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

To: Bilow who wrote (100353)	6/5/2003 11:50:23 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

As soon as we get 50% more troops in Iraq, our death rate will increase by 50%. As those troops are ordered to present a more forward attitude, those troops will take correspondingly larger casualties. As the Iraqis learn to fight us, they will kill more of us. Hopefully that's a worse-case (not yet worst!). It is still possible that if we - well, especially the US, but UK as well - start actually delivering on our earlier promises the mood might change in our favour. We could begin by at least getting basic services working so that normal life might resume, halting the looting, and getting a police, justice and legal system in place so that normal people would feel we had their interests at heart. Most of all, this would mean handing over powers to locally-chosen administrations, and publishing and sticking to a plan for transition to democracy even if we don't like the probable new leaders. It's all too evident that there was no plan in place before or during the conquest... Odd, isn't it. I don't know why, we had the example of Afghanistan, but there really seems to have been no one in power (i.e., not just Bush/Blair, but even PNAC) with plans for what to do when (as was obvious and inevitable) we won. The only planned action seems to have been the contracts for Bechtel and Halliburton, these have gone ahead quite nicely. But that's obviously coincidence.

To: Bilow who wrote (100353)	6/6/2003 2:41:55 AM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

Good to see you're still in form. Ooooh, you're getting kind of old. Yup. Note my handle. Carl , I don't think we're going to agree on much about Iraq. Like I said, I don't it's coming up roses and it's not necessarily going to be a disaster. I'm distrustful of the parallel between Vietnam and Iraq. It's easy to see how a person can make it but it's also easy to see such a parallel could mislead. Differences: The US pulled down a hated minority regime which destroyed folks' freedoms and touched nearly every family in the country with suffering. This is not a small thing and bears no resemblance to Vietnam at all. It doesn't mean the Iraqis will "love" the US but it does mean they will cut it some slack for a while. (Clearly the Sunni Baathists won't and others who benefitted greatly from the former, evil regime, but they are a disliked minority. Same goes for religious extremists.) The US is not supporting a hated, minority-run dictatorship. The US is in Iraq to promote its own interests - that's obvious - but some of those interests do coincide with those of the majority of Iraqis. The question at hand is what is in the minds of the Arabs. And with them, there is no question. They think that the US is a colonial power along with Israel. Some do, that's obvious from what I've read and been told by some Arabs, but not all. It's certainly what's said by the poor intellectual hacks who eke out survival in the various repressive Arab regimes and who only say what's approved in media the population regards as mendacious. Right now, in Iraq however, folk can say whatever they like and we'll have to see how negatively the Iraqi majority regard the US presence and whether its "colonial" and how desirable or undesireable they think it is. Hell, you could have said the same thing in Vietnam, that the US had no colonial ambitions. In fact, you just admitted that the Vietnamese transferred their war against French colonialism into a war against US forces. I don't want to run the Vietnam argument again because I'm not sure, for reasons I've mentioned, the parallel is good: There was no previous war against colonialism in Iraq which might have been continued. It's very clear to me that Arab governments' characterization of a struggle against Israel as a colonial power with respect to the Palestinians is one they will fight to the last Palestinian. It's also very clear to me they want no settlement of that issue which might lead to peace between Palestinians and Israelis because these anti-modern regimes would lose their remaining credibility. How hard is it for you to realize that the Arabs have transferred their war against Israeli colonialism into a war against the US? Didn't you notice that 3000 people were f'ing killed in the WTC? Do you think the f'ing French did it??? No, of course the Arabs did it, and of course they're fighting us. Give me a f'ing break No breaks. The Islamist freaks who attacked the US 9/11 and previously have this much in common with the repressive regimes in the area: They are anti-modernist. (We've been down this road before, you and me). The Israeli colonialism argument as cause of the 9/11 attack is a very smelly red herring. There is no war between Arabs and the US. There is the continuing war between modernism and archaic social and political forms which has been going on now about 250 years (the last two outbursts were WW2 and the Cold War). Get a clue, the vast majority of Iraqis don't give a damn whether we're there or not, they just want a job and to be safe Well yes, but they do gve a damn. They're complaining bitterly that US hasn't made everything perfect right away - at least that's what the public media tell me. The Baathists up in Tikrit (that's not over) are complaining that it was much better under Saddam and I've no doubt it was for some of them. The Kurds are not exactly ecstatic but certainly aren't displeased with US presence. The Shiite majority in Baghdad and the South are, as far as I know, not shooting at the US forces. What do seem to be shooting at US forces are Baathists and I don't think that's surprising anyone. And doesn't it worry you at all that the same people who now say that the Iraqis love us are the ones that (a) told you that Saddam had WMDs, He did, didn't he? I'm wondering what happened to them and if he didn't have them, what was he trying to hide? Even Blix said cooperation was "not substantive." (b) sent our troops into Iraq without a clue that the convoys were subject to ambushes, Rubbish. That part of the campaign came off just fine. (c) thought that the rest of the world would sign up for the war, The recently tyrannized part of the world did and some others who understand the nature of the ongoing war between modernity and archaic forms. (d) are currently protecting our airlines by preventing US citizens from carrying nail clippers on aircraft, Amazing isn't it? (e) have already tried to buy peace in the middle east for 50 years, and finally, these are the same humans that drug our butts into the Vietnam quagmire.. Now I could accuse Dubya and the rest of quite a few foolish things but I think we have to excuse them responsibilty for Vietnam, don't we? They don't seem that interested in buying peace in the ME, either, and a good thing, since that doesn't work as 9/11 proved. My question for you is simple. How bad does the news have to get before you admit that Iraq was a mistake? And how much worse than that does it have to get before you admit that we have to pull out? I'm not getting enough good or bad news, Carl, and it's driving me nuts. The bare fact is that our administration lied like a plank to get this war started, and they are giving nothing but rosy news now You say. Say it as often as you like. I don't agree but I'm not going to argue with you about it, yet. Just like the Israelis, we are faced with a population of Arabs that mostly just doesn't really like us, but with a small percentage that is eager to gun us down Not just gun us down, but also a whole pile of Arabs who don't agree with them. And just like the Israelis, we have no effective way of separating the fish from the water. Actually, the Israelis do. What they don't have is an effective way of talking to the 70% of Palestinians who don't support Arafat.