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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Condor who wrote (71796)2/6/2003 5:14:24 PM
From: Nadine Carroll  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
If the US enters and runs roughshod over these brutalized hostages by killing and maiming them, then I think the US is in for a backlash born of disgust from the world.

Certain people are going to paint the story just that way, Condor, and if the facts of the invasion do not support the story, they will make some up that do. Just as they did in Afghanistan. It will sell in willing quarters - the hard left and Al Jazeera. Though I expect Al Jazeera will also go and talk to liberated Iraqis after the war, which will help to counterbalance the picture.

If I am correct, this will not help the US cause in the long term but make it worse. I would prefer to see subversive means to attack the govt. and leave the people unharmed.

TWT. It depends very much on the post-war story of Iraq, imo. If it's a success in the view of reasonable people (the hard left will never be happy; they're still pining over the failed materialization of the "silent genocide" in Afghanistan), then I don't expect a backlash. It's going to be hard to keep up the moral equivalence when the truth of Saddam's regime is published. The US would also have preferred covert action, and perhaps stronger nerves might have accomplished it in 1995; but it is no longer possible.

As for the Arab audience, as conditions exist we cannot afford to withdraw from the region, so we will appear as aggressors to the Islamists. Far, far better to appear as strong and determined aggressors than weak and faint-hearted ones. The Mideast is a region that plays by Hama rules.
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