Posted on 04/23/2003 2:43:18 PM PDT by Burkeman1
One thing to consider is that the 1945 Japanese knew that the 1945 Americans had no qualms about Bar-B-Queing 100,000 Tokyo civilians in a single conventional fire raid or killing 120,000 Hiroshima and Nagasaki civilians in nuclear strikes.
The 1945 Japanese knew that, if the 1945 Americans wanted any cr#p out of the Japanese, the Americans would beat it out of 'em.
However, the 2003 Iranian-backed Islamist Shiite Mullahs now trying to turn Iraq into an anti-American, Iranian-style Islamist theocracy believe that they can openly preach "Death to America" with total impunity as they believe that the 2003 Americans seem to fear bad press on CNN more than they feared Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Maybe, for appearances sake, this is something that needs to be "contracted out" to Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Sunnis but something needs to be done about the radical Islamist Shiite Mullahs who now believe that they can preach "Death to America" with total impunity in post-Gulf War II Iraq.
As soon as the Islamist mullahs that are now preaching "Death to America" in Iraq achieve their stated aim and U.S. soldiers start dying in Islamist inspired attacks then, yes, the Islamist mullahs will have to be dealt with. Either spirited away to GTMO or terminated. Either by our Special Forces or by Iraqi forces.
A cantonal "solution" has also been proposed for Israel and Palestine but it's unlikely to work or even to be tried out. It was also suggested for Yugoslavia and got nowhere. Nationalisms were too strong. Apparently the Muslim-Croat Bosnian Federation is composed of cantons. But it's not something that could have prevented the wars there. The cantons were created afterwards, after Serbs, Muslims and Croats struggled to displace each other. If the system works now, it's because Muslims and Croats hang together because of the conflicts both have with the Serbs.
The thing is, the cantons are supposed to give various ethno-religious groups in a a society a chance to govern themselves, but the canton boundaries can't correspond to those ethno-religious groups because then there wouldn't be much to hold them together (and it's always hard to draw exact boundaries between different groups anyway). You have to have enough concord and harmony to begin with to get the system to work. Shi'ites and Sunni and Kurds have to be willing to live allow some of their brethern to be governed by other groups, and if you don't have that good will at the beginning, the cantonal system won't create it -- and won't work.
Switzerland has a reputation as a libertarian paradise, and it's not undeserved. But we forget that they had their own civil war. It was "brief and almost bloodless," but the Protestant cantons were able to dictate terms to the Catholics. If the two sides were more evenly matched, though, results could have been much worse.
Switzerland is certainly a fortunate country compared to many others, but their system isn't a cure-all for political ills. Federalism is better than unitary systems but if the political wisdom, maturity and responsibility aren't there, the constitutional system won't create them.
Most countries are divided into districts for administration, but the question is democracy will work there at all.
David Pryce-Jones, a colleague of Jonah's, has long argued that Arabic cultures are too dominated by honor, shame and violence for democracy to work. So it will be interesting to see how National Review reconciles these contradictory views.
The U.S. has just spent a tremendous amount of international political capital and money and has also spent American lives to eliminate Iraq as an international supporter of terrorism sitting atop billions upon billions of dollars of oil wealth that can finance such terrorism.
So we will be there for a "long time"?
You betcha.
We will be there until the U.S. knows that a new Iraq can defend itself from the radical jackals that are now waiting to feast on Iraq's carcass.
Let's say that America leaves Iraq "soon" as opposed to in "a long time". Who will rule Iraq two years after we leave?
Iraq will be ruled by the best armed and most violent elements ready to immediately move in to fill the power vaccum left by the U.S. In central and southern Iraq, it will be a power struggle between the forces financed by Syria and the forces financed by Iran. Quite a choice. An Iraq ruled by pro-Syrian Hezbollah zealots or by pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad zealots.
In the north, the Kurds can try to hold their own against the radical elements supported by Iran and Syria and against the "protection" that would come from Turkey.
So what was the whole point of this war?
To hand over Iraq, it's oil wealth and the Iraqi people from the terrorist-supporting Iraqi Baathist oligarchy to the the terrorist-supporting Syrian Baathist oligarchy or to the terrorist-supporting Iranian Islamo-fascist theocracy?
I don't think so. The U.S. did not win this war to simply hand over Iraq and the Iraqi people to Syria or Iran.
Either in force or behind the scences with massive money to support Iraqi death squads to carry out our orders?
Massive money?
If Iranian-backed mullahs wage a "Death to America" campaign against American forces in Iraq, it will not take "massive money" to identify these individuals and "decapitate" that movement.
If the radical Islamist mullahs incite violent attacks against American troops, (as they seem to be trying to do) they make themselves combatants and the U.S. can and will deal with them either by imprisonment or by direct military attack just as the U.S. dealt with the Taliban and with al Qaeda.
NO
The Diet and PM were chosen in little more than sham elections controlled by various political factions, the Emperor, the Military, the Zaibatsus.
SO9
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