125 killed today in Baghdad (4 times the Virginia Tech numbers; how much therapy will the Iraqis get?)
The term "civil war" was adopted last fall by journalists and politicians, to describe the violence. Replacing "insurgency." But both those terms see the violence as aimed by Iraqis at Iraqis, and having an internal political character– the Sunnis lost power, they want it back.
The violence isn’t aimed at us. Oh no: Americans like to think of our country as good, and its efforts as helpful.
Maybe that’s all wrong. Maybe the violence is aimed at American occupation, and the precedents here are Algeria, or the slave revolt in Haiti–bloody times indeed. The U.S. occupation is making things worse: when will western journalists and politicians move on to this paradigm?
