Willing to send his son

I suppose, you'll always find militarists and families with militarist tradition everywhere.

Many of Saddam's generals came from such as well as Hitler's general as his failed assassins.

Prince Harry (a British C-list celebrity and fourth in line of succession to the throne of Great Britain) is to go with his regiment to Iraq.

Murder, Inc.
That's the reality of American foreign policy
by Justin Raimondo
Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington was recently sentenced to a mere eight years in jail for the wanton, planned murder of an Iraqi man, in return for his testimony against the other monsters who participated in the crime. He told the judge, at his sentencing, that he felt regret "but that he and other Marines were frustrated by their ill-defined mission in Iraq and the inability to tell friend from foe. 'As callous as it sounds,' he said, every Iraqi was considered 'guilty until proven otherwise.'"

How typically American: he isn't to blame for his actions - certainly not! - it's his "ill-defined mission." But what if carnage - for its own sake, as an end in itself - is the mission? Forget the highfalutin' rhetoric about "democracy," the "war on terrorism," the "weapons of mass destruction" that somehow turned into a desert mirage. The ugly reality is that Iraq has become an arena for American sadists to act out their perverted fantasies, a vast Charenton where the de Sades in charge of American foreign policy have unleashed an army of torturers and murderous thugs on the Iraqi people. The American media doesn't want to show the real face of U.S. "liberators," but they are being outflanked by the new technology that makes the self-appointed "gatekeepers" of journalism increasingly irrelevant.

The Americans seem particularly enthralled with shooting the wounded: here is some young savage, living proof that devolution is not just a concept, expounding on how "awesome" wanton murder is. He is the New American Man, invincibly ignorant, raised on rap music and violent video games, grinning boyishly at the prospect of a future of endless slaughter. He rides around the country, randomly firing on civilians, as if he were at one of those shoot-the-duck booths at the county fair.

They murder to a Satanic tune - "Dead bodies everywhere!" - while joyously creating havoc wherever they roam. For allegedly stealing wood, an Iraqi taxi driver finds that his livelihood is crushed by an American tank - and, boy, it sure looks like those Americans are having fun! That is how a sick, decadent people amuse themselves.

These "liberators" are war criminals, and it's only fitting that they have installed a government of death squads as their local satraps. As they and their allies rampage throughout Iraq, like angels of death, committing war crimes in the dark, the U.S. Congress "debates" a non-binding resolution - and the Senate cannot even bring itself to vote on a meaningless motion, never mind one that could actually end the slaughter.

Support our troops? Hell no. Anyone who "supports the troops" is an accomplice to their deeds. The evidence shows clearly that these are not innocent babes in the woods: they are wolves, predators, killers, deeply, profoundly implicated in what will go down in history as a horrific war of aggression.

The clear fact of the matter is that America's conquest of Iraq is the policy of criminals - except that even most criminals act rationally, in the sense that there's some profit in their activities, some benefit, real or imagined, to be gained. But this war is not an ordinary crime: it is a wanton orgy of murder that is all the more horrendous due to its utter senselessness. This is nihilism in action.

I doubt that a congressional resolution is going to address the main cause of this war and its continuation: the psychological sickness that is eating away at the American character. It is a mix of hubris, bloodlust, and sheer depravity, and it is being acted out against the backdrop of international politics. The post-9/11 world we are living in has become a projection of our own demons, which have now been unleashed on a horrified world.

Who will stop the madness? Not the politicians. Not Congress, or the media, nor even the men of God - all of whom are complicit, to one degree or another, with the crimes of the American government. Our intellectual, moral, and political leaders have abandoned all standards, all sense of decency, and therefore have no problem rationalizing the monstrous.

There will be no easy end to this war because it is merely a symptom of our own inner rot. We've come a long way from the American of Jefferson's time to the neo-barbarians of the Late Imperial era - and it's been downhill all the way.

This isn't a political problem - it's a cultural affliction. The world's most powerful nation is infected with the psychopathology of a serial murderer - one who kills not out of grim necessity, but for the sheer joy of it.

We live in a society sickened by its own poisons. Conservatives have known this for some time. Liberals are learning it. The culture of permissiveness, of moral relativism and heedless hedonism, is yielding some decidedly unexpected consequences in the foreign policy realm. After all, we're the most powerful nation on earth - why shouldn't we push others around? Even as we play the role of international do-gooders, the obvious enjoyment our centurions take in humiliating "Ali Baba" - their name for any Iraqi - illustrates what is really driving this war, and all the wars to come: what the conservative philosopher Claes Ryn calls "the will to dominate."

