I would argue the opposite. people have always killed ther own when local alliances are sought by an enemy while exploiting local differences, secatrian, religious or et6hnic. its a sad fact.

examples are

christianized indians (native americans) such as iroquois when british and french were competing for fur trade interests in what is now northeastern united states and eastern canada

proestants in northern ireland and britain pitted againvst catholic eire

the sabra and shatilla massacres by the christian south lebanon army (SLA) against the southern shias.

sunni insurgents against shias and US oil interests

Hindus and muslims in british india.

infact this colonial policy which is still being continued in the ex-colonies has a name (such as the middle east and south asian subcontinent). It is called "Divide and Rule"

and it continues. In light of this your questions seem rhetorical

best wishes

agree with u bird completely. The morally defunct leftists are the only ones siding with the terrorists and no one else. but since they shout the loudest their voice is what is all we hear on chicken news network(CNN), Bring Back Communism(BBC),Al-reuters and Associated with Terrorists Press (AP).

I think distance and lack of understanding of the motivations (cultural, political, factional)behind the insurgent actions are the primary reason that to you the killings are considered "unfathomable". They are no different from atrocities committed in dozens, if not hundreds of other conflicts throughout history and are, unfortunately neither unique nor singular.

I do not think anyone can claim that the US is solely responsible for the rise in sectarian strife and insurgency in Iraq. The events don't just suddenly happen in a vacuum. Internal poltical differences, external influencers (Iran), opportunism, power, greed, ideology, religion - all of these factors have fed the rise of the insurgency. Throw in the current administration's desire to do the occupation "on the cheap" and their long-standing resistance to anything that smacked of "nation-building" and the rise of the insurgency was and is not an unpredicatable nor unprecendented event.

I agree with the sentiment, Bird, but I have to disagree with the specific targets you've picked.

Iraqis are NOT killing their own people. Sunnis are killing Shia and Shia are killing Sunnis. They don't necessarily see the other sects as part of their own community.

The other factor are the Al Qaeda associated terrorists who just kill anyone indiscriminately because they see anyone who's not with them as the equivalent of enemy collaborators.

All three groups are, of course, reprehensible because they target the innocent, but there is at least some logic to their behavior.

Dave

Wow! What great comments! Gazelle, you and Dave and Deano all pointed out more or less the same thought and Gazelle's examples were spot on in support of that point.

You are all correct, of course, and if I had given my posting a bit more of a careful re-read I might have noticed the same thing and rewritten it accordingly.

Having said this, we might also agree that the examples of Northern Ireland, southern Lebanon (Shabra, etc.), and the sunni/shia are examples of barbarous and evil behavior nonetheless (I'm not so sure of the Iroqois example). Most Protestants and Irish in Northern Ireland detested the sectarian violance and would have been happy and content to just live out their lives together as neighbors joined together by common interests as citizens under a common government.

The same could have been said about the Hindu/Muslims in post-independence India and, I believe, about most of the people in Iraq (whether Shia, Sunni or Kurd).

Most people in most places are quite willing and able to "get along" with each other in their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness for themselves and for their families.

Those who exploit the differences between people for the purpose of "divide & rule" (Hitler, Amin & Milosevic come to mind as good examples) almost always end up at the bottom of the moral cesspool of history.

I guess that was the main point I hoped to make in my post: That, while there may be "rational" and "purposeful" and "historical" and many other reasons why people inflict sectarian violence against their neighbors, such actions are (with the likely exception of self-defense) morally evil and should be condemned as such.

Whether we believe that American troops should be in Iraq or not, we can at least agree that the United States is seeking to unite rather than divide the people of that country. On the whole, I believe that this is always a more noble task than those behaviors which sow the seeds of division.

I'm not sure it's practical for an outside force to impose friendship and unity on a people who are divided on religious and political grounds - unless it does it by providing a common enemy, which I hope hasn't been the intent behind the Iraq war.

Dave

It wasn't the intent, but that's what happened, wasn't it? As soon as we became the common target, we should have left, for at that point we started losing the war. Shia & Sunni may see each other as aliens, but we are even more alien. In any event, I'm of the opinion they can damn well duke it out & when they're all dead, having killed each other, then perhaps more civilized groups can move in. I'm tired of US blood being spilled to try to save these assholes from their own stupidity & barbarousness.

