Did el-Simon ever talk about how the 9/11 hijackers were total losers because they killed themselves in the process? How could it have been a success for them if they're dead, huh? Total desperation on their part.
And Labs, you've got to stop reading so much Pajamaline, it's really not healthy.
Kaus does the same fucking thing. All I really want these guys to do is give us a failure condition: for what event or state of affairs X are they willing to admit that Iraq was a mistake?
as much bad press as this action did among your own people
But how bad will the press be against the Sunnis in the Middle East? Iran is telling people that the US and Israel did it. I would think most people in the M.E. would know that's crap but we don't know the state of the media over there and what people are being told. Does this redirection thing really have a shot or are most people in the ME just as dismissive of the outrageous claims that Iran is making as people in the West?
8: Sadly, I think that those people who don't actually believe that secret US/Israel commandos could've done could very probably think that the US should've and could've stopped it from happening. Which, while it doesn't necessarily mean that the bombing would actively be the US's fault, means that a lot of people will blame the US anyways.
Roger went hopelessly down the positive-feedback madness vortex by 2003, though, after earlier spinning round the "reasonably independent thinking" lobby for a while. It's all over once you take the little green pill.
But I'd say it's an acute warning sign when any blogger of any ideological predilection starts writing many posts that contain the phrase "it seems to me that." It usually means that the rest of the sentence will be an acutely paranoid fantasy that shows far more of your id than you should be letting slip.
I'm saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care about what happened. A lot of people seem to be dismissing it as just another crappy day in Iraq. Seeing the before and after of the dome makes me think of how I'd feel if that was St. Peter's Basilica instead.
17 -- you should count yourself lucky (or some similar adjective -- "lucky" doesn't quite capture the fulness of meaning I have in mind) that you are able to understand even a tiny fraction of the weirdness around here.
Speaking of short prorams, did I not hear Dick Button having an orgasm at the end of Sasha Cohen's routine on Tuesday? He was very indiscreet, insistently repeating "hold it hold it hold it" or somesuch, and then (if my ears did not deceive me) rolled over and fell asleep.
They seem so desperate that they may well be willing to start a full-blown civil war. Stupid desperate people!
Is there any reasonable scenario under which Iraq wouldn't have descended into civil war after the removal of Saddam (aside from replacing Saddam with another Saddam and leaving the exact same structure in place)?
It's been nearly two decades since I listened to Joy Division. They never really struck my fancy, though I pretended they did at the time. Labs' people were all about Bauhaus, which actually did.
Is that why we care about the Askariya Shrine? Or saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care? Or... something? I'm not following the seq of teh tur, I must say.
I think that yesterday pretty much convinced me that we need to just put every American in Iraq on a plane and get the fuck out, the sooner the better. I've been trying to hold onto some hope that that wasn't the case, based on the Pottery Barn rule, but I'm pretty sure that not only did we break Iraq beyond repair, but our sticking around trying to fix it means we're just grinding the pieces into the floor and pissing the shopkeeper off even worse. I don't think he wants our money.
Have you seen more recent Iraqi polling than this one, or much more detailed, this? I can certainly imagine that the numbers may have changed in the past couple of weeks, and/or in the past couple of days, but I'd prefer to rely on data on what Iraqis say they think.
Given the stand of Sadr and his pivotal role in electing Jaafari, I would tend to think a demand from the Iraqi government for some sort of timetable is quite possibly not far off, in any case.
Nonetheless, it's hardly necessary to have to just guess what Iraqis think, I suggest.
We invaded Iraq and assumed responsibility for its internal security, with the stated goal of forming a new government and reconstructing the society along western democratic lines. The bombing of the shrine represents a tipping point from a low-level civil war to something much closer to all-out civil war, with our troops standing in the middle of it.
Nigeria, well, not so much.
You can understand why the comparison looks a bit beside the point, I hope. Yes, human tragedy is human tragedy regardless of which humans it befalls. The ones in Iraq, we ought to at least be paying attention to, given that we pointedly assumed responsibility for the entire kit and caboodle.
