US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

I do not understand why you think this is true. In Afghanistan, the US military killed or captured more than half of the al Qaeda based there and destroyed all their training bases that had existed there prior to the invasion of Afghanistan.

Furthermore the US military is currently diverting a large part of al Qaeda outside of Afghanistan and Iraq prior to the invasions into Iraq, where they are more likely to be exterminated.

I have borne that burden and have delivered what I perceive to be at least adequate justification. Now it's your turn. You have the same kind of burden to justify not invading Iraq.

Craven de Kere wrote:

The main reason I am opposed is the very fact that I don't feel this case was adequately made.

I understand you do not feel this case was adequately made. But feelings are a poor substitute for facts and logic (i.e., evidence).

OK! We disagree, I do not know what more I need to provide to convince you, because I do not know what are the established criteria for pre-emption. Not only that, I do not know who or what established those criteria.

Furthermore, I don't know why I, whose fellows were harmed, should subordinate my judgment, about proper criteria for pre-emption to the judgment of someone else, whose fellows were not harmed.

One of my criteria for pre-emption justifies previously harmed person or persons taking action that attempts to preclude the previously harming person or persons from causing the previously harmed person or persons more harm.

My criterion is satisfied by the US invasion of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq.

Based on evidence I have already submitted, I think that Iraq became a substitute sanctuary for al Qaeda when al Qaeda in Afghanistan was significantly damaged.

It took 5 years for al Qaeda to become effective enough for 9/11 in Afghanistan. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda had been growing in Iraq for only 1.25 years. One sufficient justification for invading Iraq was to attempt to pre-empt further al Qaeda growth in Iraq and its obvious consequences.

I think there are no such legal precedents. I think there are only such legal theories.

I think the actual motives for doing the right thing, while interesting to explore, have nothing to do with the true value of doing the right thing.

Furthermore, not being prescient myself, and not being acquainted with anyone who is, I remain quite distrusting of the judgment of those persons who claim they know the motives of others.

No, unless of course they are among those I love. However, I was trying to determine what number you think is statistically significant. What do you think?

False! It concluded no "collaborative relationship" between Al Quaeda and Saddam in 9/11 and other attacks on Americans. It did not conclude no "collaborative relationship" whatsoever between Al Quaeda and Saddam: for example, Saddam acquiescing to al Qaeda establishing a sanctuary in Iraq in December 2001.

I never wrote nor implied that wasn't true. But I have repeatedly described cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda on things other than "attacks on the United States." The TOMNOM simply does not make that important destinction. Why is that, I wonder?

Furthermore, the phrase "outside of Saddam's control" means only that it was in al Qaeda's control and that Saddam at least acquieced to that control.

Ansar al-Islam wasn't comparable to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan at the time of the invasion of Iraq. It had existed there only 15 months. I think it would have been dumb to wait to invade Iraq until it was comparable.

I think it more properly characterized as propter hoc ergo post hoc evidence but not proof.

Thus, propter hoc ergo post hoc: on account of this, therefore after this

Probably you don't see it because you are unaware of where the leadership of the 9/11 gang of 20 were trained. According to the bipartisan, 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 5.3, they received important training in Afghanistan before 9/11/2001.

I think that stopping 5 in a cell in a first-world country is a greater act toward prevention of attacks in the US than is killing 10,000 "combatants" in the mid-east.

This is partly due to the fact that establishing an operation stateside would drastically filter the combatants and also partly due to the galvanization effect of the US military overseas.

ican711nm wrote:

I do not understand why you think this is true. In Afghanistan, the US military killed or captured more than half of the al Qaeda based there and destroyed all their training bases that had existed there prior to the invasion of Afghanistan.

What is your source for this statistic? I strongly doubt the authenticity of this figure.

