Untenable
....whether it's for another year, or for fifty.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Friday, October 12, 2007
AN OASIS IN A WORLD OF HACKS, HUSTLERS, AND HIRED SPIN
posted by The Cunning Realist at Friday, October 12, 2007
6 Comments:
From ALL the reporting I've heard about this episode -- X women, Y children, and Z militants killed -- I guess "militant" is a synonym for "male" in our glorious Mesopotamian adventure.
Hearts 'n' minds, hearts 'n' minds....
-- sglover
Most people I know agreed, before the 2003 invasion, that the Iraqi adventure would be Vietnam in the desert. The problem, as I see it, is the administration's silly idea of military conquest for the benefit of the conquered. We'd earn more respect if we simply acted like old-fashioned conquerors.
My suggestion is to sell Iraq to a consortium of oil companies. Having conquered the place, we have the right to sell it. The oil companies could then hire private security forces, which could deal with the Iraqis much more effectively (i.e., harshly) than our government's forces ever could. On the way out of Iraq, we could do the same to Saudi Arabia, and have no further worries about Islamic terrorism.
Of course, this has always been one of the central absurdities of this war: that we would invade and occupy the country, but that we would do it nicely. It's ridiculous really.
We need to get out. I don't know the particulars of how we do it, but that is the direction we should be headed in. Yes, many Iraqis will get hurt and killed when we do, and we must do what we can to mitigate that. But they are being hurt and killed now, by us.
It's like a bad relationship that you stay in to avoid hurting the other person. That only works for so long. Eventually you have to get out because it is making you miserable. Simplistic? Yes. But we can't do any good there anymore.
Americans just can't do that though...we have this view of ourselves as pure moral goodness...how can we kill all the Iraqis and maintain that illusion? We are going to wipe out 30 millions people because a group of Saudis killed 3ooo Americans? Our political leaders know that isn't going to cut it. So we are stuck with the status quo. It really doesn't matter to our political elite though...a thousand soldiers a year is really no price to pay at all for them. All the Dems will have to do is bring that number down a bit and they will be hailed as great leaders. Eventually we are going to keep our troops bunkered down in their bases and only come out win some Iraqi poltician does something we don't like. We'll come out...kill a bunch of Iraqis...maybe a politician or two...and go back to our bases until somebody does something our leaders don't like again.
Oh, sure we do.
I remember reading a speech by a retiring general in the 30's who mentioned all the "police action" he was involved in central america for the benefit of american corporation. And let us not forget the slaughter in the Philipines who somehow thought that the country belonged to them and we let them know with bullets just how wrong they were.
Also we do not have a war in Iraq. We are facing resistance against an occupying power, us. And that does not make a war. A war is fought between countrys and their armies, AND IRAQ DOES NOT HAVE AN ARMY, just a flunky government with no power, no army, no police, but plenty of corruption.
Do not forget that Blackwater seems to have more rights in Iraq and power than any Iraqi or its "government".
I doubt that bush and rice accord that government any respect other than when required for public consumption and as photo-ups.
well, the entire point was to take over Iraq, control the oil, and have a foothold there to launch the attack for control of Iran's oil. We've got that. Now the trick is to keep this thing going for the next ten years. Since the peasants here at home are relatively complacent (other than some grumbling and voting against it). there isn't much of a problem in doing. this.
As far as the next election goes, we've successfully stolen the last two, so thing time around shouldn't be too much different. If you control the media, you can make the case visually that you won, and the population won't do much more than continue grumbling.
At 2Billion per week (more than half pure profit), it is sure worth trying to continue this for the next ten-fifteen years.
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