"Why are they killing each other?"

[LynnTheDem]

Some (far too many, imo!) on this board ask why Iraqis are fighting each other, and not just fighting their invaders.


If China invaded America and disbanded our military and police forces and we had a raging war against the occupiers going on, do ya REALLY think Americans would stop raping, murdering, stealing from, looting, attacking other Americans??! Why do we have criminal laws? To keep the majority of people from behaving criminally. What happens when suddenly there are no laws? What happens when suddenly there are no consequences for your behaviour? Do ya REALLY think all those who behave only due to consequences if they didn't would still behave if suddenly there were no consequences??!

Do ya REALLY think the American Talibornagains would stop bombing family planning clinics??!

Do ya REALLY think a free-for-all in the country would be all "us against them?" only??!

Guess what happens when US cities suffer black-outs; the crime levels go through the roof.

And that's with an active and whole police force and US military, and no invaders occupying us.

Now imagine a 4-year long black-out in America. With no viable police force or military to keep order.

Add in a foreign army occupation that can't even speak English.

If Americans ever were to suffer what America has done & is doing to the people of Iraq, we'd see plenty of Americans raping, murdering, torturing their fellow Americans. We'd see widespread theft and looting and terrorism. We'd see Americans just as "barbaric" and "evil" as any people in Iraq.

Do we REALLY need to literally walk in their shoes before we can understand the Iraqis' side? Let's hope not!

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. K&R, fantastic thread.

I'd put good money that if what happened in Iraq happened here, there'd be a full on civil war, 1860's style.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Excellent response. I'd also throw in a little more. The 'minutemen' would

start eliminating all those pesky immigrants! The 'christians' would be taking out those morally unacceptable gays! The KKK would be targeting those with darker skins trying to fulfill their vision of a 'race war'! Mel Gibson might lead an attack on our Jewish citizens!

[EST]

3. I love you Lynn!

Your ability to grasp and explain fundamental truth is a wonderful thing, especially in this time of tawdry hyperventilating over nothing of importance that seems to infect almost everyone.

In answer to your final question, no.
Humans cannot grasp the big picture. We cannot ever make wise choices until the devastation that accompanies stupid choices is so prevalent that making the wise choice is no longer of much import.

People are not thinkers-not in the way we picture thinkers-we are pattern recognition machines.

The ability to correctly forecast the future is highly prized and much sought after but when we find someone who is actually good at it, we choose to notice that it doesn't match our current patterns so we make fun of that unfortunate and relegate them to financial and logical obscurity.

Contrary to our much vaunted claims, we don't want to know or hear the truth!
Of course, there are always a few who can penetrate beneath the glaze that avaricious loudmouths use to retain public control, but don't expect actual thinking or careful reasoning to take place.

It ain't gonna happen!

[Jonathan50]

49. The most dangerous man

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

-H. L. Mencken

[magellan]

4. But, but -- we're SPECIAL!

We're Americans! We'd never do anything like what them there Eye-raqees are doing!! We'd unite behind the government a foreign occupying force helped to establish here, even if it was full of notorious criminals and radicals and people who hadn't lived in the US for decades!!

[pampango]

19. The Germans and Japanese seemed to survive occupation

without turning on each other in waves of violence. Did they cooperate with the occupiers? Some did to varying degrees and some didn't.

If Americans are not "special", I like to tell myself that we are not worse than the Germans and Japanese (except maybe when it comes to making cars) ;) I believe that believe that 99% of Iraqi civilians are the same as us. They are not shooting or bombing the neighbors. As in any country, there is a 1% (maybe it's 2% or 3% in a country with a civil war and occupation) of bad guys, both common criminals and other warriors.

[magellan]

21. There were no sectarian/ethnic rifts to speak of in those countries

...either before or after the war.

edited to add: the invasion/occupation of Germany and Japan occurred AFTER war had concluded -- not as the launching off point for an amorphous war on terror. And there are a lot of things being done (and not done) by Americans in Iraq that were handled differently/better in the post-war rebuilding of Germany and Japan.

[theboss]

51. Were are the sectraina/ethnic splits here?

Maybe along the Arizona border there would be some trouble with Mexican immigrants.

But I really doubt that Fairfax County, Virginia would suddenly turn into Thunderdome.

