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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (118991)	11/8/2003 10:35:44 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Most of your post is just a gripe about the unfortunate way the world is. You don't deny a single thing I've said, you're just whining. History is long. If the Iraq pacification problem were solvable you should be able to find a similar example in the past 2000 years of the history of 140 nations on this planet. Here's what you're looking for: (a) A "war of maneuver" where one side quickly won with very little bloodshed for the losers. This factor tends to leave the losers hankering for a continuation of the hostilities. (b) The losing population is fairly large compared to the winners. (There are about 100M Arabic speakers, 400M English speakers.) This factor tends to give the resistance the impression that they have enough numbers to win eventually. (c) Strong cultural, racial, religious, and other differences between the sides. This tends to make it difficult to comprehend each other. (d) Long land borders with a long history of smuggling. This tends to make it easy to move weapons and supplies around despite the occupation. (e) Neighbors that are not friendly to the occupying power. This tends to make it easier for rebels to obtain everything from weapons and supplies to volunteers and moral support. (f) An occupying power that refuses to massacre civilians in reprisals. This factor makes occupation much more expensive for the occupier. (g) A very long distance separating the two sides. This factor makes the occupying power less inclined to accept high casualties, and makes the occupation more expensive as well. I could go on, but this is more than enough. Hey, you can find plenty of occupations that succeeded with one or two of the above factors, but in the long annals of history, you will find zero examples of occupations that succeeded with more than about four of these seven factors. Occupations with this much going against them just don't work, and you cannot provide a shred of evidence from the historical record that shows otherwise. The simple fact is that the Arabs are going to throw us out of Iraq in the same manner that they already threw Reagan and the Israelis out of Lebanon. -- Carl