In an a piece on Counterpoint, entitled "Does anyone in Washington or Downing Street Really Know What's Happening in Iraq" well-known writer Patrick Cockburn writes:
"Iraq is rending itself apart. The signs of collapse are everywhere. In Baghdad the police often pick up over 100 tortured and mutilated bodies in a single day. Government ministries make war on each other. A new and ominous stage in the disintegration of the Iraqi state came earlier this month when police commandos from the Shia-controlled Interior Ministry kidnapped 150 people from the Sunni-run Higher Education Ministry in the heart of Baghdad.
Iraq may be getting close to what Americans call 'the Saigon moment', the time when it becomes evident to all that the government is expiring. "They say that the killings and kidnappings are being carried our by men in police uniforms and with police vehicles," said the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari with a despairing laugh to me earlier this summer. "But everybody in Baghdad knows that the killers and kidnappers are real policemen."
It is getting worse. The Iraqi army and police are not loyal to the state. If the US army decides to confront the Shia militias it could well find Shia military units from the Iraqi army cutting the main American supply route between Kuwait and Baghdad. One convoy was stopped at a supposedly fake police checkpoint near the Kuwait border earlier this month and four American security men and an Austrian taken away".
Whilst the disaster which is Iraq spins ever out of control - of course George Bush and John Howard still speak of winning the War! - this most interesting piece in The Age on what might perhaps be described as the "American moment":
"When legendary TV newsman Walter Cronkite declared in 1968 that the US was losing the Vietnam War, it was considered a turning point in public opinion.
Now America's Iraq venture may have its "Cronkite moment" with the declaration by NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer that the network would buck the White House and describe the Iraq War as a civil war.
Media specialists say the NBC policy could become a benchmark in public opinion.
"For months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war," Lauer told millions of Americans.
"But … NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted — that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarised factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterised as civil war".
"Iraq is rending itself apart. The signs of collapse are everywhere. In Baghdad the police often pick up over 100 tortured and mutilated bodies in a single day. Government ministries make war on each other. A new and ominous stage in the disintegration of the Iraqi state came earlier this month when police commandos from the Shia-controlled Interior Ministry kidnapped 150 people from the Sunni-run Higher Education Ministry in the heart of Baghdad.
Iraq may be getting close to what Americans call 'the Saigon moment', the time when it becomes evident to all that the government is expiring. "They say that the killings and kidnappings are being carried our by men in police uniforms and with police vehicles," said the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari with a despairing laugh to me earlier this summer. "But everybody in Baghdad knows that the killers and kidnappers are real policemen."
It is getting worse. The Iraqi army and police are not loyal to the state. If the US army decides to confront the Shia militias it could well find Shia military units from the Iraqi army cutting the main American supply route between Kuwait and Baghdad. One convoy was stopped at a supposedly fake police checkpoint near the Kuwait border earlier this month and four American security men and an Austrian taken away".
Whilst the disaster which is Iraq spins ever out of control - of course George Bush and John Howard still speak of winning the War! - this most interesting piece in The Age on what might perhaps be described as the "American moment":
"When legendary TV newsman Walter Cronkite declared in 1968 that the US was losing the Vietnam War, it was considered a turning point in public opinion.
Now America's Iraq venture may have its "Cronkite moment" with the declaration by NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer that the network would buck the White House and describe the Iraq War as a civil war.
Media specialists say the NBC policy could become a benchmark in public opinion.
"For months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war," Lauer told millions of Americans.
"But … NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted — that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarised factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterised as civil war".
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