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More than a month ago, I laid down a marker in a column that no one could competently report on the ongoing story of the occupation of Iraq without reviewing the closest similar situation in American history, the occupation of Germany. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has mentioned this comparison several times in detail in his press conferences since then. Former Secretary of State Kissinger has mentioned the same in several recent interviews in the national press. But all of the reporters present on all of those occasions have reacted to the subject like deer in headlights. Neither they nor any...

For more than a year, the Democratic mantra on Afghanistan was that President Bush was not doing enough -- not spending enough money, not building the army fast enough, not deploying troops to tame the warlords. The charge was neglect and aversion to nation-building. The result? Afghanistan is "falling back into chaos," said Al Gore last November. One could reasonably argue that slowly building up the Kabul government while maintaining a kind of warlord equilibrium is the best that we can hope for right now. Anything more ambitious -- attempting to revolutionize a pre-industrial economy, radically extend democracy or take...

WASHINGTON -- For more than a year, the Democratic mantra on Afghanistan was that President Bush was not doing enough -- not spending enough money, not building the army fast enough, not deploying troops to tame the warlords. The charge was neglect and aversion to nation-building. The result? Afghanistan is ``falling back into chaos,'' said Al Gore last November. One could reasonably argue that slowly building up the Kabul government while maintaining a kind of warlord equilibrium is the best that we can hope for right now. Anything more ambitious -- attempting to revolutionize a pre-industrial economy, radically extend...

Quagmire in the Sun August 19, 2003 Sometimes our enemies have a point. Realizing this is part of growing up, and some people never make it. When the United States conquered Iraq a few months ago, we were told that the Iraqi people were gratefully welcoming the American troops who had liberated them from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. “We’re hearing from the grateful ones now,” someone remarked. “We’ll hear from the others later.” We are indeed hearing from the others, as U.S. soldiers and UN personnel are shot and blown up daily. There is precious little sign that the Iraqis are...

Supremacy by Stealth by Robert D. Kaplan It is a cliché these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire—different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless. It is time to move beyond a statement of the obvious. Our recent effort in Iraq, with its large-scale mobilization of troops and immense concentration of risk, is not indicative of how we will want to act in the future. So how should we operate on a tactical level to manage an unruly world? What are the rules and what are the tools? ..... In the late winter...

Neocon 101 Some basic questions answered. What do neoconservatives believe? - "Neocons" believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world. Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action. - Today, both conservatives and neocons favor a robust US military. But most conservatives express greater reservations about military intervention and so-called nation building. Neocons share no...

In the wake of the bombing of the U.N. office in Baghdad, some "terrorism experts" (By the way, how do you get to be a terrorism expert? Can you get a B.A. in terrorism or do you just have to appear on Fox News?) have argued that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a failure because all it's doing is attracting terrorists to Iraq and generating more hatred toward America. I have no doubt that the U.S. presence in Iraq is attracting all sorts of terrorists and Islamists to oppose the U.S. I also have no doubt that politicians and...

PRISTINA, Kosovo - Blaga Stevic doesn't have a problem with his ethnic Albanian neighbors, and they don't have a problem with him. Stevic, a Serb who was born here, fled with his family to Serbia after NATO went to war in 1999 on behalf of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. He was afraid of revenge-minded extremists, he said, not the Albanian residents of his tiny hilltop village of Stara Kolonija. So when the United Nations offered to restore his damaged home last year, he decided it was time to return. "We're all in good relations here," Stevic said, drawing a nod...

Thursday, Aug. 7, 2003 It's time to get peacekeepers out of Bosnia: commander Canadian Press Fredericton — Canada should consider ending its peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the commander of the army said Thursday. Lt.-Gen. Richard Hillier said foreign deployments have stretched this country's land forces to its limit. "Our soldiers would like to see the end of the commitment in Bosnia, without question," Mr. Hillier said in an interview. "They are tired of going back a second, third, fourth or even fifth time. "Most of our soldiers, the vast majority in the army, have already served there, and they fail...

