Revisiting Numbers

I had earlier questioned the numbers proffered by the Washington Post in the violence that ensued after the Golden Dome was destroyed by terrorists. Instapundit links to Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette who also takes the WaPo to task.

Greyhawk and his wife sort through a tremendous amount of information on Iraq on a daily and weekly basis, and their analysis is quite good.

The most likely group to have committed the original Golden Dome attack are the takfiri. That's the term used to describe the following:

those Muslims who regard other Muslims as infidels - of carrying out the attack in order to cause sectarian sedition. Takfiri is the somewhat cautious term used to indicate those enemies of Iraq described above. Used in a "politically correct" sense to avoid pinpointing (or enraging) a specific group before all the facts are in, everyone in Iraq knows what it means. There's a good reason to strike a balance between being specific and non-specific when addressing the masses in Iraq

Now, in reexamining the US media response to the Dome attack, you find a nearly hysterical response: on February 24, the New York Times declares More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins. That's right. Ruins. They've determined that there's no hope and taken the most pessimistic view on events despite the fact that events are fluid and shifting. Of course, that's exactly what happened less than 48 hours later, which the Times had to report that the leading Sunni groups were resuming talks to form the government.

And even in and around Baghdad where reports claimed that a dozen mosques were attacked, only three instances could be confirmed.

Terrorism? Absolutely. Civil war? Most definitely not, says Ralph Peters in today's editorial in the New York Post. And this isn't some armchair pundit talking from the comfort of an office in New York City or even a journalist hunkered down in the Green Zone. This is from a journalist who actually went out into the field to see things for himself.

Iraq Pundit notes that the media really wants a civil war. He can't understand why. Neither can I, although the axiom 'if it bleeds, it leads' certainly may play some role in this.

There is still a fog of war issue to deal with - that the true death toll from the bloodletting following the mosque attack will eventually be known with some certainty. Yet, I'm sure that the WaPo figure will be bandied about with a certain smug satisfaction by some who are literally and figurative hoping for a civil war if only to say 'I told you that Iraq was beyond all help and that regime change was a bad idea.'

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee notes that your view of the situation in Iraq depends on which side you think is winning. Good observation.