IRAQ: CIVIL WAR WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
Critics of the White House’s Iraq policy contend a civil war is already in progress over there. Bush and his handlers say not so fast, cowardly pessimists. It’s just a “young” democracy ironing out a few wrinkles. That's the latest talking point put together by the Bushelbubs, following other detours around inconvenient truths such as “stay the course,” “central front in the war on terror,” and “cut and run Democrats." Once they decide on a specific phrase, they follow the rhetorical steps as precisely as members of a Vegas chorus line.

But for once the kleptocratic androids chosen to mouth these Cheney-vetted absurdities are correct. That’s not a civil war in Iraq, but a series of two-way slaughters – a kind of slow-motion Auschwitz that’s simultaneously manned by opposing sides.

A civil war involves things like battles, firefights, soldiers fighting soldiers -- something we rarely see among Iraqis. A typical scenario goes more like this:
Shiite murderers get the drop on a group of Sunni civilians waiting for a bus, abduct, torture, kill them, and dump the bodies someplace they’ll be easily found. They like to let others see their handiwork. Then the Sunnis retaliate by convincing a teen-ager to leave this world for the pleasure of 72 virgins by blowing up a mosque. And so on. An actual civil war would be ugly enough, but these guys make civil war look like a tulip festival.

We all know what we’re seeing. The question is what to do about it. How's this? Call a taxi and go home. The longer we stay, the worse it gets. The presence of our troops, as British General Richard Dannett recently pointed out, only exacerbates the slaughter. His reference was confined to British troops because he’s in charge of the British army. It’s up to America to recognize that Dannett’s astute interpretation of reality is a tailored suit that fits our situation exactly.

Yes, America set the fire, and it’s a damn, dirty shame. Maybe next time we’ll elect better leaders. In the meantime, we just have to let the Iraqis work it out for themselves, and no, that won’t be pretty. The Downing Street Memo informed us that the chicken hawks who run U.S. policy fixed the facts and intelligence around their bizarre blitzkrieg. Tony Blair couldn't refute the memo because there were too many witnesses in the room. Its revelations dwarf a long string of evidence that the Bushmen were already planning to invade Iraq when they took office. Among witnesses to step forward were the Administration's first Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill -- not exactly a Bolshevik. He ratted them out before the '04 election, but most of the electorate just didn't care.

When their Iraq policy collapsed on them, the Bushoramusses had no backup strategy so they just kept on doing the same thing. And they'll keep on doing it until we cut the cord on these vicious imbeciles.

We have troops in Iraq only because our criminally inept Administration refuses to admit making the worst foreign policy error in our history. It’s killing people for nothing, including our own sons and daughters. We can send for them now or wait ten years and many thousands of lives later. The result will be the same.