Iraq in full scale civil war
Internal Monologue is officially calling the "sectarian violence" in Iraq a civil war. And I'm not going to use the "low-grade" qualifier that's been bandied about recently. My evidence (hat tip: digby):
So Iraq is now in the throes of a civil war. What do we do? I've been an advocate of getting out. Now that the Sunni's want us to stay, maybe there's some grand opportunity to turn things around, at least with that group. But I still doubt it. And if we did get friendly with the Sunnis, then wouldn't that just turn the Shiite majority against us? I guess the best way to describe my attitude would be, "Let's get out, unless someone has some really good idea and can get the Bush administration to take it seriously."
BAGHDAD, 20 July (IRIN) - The Iraqi government says it is worried aboutincreasing sectarian violence in the country, following statistics released by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) stating that nearly 6,000 civilians were killed in May and June alone."6,000 civilian deaths in 2 months. That's about 700 per week, or 100 per day. If we assume that Iraq is about 1/10th the population of the United States (Iraq: 26,783,383 United States: 298,444,215, so its actually even smaller), that's similar to 1,000 people per day dying in this country. I don't know if there's some official number of deaths per day you have to have a bona fide civil war, but I bet these numbers exceed it.
Sectarian violence in Iraq is increasing and day after day more bodies are being found countrywide after suffering serious torture," says Lt. Col. Abdel-Kareem Hassan, a senior official in the Ministry of Interior. "The numbers presented by UNAMI has just confirmed this is reality and also increases fear among the local population.
So Iraq is now in the throes of a civil war. What do we do? I've been an advocate of getting out. Now that the Sunni's want us to stay, maybe there's some grand opportunity to turn things around, at least with that group. But I still doubt it. And if we did get friendly with the Sunnis, then wouldn't that just turn the Shiite majority against us? I guess the best way to describe my attitude would be, "Let's get out, unless someone has some really good idea and can get the Bush administration to take it seriously."
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