If your argument is that we are winning in Iraq why not argue that we are winning in Iraq. You with evidence and stuff.

This is just chaff.

Re: #1 from talboito. I think the same.

Lord have mercy on your soul if you believe the fanaticas truebeliever fiction and myth. Redneck America represents all that is wrong and evil in this world, and perverts and mangles the core principle upon which America is founded and has long defended, including the resounding DEFEAT of the fascist, racist, and pathologically criminal perversions of the confederacy and all those things currently supported by the fanaticus truebeliever Bush government apologists in "redneck America".
Not in my name you freaks. You do NOT represent America, or American value or our core principles, and your beserk fascist and criminal perversions are anathema to every thing America stands for and upon.

Shame on you, and if there is a god, or goddess, of godz, - may he, she, or they have mercy on your fascist souls.

"Deliver us form evil!!!!"

Singer blames underdevelopment and "semi-democracy" for civil war, and recommends development and "full democratization" to avoid it. Maybe I'm missing the Nuance (the exciting new fragrance with the smell of fresh horseshit) but that's like saying money cures poverty.

I don't know how you get full democracy without going through semi-democracy first, and therefore risking civil war. What ought to concern us is the long-standing belief of despots that all democracy is chaos because people are unfit to govern themselves. Rightly or wrongly, Iraq has become another test case.

It depends on whether you think that human emancipation is worth a human cost, or whether peace and stability (in which those of us who are lucky can quietly enjoy our wealth and liberty) is worth keeping most of humanity poor, stupid, and powerless.

Glen, The Iraqis are living proof of John C. Calhoun's statement that "Liberty, for those unprepared for it, instead of a blessing is a curse." (The quote probably isn't precise since I don't have time to google it right now, but the gist is accurate). Our biggest mistake in Iraq was to try to establish a democracy among people with a primitive tribal culture with no tradition of democracy or successful Westernization (only temporary and partial Westernization enforced brutally from above) and a fanatic, supremecist religion. I said at the time and I say now, the idea of democratizing Iraq is sheer insanity. We should have chosen some relatively pliant Ba'athist general and set him up as a Saddam lite. That's the only form of government that works in that part of the world. As long as we are counting on the Iraqis to be liberal (or really any other kind of) democrats, our effort is certainly doomed to failure.

While I haven't had time to read the Singer piece, most of the academic/research writing on civil wars that I've seen quoted as a source of a broad definition of Civil War has been very up front about why. The researchers use a broad definition because they want to have a broad field of data to study. They want to know what features contribute to escalation of civil strife and which allow the cycle of violence to be broken. At what point has international involvement helped and hurt. Etc. I think this research is a great asset and the goals are lofty.

OTOH, those who look to these definitions to declare Iraq a "civil war" are uninterested in these ambitions. They are uninterested in peace. They want to scare Americans into leaving and giving up hope.

Primitives?

Yes PD. Any culture that practices female genital mutilation, honor killings, subjegation of women to a degree not seen in the West for a millenium, rule by a brutal set of religious strictures dating from a millenium and a half ago, incapacity to adavance politically, socially or technologically (their technology is almost entirely parasitic on the West) for at least half a millenium; a culture divided by thousand year old tribal hatreds in which anyone outside the tribe, including women, children, the crippled and the old are fair game for annihilation is by my definition primitive.

We were talking about Iraq. Why is Iraq a primitive culture? You've tarred Iraqis with news stories from Pakistan to Sudan. For one, genital mutilation is not a phenomena in Iraq, if it is, its limited to a small rural area in Southern Kurdistan. Perhaps 2-3% of women in that area. Women's rights are not a precondition for democracy.

Iraq had elections over 50 years ago and is no less primitive than the Iroquois who had a democracy before the United States. I see only two significant limitations: (1) oil, which has historically centralized authority in countries regardless of culture, and (2) outside influence. If anything was naive, it was naive to assume that a free Iraq would have repercussions in the area, yet fail to foresee that others, less agreeable, might notice as well.

"Redneck America represents all that is wrong and evil in this world, and perverts and mangles the core principle upon which America is founded and has long defended, including the resounding DEFEAT of the fascist, racist, and pathologically criminal perversions of the confederacy and all those things currently supported by the fanaticus truebeliever Bush government apologists in "redneck America". Not in my name you freaks."

That's kind of hard on the poor old Rednecks. I don't know how many you've known, Tony, but the ones I've known mostly just want to fish and drink beer. I think that was pretty much true in 1860, too; the people who led the Confederacy to war were a lot of things, but not Rednecks.

ahh liberal angst. Can't we all just get along? Seriously, let's debate and not call each other names.

