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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (12342)	2/16/2006 6:15:28 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543655

In a war against occupying forces, most (not all but a huge majority) of the resistance will be home-grown, and never would have fought at all had their country not been invaded. That is true but it doesn't mean we aren't killing, capturing and deterring foreign fighters. They're not fighting for or to replace Saddam, you understand - well, I really doubt that's a major motive now even if it ever was - they're fighting to remove the hated occupying foreigners. I think a lot of them, at least a lot of their leaders, are fighting to try and dominate the country. I don't think that they would just drop their arms and become peaceful should we leave. Also I'm not sure that we really qualify as occupiers anymore. Iraq has a democratically elected government that we are supporting, it isn't a colony ruled by a American appointed governor. But then I wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of the insurgents perceive the US as an occupier. Nor does even the most brutal occupation diminish or deter such local resistance/terrorists, indeed I would argue it increases their numbers. Evidence? West Bank and Gaza Strip. No need for foreigners there either. The West Bank and Gaza strip is a different situation. Hammas isn't fighting to depose the elected government, in fact they are the newly elected government. Israel isn't trying to maintain order and strengthen the government so that it can leave. Israel had conquered and apparently had planned to keep the West Bank and Gaza until the position started to seem untenable and they pulled out of Gaza and started to look for a solution for the West Bank. Also neither in Iraq nor in the West Bank and Gaza has there been "the most brutal occupation". Gaza is no Hama, the West Bank is no Halabja. I'm not arguing that Israel or the US should act like Assad or Saddam, merely pointing out the facts. Its not unreasonable to think that invading Iraq did increase the terrorist threat, but I don't think the converse is unreasonable either. In any case we are in Iraq now. I think cutting and running now would result in much of the retention of the "Factors that would tend to increase those numbers" while also adding new ones, and eliminating at least some of the "Factors that would tend to decrease those numbers". Tim