As Atrios and Josh Marshall debate the true meaning of the latest missive by Knight of the New Republic, Lawrence Kaplan, I'd just like to point out how appalling his post is -- and no I don't mean the dog head thing (which sounds like bullshit to me -- but what do I know?).

Hawks like Kaplan simply refuse to admit the invasion that they advocated directly caused this civil war -- and all the horror that it entails. The "sectarian rage" now "tearing Iraq apart" came about because the US destroyed civil society in Iraq. Kaplan simply cannot conceive that US troops play any other role than "a vital buffer between Iraq's warring sects" and he seems to think the warring sects sprang forth fully-formed after someone sowed the earth with Richard Perl's teeth.

The US came in, wrecked the place, set up a puppet government dominated by one religious group oppressed for years by another religious group, outfitted the puppet government with a US-backed militia that goes around killing members of the other group, and then guys like Kaplan get surprised when civil war breaks out. People need to get it through their heads that Iraqis -- especially Sunnis -- think the US-backed government is a joke and are basically afraid of Iraq's so-called security forces. Iraqi blogger Riverbend has vividly described the "security" Sunnis feel when security forces come calling and in another post stated frankly, "[T]he Iraqi security forces are as much to fear as the black-clad and hooded men attacking mosques."

When events like the horrors Kaplan describes occur one must wonder to what extent the rage sunnis apparently feel toward Shiites is due to the perception that the shiites are actively collaborating with the conquerors of Iraq and due to the fact that Iraq's "security forces" basically act as a Shiite militia. Iraq's deputy prime minister made this point in an Al Jazeera interview commenting on Saturday's Shiite-on-Sunni rampage: (from the Times):

In comments broadcast on the Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera, Salam al-Zubaie, a deputy prime minister and a Sunni Arab, called the events in Jihad "a real massacre" and suggested that Iraq's Shiite-led security forces were to blame because they had been infiltrated by militiamen.

The government forces, he said, "coordinate with these filthy terror groups who are roaming the streets."

But, you know, I guess it's easier to blame it all on violent arabs who cannot "reprogram their coarsened and brittle cultures" to quote Kaplan. Which is nice for Kaplan ... regarding the debate between Atrios and Marshall, my take is that Kaplan is saying that he doesn't have blood on his hands because those people are just crazy...

Labels: Lawrence Kaplan, Shia, Sunnis, TNR