CBS WARNS IRAQ MAY BE HEADED INTO CIVIL WAR

[MaryH]

The reporter on CBS Evening News said last nite that the Shia clerics were calling for the Shia to quit fighting the US and to start fighting the Sunnis - who seem to be making a power grab. This is what a lot of people have been afraid of - civil war. The Shia have too much to lose to just give the country back to the Sunnis - who seem to be the main insurgents - old Bathist and Saddam supporters.

I just have the worst feeling about all of this.

I certainly am not a Bush supporter and I didn't think we had any business in Iraq. But I really don't want to see that country blown apart because of our stupidity (actually, the stupidity of a few dumb intellectuals who managed to pull this whole thing off).

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. It's bound to happen. How could it not?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. Intellectuals? Try ANTI intellectuals...people who have the fucking nerve

to call academics elitist while they cater to the wealthiest war profiteering interests in the world.

[clydefrand]

4. Smart people don't do such

dastardly deeds as invading another country based on lies and more lies and a big igo.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. Well...actually smart people do...Goebbels was good at it

[Fenris]

9. Don't you find it quite funny that for years

the term "intellectuals" has been used by conservatives to slander anyone remotely academic who either disagrees with them or proposes alternative solutions that conflict with their worldview, and now government foreign policy is being crafted on the basis of lofty, idealistic theories proposed by men with little or no experience outside of government think tanks?

Damn that was a long sentence. I feel like Faulkner.;)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

18. break it up into lines and you'll feel like Ginsberg

and I concur :D

[Fenris]

23. LOL

Thanks. :loveya:

[Fenris]

3. Now's the perfect time for a handover of power!

And a handover to an untrusted, untried pseudo-democratic government in a country that's lived under a dictatorship since the 1980s! There is no chance this could completely backfire!

Bush "handing over" power in Iraq is like Pilate washing his hands of the blood of Jesus.

[Kagemusha]

5. Of course. Why do you think Allawi wants an army & martial law?

The answer's most obvious.

And this is coming in days.

[MaryH]

11. I Want Bush to Go Down

But I really don't want him to take our country with him.

How could four or five people have done so much damage? So quickly?

The Supreme Court has lost all credibility

The White House and the Justice Dept.

The only ones I think have held on to some dignity are the people in State.

We really need to look at this to be sure it can't happen again.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. This would just show what a bad idea invading was

At the very least, it would show that Bush and the neocons had no clue about what they were doing.

One of the grotesque points of Saddam's brutality is that it held Iraq together. Civil war may have erupted in Iraq after his passing in any event. The neocons didn't consider that and, by forcing Saddam from power and believing an American colonial viceroy or an Iraqi puppet like Chalabi or Allawi could fill the vacuum, simply hastened a potential catastrophe.

If civil war does break out, the Bushies and their puppets will be helpless to do anything about it. Their regime will be viewed as irrelevant by the vast majority of Iraqis, who will choose sides on sectarian and ethnic lines.

[Sweetpea]

8. This is not good....

[kstewart33]

10. Welcome to DU Mary

Great post. Keep it up!

[MaryH]

14. Thank you.

Thank you. I need someplace where I can air my feelings. I feel so kind of lost right now. Just sit at home and watch the whole thing unravel.

I saw a tape the other night of a Bush speech when he was in his heyday. He was completely different than he is now. He was arrogant but very strong minded.

I don't know what he is now - just wierd and trying not to say something stupid.

I just have the feeling this is all so out of control.

[psychopomp]

12. "...I really don't want to see that country blown apart..."

Too late. I hope and pray that the situation does not head to complete meltdown, but it will get worse before it gets better-- at the minimum.

:(

[doni_georgia]

13. iraq is ripe for civil war

One of the reasons GHW Bush didn't remove Saddam was because of the instability it would create making Iraq ripe for a civil war or theocratic takeover. Dubya obviously has never listened to his dad, who I despise, but was dead on about the situation in Iraq. Look at what happened to Yugoslavia once communism fell. It split into ethnic and religious factions warring against one another. We will see the same in Iraq. Saddam was a monster, no doubt, but I don't think this current administration comprehended the magnitude of division in that country. They will not unite behind a democratically elected government. Too many factions with too many agendas are wanting control. The situation there will continue to degenerate I'm afraid. It's bound to happen.