America is, today, the fountainhead of evil in the world. No one is killing people faster, and with more cruelty and indifference, than the warlords of Washington. The temptation is to turn away in disgust and resign oneself to the degeneration of Jefferson's benevolent legacy into a maelstrom of malevolence worthy of Caligula.

Yet the triumph of domination as the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy is not inevitable, or irreversible. Its overthrow, however, requires a moral reawakening. By this, I don't mean a return to religion, although - unlike all too many libertarians - I wouldn't rule it out entirely. This moral revolution, in any case, will be born in an instinctive revulsion against what is depicted in the video links above, married to an unwillingness to let such evil continue for a moment longer.

Sooner or later, the American people must be made to understand that the choice is between noninterventionism and barbarism. Americans are naïve: they believe in the myth of automatic progress, the illusion of history as an ever ascending stairway to higher levels of civilization, but the truth is far grimmer. Empires rise - and fall. Dark ages follow. The kind of degeneracy we are now seeing acted out in Iraq promises a fall that will plumb new depths of darkness.

I know it's difficult for the ADHD liberals, but could you try to focus a bit?

What do you mean? Is Prince Harry a wrong example or are mine out of context?

"astute", hmmm, thanks for the compliment, Bill, but one needn't be astute to note that this has been a miserable failure. Even you've noticed that.

People of my ilk are those who care that innocents are being slaughtered because of the lies of a nation that has heaped untold misery on a people who did nothing to them.

How is it possible that someone can get to their mid-thirties and be so appallingly naive or so wilfully stupid? The sheer ludicrousness of your position, Bill, that you think you can solve this problem that is Iraq, over a couple of beers and a few diagrams on a napkin.

You don't want to face it, but you're more than willing to let untold numbers suffer and die just so you can continue playing some silly little game.

First, and most importantly, you don't let the incompetents that caused the problem in the first place continue to phuck things up. You remove them from their positions of power and try them for their crimes. Now that would go some distance towards helping to solve the problem.

Have you watched the video, "Iraq: The Hidden Story", Bill?

Here's the link.

http://hardline.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/awesome-video-about-things-on-the-ground-in-iraq/

You say that McCains son made his own decision to join the marines,but you attack the Bush girls for making their own decision.

So,is it or is it not ok for an adult child to make their own decisions?

JTT, What that film shows is how our soldiers, in our name, are killing innocent people of Iraq. I wonder how many conservatives on these threads are proud of our occupation of Iraq? None seems to understand that even the children of Iraq are now showing hate against us.

The main theme of the film is how any real news coming out of Iraq must be provided by the Iraqis themselves, many risking their lives to show what's really happening on the ground. They want the world to know, but our government is not allowing it to be shown.

Nonsense C.I. The main point of that film was a self important ass demonstrating he doesn't know a picture is worth a 1000 words. No, we don't show heads getting blown off and no, the networks dutifully clip some of the gore to meet American standards. They'd do the same thing if it was an accident or a natural disaster. We're talking about a country that insisted some sex scenes in a cartoon with puppet people had to be removed to show the film in a movie theater for crying out sideways. This isn't some elaborate conspiracy to shield the American people from the truth in Iraq, like some would like to make it out to be. American TV viewers are always shielded from overt over the top gore, whether it's a roadside bomb or a traffic accident. Don't like it? Write your congressman.

As for those reporters; what a bunch of A-holes. They make it sound like their being cheated because they can't walk through a battlefield with impunity. News flash to the deliberately obtuse; except for a few accidents here and there; it's the bad guys making them unsafe. Expectations to the contrary are as childish as their whining about it is petty. They couldn't even take their hats off to the Iraqis doing their leg work for them, instead throwing in nonsense about how in their superior skills they would have asked the killer questions. Please. Self-important-idiots, every one of them. If you don't want to be stuck in the Green Zone take your brave ass to the Red Zone if you think your voice is so very imperative... or better yet; go home and shut the hell up. And thank the soldiers risking their necks to carry your ass to and fro; don't belittle him for doing you this service.

Outside of some overt gore; the footage looked identical to the footage I see on the news nightly. And didn't they state about 35,000 deaths in 3 years... according to the "most authoritative source"? What happened to the millions some of the morons around here have been throwing around? Do you guys really think that's a full-blown civil war? Are you kidding? 36 people a day? The 3 year total gets dwarfed in a real battle during an actual all out civil. If some of you pull-out-tomorrow folks were to get your way; you may very well get to see that kind of mass slaughter, but I'm sure it would just be blamed on Bush as if abandonment had nothing to do with it, as if that would somehow lessen the horror. At least; that's how it would play in some of the feeble minded posting here.