[magellan]

55. No, but other differences would quickly cause division

I ask you to imagine the USA in the same conditions the US occupation has created in Iraq. Imagine 44 million Communist Chinese trying to occupy this country of 300 million. (That's a statistical approximation of US/coalition forces in Iraq, along with the contrasting ideological viewpoint.) Imagine a months' long power vacuum in DC, unreliable electricity and water, shortages of medicine and gas and the resulting hysteria when people can no longer get to work and feed their kids or live in sanitary conditions. Imagine no Army, no police force, no Nat'l guard -- they've all been disarmed and turned off.

Suddenly there's looting and wholesale rioting going on. Gangs and militias would immediately seize local power and battle each other for control. And the Chinese would stand back because they're stretched so thin they're barely able to defend themselves and the provisional government and whatever resources they deem valuable. They do, however, start detaining and killing Americans at the slightest provocation because, just like the Iraqis, we're well-armed and aren't going down without a fight.

But not everybody joins the resistance. Many just try to survive day to day in worsening conditions. Some even work with the Chinese. Maybe a local politico gets approved by the Chinese provisional government to represent his or her area. A local militia throws in behind that person...and maybe another local gang or militia doesn't much like the idea of a puppet government. Now you've got running battles in the street between Americans who don't share the same view about the way forward.

This is not a bad analogy of what's happened in Iraq, irrespective of sectarian/ethnic clashes.

Four years of that? The same conditions here would deteriorate into division and unrest, there is no doubt about it.

[pampango]

54. Our occupation of Iraq has occurred after the war, if you define

the war by WWII standards, i.e. one nation's military against another. I suppose we could get into a semantic argument as to whether what we are doing in Iraq now is a war or an occupation. Just as, if the Germans or Japanese had resisted us or fought with each other, we could have argued whether that was a continuation of the war or a violent occupation.

I have not read much about how we handled the occupations in Germany and Japan. I would be interested to know what was "handled differently/better in the post-war rebuilding of Germany and Japan."

[magellan]

56. Read up on it

We did not do it "cheap and dirty" like we have in Iraq.

[rman]

5. Not to mention it creates a pretext for the invader to stay in order to

try and stabilize the situation. Such pretext is required if the actual reason for the invasion is not the same as the proclaimed reason.

[Katherine Brengle]

6. So true, k&r

[Balbus]

7. So if we're invading by China there'll be Americans strapping on

dynamite vests and blow up our shopping malls? There'll be Americans loading their cars with dynamite and driving it to the nearest Olive Garden and blow it up? Uhhh, no.

But thanks for playing... And congratulations - You got 7 sheep to jump on your bandwagon. (as of this post)

[CJCRANE]

12. Homicide-suicide sprees

do happen in America and the Western world in general (e.g. Columbine killers etc, although granted it is rare).

And if you think "christians" wouldn't blow up civilians or shopping malls you obviously don't know much about the activities of the IRA in Northern Ireland and Britain.

[Katherine Brengle]

14. ALL crime would grow exponentially --

perhaps the style would be different - like, antiabortion extremists really like to pipe bomb abortion clinics, so it would just happen a lot instead of a little.

For example.

Don't be so myopic.

[Chantico]

Perhaps

As even the recent NIE report shows, the War in Iraq is actually at least four simultaneous wars going on, including one being waged by the criminal element as Lynn mentioned. It would be naive to believe that factions in existence in our country would not use such an invasion for their own purposes, similarly to those in Iraq. Timothy McVeigh ring a bell? There are large numbers of "hate groups" in America that are fully armed and ready to go in the case of anarchy. To believe they do not exist or would not do something like blow up a mall is denying reality. I would agree with you on one point. America's Army of God soldiers would not sacrifice themselves in suicide missions. Nope. They would remotely detonate the Women's clinics and neighboring Coffeehouse like Eric Robert Rudolf did.

[Katherine Brengle]

24. Well said, and welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Chantico]

27. Thank you.

Interesting thread.

[newyawker99]

35. Hi Chantico!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. If we were ever invaded, there is a certain number of Americans who

would befriend the invaders and sell us all out; another percentage who will be consumed by the chaos and put all known rules of civility aside to settle old scores; and still others who would attempt to restore civility by using violence. Basically, look at the gangs in the impoverished areas. That's what it would look like.

