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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (100283)	6/5/2003 12:24:02 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Doesn't that remind you of 'Nam? What it reminds me of is that you are back here trying to peddle the "Same old, same old." Have you no shame? lindybill@crow.com

To: Bilow who wrote (100283)	6/5/2003 2:49:55 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It's only 7 weeks and they're already incrementalizing, and claiming that things are going roses. Doesn't that remind you of 'Nam? No. It doesn't. I remember reading the Dow Jones and AP wires every day from 62 onward, and what they were doing there was slipping 'advisors' into a different place and time and supporting a ruling religious minority. The Vietnamese were continuing the fight against the continuing presence of colonial power. They were doing it with the support of China and Russia. In this case, the US hasn't yet made a case against itself in Iraq as a conventional colonial power like the British or French -especially the French- because despite the loud noises made by Shiite clergy jostling for position and the resistance of Baathists, the vast majority of Iraqis in the South and North and even in Baghdad have positive feelings towards the US. It removed the hated ruling minority. I'm sure they also have feelings of anger and impatience about the disorder, but as far as I can tell, no one is starving, and and the level of official brutality and corruption has vastly diminished, if not disappeared. I was concerned at the time of the invasion that there were not enough civil affairs personnel in the vanguard and that the US had not followed the recomendations that we'd seen in some of the prospective post-war studies regarding disorder, looting and score settling. However, there is no evidence the US is not getting a handle on these things and correcting its mistakes fairly quickly. The Vietnamese parallel falls down also with respect to the support of outside powers for anti-US resistance. Certainly the Iranian Mullahs can send some aid to the Shiites they favour and the Syrians can attempt to aid the Baathists they can contact, but the inconvenience this will cause the US is nothing compared to what they experienced in Vietnam because of Chinese and Russian support. My expectation is that Al Qaeda type terrorists who come into attack US forces will get little support from the Iraqis who will view it as interference in their relations with each other and the US. Things aren't yet coming up roses in Iraq but neither is it a disaster and it's not inevitable it becomes one.