COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Maybe a civil war is the only thing that will cleanse Iraq.

There are several ways to measure the horror of the Iraq War. Some do it with numbers and raw statistics, a digital scoreboard that clicks off outrage, death and atrocities. It is obvious that the English language struggles under the burden of description. Murdering, walking, human-sewers have innovated evil beyond the horizon of human comprehension. Has a gash across Iraq exposed a human puss so putrid that can it only be cauterized by a civil war? I wonder.

Today, at least 70 people, mostly female students have been killed and scores injured in a double bombing at Baghdad University.

The BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Baghdad says the bombers apparently attacked at the front and rear entrances of the university building, catching many of the students as they emerged from classes.

A car bomb exploded followed by a suicide bomber who blew himself up among people fleeing the first blast in the predominantly Shia area, police said.

Pictures from the campus showed a scene of devastation, with wrecked and blackened vehicles scattered across a wide area.

"The majority of those killed are female students who were on their way home," Reuters news agency quoted a university official as saying.


21 comments:

  1. lord acton,

    re: These "soldiers of God" will meet their/our Maker

    We must do all within our power to expedite that meeting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. To the hardcore Muzzies, "Female student" is an oxymoron.

    ReplyDelete
  3. re: kurds

    What's love got to do, got to do, with it?

    What's love but an excuse for lack of imagination?

    re: civil war

    While it was recommended earlier, it bears repeating:

    "The Palestinian and Iraqi civil wars, in the deepest sense of the term, are the true American solution, that is, the solution consonant with America's actual history."

    "[T]here are very few cases in modern history in which a militant population showed its willingness to fight to the death. The US south sacrificed two-fifths of its military-age men during the Civil War of 1861-65, a casualty rate matched only by Serbia during World War I."

    "Americans invented the war of extermination in the modern world - the total war that only can be won killing so many of the enemy that not enough young men are left to be put into the line...Americans, in their amnesia and denial, blot out the idea that other peoples also must fight until they have exterminated the recalcitrant among their own populations."

    Jimmy Carter's heart of dorkiness

    ReplyDelete
  4. Many strange & evil things happen in Iraq:

    (1) al-Sadr knew in advance that today's attacks would happen in areas under his protection, and he said in advance that he wouldn't respond. He also said he is rejoining the political system, as part of the Maliki security package.

    (2) Over 30,000 Iraqi civilians were killed last year, and many of them were done so in order to "cleanse" an area to be all-Shiite or all-Sunni. The Kurds today are also reported to be cleansing an area, and to be fighting with al-Sadr's forces.

    (3) Prime minister Maliki, supposedly leader of all Iraqis, couldn't even bring himself to pretend to be neutral by saying, like Yassir Afrafat, "Both sides should stop killing civilians". Instead Maliki basically said, yes you Sunnis killed some of us Shiites today, but we hung your leaders yesterday so your dictatorship is not coming back.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Who, ww, supposes that Mr Maliki is a nuetral leader, in Iraq.
    Why would anyone process such a idea? What precedent would be being folowed?
    That the PM is some kind of nuetral leader, a "Uniter, not a Divider", is wishful thinking, dreaming, really.

    Mr Maliki represents his Shia constituents. Those that oppose the power of the Federal Government, in Mr Maliki's view are the Sunni Insurectionists, today's bombers. Now the Iraqi Army, or US, have to retaliate against the Insurgents base. All the more so if al-Sadr has said the Mahdi Army is standing down, observing some kind of cease fire, for now.

    The next 60 days will be telling.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I do not think we need 60 days DR. There are too many Iraqis determined to kill each other, too few with the courage to stop them and too many who just want to get out. The illusion is being exposed for what it is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. “Most of the fighting in Iraq takes place between Sunnis and Shiites, but Kurds fear that could change if they are seen as players in the country's main struggle.”

    "‘I don't think it's wise,’ said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker in Baghdad. ‘This is a Sunni-Shiite conflict.’"

    “Kurdish troops are not acquainted with Baghdad, many speak neither Arabic nor English, and their participation could create an even deeper conflict between Kurds and Arabs, he said.”



