to one of my favorite articles...with the same name...
Iraq: Not Civil War, Occupation
By Sami Ramadani
openDemocracy
December 7, 2006
What of the mindless violence, terrorism and sectarian murders? This is where the occupation authorities and the establishment media have succeeded in convincing most of the public in the US and Britain that, after thousands of years of living together without even a whiff of communal civil war in their history, the people of Mesopotamia don't want to "live and let live" anymore, but have decided to kill each other instead. Add to this scenario the exaggerated presence of foreign terrorists led by al-Qaida, trying to take control of Iraq's oil according to George W Bush, and you have a distorted and highly misleading picture of Iraq. It appears that an irrational frame of mind has taken root in relation to Iraq; for some, the natives are at it again. In this mindset, the occupation forces are made to appear as a benign, almost virtuous presence in the middle of raging sectarian violence.
As a result, it has become easier for the White House and Downing Street to appear concerned and reasonable when they argue that the troops should stay in Iraq, until such time as the "job is done", "democracy is established", "the terrorists are defeated", "the Iraqis could be in charge of security" or "security is restored".
Of course they talk less of democracy nowadays, for the natives are not ready for it. There is even more talk - as there has been since the very start of the occupation - of backing a "strong man". (Someone like Saddam perhaps?) Indeed, an image of Iraq imploding and generating even greater levels of bloodshed, once the troops withdraw, has convinced even some anti-war writers and most of the anti-war public that the troops should not be withdrawn too quickly.
How it must end
The long-awaited and much-leaked Iraq Study Group report (under the direction of James A Baker and Lee Hamilton) is likely to feed into this falsehood. It suggests reducing the troops and relying more on Iraqis to do the killing (more "Iraqisation"). And to appear even more concerned and reasonable, they suggest asking Syria and Iran to help restore peace in Iraq. They do not even dare to go as far as the chief-of-staff of the British army, Richard Dannatt, and suggest that the occupation forces, which "kicked the door in", are "exasperating" the situation and creating more violence. They do not tell us about some of the disturbing facts on the ground.
They do not tell us about the "Salvador option" and the presence in Iraq of US death-squads, trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Israel, nor will they spill the beans (as US generals have started to do).
They do not tell us about the secret militias trained and financed by the US, partly uncovered by the Wall Street Journal (in February 2005), but in any case common knowledge in Iraq.
They do not tell us why the occupying power should secretly smuggle 200,000 Kalashnikovs and tons of explosives into Iraq from Bosnia within one year (2004-05); nor to whom these weapons were supplied.
They do not tell us about the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on covert political operations and the backing of proxy political forces.
They do not tell us about continuing work on building the biggest US embassy in the world in Baghdad's Green Zone embassy (fortress), about the roughly fourteen permanent military bases (including four massive ones) being constructed.
They do not tell us about the post-Abu Ghraib contracting-out of most of the torture to the Iraqi state, the backing of Iraqi state-sponsored violence against civilians.
They do not tell us - last but very from least - about the silent killers of Iraqi people.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2006/1207civilwar.htm..the last he is referring to disease due to lack of water, electricity...and raw sewage. And, lest we forget we are still bombing Iraq.
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