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

To: unclewest who wrote (122283)	12/27/2003 8:51:52 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

There are some pundits and SI posters who lash out because they do not know what to do with their personal fears. That does mean we lost, nor does it mean we are losing. Well said, uw.

To: unclewest who wrote (122283)	12/27/2003 9:34:54 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

There are some pundits and SI posters who lash out because they do not know what to do with their personal fears. That does mean we lost, nor does it mean we are losing. Krugman covered the "there are some" crapola pretty well in the column posted in #reply-19589514 . Personally, I find a certain irony in W suckups wrapping themselves in the military. I remember quite well what W's handlers did to McCain before the SC primary in Y2K. The people who sucked up W's carrier landing stunt also got into Rove's trashing of McCain, who was an actual carrier pilot, and a pretty heroic one at that. Funny how that works.

To: unclewest who wrote (122283)	12/28/2003 1:15:32 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi unclewest; Re: "GWB has said no such thing." Bush announced the end of "combat operations" back on May 1st. That's even worse than imagining that he could see the end of the tunnel. He thought he was out of the thing completely. -- Carl

To: unclewest who wrote (122283)	12/28/2003 10:28:53 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I know the American soldier and his capabilities on a battlefield. I believe we will win.... If you think a bad day in combat softens the resolve of the American soldier or his family...I tell you, you are dead wrong. When the going gets tough we get tougher not softer. unclewest, NO ONE, certainly not Bilow or me, is disparaging the American soldier. I don't doubt their resolve to do a good job, and that they are both being asked to go way beyond anything they signed up for and are doing their level best to do it. The problem is, is the job they are being asked to do doable? If the number of guerillas really is the 5,000 or so that Sanchez (I believe it was Sanchez) estimated a month or 6 weeks ago, then the task is doable, especially if the capture of Saddam emboldens ordinary Iraqis to work with the US in capturing these people. But if the numbers are in fact much greater than that, if it really is true that there is support numbering in the tens or even hundreds of thousands for this resistance to US rule, the job is more difficult in direct proportion to the numbers. This perhaps is obvious, but somehow is rarely mentioned. Perhaps because it is one of the "unknown unknowns' that is scary to contemplate being wrong about. It doesn't matter how good American soldiers if there really are, say, 500,000 Iraqis who are actively engaged in resistance, especially if, say, 150,000 are trained military people with access to money and weapons and who believe that if the Shia attain power, they will be stripped of their wealth and honor. Those numbers aren't completely outlandish if you do the math on the Sunni population and the number of Iraqis who were in the Army, the Fedayeen, the Republican Guard and the Mukhabarat. Indeed, they may well be low. I agree that the Vietnam analogy doesn't fit this situation very in many respects, but it does fit in one very important respect: we are fighting a group of trained military men in their homeland. Where the fighting takes place makes all the difference. Not only that, but (or so I believe) we not only are fighting them, we are being distracted from the true "front" in the war on terrorism, which now is the Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bush and friends keeps saying it is Iraq, but my suspicion is that Osama and friends are using Iraq as a distaction. Their real sights are on Pakistan, where they are, apparently, very strong, with a good deal of popular support. Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if they are sending people to Iraq; they want to keep that little war going as long as possible, and want to tie down as much US military and credibility (or lack thereof) as they can. While they collect their strength on what they consider the front. As I'm sure you know, Pakistan, unlike Iraq, really does have WMDs. And lots of mosques, teaching the "true" way. If you were an insurance company, what premium, if any, would you charge to insure Musharref right now? Sam