About That Iraq Civil War

Parent Cafe
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<p>The Brookings Institute has published their monthly report which has some facinating statistics through the end of March:</p>

<p>US troops deaths have continued to decline since October. The fewest troops died in any month since April, 2004. <a href=“http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/200604101614-tm.jpg[/url]”>http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/200604101614-tm.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Iraqi police deaths have declined fairly steadily since July (while the number of Police on duty has increased, btw) though the numbers are relatively consistent, if lower, since November. <a href=“http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/200604101623.jpg[/url]”>http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/200604101623.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Iraqi civilian deaths, which rose sharply after the Golden Mosque bombing in February, are the lowest since October. Note that at least 4 months since 2003 were worse for civilian deaths than the “civil war” that is supposed to have started in February. <a href=“http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/200604101628.jpg[/url]”>http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/200604101628.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’ve linked charts that are admittedly on a blog for clarity. Please don’t trust me. The link to the report itself is here: <a href=“http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf[/url]”>http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The net of all this is that things are more peaceful in Iraq. There’s certainly no evidence of a civil war. I know many of you won’t believe this, but, hey, if you disagree, cite the statistics from recognizable sources you’re using.</p>

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<p>:confused:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/02/iraq_militias_wave_of_death/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/02/iraq_militias_wave_of_death/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Graphic/2006/04/02/1143975929_0517.gif[/url]”>http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Graphic/2006/04/02/1143975929_0517.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>execution-style sectarian killings = A-OK?</p>

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<p>Funny, Strick, but the joint Defense/State group that finished an assessment of Iraq in January said that things, province by province, are getting worse, not better.</p>

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<p>And somebody forgot to tell the Iraqis:<a href=“from%20Reuters,%204/10”>quote</a> BAGHDAD, 10 April (IRIN) - In the face of ongoing sectarian violence, hundreds of Shi’ite Muslim families have fled to the Shi’ite-dominated cities in the country’s south seeking shelter with relatives, according to local officials.</p>

<p>“We managed to put up generators to ensure electricity for displaced families, and we’re still providing them with blankets, beds, foodstuffs and cooking stoves,” said Ali Abbas, a representative of the Ministry of Displacement and Migration.</p>

<p>Abbas added that, in Kut, some 160km south-east of Baghdad, 950 families have occupied a public amusement park after fleeing their homes in Baghdad, where they faced threats and intimidation from Sunni militants. “I lost about 30 of my cousins,” said Fadhil Ali, 42, a Shi’ite who fled his home in the Abu Ghraib district of the capital along with seven family members. “We all know who are behind these killings, but government control in Abu Ghraib is completely absent.” (more)

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<p>What was the rate of killing in Algeria? Guatamala? It seems as if the “we’re all fine here” crowd is using the absence of large formations of Blue and Gray to vindicate their position.</p>

<p>And true, most of the violence is only in about 5-7 provinces…that contain the majority of the population of Iraq. Of the southern Shiite Nine, only Basra is of any weight. The Kurdish 3 are mainly under control. But Anbar and Baghdad alone have somewhere between a third and 40 percent of the whole country’s population. And the most violence prone areas are…Anbar and Baghdad.</p>

<p>Tell you what, Strick. You think things are so hunky-dory there, go take a Spring Break trip there. Maybe see “Jihadis Gone Wild” or something. Drop a postcard.</p>

<p>I think you’ll find that it gets ugly real fast when you have Iraqi army units and Interior Ministry units acting as proxies for different factions. As some Americans over there ask, “When they start shooting at each other, whose side are we on?”</p>

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<p>Didn’t say things were hunky dory, TheDad, just that the statistics don’t support the argument that a civil war has erupted since the attack in February. You know, since that January report which couldn’t add any information to the picture.</p>

<p>Thing is, I think people are using the wrong historical model to try to understand what’s happening in Iraq. Don’t think Vietnam, think the British giving independence to India. </p>

<p>Like Iraq, India was split along several antagonistic religious groups. Like Iraq, as a very tight governmental control of the situation was removed, violence between those groups broke out. There were massive movements of people from one region to another. Open war never really broke out, but many more people died than you have seen in Iraq.</p>

<p>It wasn’t civil war by any stretch of the imagination. Neither is this, not when the overall level of violence, however extreme individual attacks – which aren’t that different from older individual attacks you seem to have forgotten --appear, has gone down steadly over the past 5 months. If a civil war were really “breaking out” that could hardly be the case, right?</p>

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<p>Snap, I bit, Strick11</p>

<p>Ok, I am not sure why you have posted this thread. You are bringing up a question that needs to be explored a bit further.</p>

<p>Your supposition in post #1 is backed by statistics and a think tank institution. So, if there is *no civil war *, where does that leave the United States and its position? We shall continue to encourage a democratic republic of Iraq and shall attempt to stabilize the current situation. “Freedom” is a good thing in a democratic republic. A bit of an oxymoron statement but I think it will do. </p>

<p>Your post #1 now begs the argument: If Irag is in a in a condition of civil war, where does that leave the United States and its position? We shall continue to encourage a democratic republic of Iraq and shall attempt to stabilize the current situation. “Freedom” is a good thing in a democratic republic. A bit of an oxymoron statement but I think it will do.</p>

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<p>Great, there’s no civil war in Iraq. That’s just fantastic.</p>

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<p>itstoomuch, all I can say is that the so called civil war that supposedly broke out a month or more ago doesn’t appear to exist. The overall violence has declined to levels comparable to 2004, not gotten worse. The civil war claim and reasoning based on it seems irrelevant.</p>

<p>You do ask good questions if you strip that part out of them, though. Again, I suggest we consider the Indian independence model. There the issue was less civil war than the religious hostilities that had been held under pressure for a couple of centuries overflowing into violence. Lots of vengence killing for wrongs that had built up. Iraq isn’t that old, but there’s enough of the same kind of problems to go around.</p>

<p>To mean that means that the violence was to be expected. It would have happened once Saddam lost power no matter how. It also offers a prediction that’s consistent with what we’re hearing now. People are fleeing areas dominated by the opposing religious sects just as they did in India. There that lead to separate countries. Sadly, the process was incomplete leading to several decades of strife between the resulting pieces over the area that remained inbetween.</p>

<p>In Iraq, I expect the most optimist result to be that the different provinces separate out by relgious sect. The worst, the pessimists here are right, a civil war leading to the split up of the country. But while there may be precursors of that kind of struggle, a civil war didn’t start in February.</p>

<p>As to why this thread? I keep reading the threads started about how things are getting worse. The Brookings Institute, liberal organization that it is, has been reporting these statistics monthly since the war began. Why not talk about how the statistics don’t align with the conventional knowledge here on the forum? You know, myth versus reality. If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist, right?</p>

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<p>Para #3 of your reply Strick11:</p>

<p>If the civil strife was to be expected, I gather that you are saying that Saddam Hussian, held things together in Iraq, similiarly like the British did in the Subcontinent. </p>

<p>Once we had eliminated SH from power, we knew (Our fearless, and hardworking leaders, knew) that there would be a release of old hatreds. Obviously, the Shia’s have the population advantage in a conflict that you purpose; Should Pres. Bush have thrown his influence towards the Shia, thus forcing a stable government (at least temporarily) and allow Bush to extradite the troops? or perhaps Should BUSH maintained the Sunni’s Bathist Party rather than purge the Iraqi Bathist government-All Bush wanted was the WMD’s and SH’s head, right?</p>

<p>So if the respective groups are segregating themselves, as foreseen, Why is Bush trying to force a unified government. Why doesn’t Bush let the Sunnis be absorbed into Syria, the Kurds into Turkey, and the Shias into Iran? </p>

<p>In other terms as we citizens discover, Bush is forcing the Iraqi, to start from scratch in order to form a democratic government? Bush imagines this as Plan A from the gitgo? I hope it works, else Bush may need a Plan B, real quick like.</p>

<p>My wife and I have our typical arguments. Let anyone get in between our fights and we both will destroy the third party, then resume where we left off. </p>

<p>damn tax paperwork. The tax is easy but all these MF statements drive me crazy.
Gnite.</p>

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<p>Strick11 - the blog charts you linked to do not accurately reflect the numbers in the Brookings Institute report in all cases. For example, the “Iraqi civilian deaths - high” for March is at the ~450 level, but the Brookings report lists the number as 803. In general, it appears from the Brookings report that American casualties were relatively low in '03, high in '04, and have kept fairly level since January 2005, but Iraqi fatalities have been on an upward trend since May '03. As to what it means, well, I guess we’ll see…</p>

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<p>Curious that although Bush continues to stamp his foot like a toddler and screech, “THIS IS NOT A CIVIL WAR”, everyone else, including the Iraqi military on the ground in their own country, seems to think it is.</p>

<p>And civilian deaths are INCREASING, not decreasing. There have been days with as many as 60-70 people killed.</p>

<p>It it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…</p>

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<p>Ah, another canard (no one gets that pun?).</p>

<p>The fact that an individual attack has significant, horrific casualities (wouldn’t all of us wish it were otherwise?) however sensationalized in the media, can’t change the fact that the number of such successful attacks is fallying dramatically. Read the Brookings Institute report and you’ll see that reported, too. The net result is an overall reduction in civilian casualties as reported.</p>

<p>Oh, and remember the Brookings Institute is a liberal organization that started the Iraq report to show how bad things were. They have no motivation to show improvement if it isn’t true.</p>

<p>So again, what seems like a duck to someone not paying attention isn’t.</p>

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<p>I repeat: The Brookings report does not support the statements you are making. The chart for Iraqi civilian deaths since May '03 is at page 10. They are not going down. They are not “at their lowest since October.” The monthly totals this year are all well above the median for that statistic since May '03.</p>

<p>And, the American troop death toll this month has already passed last month, and will probably end up in the sadly “normal” range after a couple of less deadly months. I’m not suggesting that there is a coherent pattern; just that the pattern you are describing doesn’t exist.</p>

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<p>Perhaps I overstated the case for civilians (frankly I misread the chart), but the number has fallen to one that’s not untypical for the last year and certainly both last month that even the event during the supposed “civil war” no where approach the figures from the worst of the fighting. My apologies.</p>

<p>As for US troop deaths this month, you are aware that the single greatest cause of death this month has been a vehicle accident. It’s as tragic either way, but vehicle accidents happen in the peace time military, too, and hardly contradicts what I’m saying.</p>

<p>Looking more closely at the numbers, I do admit the trend is up this month. Do you think an increase in successful attacks on US troops after several months of declines some how supports the civil war argument?</p>

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<p>No. I don’t think a month’s tally is particularly significant one way or the other. (And in your defense, the Opinionatedbastard who posted the charts mis-stated the civilian death totals in his blog. I don’t know why that happened.) As to whether Iraq is in a state of civil war, I think that’s more a question of the type of violence than the volume. If all the Iraqi’s were just attacking us, that would not indicate a trend towards civil war, regardless of how many people got killed on both sides. But when Sunnis attack Shiites who attack Kurds, that suggests that the political cohesion of the nation is strained - i.e., civil war. I’m not there, so I don’t know, but what I’ve read recently seems to indicate that Iraq is falling apart as a modern nation and may well be devolving into a group of battling ethnic enclaves. “Civil war” is a term without a precise meaning, but it may be a reasonably accurate description of what’s going on in Iraq at this time - regardless of the number of casualties in any given time period.</p>