<p>As commitments pile up, the question arises: Is there any limit to President Bush's international interventionism?</p> <p>This is a surprising question to be asking. During the presidential campaign, Bush seemed more circumspect than his predecessor or his opponent about involvement in international problems without a clear U.S. strategic interest at stake.</p>

Open Letter from Iraq LGF reader 'Jolly Roger' forwarded this open letter from a US Army Major in Iraq, with some news we are not hearing from our quagmire-obsessed major media. ------------------------- Subject: Postcard from the edge: how goes the war? News from the front: Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 1:45 PM Subject: Open Current Events Letter From A U.S. Army Major In Iraq It has been a while since I have written to my friends at First Lutheran Church about what's really going on here in Iraq. The news you watch on TV is exaggerated, sensationalized and selective. Good...

<p>Where's Madeleine Albright when we need her? As the Bush Administration inches deeper into nation building in Iraq and closer to peacekeeping in Liberia, it would be nice to have an official around who actually believed that building nations and keeping the peace were worthy goals of U.S. foreign policy.</p>

NATION BUILDING AND WMD'S: You'll want to read this story from the Christian Science Monitor, but the title pretty much says it all: "Building Three Nations at Once." If you include all of the domestic work the Bush administration is trying to accomplish the title could easily read "Building Four Nations at Once." The piece offers an important sense of perspective and outlines the enormity of the tasks we now face in Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq. The scope of what we are trying to do in these three places is massive - not to mention massively complicated - and trying...

There has been much hand-wringing over the widespread looting in Iraq following the Anglo-American invasion. Evidence that the looting was permitted, and perhaps even encouraged, by coalition troops has not quelled the party line that this is a transitional stage and that reconstruction is proceeding apace. But could the creation of chaos be a deliberate and even lasting policy? Recent events in Serbia, the last country to have democracy imposed on it by force, indicate that the lawlessness and anarchy that now terrorize the civilian population of Iraq are not a regrettable transitory stage in the onward march towards the...

May 23, 2003ERP KIM Newsletter - Special EditionIndependent Kosovo or a part of a Serbia-Monenegro FederationBAGHDAD, BELGRADE, AND BORDERS The end of the war in Iraq provides a unique opportunity for the US to address the situation in the Balkans, in a way that enhances stability, is fair and equitable, and reassures the international community. By John ZAVALESJohn Zavales served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1991 to 2001. During the 1999 Kosovo crisis he was based in Albania as a part of Operation Shining Hope, the relief operation in support of Kosovar refugees. He later...

There is a large and overlooked truth about the American occupation of Iraq: Whereas in postwar Germany and Japan we were rebuilding countries that had been largely destroyed by us, in Iraq we are rebuilding a country destroyed by its own regime. In World War II, we leveled entire cities (Tokyo, Dresden, Hiroshima, many more), targeted and razed the enemy's industrial infrastructure, killed and displaced countless civilians. We turned the countries to rubble, then we rebuilt them.

Experts who claim to be realists say it is hopeless for the U.S. to try to create a democracy in Iraq. But it is those who think that the U.S. can meet its needs by installing a strongman who will restore Sunni military control of Iraq who are in the grip of an illusion. What is referred to as the "democratic" program building a pluralist government of law which protects Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds is the only realistic goal for the U.S.The U.S. is committed to creating a reasonably stable government in Iraq that can hold the country together despite...

<p>NEAR THE SYRIAN BORDER, Iraq -- This started as a good news story about bringing water to the desert. It still is, even though the water's not flowing yet. That's because this is also a story about why it is so hard to get things done in postwar Iraq.</p>

THERE are few more dramatic periods in human history than the toppling of a brutal tyranny and dictatorship. When the fighting ends, and the world and media spotlight dims, a less-noticed period unfolds. In the case of Iraq, it is the job of getting a punch-drunk and war-weary country back on its feet. That is the reality in the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance — the most complex and challenging job I have faced in more than 30 years of military service. This is not just a country damaged by conflict but by 30 years of systematic intimidation and...

Bring on "Iraqi Freedom." But always keep in mind, as President Bush has done, that the ultimate war goal is to enhance American security. When Bill Clinton deployed American troops in places like Bosnia and Haiti, he was criticized for turning foreign policy into "social work" (as Michael Mandelbaum pungently put it). By what authority, many asked in the 1990s, did the president place troops in harm's way without discernable American interests at stake? George W. Bush has made sure not to repeat this error. He deployed force twice - in Afghanistan and Iraq - and both times he made...