February 25, 2006
Uncivil Streetwar
Still no sign of actual civil war in Iraq; but Wretchard at the Belmont Club quotes from Zeyad at Healing Iraq (how's that for stacking links?) about some frightening mini-battles that were raging right around Zeyad's neighborhood between Sunni mosque defenders and "men in black" -- which groups might or might not include Shiite members of the Interior Ministry (cops).
Fortunately, the battles were more like skirmishes, and there were not that many confirmed fatalities or casualties. Wretchard concludes (boldface emphasis added):
Thanks to readers data is coming in, such as the update from Zeyad's site and analysis thereof. The value of collateral confirmation and building a timeline is amply demonstrated. Just a few comments:
- as per Whit, Fox is reporting a peaceful Baghdad with 10,000 Sunnis, Shi'ites marching for peace in Basra.
- it's probably good to treat Zeyad's report as a series of unconfirmed reports which are being reported verbatim.
- What can we say for sure or nearly sure?
- Mosques are a focus of fighting
- The fighting in his neighborhood has ended for now.
- The authorities are trying to keep the lid on
- Reported incident casualties are fairly low.
- What can we say as probable?
- There are small groups racing around fighting actions against each other.
- What's a maybe?
- Maybe some units of the National Guard are doing their job
- Maybe some units of the Interior Ministry are in cahoots with militias
Overall what would be reasonable to conclude? There's some unrest, but Baghdad is not burning -- yet -- and the trends while still unclear are not clearly in the direction of all-out fighting.
It sounds like it's still exciting times in Iraq... but they're not quite ready to re-enact Les Miserables yet. The fragile nationhood still holds.
Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 25, 2006, at the time of 5:40 AM
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Comments
The following hissed in response by: RBMN
I fear that any alternative to an Iraq civil war, will include a strong wave of Iraqi nationalism that will make our job of training Iraqi troops even harder. That might be our "reward" for stopping a civil war. If that nationalism ends up destroying any refuge Zarqawi and his boys have, that's great, but I predict lots of cold shoulders for the Americans, even though they're not the ones to blame for the outrage.
The above hissed in response by: RBMN at February 25, 2006 8:07 AM
The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist
The fragile nationhood still holds.
i hope that we don't get forced into sending Jack to Iraq...
In kindergarten, Jack Bauer killed a terrorist for Show and Tell.
Jack Bauer is the leading cause of death in Middle Eastern men.
The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist at February 26, 2006 1:17 PM
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