Patrick Cockburn of the London Independent flat out says it --Iraq has devolved into a sectarian civil war featuring widespread ethnic cleansing. According to his account it's absolute chaos. Sidebar--if ethnic cleansing is going on does that mean the American left (who largely supported Clinton's war to stop Milsevic's ethnic cleansing in Kosovo) will have a change of heart and get behind Bush to stop it in Iraq as well?
Silly notions aside, Mr. Cockburn suggests that most of the recent violence began after the Golden Mosque bombing in Samarra back in February. Shall we even bother to ask what happened to that investigation? Right after the attack the Iraqi government quickly announced that ten suspects had been rounded up, but it's becoming likely those were just the usual suspects. Recall it was not a suicide bombing, which seems to rule out al Qaeda. That only leaves Iranists or Saddamists, which makes it likely we'll never find out.
It's just part of the overall dearth of information the average American has available to determine what's actually going on over there. Judging by the polls it seems evident that most believe the daily flow of blues coming from the mainstream media. And lately we've seen a surge, low-lighted by Murtha and his new Mei Lei massacre to countless stories about middle class Iraqis fleeing for their lives. Meanwhile, stories like this one from Amir Teheri and correspondences from soldiers (ht Gateway Pundit) are usually left buried in blogs.
Despite the sagging support Bush can reasonably keep boots on the ground through Halloween, but if the elections flip left how long can he withstand the pressure from a press-fueled bloviating cabal of Murtha-Kerry-Reid-Pelosi, especially if his poll numbers are still teetering around the Mendoza line? The mid-terms are likely to be billed as a referendum on Iraq, and if the anti-war side wins (as in Spain and Italy) Bush will be hard-pressed to ignore them.
Our longevity in Iraq was a question Bill O'Reilly put to Don Rumsfeld Friday night, and his answer wasn't nearly convincing enough. Militarily, this guy has a plan he thinks might lead to victory from our perspective. Yet from an Iraqi perspective, this guy says it won't work, and that the new government needs to be more representative, which is a bit hard to understand. Nobody ever seems to agree on that place.
The new government was convened today, which sounds like a giant step beyond Saddam, who remains in jail 'ready to die'. Despite all the trials and troubles that seems to be worthy of at least some resepectful applause.
"GET OUT, DAMNED ONE" 5/22/06
Saddam's greatest courtroom hits, so far.
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