Hello, Reality, nice to meet you
Apr. 4th, 2006 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockHoly flaming Christ:
Despite President Bush's repeated denials, the figures are clear: 900 sectarian killings in a single month in Iraq means a civil war is well under way.
Iraq is a nation of 25 million people. In the United States, that level of killing would proportionately equal almost 11,000 people killed in riots, reprisal killings and sectarian clashes in a single month.
By comparison, the 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1998 saw 3,600 people killed in a small population of 1.5 million. Proportionately, that would equate to 60,000 dead over 30 years in Iraq, or 2,000 killed per year. Instead, if the current Iraqi violence simply stays at the current level and does not escalate any further, it will take 10,800 Iraqi civilian lives this year. That rate would be more than five times the average rate of the Northern Irish conflict.
The rate of killings in Iraq is already as bad as during the horrendous 1975-1991 Lebanese Civil War, in which 150,000 to 200,000 people were killed over 16 years -- an average of between 9,375 and 12,500 people were killed there per year.
These comparisons, of course, can be misleading because in those conflicts, as in almost all civil wars, the rate of killing is not uniform but explodes in peaks and then settles down at lower levels for long periods of time.
But the comparisons are unfortunately revealing in another way -- once the kind of polarizing aimless cycle of sectarian retaliatory killings between paramilitary forces in the two communities that have lived together for many centuries begins, it is often impossible to end it for decades, or before hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or, as was the case in Lebanon, both disasters have happened.
And hey if that wasn't depressing enough for you, try this on for size:
DEBORAH AMOS: ...In the last year, many Sunni insurgent groups have challenged Zarqawi's terror tactics, which has led to open internal battles, says Azzam.
HUDAYFAH AZZAM: And finally he has to change himself and his way, or he has to leave. We are still working very hard on that.
AMOS: But in the last month, the split has been put aside, he says.
ASSAM: Five main parties of the resistance, they were united with Zarqawi, and they are working together now.
AMOS: Iraqi and Western analysts say the rift ended with the upsurge of Sunni-Shia killing following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine north of Baghdad. Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group says that violence explains the newfound unity among foreign fighters and the Iraqi insurgents.
JOOST HILTERMANN: If there was any chance for a rift, it was destroyed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, and as long as there are attacks on -- Shiite Islamist groups operating through [the] Interior Ministry, for example, against Sunni Arabs as a community, the insurgents will remain unified, as a protector, of course.
via No More Mister Nice Blog
I'm seriously trying to imagine how this military campaign could've been handled more arrogantly, ignorantly, or incompetantly and I'm coming up totally dry. It's even worst than my most pessimistic pre-war fears, but of course, it's all the media's fault. If only they'd tell stories about newly painted schools...
On a more positive note, I highly recommend reading TBogg's response to a rather ignorant young troll who thought her "military service" somehow trumped everyone else's right to free speech. I suspect said troll has gone back to lurking under bridges after this verbal smackdown.
Despite President Bush's repeated denials, the figures are clear: 900 sectarian killings in a single month in Iraq means a civil war is well under way.
Iraq is a nation of 25 million people. In the United States, that level of killing would proportionately equal almost 11,000 people killed in riots, reprisal killings and sectarian clashes in a single month.
By comparison, the 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1998 saw 3,600 people killed in a small population of 1.5 million. Proportionately, that would equate to 60,000 dead over 30 years in Iraq, or 2,000 killed per year. Instead, if the current Iraqi violence simply stays at the current level and does not escalate any further, it will take 10,800 Iraqi civilian lives this year. That rate would be more than five times the average rate of the Northern Irish conflict.
The rate of killings in Iraq is already as bad as during the horrendous 1975-1991 Lebanese Civil War, in which 150,000 to 200,000 people were killed over 16 years -- an average of between 9,375 and 12,500 people were killed there per year.
These comparisons, of course, can be misleading because in those conflicts, as in almost all civil wars, the rate of killing is not uniform but explodes in peaks and then settles down at lower levels for long periods of time.
But the comparisons are unfortunately revealing in another way -- once the kind of polarizing aimless cycle of sectarian retaliatory killings between paramilitary forces in the two communities that have lived together for many centuries begins, it is often impossible to end it for decades, or before hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or, as was the case in Lebanon, both disasters have happened.
And hey if that wasn't depressing enough for you, try this on for size:
DEBORAH AMOS: ...In the last year, many Sunni insurgent groups have challenged Zarqawi's terror tactics, which has led to open internal battles, says Azzam.
HUDAYFAH AZZAM: And finally he has to change himself and his way, or he has to leave. We are still working very hard on that.
AMOS: But in the last month, the split has been put aside, he says.
ASSAM: Five main parties of the resistance, they were united with Zarqawi, and they are working together now.
AMOS: Iraqi and Western analysts say the rift ended with the upsurge of Sunni-Shia killing following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine north of Baghdad. Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group says that violence explains the newfound unity among foreign fighters and the Iraqi insurgents.
JOOST HILTERMANN: If there was any chance for a rift, it was destroyed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, and as long as there are attacks on -- Shiite Islamist groups operating through [the] Interior Ministry, for example, against Sunni Arabs as a community, the insurgents will remain unified, as a protector, of course.
via No More Mister Nice Blog
I'm seriously trying to imagine how this military campaign could've been handled more arrogantly, ignorantly, or incompetantly and I'm coming up totally dry. It's even worst than my most pessimistic pre-war fears, but of course, it's all the media's fault. If only they'd tell stories about newly painted schools...
On a more positive note, I highly recommend reading TBogg's response to a rather ignorant young troll who thought her "military service" somehow trumped everyone else's right to free speech. I suspect said troll has gone back to lurking under bridges after this verbal smackdown.
