i am so blessed to say that i have never received government-sponsored cheese.

__________________
If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

The first two things a tyrant does are silence dissenting voices and take away the person’s right to bear arms. There is a reason why the founders made them our first two amendments. - unknown poster

yeah, this is clearly one of those "there is no civil war" things...
First off, use the statistics, two to one is a killer way to say 66% prefer the current government... actually it's 49%...
and how are they spli? Sunni's thought, 51% at least, that Saddam was better, while 66% of Shia's thought Maliki is better... they are divided pretty nicely...
Civil War? poll divided between party lines, 41% of Sunni's believe they are in one, and if you have that big a party believing that and hence pursuing aims consistent with ones pursued in an actual civil war, well that's a big problem in itself... and 27% is not a small number - one in four people is enough to get into some problems...
anyway, that number may be artificially low because civil war requires a fight within a country, brother against brother etc., and this isn't exactly guaranteed when the Shia's and Sunni's have disliked each other for so many centuries - they may just not interact that much, and hence not consider their respective enemies country men... and by the way, 49% thought iraq is close, which is actually what most people have been saying.

and if you consider this article something to boast about, consider that 26% of the people poled have had a family member killed in the last three years, (which is remarkably close to the civil war numbers...) there have been over 3000 american deaths, and it doesn't seem like the government currently in place would last on its own for very long. the democratization policy of Bush is at least commendable, but in all honestly, war is the wrong way to go about it.

the only real hope here is that more Sunni oil fields will be discovered soon, and so their complaint about oil revenues dies down. This will solve more problems than 100,000 extra american troops, and will have little to do with them anyway.

26% have had a family member killled...and yet they haven't given up.

3,000+ american dead is an absurdly low number.

The government can last with support..not simply hot air.....its getting better at fulfilling its role. Iraqis are more and more taking the lead in finding and removing Terrorists types in their nation. Given time it will be able to handle the vast majority of needs.

Democratization via war works fine..unless those implementing the Democracy do not have the willpower to last a rational amount of time..the "microwave generation" has problems with giving things time.


Has already occured.




Not in the short term.








The crying and whining and OMG we can't nonsense about Iraq is doing absolutely nothing but proving Osama core message correct.

Kick them.. bleed them.. wait them out... they will break and run.



OH and I do deny there is a Civil War occuring mainly becasue the entire CIVL WAR routine started 2 years ago and it was and remains the drumbeat of the crowd who wants to lose. Its an excuse...a cover story if you will.
That Iraqis don't agree with them either discredits it even further.





..and as Ted aptly displayed those most eager to call it a Civil War simply cannot and will not say what their motivation for doing so is. They skip around either dodge or say well a ducks a duck..but eveyrone knows (*)(*)(*)(*) well that not their reason.


Isn't Afghanistan a Civil War as well by ths criteria(whatever the crietria happens to be at any given moment)..why yes it is..note that becasue thats the next "unwinnable" once they figure out a way to say 9/11 no longer matters.

__________________
"We make war that we may live in peace"
"...peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever."
"War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much."
"Oderint dum metuant"
http://members.cox.net/neddy/bobhope_kerfuffles.wmv
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RnfflRNpwKA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j-QYIP7o2-A

In its latest "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq" report to Congress, the Pentagon first uses the words "civil war."
The words are on page 14 of the 47-page document, where the Pentagon writes, "Some elements of the situation in Iraq are properly descriptive of a 'civil war.'

treason, nothing short of treason.

The Pentagon, Director of National Intelligence and US intelligence chief calling it a civilwar doesn't matter. For some reason Duh2 thinks it's more important that I call it a civilwar.


ps
stayduhcourse.

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"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission!" -Capt. Zapp Branigan

Actually, 49% prefer the current government over Saddam. 47% either preferred the previous regime, said they were both equally as bad, or didn't know. Of course the millions who have either died or fled the country were not factored into this poll. With the billions pumped into their economy and Iraqis supposedly "liberated" from Satan himself, shouldn't these numbers surprise you?

Regarding the "civil war opinion", 49% of Iraqis said Iraq was either in a civil war or close to it while 39% said they were not or far away from it. From other polls, the vast majority of Iraqis either blame the U.S. primarily for the violence or for making the violence significantly worse. So it's no surprise that they'd be less likely to call it a civil war. Perhaps you agree with them.

Nice spin, Duh, as usual.

__________________
See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.

- G.W. Bush, 10/3/2003

Q2. And thinking ahead, do you believe that the security situation in Iraq will get better or worse in the immediate weeks following a withdrawal of Multi National Forces?

Great deal better: 29%
A little better: 24%
Same: 6%
A little worse: 15%
A great deal worse: 11%
Don't know/refused: 12%

Total better: 53%
Total worse: 26%
Same: 6%

Optimism in Iraq does prevail.

__________________
See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.

- G.W. Bush, 10/3/2003

..and as Ted aptly displayed those most eager to call it a Civil War simply cannot and will not say what their motivation for doing so is. They skip around either dodge or say well a ducks a duck..but eveyrone knows (*)(*)(*)(*) well that not their reason.

__________________
"We make war that we may live in peace"
"...peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever."
"War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much."
"Oderint dum metuant"
http://members.cox.net/neddy/bobhope_kerfuffles.wmv
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RnfflRNpwKA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j-QYIP7o2-A

There is no "motivation" in calling the civil war in Iraq a civil war. The reason that I refer to it as such is very simple, it is.

__________________
"I was born at night, but it was not last night night"

what was the Pentagon's motivation?