Except that our presence as antagonists hasn't brought about unity there either.

Dave

I would point out that most of the people and nations that are calling for a U.S. withdrawal never supported the war in the first place. From the beginning nearly 50% of U.S. citizens disaproved of invading Iraq, and this number has decreased only slightly. France, Germany, Russia and many other nations calling for the U.S. withdrawal you refer to never supported the war. Few peoples fundamental aproval/disaproval of the war has changed. From these facts alone I would infer the call for a U.S. withdrawal has much less to do with sympathicizing with the terrorists and blaming the U.S. for Iraqi deaths, as you state, so much as it has to do with their original and continueing disaproval of the war. It's not that the deaths of Iraqis has convinced them of the evils of the war, it's that they were convinced of the evils of the war before it even started. If relatively few are changing their opinion on the war in general, then the deaths of Iraqis cannot be having much of an influence on anybody, it just gives them something new to complain about.

Good points, Peti. However, support for the war has been substantially higher than it is now, at least within the US. At the height of the acutal invasion when we were doing what we did best, approval for the war was pushing 70% inside the US. Now it's down in the 40s. I think that's significant. If nothing else it demonstrates that Americans like a war where we're kicking ass and don't like a war where things are more ambiguous and prolonged. Americans want every war to be the Spanish American War, but very few wars are.

Dave

Yes, i was a little too liberal with that statistic, never mind that I said disaproval of the war was decreasing, by accident of course.

In answer to question 1, No. The world would not be better if hundreds of young American's were locked up in prison for completing their job exactly as their superiors tell them.

ON the OTHER hand, if say; Donald Rumsfeld.

as an answer to the SECOND question I guess that through all of my knowledge and research into Iraq over the last three years- and I am sure if you check the Olivebranch Network you will easily see this has been extensive;

I guess I am still a "fool" because I do not think it will help to lock up every member of the Iraqi insurgency. If you locked up every foreign fighter in Iraq; maybe. If you locked up anyone who kills indiscriminantly; yes. If you lock up the man whose child has just been abducted and leave his other son with noone, all you have completed is to create another angry Iraqi.

Locking up the entire "insurgency", assuming you understand this word and it's connotations, is not the same as locking up a terrorist. A terrorist attack is an attack which targets civilians or civilian infrastructure for a political purpose.

You may say such a small peice of language is insignificant; but if you were a policy maker in the military or government and you made the mistake of not seperating those who target civilians from those who target armed militia's, government forces or occupation troops- then you would have just lost the only chance you had to come out on top of this situation.

Please, if you want to write a strongly oppinionative article like this then reference yourself- Post Saddam Iraq is nothing like Nazi Germany.

Nazi Germany had technology beyond most nations at the time. Their economy was flourishing despite the great depression due to Hitler's facist economic machine. They had already occupied half of Europe and through their alliances controlled a great deal of the rest of the globe aswell.

WWII ended with independence for many nations; occupations for others. WWII ended with millions of casualties. WWII ending was the beginning of the cold war. Germany was split in two.

Iraq should not be split in two. Iraq has not occupied any country other than Kuwait which it has already well and truely paid the price for.

It's citizens lost their average savings. A middle class citizen could have up to the equivalent of US$150,000 in savings in 1989. Overnight with the invasion of Kuwait and consequences on Iraq, this money became worth no more than a few bags of flour with which to make bread.

Enough to buy a huge home in Australia at the time became worthless overnight. Families were ruined and still are. Since then Saddam has not been able to nor willing to act out against any other nation, and has never attacked a single Western country. So how can you compare Nazi Germany with post-Saddam Iraq?

anyway thats enough questions for now, I look forward to reading your answers...

Luke(y) Skinner
aka [olivebranch] -
founder//administrator
"The Olivebranch Network"

hows this for a figure: 350,000 unemployed ex-Iraqi soldiers. Not to mention the unnamed ex-mukhabarat men (secret police), ex-regime insiders..

Even the police forces were diminished by the violence and targetting of their stations. Many of these once armed workers had no other profession to turn to. Many of them make money through the insurgency without having to kill. Others are murderous terrorists bent on nothing but martydom or destruction and pain.

Luke(y) Skinner
aka [olivebranch]
founder//administrator
"The Olivebranch Network"

When before in the history of the world has an armed militia adopted the strategy of murdering their own people in order to defeat an enemy? The answer is, of course, never before.