[Felinity]

17. Gangs are in place to do a lot of damage.

In Los Angeles, the major gangs have a network in in cities across the United States and THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. They are our own domestic Al Quaeda. All they lack is the "cover" of some religious extremist belief system; which they don't need, they are just outright criminals.

We are hanging by a thread, saved by our police organizations. A little more bankruptcy by municipalities, engendered by a bankrupt US economy, and the police will go away, just like in Baghdad. And the void will be filled by those with guns and a mission, whether it be religious, political, or criminal.

Same with a natural disaster disrupting the infrastructure. Anybody heard of Katrina?

[Toots]

9. It isn't each other, it is Iraqis fighting against American sympathizers

All those Iraqis that agree with America and are in fact aiding America are targets. It would be no different here in America if China invaded the USA and Americans were helping them with their rape of our country...We did this in the Revolutionary war against the Loyalists. Americans were killing Americans in some very horrible ways, like burning alive etc...

[twilight_sailing]

11. "fighting against American sympathizers"

Good point.

[pampango]

15. Please. Is there some targetting of collaborators? Sure.

That was true of the French resistance to the Germans during WW II. But bombing public markets, shooting girls going to school, or blowing up job seekers is not going after collaborators (unless civilian who lives in Iraq is guilty of collaboration because they go about their lives.) That something the French did not do.

[twilight_sailing]

18. "some"

I am just a guy who reads the newspaper but I'd say there has been quite a bit of targeting the collaborators. Not just "some".

[pampango]

30. I meant "some" in the context of all the civilians who have been

killed. I don't believe that the suicide bombers and car bombers that target marketplaces, schools, and job seekers are out to get collaborators, unless they consider all Shiite to be collaborators by some definition. Likewise, all the dead bodies that turn up every morning, probably killed by Shiite death squads, are not collaborators. If all of them were, the Sunni must be our best buddies there.

[twilight_sailing]

32. Yes, there is ethnic violence.

I think they are calling it a Civil War.



Edited to say that "ethnic" might not be the right term to use in that context.

[pampango]

36. I believe you are right about what they are calling it.

My point, if I wrote more intelligently, was that we would not necessarily have the same level of violence, or a Civil War, is the same thing happened in the US.

[twilight_sailing]

37. Mabye

but I didn't say we would have that level of violence here under similar circumstances.

[pampango]

41. Fair enough.

[twilight_sailing]

45. You are good people, pampango.

Pleased to meet you.

[pampango]

47. Thanks. Back at you. ;)

[OwnedByFerrets]

10. K & R .....nt

[treestar]

13. Thank you that is such a good point

I can just picture right wingers continuing to add to their claims that Islam is inferior and produces violent people this fact that has little to do with any particular religion and everything to do with the chaos in the country.

But at least we got rid of Saddam for them. :sarcasm:

[PLF]

16. Don't forget about the role of people like Negroponte and those British agents

I have the picture of those two British agents who were caught dressing up as Iraqis and planting bombs saved somewhere.

I think this sectarian warfare was intentionally fostered by the U.S. and U.K.

Also don't forget about that Kissinger quote to the effect of "I hope they all kill each other."

They fostered a civil war in Latin America and they are doing it again in Iraq.

[CJCRANE]

20. Yes

because about a year ago there was very little sectarian violence, then suddenly the Golden Mosque was destroyed which kicked the whole thing off. And now the excuse is that the troops can't leave because they have to stay and keep a lid on the sectarian violence.

[pampango]

25. Bush is about as far from a genius as you can get, but even he

cannot be dumb enough to provoke increased violence now in Iraq, when it results in driving down his poll numbers to historic lows and cost him control of Congress and a lot of his political power.

If I were in his shoes, I would be dreaming of peace and harmony breaking out in Iraq, so that I could plausibly sell the idea that invading Iraq and getting rid of the vicious dictator really was the right thing to do. If you're saying that he is more interested in dead Iraqis than he is his own political power, I have to disagree. He is much too selfish for that.

[PLF]

43. he cares less about his poll ratings than he does about the resources seized

what does he have to lose? he won't even be in office.

[pampango]

46. You may be right about his priorities.

I expect he would be happier if "his" oil wells and pipelines were not getting blown up, even if he didn't care about dead Iraqis. Though he can't run for office, I expect that he wishes that he hadn't lost control of Congress and that his poll numbers were higher power that a politician gets from high poll numbers.