Primarily inference from te following quote (subsequently substantiated by various TV news sources that I'm too lazy to re-research and repost):

The bipartisan, 9/11 Commission Report, in Chapter 10.3, wrote:

 In Phase Three, the United States would carry out "decisive operations" using all elements of national power, including ground troops, to topple the Taliban regime and eliminate al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan. Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, fell to a coalition assault by Afghan and U.S. forces on November 9. Four days later the Taliban had fled from Kabul. By early December, all major cities had fallen to the coalition. On December 22, Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader from Kandahar, was installed as the chairman of Afghanistan's interim administration. Afghanistan had been liberated from the rule of the Taliban.

In December 2001, Afghan forces, with limited U.S. support, engaged al Qaeda elements in a cave complex called Tora Bora. In March 2002, the largest engagement of the war was fought, in the mountainous Shah-i-Kot area south of Gardez, against a large force of al Qaeda jihadists. The three-week battle was substantially successful, and almost all remaining al Qaeda forces took refuge in Pakistan's equally mountainous and lightly governed frontier provinces. As of July 2004, Bin Ladin and Zawahiri are still believed to be at large.

 In Phase Four, civilian and military operations turned to the indefinite task of what the armed forces call "security and stability operations."

Within about two months of the start of combat operations, several hundred CIA operatives and Special Forces soldiers, backed by the striking power of U.S. aircraft and a much larger infrastructure of intelligence and support efforts, had combined with Afghan militias and a small number of other coalition soldiers to destroy the Taliban regime and disrupt al Qaeda. They had killed or captured about a quarter of the enemy's known leaders. Mohammed Atef, al Qaeda's military commander and a principal figure in the 9/11 plot, had been killed by a U.S. air strike. According to a senior CIA officer who helped devise the overall strategy, the CIA provided intelligence, experience, cash, covert action capabilities, and entrée to tribal allies. In turn, the U.S. military offered combat expertise, firepower, logistics, and communications.86 With these initial victories won by the middle of 2002, the global conflict against Islamist terrorism became a different kind of struggle.

But to answer your question, I think killing/capturing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan has limited value insofar as preventing attacks on the US is concerned.

I contend that there are several calibers of individuals that are commonly grouped under the name "Al Quaeda" and that only a small percentage are a legitimate threat to the US.

I think that stopping 5 in a cell in a first-world country is a greater act toward prevention of attacks in the US than is killing 10,000 "combatants" in the mid-east.

This is partly due to the fact that establishing an operation stateside would drastically filter the combatants and also partly due to the galvanization effect of the US military overseas.

I think that the US presence creates internationally negligible terrorists who are effective only in smaller, local scales.

I disagree. I now know what you think. I do not know why you think it.

Quote:

Furthermore the US military is currently diverting a large part of al Qaeda outside of Afghanistan and Iraq prior to the invasions into Iraq, where they are more likely to be exterminated.

Generating or diverting?
Diverting the malignancy from outside Iraq into Iraq.

As I've said, my reasons for not supporting the invasion of Iraq is the total absence of evidence that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the US.

I also do not think that al Qaeda in Iraq in 2003 posed an immediate threat to the US. I also do not think that al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1996 posed an immediate threat to the US. The US made a costly error waiting for an immediate threat in Afghanistan to develop. The problem with determining whether or not a threat is immediate is that it cannot be determined to be such until after it has actually occurred. In my opinion that is too late.

Such is the only legal justification available. The more ambiguous threats alledged would not be sufficient to justify invasion of another nation under international law.

There is no such international law that requires a nation to wait until a growing threat becomes an immediate threat before it pre-emptively acts to stop a threat from becoming immediate.

Craven de Kere wrote:

The main reason I am opposed is the very fact that I don't [think] this case was adequately made.

I understand you do not [think]this case was adequately made. But [thinking without] facts and logic (i.e., evidence)[to support your thinking is not sufficient].

...

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OK! We disagree, I do not know what more I need to provide to convince you, because I do not know what are the established criteria for pre-emption. Not only that, I do not know who or what established those criteria.

Are you familiar with international law on warfare on any level?

I am familiar with the Geneva conventions and the UN rules of warfare. I know they apply to signators of these conventions (the malignancies are not signators of these conventions). There is nothing in these conventions that requires a signator to postpone responding to a growing threat until such time it becomes an immediate threat.