The idea that abandonment would somehow be doing the Iraqis some kind of kindness is astounding to me. Google genocide and see if you can get a feel for how much worse it really can, and likely would get if were to pull out tomorrow. At least be honest and say you're concerned about American Soldiers, or a fear your child may become one of them, but don't pretend you're wishing this on behalf of the Iraqi people. That is obscene. So is the imbecile who narrated that film blaming anyone for not being able to get his friggin face time on camera. What a royal A-hole. 36 people a day dying and he's going to sit and whine because it isn't safe for him to stand in front of the carnage while it's being filmed. What a class A A-hole.

Wonderful piece of groundbreaking journalism.

bill said
From where - that is, from whose analyses - are you drawing your assumptions regarding the likilhood of such a consequence? Serious question. I would like to see names with, if possible, links to the commentary/analyses.

I don't ask that to put you to unnecessary and distracting work. I ask because I'm pretty confident that you'll have no small problem delivering up sources who stand outside of the neoconservative circle or outside of partisan support for this administration or who (like McCain) are not tethered to a particular storyline through the perceived necessity to have that stance as primaries/elections approach.

OBill, Calm down! Iraq is in a civil war added to an insurgency that wants to destablize the country. !50,000 US troops is not going to fix that now or ever. All we do is expose our troops to death and maiming while accomplishing nothing for the long-term.

What the film shows is our soldiers killing unarmed wounded Iraqis; shooting a man in the brain.

If you're okay with that, I now understand why our country has degraded to the level of terrorists.

How many more soldiers are you willing to sacrifice for this unwinable cause? For me, I sure would hate to see my family or friends sacrificed for this lost cause. Those who have been sacrificed will all be forgotten in a decade by most - except some of their family members.

There was a tv program over the weekend on how our injured troops are not getting the care they should be receiving. You should be proud to support this administration, and the fraud perpetrated to all.

Blatham, the prediction was my own. It was a response to a hypothetical that has about a zero chance of happening, so I doubt many experts have pondered it. We will not up and disappear tomorrow or any other day; it's just not that simple. IF we were to do so, however, I believe an actual Civil War would begin shortly there after. Anyone who thinks 36 deaths a day constitutes a heated Civil War in country with a population of 25 million is either ignorant, stupid or both. The truth is; it could get 10, 100, on some days even a 1,000 times worse, frequently has in actual Civil Wars, and I see no reason that wouldn't be the case here. The Sunni/Shia thing is every bit as compelling as the Hutu/Tutsi thing, for instance.

C.I., stop letting pundits convince you words like Civil War are appropriate. You've been around long enough to KNOW that a real Civil War makes this insurgency look like a petty nuisance. 35,000 dead in 3 years? That's a bad 3 weeks in an actual Civil War... not 3 years. We lost 600,000+ lives in our own out of about 30 million. The more recent, and probably more accurate analogy would be Rwanda. 800,000 dead in about 3 months (not years) and another 2 million displaced. Compare that statistically to Iraq and you're looking at MILLIONS dead and refugee numbers in horrifically unmanageable proportions. What would you have us do then?

It is a stain on the entire world community that we watched that happen in Rwanda, continue to in Darfur, etc. and now you want us to abandon Iraq to the same fate after our own actions set them on this course? Have you no shame?

The blame game is fabulous for coffee shops, bars, and internet chat rooms but it changes the present crisis not one iota. Of course it's possible that Iraq already has a date with destiny... I'm not at all convinced the Hutu's could have been saved either. But I know in my heart that the entire world community bears a burden of guilt for not trying and I share in this shame. The leaders of this and other Nations carry a greater burden of responsibility than I can even fathom; while the peanut gallery takes potshots at them for failure, and will always do so.

If 1994 had seen 200,000 American troops deployed to Rwanda, with a casualty rate of 5% while holding the genocide to 400,000; the guy who sent them would have been crucified by the American (and world) Press and the Anti-war crowd both for his failure to protect the other half of the Hutu's and the deaths of American soldiers alike. He would further be blamed for ALL of the casualties, universally and there would be those seeking his trial for war crimes. War is Hell... but that doesn't always mean it's unnecessary. In the scenario above; 390,000 lives would have been spared; and the American response would have been identical to what we see today.