[MaryH]

17. Then What Happens to Saudi Arabia?

We may all be walking and riding our bikes if this keeps going downhill - from one country to the next. And that could happen.

[mzmolly]

15. Gosh, another *hate to say I told you so* moment.

Ironic that the looney leftie liberals predicted ALL OF THIS!

[anarchy1999]

16. Actually "we the people" let the "pull this off", along with our complicit

Representatives in the House and the Senate.

DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT. You have a voice somewhere. Use it.

On edit: It should say them instead of the in the subject line.

[MaryH]

19. I Never Felt Like I Had A Voice

Remember when Bush first got in? And right after 9/11. Those guys were just steamrolling everyone. It just seemed impossible that was happening in this country. The All Mighty Right had finally gotten the hold they had been trying for.

Since I live in the Bible Belt I know what the Right Wing is like. They just keep pushing until they get control. But, the good news is that they always go too far. Get too arrogant.

[anarchy1999]

26. Welcome to DU. We are deep in the heart of the "Bible Belt".

Steamrolling yes, impossible yes, all the more reason to get active fast. There is no such thing as too much arrogance or maybe only if we just lay down and get steamrolled. It is incredibly difficult and hard to fight in the land of "ME" and conspicous consumerism. We just keep on fighting the "good fight". And please no more about knowing what the rightwing is like because you live here. So do alot of us.

[madrchsod]

20. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what genuis thought that up???????????? i think most everyone here thought that before the war..i think most everyone in the "free world" knew that...duhhhhhhhhhhh

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. I doubt the validity of this report because the number one enemy....

...of the Iraqi people is the U. S. As long as we are occupying their land and killing their people indiscriminately, we will ALWAYS be THE enemy.

I compare what's going on currently in Iraq with the way the Afghans set aside tribal feuds to go after the Soviets during the Afghan-Soviet War. The Afghans remained united until the Soviets left Afghanistan, and THEN they broke down into Civil War and settling old scores. The Taliban were the eventual winners.

As far as the term "intellectuals", to whom among the NeoCons were you referring?

[ant]

22. oh, the irony

For the most part I've believed that eventually, over the long-term - and I was thinking YEARS here - Iraq would be tranformed into a relatively decent, stable, democratic-like state. I don't believe that end would justify the means, mind you, but I was rather confident the situation would end up better than before for the people of Iraq.

Perhaps I was being naive. Now, though, it seems that not just the people of Iraq but everyone else as well is going to end up with something worse than before. Saddam may have been an evil little shit, but he was a secular evil shit that held Iraq together and provided some sort of stability. I was trying to think the other day whether I would prefer to live under an oppressive dictatorship, where at least there's some way to avoid punishment and torture (just don't speak out against Saddam and do as your told) or a society where there's just random crime and bombings and there's really nothing at all you can do to minimize your chances of death or injury. The devil you know and all that.

Anyway, we cracked that shit wide open and have essentially handed Al-Q and other terrorists a country they can take for themselves. (I'm thinking here of reports about Al-Q-like people teaming up with previously-more-secular Saddam supporters.) Iraq ending up as a fundamentalist Islamic state - a larger, more difficult Afghanistan, basically - is an outcome I hadn't really considered, and it seems to be a very real possibility now. I don't know Iraqi history and culture as well as others, so perhaps I'm way off, but it's just something I've been thinking a lot of this past week.

In any case, I can not possibly express in words what a dumbass motherfucking shit for brains George W. Bush is. A poorly trained, retarded chimp could do a better job at managing our foreign policy and global security in general than this sorry excuse for a leader could even imagine.

(No offense to all the poorly trained, retarded chimps out there.)

[Sagan]

24. No! Really?

And here I am, for the last two years having swallowed every piss-poor projection and justification that the misAdministration put out to "make the case" for this stupid war..

Oh, wait. That wasn't me.. That was the MEDIA.

[MetaTrope]

25. Black Ops

:nuke:

[Name removed]

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