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Furthermore, I don't know why I, whose fellows were harmed, should subordinate my judgment, about proper criteria for pre-emption to the judgment of someone else [(and not to actual law adopted democratically)] , whose fellows were not harmed.

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One of my criteria for pre-emption justifies previously harmed person or persons taking action that attempts to preclude the previously harming person or persons from causing the previously harmed person or persons more harm.

My criterion is satisfied by the US invasion of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq.

However, it does not come within the same ballpark as satisfying international law.

Yes it does satisfy international law. Show me such law that says otherwise.

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Based on evidence I have already submitted, I think that Iraq became a substitute sanctuary for al Qaeda when al Qaeda in Afghanistan was significantly damaged.

This is an odd-rewrite of the justification of invading Iraq. Do you think retroactive justifications to be valid?

No it is not a rewrite, odd, retro-active, or otherwise. This has been my justification from the time I first began participating in this thread. It has been President Bush's justification since October 25, 2001.

The bi-partisan, 9/11 Commission Report, in Chapter 10.2, wrote:

The pre-9/11 draft presidential directive on al Qaeda evolved into a new directive, National Security Presidential Directive 9, now titled "Defeating the Terrorist Threat to the United States." The directive would now extend to a global war on terrorism, not just on al Qaeda. It also incorporated the President's determination not to distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor them. It included a determination to use military force if necessary to end al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan. The new directive-formally signed on October 25, after the fighting in Afghanistan had already begun-included new material followed by annexes discussing each targeted terrorist group. The old draft directive on al Qaeda became, in effect, the first annex.57 The United States would strive to eliminate all terrorist networks, dry up their financial support, and prevent them from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The goal was the "elimination of terrorism as a threat to our way of life."58

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It took 5 years for al Qaeda to become effective enough for 9/11 in Afghanistan. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda had been growing in Iraq for only 1.25 years. One sufficient justification for invading Iraq was to attempt to pre-empt further al Qaeda growth in Iraq and its obvious consequences.

I posit that these consequences are far more "obvious" to you than to others, perhaps you could explain what exactly you are implying here. Are you trying to say that we were 3.75 years away from another 9/11?

I am saying al Qaeda in Iraq was no less a serious growing threat to the US as al Qaeda in Afganistan.

If so, I'll just say that I find those calculations to be risible in their precision while being based on such meager data.

WHY?

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I think there are no such legal precedents. I think there are only such legal theories.

Let's simplify this, do you think that there are only legal "theories" that govern the legality of sovereignty and the legally justifiable use of warfare?

Review the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions. Then point out that which denies one nation the legal right to defend itself, in the manner it decides is appropriate, against what it perceives to be a growing threat made by another nation's behavior.

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I think the actual motives for doing the right thing, while interesting to explore, have nothing to do with the true value of doing the right thing.

If I murder someone who happened to be on their way to kill millions, I am still guilty of murder.

If I kill someone in defense of myself or those I love against bodily harm, I am not guilty of murder. Likewise, if I had killed Pol Pot about to commence his self-announced killing of millions, I would not have been quilty of murder. I bet any jury would have agreed.

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Furthermore, not being prescient myself, and not being acquainted with anyone who is, I remain quite distrusting of the judgment of those persons who claim they know the motives of others.

Certainty is not possible. However probability must govern practical life and the actions of others can give us insight into their motives.

This is something inherent to our legal system and to many of your own arguments.

I've not laid any claim to knowing the thoughts of others here, I have, however, concluded that their actions are such that Saddam's genocide of a decade ago is not the primary motivation for invading Iraq.

Nor was it President Bush's primary motivation. See above quote.]
...

Quote:

... It concluded no "collaborative relationship" between Al Quaeda and Saddam in 9/11 and other attacks on Americans. It did not conclude no "collaborative relationship" whatsoever between Al Quaeda and Saddam: for example, Saddam acquiescing to al Qaeda establishing a sanctuary in Iraq in December 2001.

The commision indeed did have a focus on complicity in attacks, but they also concluded that Saddam's regime rebuffed Al Qaeda's entreaties.

