Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "I see... so then we should just overthrow them, and "walk away" and leave the people to their own devices and those powerful criminal elements who would just restore another flavor of tyranny?"
Going into Iraq was a mistake. Now we should get out as quickly as possible. Every week we stay just irritates the locals more, and makes our exit more bloody and more embarrassing.
Alternatively, I think you should go put on a uniform, volunteer for the infantry, and stand around in Baghdad till some Arab finally takes you out.
Re: "Should we pull out of Afghanistan immediately?"
Afghanistan isn't a quagmire, nor did I ever say it was, LOL.
Re: "Apparently you believe we can just overthrow tyrants with bloodless coups and lollipops?"
No, I think we should only overthrow the tyrants when we have a high probability of doing it at little cost to ourselves. In particular, we should never overthrow a tyrant where our overthrowing the tyrant creates a bigger problem for us than the tyrant was to begin with.
Re: "Or that when we overthrow a despot we should be concerned when a minority of the population might oppose our actions, while the majority are pleased? (Look at the favorable reception we have had in Baghdad and Karbala)."
I haven't seen any polling data out of Baghdad or Karbala. I do know that US soldiers are getting killed in Baghdad. I also know that in the areas where we are getting the greatest opposition, the word is that the Iraqis "smile and wave" during the day, but "shoot at us" during the night.
I also know that the same administration / media that is now telling you that the situation in Karbala or Baghdad is smooth is the same one that lied about their proof that WMDs were in Iraq. So I wouldn't trust them very far. Commentary from Iraqis that are connected to the internet suggests that the public there is not at all fond of us. For that matter, the continuing attacks against our troops suggests that the civilians are not cooperating in hunting down the elements that are shooting at us.
Re: "Am I missing something here? Is the US engaged in hostilities with the Palestinians?"
Yes, you are missing something. Here's the complete exchange:
Hawkmoon, June 4, 2003
How long do you think they will continue to find recruits when they are losing 100 of them for every one of us? #reply-19031358
Bilow,
If it were only a matter of "body counts" we'd have won Vietnam, LOL. And the Russians would have won in Afghanistan. #reply-19031471
Hawkmoon, June 4, 2003
And as you might recall, the US provided training and support to the Afghanis who defeated the Soviets, returning "the favor" for Soviet support of N. Vietnam. #reply-19031562
Bilow, in reply:
Okay. Who provided "training and support" to the Palestinians, LOL? #reply-19031603
Since you weren't able to figure it out on your own, let me spell it out for you. You rattled on about the body count. I noted that body counts did not determine wars. (I could have gone further that these sorts of wars are determined instead by "hearts and minds".) You implied that the reason that the bad body counts in Afghanistan failed to deter the Mujahedin was because the US was training them. But I note that the Palestinians are still fighting against the Israelis and no one provides training for the Palestinians. Therefore, the lack of a great power training Iraqis for combat with us is hardly an indication that we'll be able to occupy Iraq.
For that matter, let's make simple calculation. There are 24 million people in Iraq. Maybe 10 million of them are Sunnis, the branch that is currently giving us grief. (The Shiites will give us grief later.) The population growth rate in Iraq is about 2.82%, according to the CIA. That means that about 282,000 Sunnis are born per year, half of them male, or around 141,000. That amounts to 772 per day.
And here you are going on about our killing 100 of them. What's worse, reports are that most of them aren't even from Iraq!
And unfortunately, this tiny number is most of the Iraqis we've killed since May 1st. The problem is that since May 1, the Iraqis alone (never mind the Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians, Saudis, etc.) have bred another 28,000 possible fighters. To even equal the Iraqi Sunni male birth rate we'd have to kill about 300x as many as we have killed since then. Throw in the rest of the Arab world, and our fight would have to increase by more than 1000x.
In other words, we're hardly in a position of convincing the Iraqis that they're doomed. Hell, they're growing stronger each day against us!
The whole nationalistic, racist, moronic concept boils down to the joke that killing 100 Arabs is going to stop them, but that the Arabs killing 3000 Americans is only enough to piss us off, LOL!
This silly concept, that we have some sort of monopoly on "balls", or "guts", or whatever you want to call it, is at the heart of every nationalistic mistake the right wing of various countries make. What do you think that Hitler was telling his people? Do you think that he told them that killing a few thousand Americans would make the Americans so mad that they wouldn't stop until they'd bombed Berlin to rubble?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! LOL!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Hell no!
We will fight forever! Just like we defended the Vietnamese from Communism forever! (LOL!)
Well, the truth is that we'll fight until our national interests are less than the body count. Or until another politician gets control of the process and decides that it might be a good idea to cut and run. And the problem is that in the Middle East, our national interests are quite small. The place is just not worth very many bodies.
-- Carl |
