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

To: Sig who wrote (113110)	8/28/2003 4:59:06 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Sig; Re: "I guess they built those Red cross workers different in the old days ... And still they did not quit." You provide an example of a British Red Cross ship that may have been sunk by the Germans. But your example is of a *British* Red Cross ship that was officially associated with the British war effort. The present case deals with an *International* Red Cross organization which has no such connection. Nor does your example indicate that the ship was sunk by German efforts, (in fact the link says: "As you may have seen, the quest for the truth is quite difficult in this case. We may never find what really happened in the Aegean Sea that Tuesday of 1916.") nor is there any indication that it was official (or unofficial) German policy to sink Red Cross ships. Red cross workers and equipment were occasionally hit by Axis forces (and by Allied forces), but I don't think that this was a deliberate policy on the part of the leaders anymore than slaughtering civilians was official US policy at the time of the My Lai incident. In wartime, shit happens, as the US occupation of Iraq demonstrates in spades. It's not like the US deliberately targets journalists, but we seem to kill enough of them anyway. If we did make it a policy to kill journalists on sight (like we kill enemy combatants, believe me the journalists would be out of the country faster than you can say "Ramada Inn". The same applies to the Red Cross. And with the Red Cross apparently being targeted by one of the sides in the Iraq civil war, it's understandable that they're pulling out. But I love your whiny post for its implied comparison between the present and the past. Kind of ironic that you're living in a glorious *past* when the US is supposed to be a superpower that sits on top of the world in the *present.* Like I pointed out many times before this war, US military power is nowhere near as complete as a simple comparison would indicate. While our military is very effective at suppressing other military forces, and very effective at protecting countries from invasion, it is essentially useless at controlling civilian populations (i.e. at invading and occupying other countries). Where Bush got into trouble was in thinking simplistically about military power. Here's a more complete examination, written before the war: By the time the US fields a laser system for destroying artillery shells it's quite possible that the other 1st world nations will field a shell that is impervious to the effects (but only if they feel the US is a threat to them). But there is no denying that such a tool will be effective against 3rd world powers. But of course it provides no advantage in terms of keeping civilians in line, which is the real modern military problem. #reply-18215014 Also see: November 22, 2002 The real problem in Iraq is what do we do about guerilla warfare. The nation that loves us the most is Kuwait, but our soldiers are already getting shot up (regularly!) by Kuwaiti civilians. Against that problem, air power does not provide a solution. #reply-18262713 December 6, 2002 As far as resistance goes, there are two different things to calculate / estimate. The first is the degree of military opposition (will the Iraqi military fight back). The second is the degree of civilian opposition (will the Iraqi population support Iraqi "freedom fighters" against an occupying force). I believe that the Iraqi military would fight back, to a certain extent, but the US has more than enough power to crush them fairly quickly anyway. The problem is in the civilian support for "freedom fighters". As far as whether this will happen or not, I don't think it is even necessary to argue it. Our troops are already getting shot up regularly in Kuwait, where our relations are the best in all of the Arab, if not Moslem world. In the face of these incidents, to expect that our troops will not face an Iraqi intifada is optimistic at best. #reply-18310807 and the classic reply #reply-18658060