"Rebuffed all al Qaeda's entreaties?" I've already shown you this isn't true. Why do you bring it up again? Here's some more.

The non partisan, 9/11 Commission Report, in Chapter 2.5 wrote:

Bin Ladin seemed willing to include in the confederation terrorists from almost every corner of the Muslim world. His vision mirrored that of Sudan's Islamist leader, Turabi, who convened a series of meetings under the label Popular Arab and Islamic Conference around the time of Bin Ladin's arrival in that country.
...
To protect his own ties with Iraq, Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam.
...
Now effectively merged with Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad,82 al Qaeda promised to become the general headquarters for international terrorism, without the need for the Islamic Army Shura. Bin Ladin was prepared to pick up where he had left off in Sudan.
...
Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.

...

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Furthermore, the phrase "outside of Saddam's control" means only that it was in al Qaeda's control and that Saddam at least acquieced to that control.

You do realize that we are speaking of areas of Iraq that the US was primarily responsible for removing from under his control?

Not true! Northeastern Iraq was in the US "no fly zone." It was not in the US control zone. It was not outside Saddam's ability to gain control from al Qaeda's control if he had chosen to do so.

We aren't talking about voluntary acquiescence here, but what was imposed on him by the US and allies.

The US requested Saddam to extradite the leadersip of the al Qaeda in northeastern Iraq. Saddam chose three times not to respond to that US request made three times. The third time this request was made, it was made in Powell's speech to the UN 2/5/2005.

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Ansar al-Islam wasn't comparable to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan at the time of the invasion of Iraq. It had existed there only 15 months. I think it would have been dumb to wait to invade Iraq until it was comparable.

This is a loaded question that contructs the straw man that the alternative to invading Iraq is to allow a situtation to reach critical mass.

The degree to which Iraq posed a threat is important to quibble over, and to otherwise allow a slippery slope argument to serve as justification for war is to drastically reduce the strictness of casus belli.

The ambiguous potential threats you outline are of a caliber that, if accepted, would allow for many nations to justify the invasion of others.

Heck, we pose a "potential" threat to a few nations whose evidence is far more documented, do they have justification to wage war as well?

Gee! When did we declare it was our intention to murder civilians in some particular country? When did we train terrorists to kill civilians in some particular country? When did we actually murder civilians in some particular country?

All this you posted is content free noise absent facts and logic to support your claims!

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I think it more properly characterized as propter hoc ergo post hoc evidence but not proof.

Then you must illustrate ... You still need to subtantiate "on account of this" ...

No! You must illustrate! You must substantiate! I have illustrated! I have substantiated!

For example, you are (or seem to be) implying that 9/11 is "on account of" 5 years in Afghanistan and concluding that 1.25 years in Iraq would have the same result.

What? I am concluding that 5 years, 3.75 more years--not 1.25 years--in Iraq would have had at least the same result.

If so, this is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy until the propter hoc is substantiated.

No! You are wrong! propter hoc = A in Afghanistan caused B! Then probably post hoc A in Iraq would have caused B!
...
Do you think that lacking the Afghanistan sanctuary would have impeded Al Qaeda to the point of inability to carry out the 9/11 attacks?

It would have at the very least impeded them until they found an alternate sanctuary to Afghanistan for their training bases.

Suppose they found one in Syria instead. Then we should have first invaded Syria to remove Syria's government. Then after that invasion, suppose they had fled and next obtained sanctuary in Ethiopia, then second we should have invaded Ethiopia to replace its government. Then after that invasion, suppose they had fled and next obtained sanctuary in Iraq, then third we should have invaded Iraq to replace its government. Then after that invasion, suppose they had fled and next obtained sanctuary in Iran, then fourth we should have invaded Iran to replace its government. Et cetera.

Since there is still violence in Afghanistan two years after the invasion of Iraq, I would say that AQ in Afghanistan didn't necessarily have to go to Iraq, they just had to head to the hills and caves to wait for the heat to die down whilst we headed in the other direction to Iraq.