The Viet Cong.

Leaders have been willing to sacrifice their own people throughout history. Presidents cheerily declare war, Generals move symbols around on wall charts, lieutenants send squads into hopeless suicidal battle, all without much thought of the human cost (nothwithstanding their pious declarations once the caskets start piling up). Indeed, I myself once earned a decent salary participating in design of murderous military weapons, none of which contained precautions against use on Americans.

In corporations the rise of an eager executive is marked by his enthusiasm in executing a layoff. The Top Guys like Tough-minded Management.

this last comment reminds me as well; there are more records in history where someone has been willing to kill their own people for personal gain than anything else in history.

Let me mention a few:

the Purges after Stalin took control of Russia in the 1920's.

Slaughtering of German jews by the Nazis.
Slaughtering of the disabled by Nazi's.
Slaughtering of Kurds by Saddam, Turks, Persians.

The countless civil-wars in history. They existed in all cultures:

South America, or Africa, or Asia or Europe.

What about Tienneman Square?
What about Red Square?
What about Saddam rounding up a whole town of men and executing them, their bodies to be found later in shallow mass graves?

I have a post on the rise of religious extremism in Iraq and the roots of this comment pending the seal of approval from our editors; I don't know whats taking them and I hope it comes through soon.

You should read it and tell me what you think.

Luke(y) Skinner
founder//administrator
"The Olivebranch Network"
http://olivebranchoptimism.net

olivebranch, Thank you for your interest and passion in these matters. I do fully understand the difference between "insurgents" and "terrorists" and I understand the multi-faceted divisions of competing militias and sects, sub-sects (ie. Sistani & Sadr, both Shi'ite but one with Iranian connections and the other--Sistani--with no interest in allowing Iran any control over the Iraqi holy sites, etc) and international meddling of all kinds.

I intentionally phrased my question "terrorists/insurgents" so-as to avoid that confusion. Apparently my attempt was unsuccessful. My attempt was to put foreign groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq in the category of "terrorist" and link them with those in the insurgency who are killing other Iraqi's indiscriminantly or supporting those who do. To a slightly lesser degree I also include those in the "insurgency" (perhaps it is better to call it "sectarian war"--I don't like the term "civil war" since the vast majority of Iraqis of all stripes are not in support of the killing) who are targeting members of other Muslim sects for random murder or retaliation or honor killing.

I'm also not convinced that those who attack uniformed military or Iraq or the "coalition" can be properly refered to as "terrorists" on those occasions. There the term "guerilla fighters" might be more accurate. Given, however, that those who have been attacking American and Iraqi and British troops, etc. have also been killing and blowing up innocent Iraqis I am more or less satisfied that the generic term "terrorist" is probably the most accurate.

I am not convinced, however, that only those who do the actual killing are worthy of the name "terrorist." Those under the employ of insurgents who practice terrorist attacks on otherwise innocent civilians must also be viewed as terrorists. Aiding and abetting and supporting and funding and encouraging and supplying and the like have always been viewed as morally, if not legally, as culpable as those who commit the atrocities themselves.

Olivebranch, One final note of response. My initial (more or less rhetorical) question concering the uniqueness of folks killing their own people to win a war against an enemy distinct from themselves does not match up at all with the examples you offer.

In each of the cases you cite those who were being killed were, 1. not random but targeted, 2. were distinctly "different" from those doing the killing, and 3. were not carried out as part of a campaign to defeat an unrelated enemy. Such actions are, of course, morally evil, but they are distinct from the type of killing taking place in Iraq (or, for that matter, in Southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has used civilians as "shields" and refused to let civilian populations leave to seek safety elsewhere.

Another overlooked factor is that these militias and terror groups also intimidate, kidnap, and murder anyone who might be considered working for the Iraqi government, contractors hired to rebuild infrastructure, or Coalition forces. In short, they seek to hinder any steps toward normalcy or stability.

Why do they do this? Primarily inorder to show that the Iraqi government is weak, and only these groups have the power to bring change and stability. They have in short, taken a page out of the Taliban's book: bring about stability and peace on your own terms, and the populace will at first embrace you without resistance, however harsh your methods. After that, it will get worse for the populace, as we saw in Afghanistan.
As painful as it is to admit, to turn aside from the task before us will only bring us a moment's peace.