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

To: Bilow who wrote (119362)	11/13/2003 11:25:05 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Yes, what Hawk and his "ilk" don't get is the difference between winning a battle, or even a military war, and winning a political confrontation. If you aren't willing/able to "salt the earth" with your enemy, your military advantage to do the former is near worthless in terms of the latter. And, as you say, being against this confrontation for many of us has nothing to do with being "peaceniks." It has to do with, does it help to achieve the objectives of politically transforming Iraq into a society that will be supportive of our goal of a relatively stable mideast (source of oil/gas for the industrialized world), and help eliminate the sources of terrorism that threaten western societies generally? If the answer to that question is no (as obviously both of us believe), then this war is a stupid waste of time, resources, attention, lives and money. Hawk and his "ilk" also don't get that we have effectively done is release the beginning of an Iraqi civil war. It is still at low levels right now. But the "quiet" northern and southern parts of the country are just simmering at the moment. Every few weeks or so we get reports of the hostilities between the Kurds and the Turkamen, as the former reclaim land that they say the latter stole from them, or reports of assassinations in the south, as the Shia avenge themselves against those who Saddam's regime had earlier favored. The question in my mind is, how many of Saddam's favored few are there? If his regime really was as bad as has been claimed, they did a lot of damage. If, say, even 10% of the population or about 2.4m people, benefited from him, or are seen as having benefited from, there is a lot of murder to come. And these folks probably have no illusions about what will happen to them should the Shia really get control, providing a powerful incentive for them to continue to fight. There is a lot of killing to come in Iraq. Do we want to be the people who do the killing (not to mention get killed), or do we want the Shia and the Sunni to duke it out on their own? That is the question. That there will be plenty of murdering for anyone who wants a part of it seems to me to be as inevitable as it was predictable before this whole business began.