Hi Carl. It seems we are, after all, in agreement on many of the aspects of what Bush has "learned," or more precisely, what the limitations are on his ability to act foolishly. There are a couple of points in your post that I want to address.
First, the points I made on the oil thread were, as I recall, intended to address the motivations of the Bush Administration and the reasons why oil exploration and drilling had not reacted to shortages and prices the way most observers would have expected. Interestingly, there were some articles that later disclosed that in the "energy meetings" of Cheney, the oil majors discussed the potential that Iraq's oil fields might be opened up. I'm sure you're aware of the effect that would have on the value of more expensive lifting operations.
Second, you write: So where's your post predicting the guerilla war in Iraq?
It is not correct to say that I was not aware of the limits on American military power. You may have forgotten that I had the opportunity to see for myself what those limits are, and I can assure you that it's a lesson not readily forgotten. In any event, here are excerpts from two of my historical posts that you evidently overlooked from early April of 2003. I was posting much earlier but, I'm ashamed to admit, I posted on Yahoo:
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NO ONE that I heard speak in this country had any serious doubts that we'd overcome the conventional forces of the Iraqis with a modest effort. We met and exceeded those expectations. The war that we should fear in the next decade is not the war that's imposed on us by nations. Most nations of the world are not YET prepared to counter or suffer the utter devastation that our weapons of mass destruction could wreak on them in a matter of minutes or hours. As the Iraqis who had the will and the means to fight us have learned, however, the way to fight a high tech, powerful army is to eat it's young when the bear is out of the den.
Low tech guerrilla attacks from an enemy that hides among a civilian population can be deadly and can disrupt a stronger foe forever. It's that kind of war that we should fear. It's that kind of enemy that we may face in future months and years in Iraq and here at home when they can reach us here. It's that kind of enemy that we may be creating in greater numbers with our current policies and actions and it's that kind of enemy that you seem unwilling to recognize. You can call them "thugs" if you like, but any time men and women are willing to die for the chance to kill us, we should recognize the power of their beliefs.
Now tell me how objective you are and how I've "just seen the greatest military victory in a century" and how most of the Iraqis all see this as the best thing since Mohammed. If that belief and the negative labeling of those that disagree with you allows you to sleep better at night and feel bright and powerful, that's up to you but don't expect to post such views without dissent. As for me, I'll continue to think critically and I won't let my hopes blind me to the views of the other side. I won't get caught up in a wave of patriotism or nationalism or pride of conquest and I won't forget and stop struggling to retain what made this country a great nation and a great civilization admired by almost every man and woman in the world.
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The Iraqi's are a strong nationalistic people and they may not appreciate our use of force to "liberate" them. The other factor that we don't discuss is that unlike N. Korea where the people are starving, most Iraqi's have led relatively comfortable economic lives. Sure, there are sects who will welcome us and sections where we will undoubtedly be welcomed with the dancing and flowers we were told awaited us. The Kurds are ecstatic, The Shiites are leaning our way. I don't know about the Sunni and the Baeth are definitely not our friends. Time will tell and a few images on the screen will not. I expect that when this is done we will see substantial celebrations but we should be aware of those that do not share in the rejoicing. Even among those that rejoice, the mood can change quickly if we don't handle things properly.
Sure, I'm stuck in the Vietnam era. I'm also stuck in the Russian-Afghanistan era and a few others. That's called history and learning from it. If we install a puppet government that is not supported by the population and then try to prop it up with American military might, and if we use that tool to try to secure control of Iraqi oil, we may have to learn the lessons we learned in Vietnam again and those that the Russians learned in Afghanistan. Or maybe "it's different this time."
I'll respond to another of your assertions in a follow up post because it's important enough to stand alone. Ed |
