Fermenting that wine……

Photo: Family members and residents in the district of Mekeshefa, 20 kms northeast of the city of Samarra, participate in the burial ceremony of a mother and her two sons. US soldiers killed three unarmed Iraqi civilians, including a woman, near the central city of Samarra, the American military said Wednesday. (AFP)

A commenter on Daily Kos made the statement that the US is not responsible for the sectarian violence in Iraq, since all the US troops did was uncork the bottle – they did not ferment the wine. He also commented that the US troops are not responsible for most of the violence in Iraq! Well, that is nonsense, and here is my response:

The US forces in the country did A LOT TO FERMENT THAT "WINE" that was formally grape juice. Imagine how Americans would act if the electricity was cut, water not available, toilets not working, sewage in the streets, jobs gone, health care and education decimated, and some foreign occupying power (who does not speak English or Spanish) put the Crips & Bloods in charge of the west side of town, Hispanic gangs in charge of the south part of town, the KKK in charge of part of the north side of town, and Black Nationalists in charge of the east side of town..... with no screening done, of course.

We would have a blood bath of biblical proportions.

That is what the US invasion and occupation of Iraq did, and I am leaving out the black ops and covert ops done that we don't even know about yet. (But where Negroponte goes, death squads follow.)

BUT, as to what percentage of deaths are caused by what, here is my take on the situation:

25% are dead as the rest of direct US action

25% are dead in the crossfire with US troops

25% are dead from Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence (some of whom were surely working for the USA)

25% are dead from UNKNOWN.

This is just my informed opinion - no one really knows for sure. But I have been reading about the daily events in Iraq on Today in Iraq blog (now closed) and Iraq Today blog (which replaced the first blog). And I have blogged on it on both those blogs. And one 5th year anniversary report by an Iraqi staff member of McClatchy - where he listed the 44 people he knew that died from violence since the US invasion - the causes of the violence fit into my speculations above.