"We invaded Iraq and assumed responsibility for its internal security, with the stated goal of forming a new government and reconstructing the society along western democratic lines. The bombing of the shrine represents a tipping point from a low-level civil war to something much closer to all-out civil war, with our troops standing in the middle of it."
What's all this got to do with knowing how much or little Americans care about the bombing of Askariya Shrine today? I asked how anyone could know "how little people here in the US seem to care about what happened" today. (Certainly journalists care, since it is, of course, the lead story on every news source in the country that isn't dedicated solely to some other topic.)
I still don't know how anyone can tell how much or little "people here in the US" care about any given subject today. Telepathy?
Honestly, Gary, I'm starting to think you do this out of concern for my low blood pressure.
A: "We don't have 135,000 troops in Nigeria, Gary."
GF: Is that why we care about the Askariya Shrine? Or saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care?
Isn't one reason to care about the mosque's destruction that it's partly our responsibility? There are nuances here, of course, but toppling the regime creates obligations for us, and recent events are a vivid reminder that we've failed to live up to them.
Then add some weak inductive support for the claim that Americans aren't particularly upset: the reporting of the story on the news, for example; the fact that I haven't heard it mentioned around the usual water coolers. No one's citing Zogby. Tentative conclusion: we don't care as much as we should.
I read the alleged non sequitur like this: we have a special relationship to suffering in Iraq that we don't have to similar suffering in Nigeria; that relationship is morally salient; our responses suggest that we aren't sufficiently attentive to it.
Americans get a daily dose of news about hostage-taking, hostage-executing, torture, and so forth, about Iraq. Everyone's frustrated. But I don't think it's reasonable---sorry if this is a strawman---to think Americans ought get outraged every time an atrocity occurs in Iraq as a result of one group or another struggling for political power. I don't think it's possible for anyone to do that and still maintain enough sanity to fool his neighbors.
. But I don't think it's reasonable---sorry if this is a strawman---to think Americans ought get outraged every time an atrocity occurs in Iraq as a result of one group or another struggling for political power.
That seems fair and reasonable. I think some are frustrated because we're being told, by Juan Cole, that this is the tipping point. It might not be true, but one can make a reasonable argument that it is. (I think, for example, Indira Ghandi ended up assasinated in response to something a bit like this.) If this is a peculiarly important point in the Iraq war, and we know it, then the fact that we don't much care seems to indicate (I think rightly) that we never much cared about Iraq as such. And that's unfortunate, and doesn't speak very well of us.
Agreed, Andrew. But the point here is that the bombing of this particular mosque (and the reprisals against Sunni mosques that followed) is qualitatively different than the daily menu of explosions and kidnappings. I'm sure every Iraqi understands this; I doubt very many Americans do.
34: "What does any of that have to do with Nigeria?"
I assume that anyone who knows how much or little people in America care about one thing must know how much or little they care about any other random thing. Since I have no idea how such knowledge is received in the first place, why not?
Right now I'm saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care about what happened in this thread.
38: "(I think, for example, Indira Ghandi ended up assasinated in response to something a bit like this.)"
I think not. But I really wouldn't know. It's the most famous family I know nothing about, I do think, however.
Well, I can answer that one, Gary, with my superhuman powers of deduction. The vast majority of Americans couldn't find Nigeria on a map of Africa or name any Nigerian cities or list the main languages or religions, much less tell you a single detail about violence occurring there. Since it's difficult to care about something they are blissfully unaware of, I'm going to venture: um, not very much.
Similarly, most Americans couldn't even name a difference between Sunni and Shi'ite Islam and therefore haven't the tools to grasp the significance of this attack. It's just another headline that looks remarkably like all the others for the past two years.
