Re: Very Disheartened

They are the thugs.

The war between Sunni and Shia was set up long ago to make sure that the religion of Islam never stabilizes. The only way it will occur is for one side to emerge victorious (by killing off the other side in its entirety), and the only thing that brought a truce to the area was a dictator who was willing to brutalize both sides as necessary to ensure the peace.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq had a policy of religious tolerance.

Under the occupation of the United States, where we try to get them to "just get along", well, they don't want that. At best, Sunni and Shia need to be physically separated from each other. At worst, they're going to continue their stupid wars against each other, and the only thing we can do at our current staffing levels and philosophy on the subject is get in the way and get our soldiers killed.

We have to be at least as brutal as Saddam Hussein was in order to force peace into that region, and we're simply not cut out for that (yet -- a few more years of sanctioned torture and our military will be perfect for the job...).

If we leave, civil war escalates. If we stay, civil war escalates. The only difference is whether or not our military men and women pay the price for it, too.

So quit dangling the innocent people of Iraq in front of us they way the "Support Our Troops" brigade has been doing for years, because the argument is specious. We didn't go in there to "save the Iraqi people", we aren't in there now to "save the Iraqi people", and Bush's persistent obstinance on maintaining our military presence there has nothing to do with "saving the Iraqi people". The Bush Administration doesn't care one iota about anything but itself and its own power. The only care Bush feigns for others is entirely based on what others can do for him, and if, like the Iraqi people, you have nothing you can offer him personally, he couldn't possibly care less about you. It's a tired excuse from the most transparent liar the United States has ever suffered as a president.