The only real difference would be the lack of rational self interest intrinsic in our motivations. At this juncture; some fool is no doubt salivating at the opportunity to point out the problem wouldn't exist had we not attacked Iraq. And that would be relevant to a solution; if we had a time machine. We do not. We are where we are and it is what it is, and no amount of shouting at the rain or pointing fingers of blame will change it. Iraq sits precariously on the verge of an all out Civil War; and I'll not join the folks who'd have the most capable nation on earth retreat to a front row seat to watch another Rwanda.

OBill, I agree that the international community has been lacking in their support to save Iraq, but we must also remember how Bush alienated most of our European allies before the war.

Most of us who see the crisis in Darfur wonder how everybody can be so divorced from all the inhumanity going on. It's today's reality.

As for any solutions for Iraq; I don't think there are any easy answers. We surely can't do anything with 150,000 troops. Without the military or treasure to continue on this same course for the indefinite future, something must change. Bush's stance to not deal with Iran is a big mistake.

Now with the Brits leaving Iraq, we'll be the only country left.

What now?

Good on you for asking the most logical question. I don't know either. I do know that having already removed the only control over a centuries old rivalry, that is boiling at the redline as we speak; walking away to watch it explode can not be the answer. The United States is very much responsible for opening Pandora's box, and I think she is likewise responsible for finding a new lid of some kind. I find the idea of first setting Iraq on a path to Civil War, and then abandoning them to it, unconscionable. It is a pity, that like the Press, the world community is content to play the blame game while ignoring the impending humanitarian disaster that may well be just in front of us.

Will a surge of 20,000 troops solve the problem? I doubt it too. Will it help to at least postpone the pending humanitarian disaster? Probably. Will we eventually succeed in averting said humanitarian disaster? I sincerely hope so... and at this juncture see insufficient evidence to abandon that hope, along with the millions of lives that hand in the balance.

Miraculously, I find myself agreeing with almost every word in this post of yours, OB. You kind of avoided the critical parts (change of strategy? long term viability? diplomatic approach including Iraq's neighbours?), but your description of the current situation pretty much hits the nail on the head.

I have a few quibbles here. The first is that the problem is not centuries old. When the Caliphs sat in Baghdad, there was no love lost between Sunnis and Shi'ites, but there was no sectarian violence on an every day basis. When the Seljuk Turks took over, and the Caliphs became mere figureheads, the same situation obtained. The Mongol invasion put the Caliphate and the Seljuk Turks out of business, and the Osmanli Turks stepped into the gap. The Turks were never stupid enough to attempt to make the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shi'ites live together. That idiocy did not occur until the British took over. From 1924, the British were fighting a well armed and fanatical insurgency in Baghdad, and bombing and strafing Kurd and Sunni Arab villages. By and large, "Iraqis" were united by their hatred of the British. It was the imposition of a Hashemite king which gave the Sunnis the opportunity to impose their minority will on the Shi'ite majority. The problem of "Iraq" only exists because it is not and never has been a true nation--but the problem is not centuries old, it is only a little over 80 years old. It is entirely possible that peace can come to Iraq--although i doubt it. Come what may, the majority of the population of that "nation" are Shi'ite, and their natural allies in a hostile region are the Persians. Iran, sooner or later, will be the most important influence in Iraq.

The second is that this is not a case of a civil war breaking out if we leave. The civil war has already begun. Iraqis are currently dying at a rate of 100 or more each day--that's a slaughter at a rate equal to or greater than the bloodshed which followed the revoluiton in Iran 30 years ago.

I've been calling it a civil war for a while now, because that is what it is. I don't see how more than 3,000 civilians dying in and around Baghdad every month (those were the numbers the last time I checked), killed due to sectarian violence, don't constitute a civil war.

old europe, Your definition for "civil war" agrees with most peple's perception of the word; it does mine.

From the Foreign Policy Institute:

Storm from the East : The Struggle Between the Arab World and the Christian West
America's engagement with the Arab world stretches back far beyond the Iraq wars. According to Milton Viorst, the current conflict is simply the latest round in a 1,400-year struggle between Christianity and Islam, in which the United States became a participant only in the last century.

My quibble with the term Civil War is that it seems to imply that it's too late to stop a full-blown Civil War. I tend to think of a Civil War as one with clearly defined sides; and entire populations being forced to choose a side or run for their lives. An organization if you will, where people are forced to overtly declare "for or against" status in the face of clearly identifiable would-be authorities of sort. Be it a uniform or an armband; something other than shadow attacks by an insurgency. While that day may well be coming; I don't see Iraq as having passed that threshold yet.