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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (117519)	10/23/2003 4:45:27 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "Carl, when someone has been proved a liar a dozen times over, a certain amount of skepticism towards his new claims is in order ..." By "someone", I suppose you're talking about the Arab Times? Or Zogby? Or both? Or all Arabs? I'm not sure what you imply as the context here. But I have to admit that, in fact, I did check for a second source for the Zogby article. I don't always do this, but it seemed clear that the article would be mirrored on the Zogby website. I note that you haven't commented on the content of the article. Re: "... unless he's saying what you want to hear, I guess." What Zogby is saying is what I believe is true. That is not what I "want to hear", it's just the truth, nothing more, nothing less. I like to hear Zogby say it, because the only way we will cut our losses is to face the truth. But that we are caught in a quagmire in Iraq, no that is not what I want to hear. It is what I know, and I knew it from the day the first cut off Iraqis started plinking at our supply lines back in the first weeks of the war. That showed that this was not the liberation of France, but instead the invasion of France. Military history is quite complete on this sort of thing, as far as guidance goes, and while the Bush Administration has pulled a number of intensely stupid moves in the occupation (like disbanding the Iraqi military), even if they'd been smarter we'd still end up in the same place. They just did it faster than usual. If the Iraqis loved us like Alabama, our boys would be coming home talking about fried chicken instead of wearing body bags. It's as simple as that. If you're ever curious as to whether or not someone hates you, give them a loaded gun and go out in the woods with them, LOL. Look, there is nothing that you can say or hope that will change what the Arabs believe. You, of all people, should know this. Most of them hate you. They're not going to stop hating you until you get off their property. Maybe they won't stop hating you even then. It's as simple as that. All the rest is spin. The love is illusory. The facts on the ground are that we are not even trying to pacify Iraq. Even when we search homes we allow homeowners to keep the customary AK-47 with ammo in their house. There are damn few places in the US with gun laws that liberal. Conservative all over are still in denial about that fact, as neocons recent pussyfooting indicates. I should collect up links from conservatives denying that Iraq had / has liberal gun laws, LOL. The simple fact of military history is that you must disarm the civilians if you want to pacify a hostile civilian population. The Zogby poll shows, even with the tendency of Arabs to give authority figures the "right" answer when asked, that they are a hostile population. When Israel went into Beirut, they damned sure didn't let their enemies keep AK-47s in their bedrooms. For this reason, among others, their invasion was very difficult. The US, by contrast, tried to do "occupation light", and only remove the top people in government. But this leaves the masses armed and hostile, and the US is consequently taking casualties at a rate that will eventually bankrupt our military. We've got troops in a hostile country, surrounded by hostile well armed civilians, who are regularly picking our guys off, and we don't take automatic weapons away from the civilians. Instead we do stuff like use (unclean) dogs to sniff at their genitals and Korans, and our soldiers use their (unclean) boots to hold their heads in the dirt. And then we act surprised when they shoot at us. Go figure. -- Carl