    “Sheik Abdul-Razzaq Naddawi, an aide to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, agreed that Kurdish troops would not be welcome.”

    "‘The Kurds, frankly speaking, consider themselves superior to other Iraqis,’ he said. ‘Would they allow troops from the middle or the south to arrive in Kurdistan?’ he asked. ‘Their borders are closed, and they are practically independent.’"

    Kurds voice fear over deployment in Baghdad


    “Khaliq Zenghana, a Kurdish lawmaker, suggested that Kurdish forces could help protect ministries and government institutions, now mostly run as fiefdoms by sectarian militias.
    'The Kurds are neutral in that we do not concern ourselves with the Sunnis or Shiites,' he said. 'That must be understood by the Arabs here in Baghdad…’”
    Plan would add Kurds to civil war mix



    “The Kurds favor federalism as a bulwark against the prospect of another tyrannical centralized regime. For them, federalism means security and preservation of nationhood… Muqtada al Sadr led rallies of Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis opposing federalism and the potential for disunion.”
    Kurds Already Have Right to Secede

    ReplyDelete
  8. General Halutz resigns. Who will follow, next?
    Atlas Shrugs

    Mr. Bush has twice the approval rating of Mr. Olmert (14%).

    ReplyDelete
  9. Only in the mind of the delusional George Bush could this blood lust be called the first signs of a democracy. There is no back-fire that will put this out. Spengler is correct and it is time to let them consume themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Allen said, "Mr. Bush has twice the approval rating of Mr. Olmert (14%)"

    Only because Bush hasn't suggested (yet) that Americans pull out of our "settlements" in California and Arizona and New Mexico and Texas.

    ReplyDelete
  11. IDF Has Removed 44 Road Barriers To Help PA Arabs
    IDF Has Removed 44 Road Barriers To Help PA Arabs

    (IsraelNN.com) The IDF has removed 23 dirt barriers in the last several days, bringing the total number to 44 since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas he would ease travel for PA Arabs in Judea and Samaria.

    Abbas complained to American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this week that Israel has not fulfilled its commitment. Prime Minister Olmert, who inspected the implementation Tuesday, promised that the removal of the barriers would not endanger security.
    ---
    yonitheblogger.com

    We are the World,
    We are the Dhimmis...

    ReplyDelete
  12. You crack me up Bob.

    Wu Wei, Welcome to The Elephant.

    ReplyDelete
  13. If one believes the premise that the "Goal" is to turnover control of Iraq to Iraqis, then the next 60 to 90 days will set the trend.

    The "Forward Together" operation was a washout in less than 60 days,
    The General, Casey I think, said we had four to six months, a couple of months ago.
    He may have gotten that part right.

    ReplyDelete
  14. FOV News will be showing a special
    Hezzbollah in America

    did not catch the time, but I'm sure it will run more than once.

    ReplyDelete
  15. A City’s Violence Feeds on Black-Hispanic Rivalry

    Civil rights advocates say that ethnic and racial violence in Los Angeles grew at an alarming rate last year.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Gee, Chief Bratton doesn't see it that way at all:
    Said it is much worse than the worst he saw in NY City.

    But, hey, the 14yr old girl rode her bike too close to the line.
    ...just asking for it.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Promises, Promises
    Promises, Promises

    If George W. Bush had delivered Wednesday night's speech two years ago, he would have deserved praise for candor, equanimity, and breadth of vision.
    But given its actual timing, one can only wonder about his grip on reality.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I no longer worry about his grip.

    ReplyDelete
  19. bob, it's Henry Fuseli's "The Nightmare" (just move your cursor over the picture and note the url at the bottom of the browser).

    ReplyDelete
  20. Someone from al-Sadr's group claims that the Iraqi government has an agreement to "halt attacks targeting al-Sadr's movement", according to the article below.

    al-Sadr rejoins parliament

    Falah Shanshal, a member of the bloc, said that was the plan despite the arrest earlier Friday of Sheikh Abdel Hadi Al-Diraji, a close aide to the chief of the militia, Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, KUNA, the Kuwaiti news agency, reported.
    Shanshal urged al-Diraji be released and accused the government of breaching an agreement to halt "attacks targeting al-Sadar's movement."

    ReplyDelete