aside from the fact that in Iraq they lived quite peacefully together and intermarried OFTEN and shared holy places ... and declared for the first few years of our occupation that a civil war simply would not happen ...

most of the violence NOT directed at us is simple retribution ... bomb my market/mosque and you will pay.

I've been interested in trying to tease out "who" is responsible for "what" and as far as I can tell -- it is the Sunni and "salafi-al qaeda" types who are responsible for the mass-casuality car bombs ... the Shiia are more part of the abductions and dead bodies found in the streets as well as, thoeretically, the government sponsored "death squad" (see also John Negroponte in Nicaragua) ... There is also, by many reports a great deal of simple "criminal activity" with much kidnapping and killing and simple interpersonal violence that does unchecked in such a lawless environment.

Apparently -- as far as I can tell but I don't know this -- both sides make IEDs that blow up and kill most OUR people / our casualties.

It might be argued that while the killing of "innocent" or random civilians is "terrorism," violence against an occupying force or the militia of a rival is "war" ... not to put too fine a point on it ... there was distinctions that can be made with regard to the type of violence and the targets.

To the extent that we fail to provide security, some or more of the responsibility for the tit-for-tat cycle must fall on us.

Apparently in the moslem world, there is wide spread belief that we aided and abetted this schism ... in part to disrupt an impending Iraq-Iran (both Shiia dominate population) alliance against our good friends, the Sunni, Saudis, Syrians, etc. I don't know enough to figure if this was somehow "intentional", I hate to thinks so, however, our blunt force "debaathification" certainly created "blowback" on the part of the previously powerful, previously affluent and influential -- now out of work and precariouos -- Sunni 20% of the population.

In "the moslem world" overall, it is the Shiia who are the 20% while 80% of "moslems" are Sunni -- fwiw.

Here's a link to a Tom Payne overview:

url: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/04/23/creating_a_sunnishia_divide.php

I remember thinking that Petraeus must not be as brilliant as billed ...

Walls like this, to me as a 50 year old, conjure up the Berlin Wall ... to most people alive today though I think it evokes the Israeli-Palestinian WALL ....

Hey, they already call us "zionists" ... and not in a "good" way, let's just rub their nose in it, why don't we.

(planning to install walls like these -- at a minimum -- suggest that things aren't getting better any time soon -- not to mention providing dandy targets)

how could she resist dishing on Ron Howard's daughter and Kevin Kline and the rest of the stellar cast ...

This is my first visit to TV Daily ... doubt I'll be back.

I've been looking forward to "tonight" and watching this since I heard of it... I don't CARE if it's flawed ... it will beat the hell out of everything else that's on for anyone able to muster the requisite attention (and I do understand that some people can't and that even people who can sometimes, can't always)

Hey, hasn't "low brow and proud of it" kinda, y'know "jumped the shark"?

He's shown remarkable persistence and he's managed to stay alive ... I will give him much credit for that, particularly since the things he has "failed" to do are things that most of the Iraqi parliament doesn't want to do either.... he doesn't have that much power... (it wouldn't be a "democracy" if he did).

Anyhow, I've been predicting he will be voted out by a "vote of no confidence" to coincide with 09/11 and our own "post-surge what do we do now???" hysteria ...

This vote of no-confidence is a procedure used in most parliamentary systems ... this SHOULD NOT BE A CRISIS ... it just means that NOTHING WILL GET DONE FOR 6-8 MONTHS as coalitions are reconfigured (sort like the last 9 months or so) ... .that's all!** which should suit BushCo perfectly (that oil and those contracts aren't going ANYHWERE) .... pay close attention to how they play it.

** Regional elections are likely to be cancelled/postponed, however, with a couple of million out of the country and several million internally displaced, those elections would have been largely meaningless anyway.

of course if "the government" asks us to leave, we will get out "our" dictionary to define or redefine who or what "the goverment" is ....

if Maliki "falls" that still leaves Iraq in a state of chaos with an healthy Shiia majority which grows overwhelming wrt the beleagered Sunnis if you subtract the Kurds (since they are pretty much confined geographically and figure marginally if at all in "sectarian violence" elsewhere.)

As a parliamentary "crisis" a vote of confidence is within "business as usual" and would require a "tipping point" to do more than impede any progress for 6-8 months until a new coalition government is settled upon.

It's not surprising that the Shiia are chaotic and divided -- they've not held drive-the-car power in Iraq in, irrc, over a thousand years, maybe two ... they have a few rich ex-pats, but mostly they have clan and religious affliations. The Sunni were the managerial class. It's not surprising they are "better organized" and better educated, etc. Irrc, Fallujah is a Sunni City. It's not surprising, even predictable, that finding the Shiia "peasants" difficult to corral we have been turning to a "neo-colonial" solution -- attempting to reinstate Sunni/Baaths. This pleases the Saudis as well ...

I have to admire Maliki in an odd way ... I cannot imagine the "fortutide" his job requires. Like Karzai, it's amazing he's still alive and kicking.