[PLF]

48. Yeah, I don't think things are going exactly as planned.

The resistance is greater than anticipated IMHO.

[CJCRANE]

59. The resistance is greater than anticipated in America too.

The death of Iraqis and American soldiers means very little to Bush-Cheney, what's upsetting to them is that it's mentioned in the media.

To the chickenhawks 3,000 dead is nothing (compared to 58,000 in Vietnam). Their whole "war on terror" is only just getting started, to them it's a "generational war".

[In Truth We Trust]

29. Bingo, you hit the nail on the head. welcome to DU btw.

[PLF]

42. thanks

[aikoaiko]

22. I disagree -- after 9/11 there really was banding together of Americans.

Of course there would still be exploitative people in the US looking to get away with things, but no civil war. Its very unlikely we would see suicide bombers going after different groups.

[mikelewis]

26. There is no comparison to what America experienced on 9/11 and what the Iraqi's are going through...

9/11 was a made for TV event designed to shock and awe American into war. Regardless of who was responsible for the attack, it's goal was singular in it's design and limited in it's impact on civil society. What is going on in Iraq is much different... Iraq, as a country, has completely disintegrated. There is no Rudy Guiliani to pretend to save the day... there is no wanna-be cowboy standing on the ashes of a monument and declaring the country is still strong... it's two entirely different scenarios with two entirely different outcomes. To get a better idea... look at what happened to New Orleans during the Katrina Fiasco... Neighbor turned against neighbor... Blacks turned away from White neighborhoods... erroneous reports of wide-spread violence that led to paranoia and chaos... Still today, New Orleans suffers from a mild form of U.S. occupation (or lack there of).

[pampango]

34. Why are Americans so much worse than the Germans and

Japanese after WW II? They did not turn on each other in large scale violence. While New Orleans is a slightly different scenario, it does show that widespread violence did not result from the collapse of government control. There were erroneous reports of it, but they may have had similar rumors in Germany and Japan. I am sure that Iraqis wish that all they had were rumors of widespread violence.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

28. Last I checked

there was no occupying force in the U.S. after 9/11. Your comparison is null.

[Chantico]

31. Not comparable.

Americans sat glued to their TV's watching a distant, one-day horrid chaotic event that turned them into scared wabbits. The Iraqi people have emigrated out of Iraq en mass if they had the means, or have had to sit inside their homes with no electricity, no food, no jobs and constant violence and death for four years. They have no infrastructure, no safety nets anywhere.

How many Americans lived this way after 9.11?

We can not be sure who exactly is doing the suicide bombings or beheadings can we?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IB10Ak06.html

[raccoon]

23. K&R. nt

[BoneDaddy]

33. I think it is a legitimate question

and the answer is that there is a level of tribalism that gives each group the justification to kill one another, based upon their religous teachings.

Whether or not America would ever fall into such chaos remains to be seen. We certainly have an element of the population that may react that way.

[pampango]

40. Great point.

A certain amount of "tribalism" (diverse racial and ethnic groups) exists in the US.

Your post made me wonder whether societies in which social cohesion (or at least the facade of it) is forced, like in Saddam's Iraq or the old Soviet Union, are more likely to suffer from "tribal" violence after the control is lifted. Or is a society that has at least a halting dialogue about its "tribalism" and incomplete steps to try to do something about it more likely to have an explosion of violence when groups get to act on the frustrations that they have previously only been able to talk about?

[BoneDaddy]

57. Exactly

I get bothered by posts that try and compare our crazy Christian fundamentalists with that of the muslim fundamentalists. True, they share a similar ideological perspective, but if we are honest with one another, there is no where the level and concentration of violence from the Christans in our country, at the moment, as there are in the middle east. Sure we have an occasional abortion clinic bombing, but they are experiencing daily attacks from organized, armed groups.

Where I agree the mentality is the same, the expression is no where year the level it is over there.

[theboss]

52. The US is not a tribal society

Obviously, if large cities were plunged into four years worth of chaos, there would be an exponential growth of crime. But I still have a hard time envisioning Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in never-ending sectarian violence. I think there would be crime to "acquire" things...not simply blood-letting.

And I find it really hard to envision someplace like Lima, Ohio turning into Baghdad.

[slackmaster]

38. You make an excellent point, but there is another side

The US pulling out of North America wouldn't solve those problems either.

