Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Octavius Hite]

So MSNBC has gone ahead and called it the way it is, a civil war. Now what happens? My prediction, pending it spreading to the neighbouring countries a la Vietnam, the Emerald City will be evacuating and the population of Michigan will explode as it becomes "Little Baghdad".

Go BUSH! You moron.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15921476/

[Ya-ta Boy]

Damn! I hate it when I miss important memos like that. When did MSNBC get the authority to designate civil wars?


It has looked like a civil war to me for a while. I saw some figures on CNN...6,000 or so deaths last month and similar numbers the month before. Deaths at that scale are civil war-scale to my mind.

I can't find my copy of Xenophon's 'Anabasis' (where Cyrus the Younger hired a mercenary army and tried to overthrow his brother the king), but I'd like to re-read it. Xenophon recorded the story of that expedition and it's retreat after the defeat and death of Cyrus near Babylon. The Persians surrounded the Greeks on three sides and 'encouraged' them to retreat out of the country. Can't help but wonder if a parallel situation will develop in the current circumstance.

[thepeel]

I don't follow the news about Iraq very closely, or at all.

But, and I ask this in all seriousness, how is it not a civil war?

[bucheon bum]

i've been wondering the same thing since about February. I'm not sure how anyone could say it isn't civil war.

Then again many times things seem worse from a distance than when you're actually there. Not that I think it is shangri-la there, but perhaps there is more civil order there than it seems.

[mindmetoo]

I've noticed the pro-Iraq crowd on Dave's has grown very, very silent in the last few months. I guess we were right. The war is unwinable, it is another Vietnam, and Bush was Wrongy Wrongo to invade. Whew.

[tiger fancini]

I heard on the news this morning that Kofi Annan feared that Iraq was "heading towards" a civil war. Wake up Kofi!!

[Octavius Hite]

It's pretty clear to me that this is the modern equivilant of the Tet Offensive after which Cronkite said the war was unwinnable. Everybody but Bushie, FOX News and some of the posters on this board have come to realize that this is now unwinnable. The question is how to end American involvment in the least destructive way possible.

[Beej]

Here is one solution: How about Iraqis stop killing each other, use the oil they are sitting on to get rich and build schools and hospitals, say" you build your mosque there and i will build mine here and we wont car bomb them."

[thepeel]

[Moldy Rutabaga]

[Hollywoodaction]

It's no secret that the US has lost control of Iraq because Moqtada al-Sadr has essentially taken control of the government.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15898064/site/newsweek/

[igotthisguitar]

Not so fast people. Remember, it ain't a civil war unless Bush says so.

Bush Says Violence In Iraq Not Civil War
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

TALLINN, Estonia - President Bush said Tuesday that the sectarian violence rocking Iraq is not civil war but part of an al-Qaida plot to use violence to goad Iraqi factions into repeatedly attacking each other.

"No question it's tough, no question about it," Bush said at a news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. "There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion because of the attacks by al-Qaida causing people to seek reprisal."

Bush, who travels to Jordan later in the week for a summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the latest cycle of violence does not represent a new era in Iraq. The country is reeling from the deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began in March 2003.

"We've been in this phase for a while," Bush said.

This comment appeared at odds with the assessment of the president's national security adviser, who told reporters on the way to Estonia that Iraq is in a "new phase" that requires changes.

Reviews of how to alter the Iraq strategy are underway within the administration, even as a bipartisan panel, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., is completing the recommendations it is expected to present to Bush next month.

Bush said he will be asking al-Maliki to explain his plan for stopping the attacks.

"The Maliki government is going to have to deal with that violence and we want to help them do so," the president said. "It's in our interest that we succeed."

Directly seeking help from Iran and Syria with Iraq, as part of new, aggressive diplomacy throughout the region, is expected to be among the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton group.

But Bush continued to express his administration's reluctance to talk with two nations it regards as pariah states working to destabilize the Middle East

Iran, the top U.S. rival in the region, has reached out to Iraq and Syria in recent days � an attempt viewed as a bid to assert its role as a powerbroker in Iraq.

Bush said Iraq is a sovereign nation, free to meet with its neighbors. "If that's what they think they ought to do, that's fine."

But he added that the U.S. will only deal with Iran when they suspend their program of enriching uranium, which could be used in a nuclear weapon arsenal.

"The Iranians and the Syrians should help � not destabilize � this young democracy," he said

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061128/ap_on_re_eu/bush

[Ya-ta Boy]

No doubt there are a train-load of academics who have written page after dreadfully boring page on the definition of 'civil war' that no one but other academics concerned with tenure read. I'll make a stab at differentiating the terms in question. Others are more than welcome to differ, correct and spank me for where I go wrong.

1. Sectarian violence...a mini-civil war with religion as the main ingredient.

2. Insurrection...a very mini-civil war where any cause (including but not exclusively religious) is the root and the goal is control of the levers of power within the state.

3. Civil War...where largish factions within a state vie for control through killing off anyone who doesn't submit to their mutually antagonistic ambitions.

[mindmetoo]

Kissinger did proclaim the Iraq ar unwinable.

[cbclark4]

Article 2 of the Powell Doctrine:

Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?

Clear objectives, what is the objective, is it clear.

Just leave them to their misery.

If AQ becomes visible in Iraq go back.

If not let Iraq be Iraq.

cbc