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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (156412)	1/16/2005 5:12:03 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I'll just say that Bush could have benefitted from listening to Carl <vbg> How it plays out long term remains to be seen. Carl was not bashful about predictions. He badly misjudged Bush going to war, but did a much better job than almost anyone else that posts here on projecting the coming insurgency. In the later he outclasses many prominent political figures running this country. If those political figures had simply been downplaying such risks to try and contain the situation it would be one thing. It seems pretty clear they were blindsided. Kudos to Carl for making the call and being right. Trying to pin down the level of popular support and the number of insurgents etc. is not easy. US estimates are all over the map in that regard. In the coming months the insurgency might die, and peace descend on Iraq. But Carl still made a good call for the last 18 months or so. My own opinion is that trying to make people cry uncle is simply an invitation for rebellion. So I expect the insurgency to continue as long as the USA advocates crushing it and actively seeks to do so. When it finally dawns on the US leadership that poking a stick into a beehive to stir things up, then trying to swat all the angry bees swarming out has limited utility, things may improve.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (156412)	1/17/2005 5:53:54 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "However, to hear Carl tell it, the insurgency would have the backing of 97.5% of the Iraqis ..." I never said this. The support for the insurgency is not as important as the support for the government. The problem in Iraq is the apathy of the majority. Re: "... and was impossible to put down without killing 5% of the Iraqis = 1.2 million men ..." The 5% figure is about right. Notice that we haven't achieved it, and guess what, the fighting continues. And by the way, 5% of the Iraqi population is not "1.2 million men". It's 1.2 million men, women and children. And do note that I repeatedly stated that we would never do that. Re: "... and this is why we lost Vietnam and the French lost Algeria ..." Yeah, it boils down to the simple fact that Vietnam and Iraq are of little importance to the US, compared to the cost in blood and treasure necessary to pacify them. Re: "... and everybody always loses to insurgents ..." No, there are plenty of exceptions, but to find them, you have to deal with "macabre numerical games". When the insurgents are a small minority, they can be suppressed with far less casualties than 5%. The basic reason is that they quickly realize that their position is hopeless and they give it up. At the low end, insurgencies shade into stuff like the David Koresh shoot-out. By contrast, in Iraq, the fighting has gone on for most of 2 years and while our estimates of the insurgent forces continue to rise, our own forces have hardly changed. If we (or Bush) really cared about Iraq, we'd have already started a draft and would have increased the troop count up to Vietnam levels. -- Carl