Rhinocrisy

This article about sums it up. Civil war.^*

The mindless doublespeak being tossed around is amazing. You may marvel at these brilliant juxtapositions, by both Cheney and Rumsfeld:

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote an article for the Washington Post, in which he argued that Iraq is not in the midst of a civil war.

The defense secretary said: “The terrorists realized that they were losing the war. They are, therefore, trying to make the sectarian conflict in Iraq into a civil war. If the United States began to pull out from Iraq right now, it would be like giving Germany back to the Nazis after World War II.”

US Vice President Dick Cheney, disagreeing with Allawi, said Iraq is not under threat of a civil war.

Some are seriously determined to create a civil war in Iraq, Cheney claimed on CBS.

I.e., the terrorists WANT to create civil war, and are desperately trying to. But anything you see that might actually look like civil war is not the logical result of that impulsion; it’s actually the insurgency in its “final throes”.

Frankly this rhetoric is starting to bore me. Every statement that comes out of the mouths of these people is contorted to support the notion that every single thing they are doing is right. It’s right to stay there and fight the terrorists, because otherwise they will bring about destruction and chaos. And things are going well; after all, if they weren’t, that would suggest we’re doing something wrong.

Here’s something that they’ve done wrong from day one: doggedly insisted on “defeating the terrorists” through the application of violence, when what was really called for was finding ways to enfranchise all parties (especially the Sunni Arab minority, wealthy, powerful, threatened and willing to fight). The polarization of the country was the inevitable result. This mindset is not surprising from a group that only has two modes of operation: 1) Bombing the crap out of people, or 2) Threatening to bomb the crap out of people. But it’s also not really surprising that it didn’t work.

Hubris like this used to guarantee that the wrath of the gods would come down upon you. I’m waiting.

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^* This really is the correct time to say ‘I told you so.’