Civil War?
"What we have here is a failure to communicate...."
The media is rife with reports of a burgeoning civil war in Iraq, and this assessment is reflected clearly in the poll numbers in support of the president. George W Bush has his lowest support in many years among Americans, and it is due largely, if not solely, to the debacle curently unfolding in Iraq. For this reason Bush has started this past week on a PR campaign, going "to the people" in order to explain to them exactly what's happening.
Bush, starting off his campaign with a news conference at the White House, adamantly denied that there is a civil war going on in Iraq. He called it "sectarian violence", and insisted that it was only temporary. In fact, he seemed optimistic about the progress that is being made on the ground in that country. The problem is that most Americans do not seem to agree with him. The third anniversary of the war was marked by an upswing in violence, both on the side of the insurgency as well as on the side of allied troops as part of "Operation Swarmer". In the background, we had Allawi directly contradict Bush by calling this a civil war in Iraq. He later turned it down to say it was a "low-grade" civil war, whatever that means.
I personally do not believe that this can or should be classified as a civil war. There opposing sides do not hold territory, do not have armies or planned invasions schemes, and are not trying to unify the country. However, what we do have is violent civil strife, which could easily descend into civil war if the US did not have troops in the region.
That's right. I think it's our presence there that is keeping Iraq from descending into civil war. There have been numerous positive developments that we have pushed through, including two rounds of elections (with great turnout rates) and a formally ratified constitution. The problem is that we're the only ones holding this in place right now.....the Iraqi army would disintegrate if we left. Thus, in order to win (and win we must), we have to stay.
I expect US troops in Iraq until 2010. I know that's a long time away, but we've committed ourselves now, and we better stay. Otherwise we really will be putting ourselves on the defensive and fighting the terrorsists here instead of there. I don't think that was true when we went into Iraq, but it's true now.
"What we have here is a failure to communicate...."
The media is rife with reports of a burgeoning civil war in Iraq, and this assessment is reflected clearly in the poll numbers in support of the president. George W Bush has his lowest support in many years among Americans, and it is due largely, if not solely, to the debacle curently unfolding in Iraq. For this reason Bush has started this past week on a PR campaign, going "to the people" in order to explain to them exactly what's happening.
Bush, starting off his campaign with a news conference at the White House, adamantly denied that there is a civil war going on in Iraq. He called it "sectarian violence", and insisted that it was only temporary. In fact, he seemed optimistic about the progress that is being made on the ground in that country. The problem is that most Americans do not seem to agree with him. The third anniversary of the war was marked by an upswing in violence, both on the side of the insurgency as well as on the side of allied troops as part of "Operation Swarmer". In the background, we had Allawi directly contradict Bush by calling this a civil war in Iraq. He later turned it down to say it was a "low-grade" civil war, whatever that means.
I personally do not believe that this can or should be classified as a civil war. There opposing sides do not hold territory, do not have armies or planned invasions schemes, and are not trying to unify the country. However, what we do have is violent civil strife, which could easily descend into civil war if the US did not have troops in the region.
That's right. I think it's our presence there that is keeping Iraq from descending into civil war. There have been numerous positive developments that we have pushed through, including two rounds of elections (with great turnout rates) and a formally ratified constitution. The problem is that we're the only ones holding this in place right now.....the Iraqi army would disintegrate if we left. Thus, in order to win (and win we must), we have to stay.
I expect US troops in Iraq until 2010. I know that's a long time away, but we've committed ourselves now, and we better stay. Otherwise we really will be putting ourselves on the defensive and fighting the terrorsists here instead of there. I don't think that was true when we went into Iraq, but it's true now.
posted by slithytoves at 4:58 AM
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