Have to? Perhaps not. But none the less, hundreds of al Qaeda did flee to Iraq.

Furthermore, I seem to remember clyop pointing out that the majority of terrorist in Iraq were not terrorist before the Iraq invasion. It was in some kind of intellegence report. So from that there must not have been that great of a Afghanistan AQ march to Iraq after the major battles of the war in Afghanistan.

"It was in some kind of intelligence report " And you think that is authoritative, right?

Caleb Carr in [i]The Smell of Fear[/i], WSJ Opinion, 7/19/2005, wrote:

The ultimate targets of the London bombings were not, of course, human beings. Rather, they were a set of governmental policies that the terrorists hoped to change by separating political leaders from the support of their shaken citizenry. Despite this distinction, however, the underlying psychological principles involved in investigating such crimes remain the same as they would be were we studying a mass- or or serial-murder case, of which terrorists are in many respects the politicized version. Is this to say that the four young men suspected of being the instruments of terror on this occasion can be classified as clinical sociopaths? We will unlikely to be able to answer that question with certainty, now that they are dead. What we can focus on, however, are the motivations and perversities of the vastly more dangerous Islamist clerics and terrorist organizers who sought out youthful pawns and instilled in them a theology of murder.

...

Nations that experience collective psychological crises frequently attempt such re-inventions, just as do individuals. By revising the facts surrounding irrationally violent incidents so that they themselves are somehow made responsible for them, victims often seek to exert some kind of control over if, when, and how their tormentors will inflict their random cruelty. But what British citizens who have participated in this revision of the historical record do not realize -- just as Americans in 2001, Turks in 2003, and Spaniards in 2004 did not -- is that showing fear and self-disparagement in the face of al Qaeda's threats only marks the society in question as a suitable candidate for attack. Sociopaths revel most in assaulting terrified, submissive victims; and a Britain so concerned with avoiding attack that its ordinarily wise citizenry would give voice to the kind of simplistic thinking expressed in the media in recent months evidently fit that description to an extent irresistible to al Qaeda's minions within its borders.

...

But whatever the ultimate reaction of the British people to these latest terrorist outrages, we must hope that American intellectuals and celebrities will not emulate Britain's recent exercises in wavering, revisionist behavior. Already there has been unfortunate evidence that the tendency to "blame the victim" after July 7 was greater in America than it was in Britain. Such words and actions only cause the scent that emerges from our own communities to become that of fear -- and should al Qaeda again detect such an odor inside our borders, we may expect attacks such as those that struck our oldest and most trusted ally to once more visit our own shores. And we may expect them very soon.

Mr. Carr is author of "The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians," and "The Atheist." He teaches military history at Bard.

It wasn't an intelligence report, it was two studies done, one by the Saudis and one by Israel; both showed that the vast majority of FORIEGN fighters travelling to, or in, Iraq, were not terrorists or fighters BEFORE the Iraq war. Cycloptichorn

The Taliban seemed to open the doors to all who wanted to come to Afghanistan to train in the camps. The alliance with the Taliban provided al Qaeda a sanctuary in which to train and indoctrinate fighters and terrorists, import weapons, forge ties with other jihad groups and leaders, and plot and staff terrorist schemes. While Bin Ladin maintained his own al Qaeda guesthouses and camps for vetting and training recruits, he also provided support to and benefited from the broad infrastructure of such facilities in Afghanistan made available to the global network of Islamist movements. U.S. intelligence estimates put the total number of fighters who underwent instruction in Bin Ladin-supported camps in Afghanistan from 1996 through 9/11 at 10,000 to 20,000.78

Does that mean that they, the vast majority of foreign fighters to/in Iraq, had not received any training by al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere prior to the invasion of Iraq?

Does that mean they had not murdered any civilians prior to their entry into Iraq?

Does that mean the Iraq war caused them to become murderers of civilians?

Majority of Soldiers Say Iraq Morale Low

Wednesday July 20, 2005 9:46 PM


By ROBERT BURNS

AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq say morale is low, according to an Army report that finds psychological stress is weighing particularly heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops.

