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New York Times-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called the term “civil war” a “bumper-sticker answer” that oversimplified the reality of overlapping conflicts. “I believe that there are essentially four wars going on in Iraq,” he said at a Pentagon briefing today, citing Shia-on-Shia strife, principally in the South; sectarian violence, largely in Baghdad; the Sunni insurgency, and attacks by Al Qaeda.
Bumper sticker, is it?
"When I think of a civil war I think of thousands of people out in the streets,” he said. Instead, in Iraq, he said he sees "gangs of killers going after specific neighborhoods or specific targets,” or attacks on marketplaces meant to cause random suffering.
I would suggest that Mr. Gates clean his glasses one in a while and then he could see those " thousands of people" in the streets who have no income or homes to go to thanks to the United States under the Bush Crime Family. He should also try to remember the hundreds of thousands that have been displaced and are now in other countries because of our occupation.
It has been pointed out once before that the Iraqi army has a massive amount of absenteeism because many have to travel to their own home towns to get their pay to their families because the banking system in Iraq is pretty much non-existent.
Most of this info comes from the new NIE Report, which I posted yesterday.
