Posted on 02/25/2006 8:17:32 AM PST by pabianice
Buckley has been against this since the beginning, I think, so it's no wonder he's STILL against it. He seems to be ignoring any good that has happened since March of 2003, dwelling instead on the headlines of violence.
Who is leading the opposition to the government as presently constituted? Can you give me a name. If you say Zawahiri then you are talking insurgency, not civil war. Is there an organized Sunni party with leadership willing to take the stage and declare a civil war? No, there isn't.
Regarding street riots in Haiti, the sides rioting are indeed locked in a civil war, no matter how miniscule. Regarding the Sudan, I am personally aware of that problem and believe me that is civil war. Ditto, Somalia.
FYI, Iraqi Shiites don't hate Sunnis. The Kurd minority is composed of both Shiite and Sunni branches and they don't hate each other. Arab Sunni's do however, realize that they are a minority in their country, and like the plantation aristocracy in post-bellum US Civil War, they can't stand the fact that they are losing power for the first time in centuries. In talking with an expert in Baghdad yesterday we had a long talk about American ignorance of Iraqi politics. He sees the events unfolding in Iraq as a desperate last gamble by former Baathists and AQ types to destroy the budding democracy movement. Who knows, the crazies might win because Americans cannot think more than one week ahead and have no perception of the regional geopolitics. Ironically, the UAE, Gulf states and even a Saudi Arabia acting surreptitiously are doing their darndest to see that doesn't happen.
P.S. I see that the curfew seems to have worked, Baghdad is back to carbombing, and the ships are lining up at Um Qasr to unload their containers. The cement industry is now being ripped from the Government's hand, investors want the Government to provide more security, i.e., U.
S. Marines, for potash mining along the Iraq-Shria border. Iraqis are meeting with US oil people. In sum, money is more powerful that ideology in present-day Iraq. It's too bad the media doesn't get it.
So William F. Buckley is now the American Left? Interesting.
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