Jerusalem and Berlin. Were there civil wars in Jerusalem or Berlin? Must have been quick ones, because I didn't notice them.

The Iraq Body Count web site now has civilian casualties in the period 2003-2007 at around 65,000. (That compares to about 100,000 deaths in the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.)

Here's a random quote from Iraq Body Count:

Over 700 civilians were killed this week in Iraq, nearly half of them on Wednesday 18 April. The attack on 18 April is the 13th major attack in 2007 where over 50 civilians were killed in a single incident (there were 12 major attacks in Iraq in the whole of 2006).

On Monday 16 April there are over 50 reported deaths, among them 2 University Professors, shot dead in Mosul, a University student shot dead in Baghdad, and a 17-year-old son of a policeman. Around 30 dead bodies are found in Baghdad, Falluja, Mosul, Najaf and Hawija. Moqtada Al-Sadr withdraws his ministers from the Iraqi government, due to the government’s close ties to Washington.

I compare Iraq to Lebanon because of many similarities: car bombs, kidnappings, sectarian fighting. The Lebanese Civil War was complex but it had a major motivation: a Christian minority had to accept its minority status. In Iraq, there is something similar. A Sunni minority must accept it's minority status.

[ScottSA]

I compare Iraq to Lebanon because of many similarities: car bombs, kidnappings, sectarian fighting.

That makes Chicago in 1968 a civil war too. Whoda thunk it?

[M.Dancer]

The real danger of playing games and avoiding the realitity of iraq in the midst of a Civil War is missing the opportunity it raises.

Ot may be true that to the supporters of the war, a civil war is the surest sign that the policy is a failure, and not so may words they are right, and thusly they avoid the C word at all costs.

But if the Civil War is recognised then it offers a glimmer of hope that the violence can be settled through political solutions.

Of course there are alternatives to political solutions.......

[Black Dog]

I see the usual smarmy, glib and shallow "Iraq is not in civil war" arguments are still in operation.

Civil war has a defintion:

"Sustained military combat, primarily internal, resulting in at least 1,000 battle-deaths per year, pitting central government forces against an insurgent force capable of effective resistance, determined by the latter's ability to inflict upon the government forces at least 5 percent of the fatalities that the insurgents sustain." -(Errol A. Henderson and J. David Singer, "Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946-92," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, May 2000.)

Iraq fits the bill.

[ScottSA]

I see the usual smarmy, glib and shallow "Iraq is not in civil war" arguments are still in operation.

Civil war has a defintion:

"Sustained military combat, primarily internal, resulting in at least 1,000 battle-deaths per year, pitting central government forces against an insurgent force capable of effective resistance, determined by the latter's ability to inflict upon the government forces at least 5 percent of the fatalities that the insurgents sustain." -(Errol A. Henderson and J. David Singer, "Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946-92," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, May 2000.)

Iraq fits the bill.

Umm...allow me to introduce you to the world of academia: Strategic studies academics supply definitions all the time. That's what they do for a living. You should see the unending line of definitions, some directly opposing others, of what "total war" or "limited war" means. Trotting out one definition and proclaiming it definitive is pointless. Especially if Singer is involved.

But even if we were to accept Singer's definition, Iraq doesn't fit the bill in a number of ways, even though Indonesia does.

[newbie]

I don't recall any civil wars ever on the planet conducted soley by IEDs, carbombs and kidnappings. More like postwar gang battles.

nice back pedalling

[newbie]

Scotty, can you define civil war? I can:

- A war between factions of the same country

- An internal war between to factions within a country

- a conflict between two groups of people who are citizens of the same state

- a war between factions in the same country

link

[M.Dancer]

Scotty, can you define civil war? I can:

- A war between factions of the same country

- An internal war between to factions within a country

- a conflict between two groups of people who are citizens of the same state

- a war between factions in the same country

link

The main problem for some (those who are not just in denial that then war is a failure) about calling the violence a civil war is that traditionally, civil wars had clear goals, leaders, fielded armies, gained or lost terretory and actively tried to become the govt of the country.

But in the age of asymetrical warfare where there are no fronts and where clandestine factions grow and disolve and reform, where battle are fought with car bombs and death asqauds, all of those traditional elements to the war are missing.

In Iraq as opposed to, say, Spain, there are not two sides fighting for power. There are the former ba'athists, the Sadr Militia, the Kurds, The Islamic Sunnis, Al Qaeda in Iraq and of couyrse the Iraqi gov't. Amongts the Kurds there are at least 2 different power groups. Some like the kurds and maybe the shia want partition. Some want an Islami state. Most want the US out so they can have at it.

A Civil War? How about an Asymetrical Civil War, will that make everyone happy?

[Black Dog]

Umm...allow me to introduce you to the world of academia: Strategic studies academics supply definitions all the time. That's what they do for a living. You should see the unending line of definitions, some directly opposing others, of what "total war" or "limited war" means. Trotting out one definition and proclaiming it definitive is pointless. Especially if Singer is involved.

Yep, folks, you heard the man: stay away from definitive defintions!

Anyway, I'm sure there are lots of definitions of civil war. What definition are you using to base your conclusion that Iraq is not in a state of civil war? Iraq doesn't. indonesia does? What about, as some posters have claimed, Paris or Stockholm? What's your definition. But remember: you can't say its definitive.

[Guthrie]

when the cognitive dissonance is sufficient for a right winger to believe the Iraqi refugees are returning, it is likewise sufficient for that right winger to believe there is no civil war in Iraq

[ScottSA]

when the cognitive dissonance is sufficient for a right winger to believe the Iraqi refugees are returning, it is likewise sufficient for that right winger to believe there is no civil war in Iraq

[deleted because I never say nasty things about other people] It was a mumble about it being far better to suffer from cognitive dissonance (somebody's favorite phrase to misuse this week) than to suffer from large reverberating brass gongs in the head. But then I deleted it because it could be construed as an attack, even though it was merely meant to be a helpful clinical diagnosis.

[GostHacked]

when the cognitive dissonance is sufficient for a right winger to believe the Iraqi refugees are returning, it is likewise sufficient for that right winger to believe there is no civil war in Iraq

[deleted because I never say nasty things about other people] It was a mumble about it being far better to suffer from cognitive dissonance (somebody's favorite phrase to misuse this week) than to suffer from large reverberating brass gongs in the head. But then I deleted it because it could be construed as an attack, even though it was merely meant to be a helpful clinical diagnosis.

That makes Chicago in 1968 a civil war too. Whoda thunk it?

Link? You can't just make these announcements and then bumble off expecting people to believe you.

Sheesh :|