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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, April 03, 2006

Iraq.

Relegated to page A17, but still it goes on.

BAGHDAD, April 2 -- At least 50 people were killed Sunday in Iraq in a catalogue of violence that included a mortar attack, military firefights, roadside bombings and other explosions.

In addition, the U.S. military reported the deaths of six soldiers and airmen, including two who were killed when their helicopter apparently was shot down during a combat air patrol southwest of Baghdad on Saturday.


And, if the bombings have been mainly coming from the Sunni side, I think this says that the Shia are fighting back through their militias which often wear the uniforms of the police or army. Is it a civil war yet?
WASHINGTON -- Nearly eight times as many Iraqis died last month in execution-style sectarian killings as in terrorist bombings carried out by insurgents, new US military statistics show.

And the NYtimes has a story and a graphic on the huge increase in sales of small weapons in Iraq since the bombing of the mosque in Samarra. Average people, families are now arming up.

posted by mikevotes at 8:36 AM

7 Comments:

  • As I've alluded to myself, sitting here stateside, safe and sound, we're painfully ignorant of the day-to-day realities of life in Iraq. The void left by the complete lack of any serious, indepth, unemotional reporting in the MSM (specifically broadcast TV) means that Bu$hCo is free to make shit up and the American Joe is none the wiser.

    RE Small arms. Now this is the real problem, not WMD. Sure a dirty bomb or chem. wep. would be nasty, but it's a one shot deal. Small arms is the gift that keeps on giving.

    It's much easier to rail against catastrophic non-problems than it is to actually DO something about real problems.

    By Blogger -epm, at 10:58 AM  

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    By Blogger Handsome B. Wonderful, at 12:47 PM  

  • There is no military solution that we can offer the Iraqis at this point. We just end up sitting by and watching them kill each other.

    We can talk to them until we are blue in the face to get them to figure their sh*t out and form a unity government.

    However, if they won't do it themselves then what are we going to do to get them to do so??? Take over the government again??? This is all getting more and more absured with each passing day.

    Oh but I forgot. We aren't reporting all that good news over there. Kinda hard to do so when journalists are killed and kidnapped if they try to cover what little good news there is in that waste land.

    Wow, Iraq sure is a thriving Democracy ain't it?!!

    By Blogger Handsome B. Wonderful, at 12:48 PM  

  • EPM, this article also made mention of the huge amount of guns and ammo the US has shipped in for the Iraqi army.

    When all those Iraqi troops "melted away" do you think they took their guns that they could sell for thousands with them?

    And, James, you framed the problem pretty well. In order to fore a coalition gov't the constitution was written to require a supermajority to keep the Shia from just taking over, but now we're stuck.The Shia don't have enough seats to form a gov't on their own, but they do have enough seats to stop a coalition of all the others.

    So, it's all them. And, what do we do? That's the big question. We can't dissolve the gov't and take over, so what?

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:15 PM  

  • I'd be happy to have a unity government in America....

    By Blogger -epm, at 1:36 PM  

  • Sounds like freedom to me. Michael Ware has an interesting read in TIME.

    By Blogger Bravo 2-1, at 2:05 PM  

  • That is a really good read.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 6:38 PM  

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