Posted on 02/25/2006 8:17:32 AM PST by pabianice
Sure paints a scary picture doesn’t he.
We sure are powerful but at the same time we can’t do anything right.
What this arguent lacks is the geopolitical framework the Iraqui insurgency is grounded on. We (the west) are in many respect in a proxy war with the Baathists supported by Syria, Sunni Salafists supported by Saudi Arabia and last but not least the mullahs in Iran. Each with their very own internal reasons for doing it. Remember these natons are concerned on how Iraqui democracy will affect their ability to rule in their own countries. Concepts like democracy and the rule of law are anathema to their ability to stay in power.
All have a vested interest that Iraqui democracy fail. If it succeeds, the face of the middle east will never be the same. We m-u-s-t stay the course. Vacillation is not an option. The populations of these nations want us to stay the course. Their gov'ts however do not. Things are moving forward. Those naysayers who see the escalating violence as proof positive that the Iraq war was a mistake fail to see how fastthings are moving. Who would have thought on September 12th that the two words Iraq and democracy would be uteered in the same sentence?
GWB was right all along.
I wonder if anyone at the New York Times can get it through his/her head that the Iraqi Sunni are a MINORITY. The US press corps and their Muslim stringer catamites spend most of their time in Baghdad talking to Sunnis while there is enormous economic progress taking place to the south and north. Hundreds of trucks are moving daily between regions, and the former Sunni power structure in Baghdad is gnashing their collective teeth understanding that this progress is passing them by.
Years after the war in Vietnam Peter Braestrup wrote the classic Big Story: How the Americann Press and Television Reported and Interpreted [wrongly] the Crisis of Ten 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Rest assured, someone will do the same for Iraq, and the miserable performance of the American journalists who covered that event. In a sense, Buckley is a fellow-traveller (and term he would oppose) in the production of miserable evaluations on Iraq.
SOOOOOO...
I guess it would only work with a Sunni Dictator abusing the Shites?
Isnt that the reason we went in there? Sounds like sour grapes from the 20% who ran the country into the ground for 35 years!
Reading his calling the American military an "invading army of 130,000" has negative connotations...like something I'd read in the Washington Post or NYTimes.
"This is EXACTLY the report I am getting from several of my military students who are in the region now, or who have just come back."
My experience, too. I'm retired Army and have quite a number of friends that have been there and back. I was mobilized for Operation Desert Storm, but it was over with before I had to go overseas. (Thanks again, UN, for tying our hands and not letting us kill Saddam & Sons a DECADE ago so you could keep stealing money!)
My cousin is in the AF and is a loadmaster on a C-130; flies troops and supplies in and out of Kuwait City, to Baghdad. He's had four tours in the last two years. His experience is the same; things are vastly improved in 90% of the country and the 10% that are having problems are getting all the press time.
But, the Iraqi Government better get a handle on this civil war cr@p, and quick. If it takes tanks in the streets and curfews, so be it. It's not like any newly liberated country isn't going to have a power struggle if the people that feel they lost the most (those who were associated with Hussein and who once had great power) are still among the citizenry.
Buckley is full of it.
The default posture for mainstream conservatives always used to be rather pessimistic. Not unlike the worldview of those who believe in Original Sin. You have to settle for a muddled world, belief in Utopia is destructive, and if things can go wrong, they will. So settle back and accept things as they are.
A little of that is fine, but you need to play as if it were possible to win. Maybe you won't win everything, but if you settle back into pessimism you won't win anything, because you won't try.
As for this being a long war, that's an understatement. Civilization has been fighting off the Muslim onslaught, in Europe and in Asia and (insofar as there is a civilization there) in Africa, for 1,400 years. So, do we expect the momentum of 1,400 years to be undone in five years? Ten years? twenty years?
This is going to take a long time. And we need to try to win it worldwide, in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa. We still aren't trying very hard, unfortunately, but at least Bush is doing something to fight back, which is more than you could say for carter or clinton.
For further info, check out my book, "A Patriot's History of the United States."
Oh, and I just had my first novel released, a 9/11 thriller, "September Day": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0974761087/qid=1140701434/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-8051195-6435107?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
It is still a question, too early to select the casket and lay out the body.
LOL! Bet you are right!
That's a good point. There is one way for America to end up with guaranteed peace in Iraq. Just let the Shiites have at it for a while.
Iraq needs to be divided into three countries, Kurd, Sunni and Shia. To hell with what Turkey thinks about an independent Kurdistan. If that bothered them so badly, why didn't they let us invade Iraq from the north?
It took us a civil war to develop the Republic we have today, but we claim that it's lost in Iraq because of some infighting?! We truly have a problem - we expect everything to be rosy perfect and very quick.
Neat! I will. Thanks. :)
Its more than infighting, its civil war. Unenlightened foreign policy is the underlying cause.
If you think this is civil war you have never witnessed street rioting in Haiti, or the massacre of two million Sudanese, or the strafing of civilian populations in Darfur, or the anti-Copt riots in Assuit, Egypt, anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia, or even anti-cartoon riots in Lahore, Pakistan. Your response is precisely what Al Qaeda wanted; should we take another hit in the USA I feel sure the Salafists will find many more like you ready to throw in the towell.
Foreign policy is hard and messy work -- something that Bill Clinton tried to avoid at all cost. And look where it got us.
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