– fordi tiden kræver et MODSPIL

13. Mar 2006

Back to Iraq

 
Chris Albritton, manden bag den fortrinlige journalistiske weblog Back to iraq har et par høner at plukke med dem, som har travlt med at fortælle om, hvor godt det går i det nye demokratiske Irak:
When Sunnis cheer the Americans, it's not because things are rosy, it's because they’re more scared of the Shi'ites than they are of you. Sunnis in Baghdad I've spoken with have told me they would rather be arrested by the Americans than by the government forces, because at least now the Americans won't torture you as badly. They have no love for Americans, they just know who is best able to protect them from their neighbors.

Yesterday, the general in charge of the Iraqi Army division in Baghdad was killed by a sniper while he was on patrol. An investigation has been opened because there are suspicions he was killed for being Sunni by one of his Shi'ite troops.

To be blunt: We are as close to full-scale civil war as we've ever been. We are one more bombing, massacre or atrocity from a national bloodletting. But even if that happens, there will be ebbs and flows. Just because people aren't curled up in the fetal position under their beds all the time doesn't mean there's not a war on of some kind. In Lebanon, for 15 years, people went to the beach, cafés, bars and, in general, tried to live a normal life. For long stretches, a neighborhood would be calm. And then the shells would come, or a running street battle would break out and civilians would go running inside to hide. The violence would eventually pass, like a breaking wave, and they would come out into the light. That’s the way war works, and that's what's happening in Baghdad right now.
Så - hvad er det, vi ser? Magttomrum, magtkampe, organiserede militser, anarki hvor kriminelle tildels har frit spil, tildels slås hårdt ned af selvsamme militser. Samfundets institutioner er brudt sammen, og besættelsesmagten har ikke været i stand til at sætte nye, stabile i stedet. Med tiden vil det falde til ro i en balance ... men formentlig vil den balance opnås hurtigere, hvis amerikanerne trækker sig ud nu; ikke fordi alt er OK, men fordi de erkender, at der ikke er mere godt, de kan og vil gøre i det land.

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