Seriously, the American civil war and Iraqi 'struggle' are very different from OUR perspective. This is like comparing the presence of the French in the civil war to our presence in Iraq. France was fighting to annoy the british, we're fighting to weed out terrorists, which is both/neither and/or tertiary to the Sunni/Shia militias fighting now. Is it a fullscale civil war? Maybe not. But at some level there are multiple milia insurgencies assasinating their opposition in a way that seems to be preparing for war. These groups have a long standing history of dislike, including genocide in parts of the world. And there is also the the pollitical system in tandem, which currently has not functionality and cannot dictate terms to either side.

I would argue that this is quite different than the American civil war, where the American way of life would be fundamentally changed by a split (this may happen eventually from Iraq, but more due to cause & effect than a direct relationship). Alsothe American civil war war was less about dueling cultures (although that did play a role) then about the presence of slavery. Even though Lincoln was elected as anti-abolitionist, this was not enough for the South, who started the war to protect infringement on their right to slavery. The ACW was also fought with clear sides, and relatively minimal civilian casualties In many cases,the same family fought on different sides of this war, and although the north & South detested each other for long afterwards (some to this day), the american civil war does not have the cultural/religous overtones that Iraq has today.

If anything, I would more likely compare it to the British/IRA battles that have only recently been resolved. There you have the Protestant/Catholic overtones, Armed terrorism and civilian attacks, in addition to a well armed force with superior strength. Although my knowledge of this conflict is limited, my understanding is that greater consolidations by Britain to Ireland, followed by the IRA's willingness to work through the pollitical system appeased this conflict. Note that this process took some 800 years to settle. The additional problem is that for the first time in 30 years, the Shia's have the power and are unlikely to release it, and only a minority of Sunni's have been willing to use the pollitical system.

#9, To my knowledge, there are (and never have been) any functioning democracies from Pakistan to Sudan. True Pakistan had elections before Musharraf, but it obviously didn't last and, if I remember my news history, was fairly chaotic while it did. So yes, I am referring to cultures stretching over that entire part of the world, of which Iraq is a part.

Oops, that should be "there are not (and never have been). . ."

Alchemist,

Are you aware of the United Irishmen movement of the late 1790s, in particular the rising of 1798? It's something I've often thought about in relation to the question of how these sorts of movements -- Iraq, the American Revolution, and the Irish question -- are to be compared and contrasted. It's interesting, because it was a window in which Protestant and Catholic set aside their differences to fight for a common, Enlightenment vision similar to the American vision of 1776. The French tried to help the Irish too, but failed to land their fleet due to weather.

With the collapse of the UI movement, the window apparently closed -- if not forever, then certainly from then until now. Catholic songs about the movement played up the Catholic heroes, and barely mentioned the Protestants who had often been the real leaders on the field. But, there was a moment, a chance, that if seized might have prevented another two hundred years of misery.

Did Iraq already have a democracy?

[T]he 1925 Iraqi constitution--which establishes that the nation's sovereignty "resides in the people"--provides for an elected lower house of parliament, which has a major role in approving constitutional amendments. It also contains a section on "The Rights of the People" that declares Islam as the official religion, but also provides for freedom of worship for all Islamic sects and indeed for all religions and for "complete freedom of conscience." It further guarantees "freedom of expression of opinion, liberty of publication, of meeting together, and of forming and joining associations." In different words, the essence of much of our own Bill of Rights is reflected therein.

Bernard Lewis advocating the restoration of the mixed parliamentary/monarch system that finally ended with the 1958 Baathist coup.

It all depends on what one means by democracy.

Time to up the meds, Tony. And save that kind of post for DU (or for lots of fun, Freep). You're welcome here if you want to make arguments. Deranged rants belong on other sites - and people who keep making them will lose their privileges here.

A.L.

The US Civil War analogy is very apt:

Death Squads in Iraq = roughly = the KKK, founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest, noted and brutal Saddam-like General, a death squad as well.

Jim Crow = roughly = Sunnis attempt to kill into intimidation the old way back into life.

Reconstruction ending was / is roughly the same.

The only difference is that the Freed Slaves had little in the way of armament and no foreign backers, thus were easily oppressed. In Iraq the Shias have plenty of weapons and the KKK-like "Nightriders" will find themselves sectarianly cleansed.

It is not just primitiveness. There is also the problem of low average IQ. It may be that Iraqis are not smart enough on average to run a modern economy and a modern democracy.

IQ and the wealth of Nations.

Thanks Grim, I did not know that story.

However, for Iraq there may be hope for the future. Nutritional improvements might raise their average IQ by 10 to 15 points. That may take 100 years or more.

The first requirement is security.