"The attack had been planned several months beforehand and was timed for an important anniversary in the Sikh calendar when thousands of pilgrims would be expected to be present.[5] The army operation was followed by wholesale killings of Sikh males between the ages of 15 and 35 in Punjab's villages.[6] These violent events, together with organized massacre of Sikhs in India's major cities in November 1984, and daily terror families subsequently experienced in Punjab's villages gave rise to resistance.[7]
Sikhs everywhere were outraged at the desecration of their holiest shrine. On 31 October 1984, two of her Sikh bodyguards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, assassinated Indira Gandhi in the garden of her home. She was shot in the chest and abdomen, receiving 16 bullet wounds at close range, and died almost immediately (at the age of 66). Coincidentally this was a few days after the lethal, but unsuccessful attempt by the PIRA on the life of Margaret Thatcher, another powerful female head of a major nation of the world."
But, no, really, why would Sunni insurgents destroy the Golden Mosque in Samarra? As far as I can tell, no group has yet claimed responsibility and all I can find to read about it people everywhere think it was done by Sunnis. Washington also spouted a likely link to AQ. But as Gary says, data, or in this case lack thereof.
So why does everyone ('cept Iranian propagandists) think it was done by Sunnis? Because Shiites' wouldn't do it? Because Sunnis are the likely suspects? Because somebody saw the bombers and recognized their Sunni ways?
I remember hearing some story reported at least a year ago many Sunnis refused to believe, or more simply, didn't believe, that they were a minority, or, therewith that Shiites outnumbered them.
So the election results seemed falsified to them. Armed resistence made sense ( or more sense, at least to me ) in the context of the belief that the "true majority" would be redeemed by its victory.
But with two elections done, I might guess the truth of the demographics has hit home at least with some Sunnis. Big guess.
So what could be the rationale for the bombing? If outnumbered, why rouse the opposition to almost certain violence. Why do something so likely to escalate sectarian violence so clearly in the direction of all out civil war?
The Sunni insurgents may [hypothetically folks] count on this being more than a civil war, by far. And hell, with the US and the UK forces there, it is already more than a civil war. Could the insurgents want to involve more "third parties" to try to counter the power tipping the Shiites. In other words get non-Iraqi Sunni support for their insurgency stepped up in big way.
"The Americans also abandoned us extremely. They could have put some of their vehicles to protect the mosques — they have the forces to do that," Khalaf al-Hayan, general secretary of the Sunni Iraqi National Dialogue Council, said at a news conference. "How does a civil war start? It starts like this." ... Al-Hayan called on neighboring countries to send troops to protect Iraq's Sunnis from the Shiites and Americans.
He was also bringing up Japan and Germany and how they took a long time to settle in his post about Fukuyama the other day.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:23 PM
Did el-Simon ever talk about how the 9/11 hijackers were total losers because they killed themselves in the process? How could it have been a success for them if they're dead, huh? Total desperation on their part.
And Labs, you've got to stop reading so much Pajamaline, it's really not healthy.
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:31 PM
I would give Simon the nod as the blogger most consistently ass-backwards in his half-witted analyses, except the field is so very, very crowded.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:34 PM
Kaus does the same fucking thing. All I really want these guys to do is give us a failure condition: for what event or state of affairs X are they willing to admit that Iraq was a mistake?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:37 PM
Good thing he didn't blog Hiroshima.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:37 PM
4: As soon as Bush tells them it was a mistake.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:39 PM
I should note that Sullivan does the same think, as well. One of the things about him that bothers me, though low on the list.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:41 PM
as much bad press as this action did among your own people
But how bad will the press be against the Sunnis in the Middle East? Iran is telling people that the US and Israel did it. I would think most people in the M.E. would know that's crap but we don't know the state of the media over there and what people are being told. Does this redirection thing really have a shot or are most people in the ME just as dismissive of the outrageous claims that Iran is making as people in the West?
