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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Hawkmoon who wrote (38405)8/19/2002 5:59:44 AM
From: Dayuhan  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
US troops will not be there for more than 4-5 years in any great number if we do what's required, an economic transformation of the middle east that creates opportunity to replace the despair that currently pervades the region (driven by demographics).

US troops will not be where? Iraq? The entire middle east? What exactly are we going to have to occupy to make this happen?

I think the notion that economic transformation can be achieved in 4-5 years is wildly optimistic. No economic transformation can begin, let alone be accomplished, without a stable government and a functioning legal system. It is very dangerous to assume that we can simply install a government acceptable to us, and that this government will somehow magically acquire the popular support and the ability necessary to govern. These assumptions are very similar to the ones that led to the quagmire in Vietnam, where the entire war foundered on one fundamental problem: no matter how many battles we won, the governments we were supporting were never capable of governance.

We have never attempted anything like a full scale military occupation of the Islamic world or any part of it. We have kept forces in the area to slap down Governments that got excessively rambunctious. We have not tried to occupy nations, create governments acceptable to us, and make those governments flourish. There are good reasons why we haven't tried to do this. Principal among them is the reality that it may not be possible. There are tasks that military force simply cannot accomplish.
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