US should call emergency meeting of UN...

[kentuck]

Before the violence gets futher out of hand in Baghdad, we should call for UN, NATo, and US forces to partition the area around Baghdad and do our best to separate the Sunnis from the Shias. They need no further evidence that they are in a civil war.

It is a complex situation at the moment because the people that were bombed were supposedly the number one enemies of the American occupation - the militias of Ayatollah Sadr and his people in Sadr City.
They are Shias. They want revenge on the Sunnis and the Americans.

One result, that may very much please the Administration, is the speeded execution of Saddam Hussein. There are things going on that we don't know. Where is the CIA?

[don954]

1. that would take leadership and a leader who would be willing to admit a mistake

were not going to find that in Bush & Co...

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Uh not exactly.

We have no moral authority here to do anything other than to get out, beg forgiveness, and pay reparations. Yes we should be going to the UN, but we should be doing so on our knees begging the international community to step in as we step out. It is not up to us or the UN to partition Iraq or decide anything for Iraq, it is for the people of Iraq to make those decisions.

[kentuck]

3. We have an obligation to try and stop the senseless killing..

even if we have no moral authority.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. No we do not. A) we can't. B) we are a cause of the killing.

I know you believe this sincerely, but with all due respect, this is just more pottery barn you broke it you own it nonsense. Our presence in Iraq is a major cause of the violence. The Iraqi people do not want us there. The last poll I saw had this at 78% or so wanting us to get out now. The idea that we can 'stop the senseless killing' is ridiculous. Stop it how? By continuing to kill Iraqis in large numbers as we have been doing for the last three years? Is our killing somehow sensible?

We are one of the factions in the Iraqi Civil War. We are the only faction that has the option of leaving. We should exercise that option immediately.

[kentuck]

5. What you are saying may have been true a week ago...

But the violence is not just directed at the Americans now. It is between the Sunni and Shia. Children and innocents will die by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, if nothing is done. I agree we should get out but we now have to do it in a way that does not heartlessly leave others to die at the hands of vengeance.

Unfortunately, we do not have the ability or the capacity to prevent it on our own. American troops are not super humans. They die like everyone else. However, this is critical - code red - time.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. The violence has been three way for months.

This is not a new development at all. Yesterday was just spectacularly bloody. The situation remains locked in with little chance of any change precisely because we are there with our dominant conventional military force.

Iraq needs to settle its own affairs. That cannot happen while we remain on the ground in Baghdad propping up the nominal government and taking sides in their civil war.

[kentuck]

7. I disagree..

I think it has deteriorated substantially. We may be approaching the point of no return. I'm for getting out immediately - not just at this moment.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. That does not compute.

"I'm for getting out immediately - not just at this moment." Er, typo perhaps? Perhaps you meant to delete immediately?

We are way past the point of no return. That point was reached a few weeks after Paul Bremer arrived and disbanded the Iraqi Army, fired the civil service managers, and de-baathified the provisional government. No return is a distant sign in our rear view mirror. The only question remaining is 'orderly retreat' or 'fall of saigon'?

[kentuck]

9. I will agree we are "past the point of no return"..

However, if we could stay stay a couple of months and prevent the slaughter of perhaps thousands, would you still say we should get out "immediately", which by the way, is impossible. It takes time to move men and machinery.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Two weeks down the same road we came in on.

An orderly retreat with total air dominance should not be a huge problem. It is just this sort of maneuver that our army is exceptionally good at. We are tactical masters and strategic idiots.

[kentuck]

11. OK

:shrug:

[Recursion]

12. Your argument assumes we are preventing any Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence

Whereas I don't think we are. I don't think the death rates of Iraqis will go up if we leave; they will stay roughly what they are, but the killing won't last as long.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. It might go up for a while.

It is sort of like the prohibitionists last defense against decriminalization: drug abuse will go up. Yes most likely the violence will increase, and then as Iraqis sort things out, it will end. In a worst case scenario Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iran, the Gulf States all get involved on one side or the other and there is a regional sorting out as well. But we really don't have a choice. As I see it we are going to get out under bad circumstances with Iraq in some level of chaos either now or six months from now or six years from now. The real question is are we going to have an orderly retreat or a fall of saigon?