Still, soldiers' mental health has improved from the early months of the insurgency, and suicides have declined sharply, the report said. Also, substantially fewer soldiers had to be evacuated from Iraq for mental health problems last year.

The Army sent a team of mental health specialists to Iraq and Kuwait late last summer to assess conditions and measure progress in implementing programs designed to fix mental health problems discovered during a similar survey of troops a year earlier. Its report, dated Jan. 30, 2005, was released Wednesday.

The initial inquiry was triggered in part by an unusual surge in suicides among soldiers in Iraq in July 2003. Wednesday's report said the number of suicides in Iraq and Kuwait declined from 24 in 2003 to nine last year.

A suicide prevention program was begun for soldiers in Iraq at the recommendation of the 2003 assessment team.

The overall assessment said 13 percent of soldiers in the most recent study screened positive for a mental health problem, compared with 18 percent a year earlier. Symptoms of acute or post-traumatic stress remained the top mental health problem, affecting at least 10 percent of all soldiers checked in the latest survey.

In the anonymous survey, 17 percent of soldiers said they had experienced moderate or severe stress or problems with alcohol, emotions or their families. That compares with 23 percent a year earlier.

The report said reasons for the improvement in mental health are not clear. Among possible explanations: less frequent and less intense combat, more comforts like air conditioning, wider access to mental health services and improved training in handling the stresses associated with deployments and combat.

National Guard and Reserve soldiers who serve in transportation and support units suffered more than others from depression, anxiety and other indications of acute psychological stress, the report said. These soldiers have often been targets of the insurgents' lethal ambushes and roadside bombs, although the report said they had significantly fewer actual combat experiences than soldiers assigned to combat units.

The report recommended that the Army reconsider whether National Guard and Reserve support troops are getting adequate training in combat skills. Even though they do less fighting than combat troops, they might be better suited to cope with wartime stress if they had more confidence in their combat skills, it said.

Only 55 percent of National Guard support soldiers said they have ``real confidence'' in their unit's ability to perform its mission, compared with 63 percent of active-duty Army support soldiers. And only 28 percent of the Guard troops rated their level of training as high, compared with 50 percent of their active-duty counterparts.

Small focus groups were held to ascertain troop morale.

The report said 54 percent of soldiers rated their units' morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent. Although respondents said ``combat stressors'' like mortar attacks were higher in the most recent survey, ``noncombat stressors'' like uncertain tour lengths were much lower, the report said.

The thing that bothered soldiers the most, the latest assessment said, was the length of their required stay in Iraq. At the start of the war, most were deployed for six months, but now they go for 12 months.

Asked about this, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference that the Army's 12-month requirement is linked in part to its effort to complete a fundamental reorganization of fighting units.

``I've tried to get the Army to look at the length of tours and I think at some point down the road they will,'' he said.

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Majority of Soldiers Say Iraq Morale Low ...

Does this article mean moral, while low, is less low that it has been?

Does this article mean moral, while low, is less low that it has been?

54 percent of soldiers rated their units' morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent

Independent
Iraq's top Shia cleric warns of 'genocidal war'
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 19 July 2005

The slaughter of hundreds of civilians by suicide bombers shows that a "genocidal war" is threatening Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the
country's most influential Shia cleric, warned yesterday.

So far he has persuaded most of his followers not to respond in kind against the Sunni, from whom the bombers are drawn, despite repeated massacres of Shia. But sectarian divisions between Shia and Sunni are deepening across Iraq after the killing of 18 children in the district of New Baghdad last week and the death of 98 people caught by the explosion of a gas tanker in the market town of Musayyib. Many who died were visiting a Shia mosque.

There are also calls for the formation of militias to protect Baghdad neighbourhoods. Khudayr al-Khuzai, a Shia member of parliament, said the
time had come to "bring back popular militias". He added: "The plans of the interior and the defence ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed
to stop the terrorists."

