Hi twfowler; Re: "Vietnam was exceptional in that regard. ... Iraq had no such tradition. It was a Turkish territory until it became part of the British empire. ..."
You're making the mistake of only looking at Iraq. Our problem is that the Arab world, like the Anglo world, tends to stick together as a whole. It's not a seamless whole, neither are the Anglo nations. But when you bite off a hunk of Britain, you can be certain that you will eventually be chewing on the USA. Similarly, if you bite off a chunk of the Arab world, you will eventually be faced with the rest of them.
In fact, according to our own leaders we already face "volunteers" from other Arab countries in Iraq.
So rather than restricting yourself to just the Iraq history, you need instead to look at the whole thing.
If you were thinking about conquering and occupying Australia you would have to consider the actions of the USA and Britain (at the least). This same analysis needs to be applied to Iraq.
Also, even if you do restrict yourself to Iraq and ignore the rest of the Arab peoples, it simply is not true that it "was a Turkish territory until it became part of the British empire". Even the most facile reading of history will verify that Iraq had a history that dates many thousands of years before the Ottoman empire.
Re: "What you call "national character" was only small part of my argument, basically amounting to a statement that Vietnam had a stronger (and more recent) history of successfully fighting off powerful invaders. I don't think that ignoring the history of people in the area being discussed gives you a better understanding of the possibilities and I don't think paying attention to this history is at all racist."
Even the stupidest anthropologist on the planet, when faced with the question of whether or not the Iraqis would submit to foreign rule (giggle) would not fail to look at the Palestinian case before he made a recommendation to the President.
I mean Jesus weeps! You've ignored 90% of the history of the Arab peoples in jumping to the conclusion that the Iraqis wouldn't fight. They have about the highest per capita gun ownership on the planet. Do you think that they do not bleed red blood?
Let me put the question to you this way. Suppose you were a young Iraqi male, convinced of your superior knowledge of a gun, proud of your ancient heritage, angry at the destruction you see around you, and faced with a foreign invader. Would you (a) fight the foreigners, or (b) be a pussy and kiss ass?
Re: "The majority of the argument dealt with issues like the lack of an active large regular army opposing us in Iraq, lack or large scale coordination of enemy forces, the lack of superpower support and other possible logistical problems, the terrain, and the fact that it looks like a much lower amount of Iraqi's want to fight us right now."
Go look at Lebanon. They didn't have an "active large regular army opposing" Israel. There was no "large scale coordination of forces". There was no "superpower support". The "logistical problems" were no worse than Iraq possesses. The "terrain" wasn't much different. But the result was that the Israelis were shot out of the country.
The Israelis would have been shot out of Palestine too, but it is so important to them strategically that leaving is very difficult. But despite this difficulty, still Sharon negotiates.
We have none of the strategic connections to Iraq that Israel had to Lebanon. Consequently, kicking us out of Iraq will be much easier for the Iraqis than kicking the Israelis out of Lebanon was for the Syrians. This simple fact is well appreciated by the Arabs.
Re: "I don't think the American experience fighting the Barbary states is really relevant to the situation in Iraq."
You missed the point. The point is that the Barbary states were supposedly under the control of the Ottoman empire that you claim ruled Iraq before the British did. The point is that the Arabs have always either had their freedom, damn near had their freedom, or were fighting for it.
Maybe you should rent "Lawrence of Arabia" instead. But when you watch it, remind yourself that this is an "Anglo" version of Arab history, and as such is quite defective.
Hey, if the Arabs were throwing flowers at us I wouldn't be complaining. But the fact is that on May 1st the President announced that major fighting in Iraq was over. Less than 60 days later, we've got major fighting again.
You look at this and say that since we don't have a Tet offensive, this is not like Vietnam. But your wisdom is like that of the man who jumped off of a tall building and was satisfied with his situation at the 99th floor.
25 years after the Vietnam debacle the conservatives haunt the message boards with claims that it could have been won, provided we had just had the "will" (sort of reminds one of the Nazis), and had brought the war to the supporters of the rebel forces against us.
25 years from now, the next generation of conservatives will claim that the Iraq debacle could have been won if we'd only had the "will" to take on the rest of the Arab nation. What you're doing now is ignoring the source of the "foreign fighters" who are shooting at us. Here, let me quote Rumsfeld directly:
Rumsfeld, April 25, 2003
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Rumsfeld: We have acquired, scooped up, have custody of a large number of people, Iraqi people, even some non-Iraqis. We've got a number of Syrians and other nationals that were in there doing things they shouldn't have been doing. The number is somewhere between 7,000, 7,500, I'm going to guess. They're in various locations. I think we're probably down to one or two enemy prisoner of war camps.
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Army Lt. Gen. William Scott, May 7, 2003
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There was also a presence of foreign fighters that we subsequently discovered to be seeded within and cooperating with the Saddam Fedayeen, which were at least fanatical, if not suicidal.
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You're saying that since there is no superpower support against us we'll win, but that's a joke. A pile of ragtag Moslem rebels threw the Russians out of Afghanistan with nothing more than a few antiaircraft missiles.
Now go back and reread yesterday's headlines. Did you notice anything? Did you notice, perhaps, that we lost two aircraft? What the hell would it take for you to see what is going on?
It's only a matter of time before real antiaircraft missiles start drifting across the borders into Iraq. They will come from Iran and Saudi Arabia. They will be used in unpleasantly surprising places.
-- Carl |
