[mburbank]

Kev; I think you may be somewhat missinterpretting me.

"Are Siite death squads a product of our actions, or the product of a society which has never known freedom, democracy, transparency, and justice? Shiites do these things because it's what was done to them. We took care of the first problem by toppling the dictator who did that to them. "

I don't disagree with that at all. Alls I'm saying is sectarian death squads are a good indicator of a state of civil war, and that this is a very preidctable outcome of solving their first problem.

"Fostering a respect for law and open government isn't something we can do with a bomb,"

Absolutely agree. But I don't know as any of the things we are currently doing will foster a respect for law or open government, and I think many of the things we have done and are doing, both with the best intentions and sometimes no intentions at all daily reduce the possability that ANYTHING we touch won't be totally tainted. The ONLY thing that I think had aspects of conspiracy and criminality was going to war in the first place, something I think the Whitehouse was determined to do long before 9/11. I don't even think it was for oil, I think it was for a lot of different, mostly ugly reasons. Since we invaded, it's been all about lack of forethought, incompetence, bad management, a smattering of profiteering and graft and some people with truly excellent motivations trying to do truly good work but very little command context in which to do that work. I think we stopped even trying to conspire with anyone over there when The Ahmed Chalabi/jake garner axis fell apart right at the very begining. I don't think there was ever a plan after that, overt or covert.

I'd say we have no idea what the balance of pro vs. anti civil war is right now, or to what degree the Iraqi armed forces and police or compromised or not by militia infiltration. The press have no real possability of in depth reporting and our government pays the Iraqi press to run fake news. I accept that this means for all I know the insurgency really is in it's last throes. But I don't think we know anything about it.