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:49 PM
8: Sadly, I think that those people who don't actually believe that secret US/Israel commandos could've done could very probably think that the US should've and could've stopped it from happening. Which, while it doesn't necessarily mean that the bombing would actively be the US's fault, means that a lot of people will blame the US anyways.
I'm talking out of my ass about this, of course.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:03 PM
I liked The Big Fix and Moses Wine.
Roger went hopelessly down the positive-feedback madness vortex by 2003, though, after earlier spinning round the "reasonably independent thinking" lobby for a while. It's all over once you take the little green pill.
But I'd say it's an acute warning sign when any blogger of any ideological predilection starts writing many posts that contain the phrase "it seems to me that." It usually means that the rest of the sentence will be an acutely paranoid fantasy that shows far more of your id than you should be letting slip.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:08 PM
I'm saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care about what happened. A lot of people seem to be dismissing it as just another crappy day in Iraq. Seeing the before and after of the dome makes me think of how I'd feel if that was St. Peter's Basilica instead.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:11 PM
11:
would you feel thirsty for a nice rampage of sectarian violence? 'cause i think that's what the barista's serving.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:13 PM
It seems to me that Farber is way wrong.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:14 PM
Get a taste in my mouth ... Damn you, Labs.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:19 PM
It seems to me that Farber is way wrong.
Old guy fight!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:20 PM
I'm betting on Emerson in the short program fight.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:29 PM
I don't understand 14.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:31 PM
17 -- you should count yourself lucky (or some similar adjective -- "lucky" doesn't quite capture the fulness of meaning I have in mind) that you are able to understand even a tiny fraction of the weirdness around here.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:35 PM
What's great about 14 is that it sounds lewd, but isn't. Like the anti-Mineshaft.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:43 PM
Speaking of short prorams, did I not hear Dick Button having an orgasm at the end of Sasha Cohen's routine on Tuesday? He was very indiscreet, insistently repeating "hold it hold it hold it" or somesuch, and then (if my ears did not deceive me) rolled over and fell asleep.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:45 PM
19 -- do you mean to say the Mineshaft is lewd but does not sound lewd?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:51 PM
Like the anti-Mineshaft.
Wie der Wankelmotor.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:56 PM
They seem so desperate that they may well be willing to start a full-blown civil war. Stupid desperate people!
Is there any reasonable scenario under which Iraq wouldn't have descended into civil war after the removal of Saddam (aside from replacing Saddam with another Saddam and leaving the exact same structure in place)?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 5:17 PM
I don't understand 14.
Perhaps you are only partially of Labs' people. It's only from Joy Division's most famous song.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 5:26 PM
Is there any reasonable scenario under which Iraq wouldn't have descended into civil war after the removal of Saddam
No, there is not. And that is exactly the reason why "no serious person" should have supported this entire stupid adventure.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 5:40 PM
It's only from Joy Division's most famous song.
It's been nearly two decades since I listened to Joy Division. They never really struck my fancy, though I pretended they did at the time. Labs' people were all about Bauhaus, which actually did.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 5:46 PM
11: "I'm saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care about what happened. "
Was there a survey I missed?
How much are people in the U.S. caring about the violence in Nigeria today? I'd like to know.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:11 PM
We don't have 135,000 troops in Nigeria, Gary.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:15 PM
"We don't have 135,000 troops in Nigeria, Gary."
Is that why we care about the Askariya Shrine? Or saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care? Or... something? I'm not following the seq of teh tur, I must say.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:50 PM
I think that yesterday pretty much convinced me that we need to just put every American in Iraq on a plane and get the fuck out, the sooner the better. I've been trying to hold onto some hope that that wasn't the case, based on the Pottery Barn rule, but I'm pretty sure that not only did we break Iraq beyond repair, but our sticking around trying to fix it means we're just grinding the pieces into the floor and pissing the shopkeeper off even worse. I don't think he wants our money.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:52 PM
"I don't think he wants our money."
