Comments on: An Uncivil War

By: Jacqueline Grice

Jacqueline Grice — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:46:11 +0000

Invading Iraq and overthrowing Sadam would expose tensions between the Suni, Shia, and Kurds leading to a Civil war. We’d be bogged down in Iraq for years with little hope of getting out in the forseeable future. I’m paraphrasing, but those words were written by none other that George Herbert Walker Bush and was his reason for not taking Sadam out during the first gulf war. Dubya isn’t going to listen to anybody who isn’t telling him what he wants to hear, he will never admit he’s made a mistake, and we can only hope that the world can hold itself together until we can get this idiot out of office. Althought no one in their right mind will want the job of running this country when he’s through. He’s done a total Humpty Dumpty.

By: Chris Barrett

Chris Barrett — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:04:42 +0000

Gen. Odom by quote: “We [U.S. military forces] created the civil war when we invaded; we can’t prevent a civil war by staying.”

Odom is absolutely incorrect: the U.S. military took down a repressive totalitarian military regime. The opening for “civil war” came with the ridiculously inept and duplicitous Nation Building operation then imported onto the scene. Odom is absolutely correct that the U.S. military cannot prevent urban guerrilla warfare driven by long historic religious and tribal hatreds now unleashed. Western Democracy cannot be over-laid Islamic Fundamentalism. If BushyBoy was not locked into advancing old line corporate oil interests and instead had an emergency program of building a truly Alternative Energy Industry for America in the 21st Century. That would give BushyBoy many more STRATEGIC options. That he refuses to invest in this 21st world is very revealing…he is trapped in a March of Folly that Barbara Tuchman well described in her excellent book of many years ago. BushyBoy is more in the dead habit of following Walt Rostow’s “Stages of Economic Growth” which demands a civil and cohesive society in order to “take off” in both growth [capitalist of course!] and pinches of civil government…small “d” democracy of some parliamentary type. But BushyBoy is a type of King George. A fatal complex.

By: Chris Barrett

Chris Barrett — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 18:33:39 +0000

Bush and his Tight One-Dimensional Club, do not want to think about the issue, which Zakaria does not touch on here is it is absolutely core: when you attempt to engage in the multi-level, dense (long term) and economically costly process of Nation Building [as the U.S. thought it would do in South Vietnam with Diem] it is not possible to do it with military troops alone. Nor is it possible to create a “model democracy” with Radical Shia inside and Iran next door. Iraq, a creation from long ago days of British, French and even Russian Imperial endeavors, is now and will be in a civil war until Iran is crushed and the Radical Shia interests in attempted to graft some distorted form of small “d” bureaucratic democracy onto repressive Sharia Law. It will not be a model of Democracy at all. But in this manner only will the atmosphere of Iraq allow for stabilization of the economy by sharing oil revenue and building social works projects. And the US will not be needed for doing this projects…certainly not US troops! Move the US troops into “Kurdistan” and focus on Iran. Other Arab states can much better assist Sunni and Shia into bureaucratic patchworks. Sadr’s groups need either jobs or full scale war. Such a Radical Islamic Thug leader as Sadr has no place in any democracy. Hopefully, he will be a casualty of civil war. Step aside US. The time now is for Iran. Forget Nation Building there. The Marshall Plan did not precede conclusion of the right war.

By: maha

maha — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 11:10:06 +0000

Jianying, you reveal a weak grasp of history. Bush might have betrayed capitalism and promoted slavery in the territories — the ultimate cheap labor — plus vigorous prosecution of the Fugitive Slave Laws. These moves would have stopped the Secession Crisis, but on the South’s terms. It also would have ensured the U.S. was an impoverished Third-World backwater going into the 20th Century. Way to go.

On the other hand, assuming the Confederacy went ahead and started a war, the Secessionists would have overrun Washington and taken possession of the White House while Bubble Boy was napping.

By: Jianying

Jianying — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 09:35:26 +0000

If bush was president in 1861, the federal government and the south would be in agreement, and it would have been the north that would have succeeded. And who knows the rebel leader may even have been Lincoln.

By: uncledad

uncledad — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 04:33:30 +0000

I especially like bushes often repeated line “As the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down”. What a blatant disregard for reality. The Iraqis have been standing up for three years now. Problem is they seem to be standing up against us and the halfassed Army of unemployed Iraqis we have assembled. Oh wait, I almost forgot all this insurgency is the work of one Jordanian. Right.