Chaos
(AP) "Shiite militiamen doused six Sunni Arabs with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by..."
(NYTimes) "Rumors spread quickly throughout the day, fanned by fear. In the evening, a resident said in a telephone interview on Al Jazeera, the Arab news network, that gunmen had doused some people with gasoline and set them on fire. But other residents contacted by telephone denied this."
(AP) "in Sadr City a U.S. helicopter shot back at Shiite militiamen who opened fire on it from the ground, residents said."
(Reuters) "After dark, a U.S. helicopter fired on Sadr City after ritual shooting from one of the dozens of funeral parties taking place after the bombings, an Interior Ministry source said."
My point here is that the situation has gotten to where no one knows what's actually going on in the streets anymore. Rumors are running rampant, and the government has lost all control.
I wrote a post 12 days ago regarding 50 Shia workers who were kidnapped near Latifiyah. This attack was before the Education Ministry attack and the bombings of yesterday.
That's where we are. The inertia of the conflict has taken over, and no Baker/ISG plan, no Pentagon plan, no administration plan can substantially alter that inertia. It's inarguably civil war.
("The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad." George Bush, address to the nation, Sept. 11, 2006.)
(NYTimes) "Rumors spread quickly throughout the day, fanned by fear. In the evening, a resident said in a telephone interview on Al Jazeera, the Arab news network, that gunmen had doused some people with gasoline and set them on fire. But other residents contacted by telephone denied this."
(AP) "in Sadr City a U.S. helicopter shot back at Shiite militiamen who opened fire on it from the ground, residents said."
(Reuters) "After dark, a U.S. helicopter fired on Sadr City after ritual shooting from one of the dozens of funeral parties taking place after the bombings, an Interior Ministry source said."
My point here is that the situation has gotten to where no one knows what's actually going on in the streets anymore. Rumors are running rampant, and the government has lost all control.
I wrote a post 12 days ago regarding 50 Shia workers who were kidnapped near Latifiyah. This attack was before the Education Ministry attack and the bombings of yesterday.
Probably the best observation I can offer is that we've reached a point where these massive events happen so frequently that there is no longer time to figure out what really happened in any of them. There is no more attempt to establish blame. It is just blood for blood.
That's where we are. The inertia of the conflict has taken over, and no Baker/ISG plan, no Pentagon plan, no administration plan can substantially alter that inertia. It's inarguably civil war.
("The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad." George Bush, address to the nation, Sept. 11, 2006.)
posted by mikevotes at
1:41 PM
6 Comments:
It is a clear civil war now. I've updated that Pentagon slide on my most recent post. We see some of the key reads tilting to chaos. The next read is Sadr, or someone else, going hostile in his rhetoric to send the situation further out of control.
By
Bravo 2-1, at 3:05 PM
Sadr or al Dhari. (or maybe a political assassination.)
I think the next major political event is the Bush meeting. Does Maliki go? How does Sadr react? Sadr can't back down from hus ultimatum. Do they really pull out of the government?
What about the Sunni threat to pull out of the government?
We are dancing on a knife edge.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 3:17 PM
Chaos is right. The beginning of the end? I dunno.
I do know the Bush administration's lack of a firm grasp on reality make it a powerful agent of disfunction. Either through lack of action, or perhaps worse, through dogmatic and violent REaction, the next two years do not bode well for the world.
By
-epm, at 7:52 PM
I think that we've passed another benchmark and there is no going back. Even if the violence grows less frequent, the underlying stresses won't go away. The real problem is that none of the major combatants has a self interest to abandon violence.
And, that's what I was trying to say the other day. We are now constructing "solutions" in the political arena which is further and further from the reality of Iraq. And the worse Iraq gets, the more politicized the solutions.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 9:19 PM
It's doomed...and if Dub has his way of thinking for it...we are too. They need to be propelled from office now...on their side...and ours. Those poor people just haven't got a chance. Innocent Sunnis and Shiites just led to the slaughter by their own people. How religion sucks! Dub can shove his religion (or so called) up his ass!
By
sumo, at 10:05 PM
I feel doom as well.
The next major signpost that we can see is the Bush Maliki meeting Thursday.
There may be others in more violence or assassination
By
mikevotes, at 10:53 PM
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