Have you seen more recent Iraqi polling than this one, or much more detailed, this? I can certainly imagine that the numbers may have changed in the past couple of weeks, and/or in the past couple of days, but I'd prefer to rely on data on what Iraqis say they think.
Given the stand of Sadr and his pivotal role in electing Jaafari, I would tend to think a demand from the Iraqi government for some sort of timetable is quite possibly not far off, in any case.
Nonetheless, it's hardly necessary to have to just guess what Iraqis think, I suggest.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:14 PM
We invaded Iraq and assumed responsibility for its internal security, with the stated goal of forming a new government and reconstructing the society along western democratic lines. The bombing of the shrine represents a tipping point from a low-level civil war to something much closer to all-out civil war, with our troops standing in the middle of it.
Nigeria, well, not so much.
You can understand why the comparison looks a bit beside the point, I hope. Yes, human tragedy is human tragedy regardless of which humans it befalls. The ones in Iraq, we ought to at least be paying attention to, given that we pointedly assumed responsibility for the entire kit and caboodle.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:16 PM
"We invaded Iraq and assumed responsibility for its internal security, with the stated goal of forming a new government and reconstructing the society along western democratic lines. The bombing of the shrine represents a tipping point from a low-level civil war to something much closer to all-out civil war, with our troops standing in the middle of it."
What's all this got to do with knowing how much or little Americans care about the bombing of Askariya Shrine today? I asked how anyone could know "how little people here in the US seem to care about what happened" today. (Certainly journalists care, since it is, of course, the lead story on every news source in the country that isn't dedicated solely to some other topic.)
I still don't know how anyone can tell how much or little "people here in the US" care about any given subject today. Telepathy?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:27 PM
What does any of that have to do with Nigeria?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:29 PM
Honestly, Gary, I'm starting to think you do this out of concern for my low blood pressure.
A: "We don't have 135,000 troops in Nigeria, Gary."
GF: Is that why we care about the Askariya Shrine? Or saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care?
Isn't one reason to care about the mosque's destruction that it's partly our responsibility? There are nuances here, of course, but toppling the regime creates obligations for us, and recent events are a vivid reminder that we've failed to live up to them.
Then add some weak inductive support for the claim that Americans aren't particularly upset: the reporting of the story on the news, for example; the fact that I haven't heard it mentioned around the usual water coolers. No one's citing Zogby. Tentative conclusion: we don't care as much as we should.
I read the alleged non sequitur like this: we have a special relationship to suffering in Iraq that we don't have to similar suffering in Nigeria; that relationship is morally salient; our responses suggest that we aren't sufficiently attentive to it.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:40 PM
Americans get a daily dose of news about hostage-taking, hostage-executing, torture, and so forth, about Iraq. Everyone's frustrated. But I don't think it's reasonable---sorry if this is a strawman---to think Americans ought get outraged every time an atrocity occurs in Iraq as a result of one group or another struggling for political power. I don't think it's possible for anyone to do that and still maintain enough sanity to fool his neighbors.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:54 PM
Man, that's some sweet old-school blogging, isn't it?
Isn't that "old-skool" blogging"? Or is "old-school" the old-skool "old-school"?
Posted by Tyrone Slothrop | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:56 PM
. But I don't think it's reasonable---sorry if this is a strawman---to think Americans ought get outraged every time an atrocity occurs in Iraq as a result of one group or another struggling for political power.
That seems fair and reasonable. I think some are frustrated because we're being told, by Juan Cole, that this is the tipping point. It might not be true, but one can make a reasonable argument that it is. (I think, for example, Indira Ghandi ended up assasinated in response to something a bit like this.) If this is a peculiarly important point in the Iraq war, and we know it, then the fact that we don't much care seems to indicate (I think rightly) that we never much cared about Iraq as such. And that's unfortunate, and doesn't speak very well of us.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 9:01 PM
Agreed, Andrew. But the point here is that the bombing of this particular mosque (and the reprisals against Sunni mosques that followed) is qualitatively different than the daily menu of explosions and kidnappings. I'm sure every Iraqi understands this; I doubt very many Americans do.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 9:04 PM
34: "What does any of that have to do with Nigeria?"
