Monday, January 10, 2005

Be Very Afraid

As reported in Newsweek, the blogosphere and elsewhere, the Pentagon is considering sending US Special Forces to
advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers...
Shades of the contras (no coincidence I'm sure, since John Negroponte, who coordinated the Reagan-era contra campaign from his post as ambassador to Honduras, is now running the show as ambassador to Iraq), Operation Phoenix and every other murderous, desperate attempt to salvage a losing war.

Maj. Gen. Muhammad Abdallah al-Shahwani, director of Iraq's National Intelligence Service, says:
"The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," [he said]. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."
So we will have Kurdish and Shiite hit men--excuse me, "freedom fighters"--carrying out a campaign of collective punishment against the Sunni population in order to balance the terror equation. Can you say recipe for civil war? Can you say, death squads for democracy?

Will we as a nation be able to retain any shred of good will, credibility or respect when this is all over--if it ever is? Or are we becoming the new Evil Empire? (This is not a rhetorical question.)

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