Against the wishes of the Grand Ayatollah, who has counselled restraint, some Shia have started retaliatory killings of members of the former regime, most of whom but not all are Sunni. Some carrying out the attacks appear to
belong to the 12,000-strong paramilitary police commandos. Mystery surrounds many killings. A former general in Saddam Hussein's army called Akram Ahmed Rasul al-Bayati and his two sons, Ali, a policeman, and Omar were arrested
by police commandos 10 days ago. Omar was released and one of his uncles paid $7,000 for the release of the other two. But when he went to get them he saw them taken out of a car and shot dead.

Fear of Shia death squads, perhaps secretly controlled by the Badr Brigade, the leading Shia militia, frightens the Sunni. The patience of the Shia is wearing very thin. But their leaders want them to consolidate their strength within the government after their election victory in January.

The radical Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia twice fought US troops, has called for restraint. "The occupation itself is the
problem," he said. "Iraq not being independent is the problem. And the other problems stem from that - from sectarianism to civil war. The entire
American presence causes this."

The suicide bombings show increasing sophistication. The casualty figures from Musayyib were so horrific because the bomber blew himself up beside a fuel tanker which had been stolen two days earlier and pre-positioned in the centre of the town.

The slaughter of hundreds of civilians by suicide bombers shows that a "genocidal war" is threatening Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the
country's most influential Shia cleric, warned yesterday.

So far he has persuaded most of his followers not to respond in kind against the Sunni, from whom the bombers are drawn, despite repeated massacres of Shia. But sectarian divisions between Shia and Sunni are deepening across Iraq after the killing of 18 children in the district of New Baghdad last week and the death of 98 people caught by the explosion of a gas tanker in the market town of Musayyib. Many who died were visiting a Shia mosque.

There are also calls for the formation of militias to protect Baghdad neighbourhoods. Khudayr al-Khuzai, a Shia member of parliament, said the
time had come to "bring back popular militias". He added: "The plans of the interior and the defence ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed
to stop the terrorists."

Against the wishes of the Grand Ayatollah, who has counselled restraint, some Shia have started retaliatory killings of members of the former regime, most of whom but not all are Sunni. Some carrying out the attacks appear to belong to the 12,000-strong paramilitary police commandos. Mystery surrounds many killings. A former general in Saddam Hussein's army called Akram Ahmed
Rasul al-Bayati and his two sons, Ali, a policeman, and Omar were arrested by police commandos 10 days ago. Omar was released and one of his uncles
paid $7,000 for the release of the other two. But when he went to get them he saw them taken out of a car and shot dead.

Fear of Shia death squads, perhaps secretly controlled by the Badr Brigade, the leading Shia militia, frighten the Sunni. The patience of the Shia is wearing very thin. But their leaders want them to consolidate their strength within the government after their election victory in January.

The radical Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia twice fought US troops, has called for restraint. "The occupation itself is the
problem," he said. "Iraq not being independent is the problem. And the other problems stem from that - from sectarianism to civil war. The entire
American presence causes this."

The suicide bombings show increasing sophistication. The casualty figures from Musayyib were so horrific because the bomber blew himself up beside a fuel tanker which had been stolen two days earlier and pre-positioned in the centre of the town.

Wow, I'm surprised you posted that, Ican.
Considering what it says, yaknow, about how Iraq is sliding towards civil war.
Surprise Hmm!
Whether I like it or not, it's an important opinion that must be taken into account. Assuming it's true, look what it tells us. The malignancy in Iraq now is made up mostly of Suni desperate to sabotage the Iraqi democracy. Suppose we let them succeed. It's highly probable they will resume a Saddam-like or Saddam-actual regime. If that happens al Qaeda will regain safe sanctuary for its training bases in Iraq. If that happens, then mass murder of civilians will within a short time probably significantly increase worldwide.

That says we better damn well not let the Suni succeed. In other words, we better exterminate the malignancy. That in turn says to me we better persevere and do what it takes to secure democracy in Iraq no matter what the cost.


In fact, you agree with it so much that you posted it twice
I posted it twice? Where? I don't deserve credit for the repetition in the article itself. The author deserves it instead
Cycloptichorn