I understand the rhetoric, but I'm sick of people blaming this situation on the Iraqis

[Recursion]

It's unfortunate that a talking point of our party has become "We need to make the Iraqis take responsibility for their own security"

It's also unfortunate that I keep reading and hearing statements like "They've been fighting each other for millenia; how can we stop it?"

We as Americans need to come clean that this is our fault and our responsibility.

Saddam ruled Iraq for decades without great sectarian tensions -- he had a pro-Tikriti government that employed Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Christians in very high offices. He started slaughtering Shi'ites after we paid them to revolt and then left them without any air cover. And the crime for which he was actually convicted and executed was for killing some Sunnis.

The British and the Ottomans both managed to govern mesopotamia as a single province without any great religious strife -- if anything Sunni and Shia Arabs came together in opposition to outsiders ruling them.

As the crossroads of Sunni and Shiah Islam, Mesopotamia has for thousands of years been a place of diversity, tolerance, and learning. Nobody could rule it effectively with either of the larger sectarian groups adamantly opposed to them.

I do not exaggerate when I say this: the current civil war in Iraq is not simply the result of American incompetence: it was deliberately engineered by American actions. The CPA carefully and deliberately sided itself with the Shi'ite factions in Iraq, hoping to provide a counterweight in the Shi'ite world to Iran. Their mistake was in thinking that the Shi'ites would quickly eliminate Sunni power; I don't think they intended for it to drag on this long.

But they sure as hell intended it to happen.

Talking about the Iraqis "solving their own security problems" is meaningless as long as our troops are there. Our troops are the security problem -- our troops are drawing in foreign fighters, destroying infrastructure and communities, and forcing Iraqis to retreat to ethnic and sectarian enclaves. We are still producing this civil war and it can only stop when we leave.

[damntexdem]

1. How about: "We need to allow the Iraqis take responsibility for their own security"?

[Recursion]

2. I like that better

[quinnox]

3. It isn't just the American troops

that is causing the violence. They are killing each other over an age old religious conflict. I think the hate was always there even under Saddam but he was brutal enough that he made the people fear him and that kept a lid on the tensions. I don't know the history but I think Iran was an artificial country put together by the British to begin with, I could be wrong though. anyway, maybe it is best split into 3 sections for the different groups.

[dave_p]

5. No, it's a country

Ottoman Iraq was administered as three provinces, but its unity's been recognized for centuries: that's what the British understood when they created it. Kurds are reasonably concentrated in the north, but the Shia and Sunni Arabs don't live in geographical sections, they're intermingled.

Age-old religious conflict doesn't justify a foreign aggressor destroying a country, as partition would do: Catholics and Protestants have an age-old religious conflict, but they aren't slaughtering each other. Iraq's conflicts had been contained before Saddam too. This was a US-made disaster, and splitting a once succcessful country for easy oil deals with the Kurds and Shia will be no less a crime.

[Recursion]

6. The Ottomans did ok for 4 centuries

The Ottomans managed Mesopotamia pretty well for 4 centuries. There were three somewhat autonomous eyalets (Baghdad, Mosul, and Kirkuk) under a general provincial governor (most of the time). The region was a melting pot of ethnicities and sects but shared the common organizing characteristics of being largely Arabic-speaking (as opposed to Farsi or Turkish) and largely oriented south and west towards Egypt and Arabia vis-a-vis trade, culture, etc. These were 4 centuries of fairly liberal, tolerant, and non-repressive rule (again, most of the time), with practically no evidence of sectarian or ethnic conflict.

People are fighting now because our policies and actions have prevented them from living together peacefully. The only really comparable period was the Savafid rule in the 13th century when there were, like now, mass executions of Sunni's.

[dave_p]

4. Thank you

Yes, I don't know where the "They've been fighting each other for millenia" crap came from either: it seems to have been invented some time last year. How odd that historians of the region had failed to notice the prevalence of such imagined chronic anarchy and sectarian bloodletting. But a fantasy made up overnight counts for more than centuries of coexistence and more-or-less orderly administration.

[Cults4Bush]

7. Im sick of it as well.

I am throughly disgusted that some Dems are using that meme of making them take responsibility. It speaks volumes about how some still wish to shove our wants down the victims throat. They will take responsibility when we leave and though it might be a bloody path that will leave us with a bitter enemy
for generations we should have zero say in the matter we brutally raped that country over and over again.

Iraq has been a victim of our designs for a very very long time. The sooner our politicos start saying such the sooner a healing process can begin for us and them. Without admitting our own hypocrisies and mistakes we compound those hypocrisies and mistakes. Blowback is real and almost always a certainty.

Great OP, I thank you.

[Ladyinblack]

8. We are the terrorist

Bush adm. killed the Iraq people. Most died from air attacks by the US. Bush Adm destroyed the country. I do not understand how we allowed this to happen. I do not understand why he is not charged with war crimes. I do not understand why impeachment seems not on the table for most democrats.

[Cults4Bush]

10. Stunning isnt it.

I cant even be bothered to argue the point of war crimes and impeachment anymore with Democrats, you either get it or you dont (or maybe I dont).

Sad sad sad days.

[BuyingThyme]

9. This is the middle ground.

The Pukes have always hated Muslims, and the Dems are finally calling for timetables.

If the blame for the timetables can be put on the Muslims, the Dems can have their timetables and the Pukes can maintain their hate.

[tnlefty]

11. Thank you!

I've been sick of it for quite some time. Got into a heated argument with a friend over this a few nights ago.

[wiggs]

12. Agree and public has head in the sand. One day the full measure of understanding

and guilt will be had.

[glitch]

13. It's transparent and cowardly. Thank you for posting. K & R nt

[rhiannon55]

14. I HATE it when Repukes say "We'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up."

I hate it more when Dems say it.:banghead:

[Vincardog]

15. I do not care who they blame or how they frame it. As long as they GTFO ASAP

[Vincardog]

16. I do not care who they blame or how they frame it. As long as they GTFO ASAP

[eridani]

17. Another thing I can't stand--saying that we can't do any more for them

What in fucking hell have we done for them other than utterly destroying their country? Saying that eliminating Saddam was a good thing is like saying it's a good thing to cut off someone's head if they have a severe migraine.

[rhiannon55]

18. What an astute analogy

>>Saying that eliminating Saddam was a good thing is like saying it's a good thing to cut off someone's head if they have a severe migraine.>>

I am going to use it, if you don't mind. :)

[eridani]

19. Free meme--spread it widely.

I'm sure it will help our cause.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[G_j]

21. brilliant

and absolutely right on!

a big thank you!

:applause: