Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq

August 14, 2007 4:44 PM

Whendescribing Iraq, the word "peace" is seldom used. Truth be told, the Americans have restored order to many parts of the county. But Iraq remains fractured, and where new schools are built today, bombs could explode tomorrow.
posted by Kwantsar (10 comments total)

Or today!
posted by gum at 4:57 PM on August 14, 2007

"The "Hands of Victory" in Baghdad's Green Zone: The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."

But, but, civil war, and um, a frooplepoopillion dead Iraqis, and no al quaeda in Iraq, and quagmire, and stuff...
posted by rockhopper at 5:01 PM on August 14, 2007

Hmm. . . because if history has taught us anything you can never go wrong by announcing mission accomplished.

On a more serious note, God are the writers idiots. It's easy to find places where the military strategy is succeeding - wherever the military recently passed through. The whole notion of guerrilla warfare is that it constantly changes its position. We did not win in Vietnam by "cleansing" this or that town. It wasn't a matter of some Vietcong infiltrating. We lost in Vietnam and we have lost in Iraq because we have 90% of the people against us. We lost because there is no definable victory beyond our delusions.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:18 PM on August 14, 2007

We lost because there is no definable victory beyond our delusions.

Don't forget the liberal media.
posted by Poolio at 5:20 PM on August 14, 2007

frooplepoopillion

I am having this tattooed. somewhere.
posted by nax at 5:28 PM on August 14, 2007

That was the most irritating article I've read in a long time. I'm pretty open to the idea that I'm being lied to by the media -- but the quotes in this article!

"We had the most brutal of Baath regimes here for 35 years, and now we have a few years of turmoil. It isn't really all that much."

The "most brutal regime" killed some hundred thousand people directly, and several hundred thousand others died in the Iran/Iraq conflict. The "few years of turmoil" have killed up to a million people and left another three million either injured or homeless.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:29 PM on August 14, 2007

So, after five years, billions of wasted dollars, and thousands of dead Americans and tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, here we get the new chickenhawk talking points -- "Not quite as shitty as under Saddam!"

(Actually, it's a lot worse. But funny to see you guys keep trying.)
posted by bardic at 6:05 PM on August 14, 2007

yeah, sorry, have to add to the others, crap article. poorly researched poorly written.
posted by edgeways at 7:10 PM on August 14, 2007

Lame on so many fronts, it's not even worth dissecting.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:44 PM on August 14, 2007

The author had me at: "gazing up at the big foreigners as if they were gods".
posted by fingerbang at 7:48 PM on August 14, 2007