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

To: KyrosL who wrote (125442)	3/1/2004 9:21:58 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

<Casualties are way down> Not if you include Iraqi police.

To: KyrosL who wrote (125442)	3/3/2004 12:27:48 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi KyrosL; Re: "Casualties are way down -- February had the lowest monthly totals since the war started." Yes, this is what you get if you pull US forces out of Iraq. This is what we are doing. We are beginning by pulling them out of more populated and dangerous areas, and we'll end by pulling them out completely. I'm in favor of this. Re: "The interim constitution was approved and it looks good." Yes, the Iraqi government plan looks fine by me. Of course they will not be friendly with us, but they will have a decent government. Re: "Not a pip from the Ayatollah." Huh??? Re: "Oil exports and electricity production are almost up to pre-war levels." They still haven't got the northern pipelines fixed, and Baghdad still doesn't have good electricity (it's out about half the time, last I heard). The current state is an improvement, but this whole subject is a red herring. I still stand by my comment from last summer that even if we fixed all the oil and electricity problems in Iraq the locals would still be shooting the crap out of us. The best we can do is to create a country of happy, healthy, well fed, well lit, well oiled, SOBs who hate us. It's just not possible to make the Iwaqis wuv us, and the continuing loss of American troops, despite our pulling out of problematic cities, is simply more evidence that this is true. Re: "There are some disquieting ethnic tensions ..." Today was the bloodiest day since Saddam fell, with maybe 170 dead. I'd call that more than "disquieting ethnic tensions". The basic problem is that as we pull out of Iraq, the locals will, at best, tend to fight each other in a bloody civil war, and, at worst, tend to unite against us in a bloody fight against the occupation. But with us definitely on the run, it's only natural for the Iraqis to fight harder against each other. Re: "... but as the economy improves they will hopefully dissipate." I would hope so, but I haven't seen any evidence that the economy is improving in Iraq. I think the most important figure is probably the unemployment rate. Do you have recent figures? -- Carl