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

To: Bilow who wrote (129269)	4/14/2004 7:43:14 PM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk writes: "And isn't that basically a metaphor for how you would have the US conduct it's confrontation with Islamic militants throughout the region? Just leave them to their own devices?" And you reply with insults, and as customary, no useful alternate proposals to deal with the militants. <<<Your basic problem in logic is that you can only think metaphorically, LOL. If you want to be a general, you will have to understand numbers, not just empty slogans. You have the mind set of a junior officer, not a general.>>> So, what is your answer to Hawk? If you like numbers try this , Saddam had around 400k troops and what percent deserted 50% , 60% ? Maybe 200k Divide that figure into the number of US deserters ( I have heard of none)and you will get the odds of the US cutting and running when even Kerry says we will stay the course. Sig @waiting.com

To: Bilow who wrote (129269)	4/14/2004 10:16:02 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

No, as long as "criminal gangs" are running around in Iraq we can't do business there. Just in Iraq? Dude, the only difference between the local gangs battling for control over city blocks, and organized criminal gangs controlling entire countries is size and power. You just don't get it, do you? You can't do REAL business with criminal regimes unless you have financial and economic transparency, and legal property rights for investors, domestic and foreign. And criminally corrupt regimes throughout the region are responsible for the economic stagnation that is plaguing the mid-east... Not to paraphrase Tom Friedman in his "Lexus and the Olive Tree", but these countries need new economic operating systems. Many years after that, American business will return, and will work it's slow change. We just don't have that kind of time Carl.. The demographics of the region are clearly demonstrating that reality. You can't have 3% annual demographic growth for long without sustaining similiar economic growth to meet that population increase.. What you don't understand is the Islamists have their own version of economics. They plan on hog-tying the world to their control over oil prices and doing everything necessary to bring down the western economies so that they can compete on a equal basis. When you can't compete economically with your enemy, you have every reason to attempt to bring them down to a level that you CAN compete with. Even the ones we chose for the New Iraqi Army wouldn't fight. And what about the 2/3 of the Iraqi army that DID fight, or at least showed up? 33% AWOL is certainly serious, but 66% of them, or so, did show up and participate. So we fire the 33% who didn't show up (or put them on KP..:0) and give their jobs to someone else who is willing to do the job. You have the mind set of a junior officer, not a general. You obviously have never been in the military Carl.. Because in the units I've been around, it's the junior officers (staff) who come up with the options and the general who approves them, monitors their implementation, makes adjustments as necessary, and cheerleads the entire force involved by pressing the flesh with the troops and passing out medals... And since a general has normally served in various staff positions long before he puts on his stars, he knows what to expect from his people. If you'd been riding with Custer, you'd have been calling those who counseled waiting for reinforcements "cowards", and you'd have ended up slaughtered in a hopeless battle because of numbers that you truly couldn't understand. Carl, 190,000 CPA forces overthrew Saddam's regime. And granted, there were tremendous mistakes made, primarily in not forcing the surrender of all SRG units, to be recorded, vetted, and disarmed. But the situation is certainly not as hopeless as you'd like to have us all believe. What's hopeless is to actually believe that US business interests alone could cause political and economic mafias, such as Saddam's regime and his tribal surrogates located in place like Tikrit and Fallujah, to actually restructure their economies. Especially when it is now becoming apparent that Chirac and many other regional leaders were personally profiting from Saddam's regime remaining in power. Hawk