I have no idea what Mickey Kaus believes about the Iraq war (never have, actually). It is not a subject he is much concerned with. He is much more interested in weightier topics such as yours truly. His latest swipe is about this post, where I show a British Channel 4 video showing Shiite soldiers beating Sunnis on a joint patrol with U.S. forces. I describe the victims as "civilians," which gives Mickey an opening to ignore the point I was making and accuse me of inaccuracy. Hey, it gets him up in the afternoon. I referred to them as civilians because they are residents of the neighborhood, not in uniform, and unarmed, as compared with the soliders in Iraqi army uniform. Mickey protests because the video clearly shows the beaten men had mortars in their car. So they’re not civilians, right? That depends on who is or is not a civilian in a messy civil war like the one we’re now policing. The insurgents are civilians in as much as they are not in the Iraqi army, not in uniform, and often residents of a neighborhood. But they are not civilians in as much as they are engaged in a violent insurgency – actively or passively.
The whole point of the video and the posting, however, was that it illustrated how almost exclusively Shiite forces are beating Sunni residents, and clearing Sunni neighborhoods, with tacit U.S. support. The point of the narrative is precisely to show how in the current war, Plus Up inevitably requires support of a Shiite government against Sunni insurgents. Sadr City is to be left untouched under Plus Up; elsewhere, Shiite militias will be allowed to melt away; while the U.S. does Maliki’s work for him. This dynamic is central to the case that the current strategy will not only fail, but could also make the U.S. far more viulnerable to sectarian terrorism, and enrage both sides of the Muslim divide against us. Were they "beaten to near-death"? Well, one was repeatedly beaten in the face and body, had a rifle butt pounded onto the top of his spine, and was thrown head-first into an airless car trunk. Maybe my imagination got the better of me. But, in today’s Baghdad, are you going to bet on the safety and security of those captured? Is Mickey?
The Dish 