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

To: Neocon who wrote (117294)	10/20/2003 10:13:55 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Neocon; Re: "Yes, there are a lot of weapons floating around NOW! That is not what we were talking about." The context of all this is your inability to understand how it could possibly be that Americans regularly assassinate their President, but that the Iraqis, with much greater gun ownership rights, did not assassinate Saddam. Your explanation for this was that the Iraqi people, poor dears, were unarmed, and so had no ability to rid themselves of Saddam. This was one of the neocon fantasies that dragged us into this stupid war. The Iraqi people are not a bunch of innocent peace loving liberals who don't know which end of a target scope to point downrange. A lot of them are right wing (Islamic) gun freaks, and if they'd wanted to kill Saddam, they'd have done it themselves years ago. All this was well known long before the invasion, but you simply ignored the evidence as it was contrary to what you wanted to believe. Hey, if your only source of information is the Bush Administration, and the Bushies lie like dogs, then what do you expect to happen to the accuracy of your understanding of the world? The simple fact is that Iraqis have owned large numbers of personal weapons since at least WW1. It's a cultural thing, sort of like Idaho or Texas. This was well known before the war: Baghdad's Residents Snap Up Guns, Rifles AP World News, March 6, 2003 ... Guns are very common in Iraq. ... Mohammed, like millions of Baath Party members and militiamen loyal to Saddam, also has a Kalashnikov, the weapon of preference for most Iraqis. Occasional violence between rival tribes and Iraqis' love of hunting mean hardly an Iraqi household is without at least one firearm. ... In addition to the danger posed by street battles in Baghdad, experts and some Iraqis warn any power vacuum, however brief, would tempt looters or people who want to settle scores among the city's many clans and tribes. ... #reply-18665620 My comment on it was here: #reply-18667372 This fact had been well known long before the above article. Bilow, March 5, 2003 What's worse, Iraqis are one of the most gun happy populations on the planet. Invading and occupying the place would be like the Russians trying to invade and occupy Texas or Idaho. Except that unlike the Commies, in Iraq we would have to follow the Geneva Convention. Among a population that doesn't like us, that is a recipe for a disaster. #reply-18662336 Also, same link: A war with Iraq would be very short and very few Iraqis would be killed. That situation tends to leave the defeated population uncowed, and willing to continue the fight. So there you have it. AP reports not only that "almost every" Iraqi household had a gun (before the invasion), but that "millions of Baath party members" have their own personal AK-47. So give me your latest spin on this. Maybe the Iraqi people did try to kill Saddam, but he had some fancy body armor that kept saving his life, LOL. More likely, your reply will be simply to deny reality, and claim that the Iraqi people weren't allowed to own guns, LOL. -- Carl P.S. About that occupation... Bilow, October 16, 2002 I agree with you that conquering Iraq should not be a problem, and that the military will unconditionally surrender fairly quickly. But the problem is the civilians, not the military. Wars in which one side wins with "maneuver", followed by an occupation, tend to be the ones associated with high amounts of guerilla warfare. Examples of this would be the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and the German conquering of France in 1940. It takes about six months of occupation before guerilla warfare is organized. Both the above wars had this sort of delay, and we've seen it again with Israel's occupations. ... #reply-18123176