M. Simon: There used to be a famous saying in the middle east:
"Cairo writes. Beirut publishes. And Baghdad reads."

These places all used to have a history of ideas and eduation. The last century has buried those ideas under mortar fire. Don't sell Iraqi's short, they have not had access to real education for 30 years. Free thought can get you killed.

We have a saying "nice guys finish last". That's also true in Iraq. It seems the leaders who did the best job surviving Saddam where also not the best people to reuild a country. So in this vacuum of power comes the Allawi's, the Chalabi's, the Al-Sadr's.

Iraq is a complicated place, I dislike it when I hear people say things like: The Iraqi's aren't smart enough; They don't want freedom enough; The Iraqi's don't understand democracy.... Each group in Iraq is playing a high-stakes, no rules game right now. They know what they're doing. Unfortunately, many leaders have a lot to gain from keeping their hands under the table. It's the regular Iraqi's getting screwed. That's the way it always is.

m. simon, there seem to be a lot of Middle Eastern countries in the middle (admittedly low-middle) of the pack in your IQ link. If your implicit assumption were to hold true, one would expect that Middle Eastern countries might similarly be in the middle, to low-middle, of the pack according to Freedom House. They're not. Instead, countries like Ghana and South Africa have very low average IQ, but are marked free at Freedom House.

Maybe, just maybe, portions of Africa were subject to longer and more extensive imperialism than much of the Middle East.

P.D.S,

You make a very good point.

I have often thought that British Imperialism ended 20 to 40 years too soon. Mainly at America's instigation starting with FDR. He really pressured them during WW2.

As for the other imperialists, they were mostly unmitigated disasters. Belgium and France being among the worst.

The most surpising situation was China which got their dose of Britain mostly from Hong Kong.

I've been thinking about stories too. The lefties have been manipulating the narrative very consciously, taking every opportunity to portray Bush as either an animalistic fool or an evil genius. They are personalizing their opposition to America, placing it all in George W. Bush's lap. I think that perhaps they see it as vengeance of like kind for the anti-Clinton derangement that started with Whitewater and ended with tales of Monica Lewinsky under a desk. Anyway, all their stories have Dubya as a villain. I'm sick of it as is any intelligent person.

One typical war story pattern is Supplication, as in the Seven Samurai or the Magnificent Seven. A village of ordinary people is plagued by renegade soldiers who have become bandits. They send a Supplicant to find some rough men to protect them and promise them all sorts of inducements.

In the Seven Samurai, it continues like this, with the second half of the plot being Deliverance. The warriors come and fortify the town, trying without much success to stiffen the backbone of the villagers and turn them into fighers, and finally defending the town against the renegades. Almost all the warriors die heroically in battle. One or two survive, and are rushed out of town by the disgusted and frightened villagers.

If you paid close attention, you will realize that Supplication and Deliverance is exactly the story that was told by Operation Desert Storm. The villagers were Kuwait. Saddam and his army were the villains. America and the Coalition was the power that brought deliverance.

On Easter Sunday 1873, 153 were killed in one of the bloodiest battles of the war that has dragged on for eight years since President Lincoln famously declared "Mision accomplished." While there have been stories of success as many White Southerners shared streetcars, restaurants and hotels and in many places formed fusion parties with Black Southerners, the drumbeat of violence has dashed many hopes of reconcilation. Promised funds for reconstruction and freedmen have been held up by Northern Congressmen still emibitered by Southern seccession. Others, like Rep. Smith, have a different view: "I supported the war on the grounds it was first presented -- union. I've got no interest in the race issue, its intractable." President Grant has promised to send more troops and pass controversial civil rights laws, but his administration, mired in corruption, seems incapable to deal with growing American resentment.

If we go back to Lincoln's original "rationale" for war, he was adamant that it was to save the Union, no? And, in that, he was ultimately successful. As for the objective of racial equality, it took a long time, but without this first step, might never have happened. Thank God we ignored the racist Calhoun's pessimism on the ability of our slaves to be free, and started somewhere.

Progress in Iraq will be ugly and take forever as well, but maybe that's what real progress looks like.

I guess, looking at Japan's economic dominance of East Asia, that the US lost WW2 and our enemy got their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Or not.

It's past the moment of truth time in Iraq, boys. You got everything you wanted for this idiotic misadventure in the War on Terror. The results are a catastrophe. In its midst are the clownish quacks you voted for as leaders, opining that our situation just a victory that hasn't happened yet (how Tokyo 1945, or is it Berlin?), and that it's a mistake to make contingency plans.

In related news, the increasingly-capitalist nature of "Communist" Asia (including Vietnam) is making it clear that we won the Vietnam War. It just took a little longer than expected.