I assume that anyone who knows how much or little people in America care about one thing must know how much or little they care about any other random thing. Since I have no idea how such knowledge is received in the first place, why not?
Right now I'm saddened by how little people here in the US seem to care about what happened in this thread.
38: "(I think, for example, Indira Ghandi ended up assasinated in response to something a bit like this.)"
I think not. But I really wouldn't know. It's the most famous family I know nothing about, I do think, however.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 9:57 PM
Well, I can answer that one, Gary, with my superhuman powers of deduction. The vast majority of Americans couldn't find Nigeria on a map of Africa or name any Nigerian cities or list the main languages or religions, much less tell you a single detail about violence occurring there. Since it's difficult to care about something they are blissfully unaware of, I'm going to venture: um, not very much.
Similarly, most Americans couldn't even name a difference between Sunni and Shi'ite Islam and therefore haven't the tools to grasp the significance of this attack. It's just another headline that looks remarkably like all the others for the past two years.
How do I know this? Because I'm the hero.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:24 PM
On Gandhi's assasination:
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:37 PM
40: Gary thinks not Indira Ghandi
Sikhs everywhere were outraged at the desecration of their holiest shrine
Only good feeling I have had today.
Except for watching Cristina Ricci tap-dance in a bowling alley to Moonchild by King Crimson but that probably belongs in the Thailand thread
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:39 PM
43: Oh well, I still have Cristina Ricci. But it has been that kind of day.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:40 PM
bob: does this mean that you're my daddy?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:43 PM
Wait, bob, where can I watch Christina Ricci doing that?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:45 PM
At the bowling alley, he said.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:50 PM
Also in Buffalo '66, but not live.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 10:51 PM
"On Gandhi's assasination....."
Indeed, I've read dozens of books about both the dynasty of Indira Gandhi, and her non-relative, the Mahatma.
But the Ghandi clan seems strangely more popular than either.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 11:07 PM
Well, as Luke said, "I care."
But, no, really, why would Sunni insurgents destroy the Golden Mosque in Samarra? As far as I can tell, no group has yet claimed responsibility and all I can find to read about it people everywhere think it was done by Sunnis. Washington also spouted a likely link to AQ. But as Gary says, data, or in this case lack thereof.
So why does everyone ('cept Iranian propagandists) think it was done by Sunnis? Because Shiites' wouldn't do it? Because Sunnis are the likely suspects? Because somebody saw the bombers and recognized their Sunni ways?
I remember hearing some story reported at least a year ago many Sunnis refused to believe, or more simply, didn't believe, that they were a minority, or, therewith that Shiites outnumbered them.
So the election results seemed falsified to them. Armed resistence made sense ( or more sense, at least to me ) in the context of the belief that the "true majority" would be redeemed by its victory.
But with two elections done, I might guess the truth of the demographics has hit home at least with some Sunnis. Big guess.
So what could be the rationale for the bombing? If outnumbered, why rouse the opposition to almost certain violence. Why do something so likely to escalate sectarian violence so clearly in the direction of all out civil war?
The Sunni insurgents may [hypothetically folks] count on this being more than a civil war, by far. And hell, with the US and the UK forces there, it is already more than a civil war. Could the insurgents want to involve more "third parties" to try to counter the power tipping the Shiites. In other words get non-Iraqi Sunni support for their insurgency stepped up in big way.
From the LA Times:
"The Americans also abandoned us extremely. They could have put some of their vehicles to protect the mosques — they have the forces to do that," Khalaf al-Hayan, general secretary of the Sunni Iraqi National Dialogue Council, said at a news conference. "How does a civil war start? It starts like this." ... Al-Hayan called on neighboring countries to send troops to protect Iraq's Sunnis from the Shiites and Americans.
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 02-24-06 12:54 AM