:crazy:

[ArmchairMeme]

39. Consider these things also

Unemployment at 60-80%. The Americans privatized all the Iraqi jobs that were previously "state" then hired people from other countries due to cost. So Iraqi people were right away dealing with an entirely different job situation.

How would you deal with immediate removal of your job with no hope of getting another? Along with your neighbors and perhaps whole towns?

Turn off the electricity. All these wonderful gadgets we are so enamored of would be useless. No t.v. no wired radio - no news. I read that the people of Iraq did not know about Saddam's hanging because it was done during the regular daily 6 hour blackout period. This would also mean no refrigeration of food and for some homes no heat (electric heat, oil heat on forced hot air uses fan to push heat, even my pellet stove uses a fan). Where would you wash your clothes and don't say take them to the dry cleaners - those business would be dealing with the same shortages of electricity.

No drinkable water and limited sewage disposal only during certain hours. I read that people were digging wells in their yards. How many would be resourceful enough to even know how to accomplish this task?

Now think about no governmental resources, limited hospital resources, limited fire department resources, very limited snow removal resources, police? Can you hear we the army we are here to keep the peace not to help you deal with your little problems.

Now think about these things happening nationwide and lasting for SIX years!

[pampango]

44. Would there be extremely high levels of discontent and resistance?

You betcha. Would it cause us to start killing each other, I don't think so, but it can't be proven either way. As I said, the Germans and Japanese didn't turn on each other after WW II during the occupations and it took years to get their devastated economies back on their feet.

[theboss]

50. I think you are completely wrong

Do ya REALLY think the American Talibornagains would stop bombing family planning clinics??!

They don't really do that now. Maybe there would be an increase during occupation, but I don't think it would be epidemic. (I also wonder who many family planning clinics would even be open during an occupation).

Do ya REALLY think a free-for-all in the country would be all "us against them?" only??!

I'm sure there would be some violence if anarchy ensued. I don't think there would be videos of, like, Catholics slaughtering Baptists.

Guess what happens when US cities suffer black-outs; the crime levels go through the roof.

Except during the last blackout in New York. And pretty much every blackout aside from the one during '77.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Historical Examples:

During the Civil War, southerners whose territory was occupied by the Uniond didn't suddenly start slaughtering each other. Even during Reconstruction, the violence was very specific.

As Germany collapsed in WWII, its citizens didn't suddenly turn into animals. I've read dozens of books on WWII, and one universal story seems to be that GIs would find Germans cleaning up their towns and trying to rebuild the minute occupation began. They certainly didn't start slaugthering each other.

I find it very hard to believe that an American reaction to occupation would be blowing up supermarkets.

[The Backlash Cometh]

53. A somewhat related thread: "What are the right-wingers afraid of?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=155581&mesg_id=155581

[Spurt]

58. Are they killing each other?

Most of the info coming out of Iraq is supplied overtly or covertly by the coalition (don't forget Poland).
I understand in country journalists rarely leave their hotel unless embedded because it is largely unsurvivable to go out. If they embed they must agree to submit all work for approval before publishing - ie it is censored.

Who is really killing who?

I honestly don't know the answer to that, but I don't believe what I am being told is entirely truthful nor complete.
As the old adage goes, truth is always the first casualty of war.

I regularly read numerous alternative Iraq news sites but more often than not their sources are obscure and/or out of country. I read Iraq bloggers but in most cases I am unable to conclusively determine their veracity. Some things I believe, some I don't.

No matter what each of us chooses to accept from any source, I don't believe for a nanosecond that any of us knows what is really going on in Iraq (nor in Afghanistan).
Most likely we all believe some truths and some lies and nobody has the full story.

Are more locals killing each other or is the coalition killing more. One explanation for the rising rate of US deaths is increased engagement with the enemy. Does that increased engagement explain the increasing bloodshed rather than sectarian killing?
Who is really killing who?
None of us can properly answer that.

Cheers

[CJCRANE]

60. For those who disagree with the OP...

let's look at it with a different outcome then.

Let's say China occupied America and ripped up the Constitution and enforced their form of communism, which of course is far superior to American culture (in the occupiers' eyes). All govt organisations would be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up with Communists heading the bureacracies.

Would you be proud if your 'peaceful' fellow citizens simply collaborated and let this happen?