There IS a civil war in Iraq
While doubts are being raised as to the al-Qaeda affiliation of the biochemist arrested in Egypt, Reuters reminds us that in Mess-opotamia, 7/7 would be just another day:
In the latest attack, gunmen killed two policemen and wounded three on the highway between Hilla and Mahaweel, south of Baghdad, a police source said.
A suicide bomber in a car hit the Doura district in south Baghdad, killing three civilians and two policemen, a police source said.
Violence also erupted near the northern city of Mosul. A suicide bomber strapped with explosives attacked a police station, killing four policemen, police said.
Ten militants blew themselves up across Baghdad on Friday and another attacked Iskindiriya, south of the capital, killing at least 32 people, police said.
[snip]
Suicide bombers have consistently undermined government promises that January elections would pacify the country, where violence has raised fears Iraq could slide towards civil war.
I submit it’s about time we start belling this cat. There is already a civil war raging in Iraq, because Iraqis are blowing each other up on a scale we can only call warlike. In fact, the fatalities caused directly by violence are probably higher than in many areas, including northern Uganda and the eastern DRC, where noone denies that civil war is taking place.
And corporate profits aside, what benefit has been reaped for stirring up this civil war? From an interview in Morgenbladet with terrorism expert Brynjar Lie at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (my translation):
- One has actually succeeded in eliminating much of the old al-Qaeda. But at the same time, al-Qaeda has been transformed into something novel: It has become an ideological movement, which it previously was not. This presents us with a considerable terrorism threat. In the future we have to think more about how to hinder recruitment to these new networks - that is a greater challenge than to arrest the leaders of the old al-Qaeda. Again, many of those have been caught, but the influx to the organization is such that this does not reduce the threat of terrorism.
- Has the invasion of Iraq contributed to radicalizing the terrorism?
- Yes. There is no doubt about that. Of course, we don’t know what would have happened if Saddam was still in power, but there is broad agreement that the Iraq War has given terrorism a new focus. It has unified what used to be a speckled array of jihadist movements and reinvigorated them.
Hm, I wonder if some of us haven’t been suggesting that for quite some time.
In this light, is it anything less than a scandal that Bush and Blair remain in power? Indeed, does it not cast a disconcerting shadow over the notion that democracy, which is above all an error-correcting mechanism, is actually working in the UK and the US?
