Healing Iraq Blog 4.11

[bemildred]

Two entries, many interesting bits.

It is becoming increasingly evident from all the violence we have witnessed over the last year, that a proxy war is being waged against the US on Iraqi soil by several countries and powers with Iraqis as the fuel and the fire, just like Lebanon was during the late seventies and eighties. The majority of Arab regimes have a huge interest in this situation continuing, not to mention Iran, and Al-Qaeda. I am not trying, of course, to lift the blame from Iraqis, because if Iraqis were not so divided the way they are, these powers would have never succeeded. I never thought that Iraqis would be so self-destructive, I thought that they had enough of that. But with each new day I am more and more convinced that we need our own civil war to sort it all out. It might take another 5, 10, or even 20 years, and hundreds of thousands more dead Iraqis but I believe it would be inevitable. Yugoslavia, South Africa, Lebanon, Algiers, and Sudan did not achieve the relative peace and stability they now enjoy if it weren't for their long years of civil war. If the 'resistance' succeeded and 'liberated' Iraq, the country would immediately be torn into 3, 4, 5 or more parts with each faction, militia, or army struggling to control Baghdad, Kirkuk, Najaf, Karbala, and the oil fields. It will not be a sectarian war as many would imagine, it would be a war between militias. We already have up to 5 official militias, not to mention the various religious groups and armies.

...

A neighbour of mine returned from Jamilah (close to Sadr city) this afternoon and he told me that fierce fighting was still going on over there. American soldiers were involved in a campaign of removing monuments and posters of Muqtada Al-Sadr and his late father Mohammed Sadiq Al-Sadr when they came under attack from Mahdi militiamen and their supporters. A taxi driver from Sadr city told him that the Americans and IP have abandoned all six police stations in the district as well as the Municipality building, which were all taken over by Sadr supporters. The taxi driver also said that burnt and abandoned tanks were prized by the slum dwellers because their parts can be sold at high prices at the many junkyards in the district, adding that looters often solve their disputes over the 'booty' by AK-47's. My friend said that the driver was enthusiastically lecturing him about the various mechanical parts (of the tanks or APC's) and their respective prices, describing its engine as being similar to that of a Caprice, and with one specific part being sold as high as $200.

Healing Iraq

[mmonk]

1. thanks