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

To: TimF who wrote (123807)	1/27/2004 5:59:11 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi twfowler; Re: "That's very unlikely." Britain occupied Northern Ireland for what, 800 years? We're killing Iraqis at a rate of something at least 10 or 20 per day. That's something like 2.4 million deaths. Of course violence could flair up substantially and make that number a lot larger. My point is that since we have no plan for winning in Iraq, and no plan for exiting, we can only assume the worst. Look around at the thread. I've repeatedly asked the war supporters to tell me when Iraq gets pacified, but they won't say a word. For all they know, 800 years is the correct figure. By the way, Bush killed another 6 voters today: story.news.yahoo.com By the way, do you remember my comments from April 2002 about how US military power is effective as a defense, but fairly limited as an occupation power? My analysis is now being shown to be accurate in Iraq. Here's a reminder: #reply-17400849 While we have most of the world's military power, we do not even have enough power to occupy the tiny country of Iraq. Cities are great places from which to base guerilla wars. I knew this long before we invaded Iraq, you didn't. Here's a reminder: Bilow, April 30, 2002 I have no doubt that we can take Baghdad, and that the above description [Stalingrad] does not apply. Instead, my doubt is in the question of whether or not we can pacify it. These are not small cities filled with people who are chafing under the rule of a hated foreign elite like the Afghanistani cities were. This is a proud and (in their eyes) used to "freedom" and self rule. They are not going to put up well with being under US occupation any better than the Palestinians have put up with Israeli occupation. Note that our troops in Afghanistan are there by invitation. It's not an accident of history that the 1st world no longer holds colonies in any well populated part of the 3rd world. The 1st world was already driven out of those areas. We do not have the brutality necessary to rule them again. Merely explaining that we are there to help the locals will not convince them to not shoot at us anymore than that same explanation has ever convinced any people to not shoot at their occupiers. If they have the weapons, and they have the hope, they will shoot. This is the way that humans are. #reply-17401731 Twfowler, in reply: I understand that people can and have fought hard for an abusive dictator but I don't think most of the Iraqi army will be that motivated in this case. (Of course the Republican Guard may be a different story and its a lot more powerful then the Taliban's forces where). ... I don't think that Iraq's army would have that level of hope and determination. #reply-17402656 -- Carl P.S. Here's a link to a post I made that compared US successes and failures in military defense of foreign territories. I'll update it with the figures for Iraq sometime after I get back to my usual computer: #reply-17661625