What should Bush say tomorrow

[saluki9]

I think Starbucks and cheap DVD players will succeed where "boots on the ground" failed.

That's a much classier way of describing my solution. I always figured they just needed booze and a little porn.

Try it next time you feel like blowing up a holy shrine. Have a couple of brews, watch some Jenna Jameson, then tell me if you feel like cutting sombody's head off?

 

[laurence]

MMMM....Jenna....er, who's that?

 

[samclem]

I'm not an historian, but I would welcome those whose command of history is greater than mine to point out any time in modern Western history in which an invading force has truly won out over an indigenous guerilla war or insurgency.

I don't claim to be a historian, but here's a data input: Nearly every conventional military victory is followed by at least a limited guerilla war/insurgency/partisan battle, etc. We only think of the ones that have escalated into long-running wars, where the insurgents put up a fight strong enough to give the regular forces a real fight.
- Malaya: This is the most often cited example of a successful counterinsurgency campaign. British, Malayan Government, Australian forces waged a successful, comprehensive (read "hearts and minds" campaign against indigenous (though largely ethnic Chinese) communist insurgents. (You asked for "western" examples, but I figured Malaya was as "western" as Iraq, and thus germane)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

- German occupation of France in WW-II: Though it was no doubt a resistance movenment, there's no indication it ever caused occupying German forces any serious problems. I think the German forces would still be sipping wine on the Seine if they had not been dislodged by conventional forces.

- United States: While maybe stretching your "modern" criteria a bit, there's no doubt that the native American insurgency has been fairly well beaten by conventional forces.

I'm sure there are better examples, but these come to mind.

*********************************************************
oldbabe wrote
"I would like to reiterate what many commentors said after the Bush speech, that there is no military solution in Iraq.

I think it is obvious that Iraq is not amenable to a strictly military solution-and that no one in a position of responsibility ever claimed that the military should be the only tool used. Military strength can only be effective there (as in most other places) together with the other normal tools of national power. To think that military forces can win this conflict without an awful lot of supporting economic, social, diplomatic, and political efforts is, IMO, as wrong and simplistic as thinking that they shouldn't be part of the solution.

 

[ladelfina]

Thanks samclem.. I'd probably not count the Native Americans only because of the long time frame involved, the great disparity in numbers and weapons, and the fact that it was a kind of piece-meal driving out.. from place to place, over hundreds of years, until there was nowhere left to go. We weren't seriously offering the option of keeping the natives under the roof of US society.

Your France example is a good one, and I really know v. little about Malayasia other than that they have their own issues with Islam and religious repression at this point in time.

I guess my point is that, still, the vast majority of foreign military excursions don't end up succeeding. Despite the (still plentiful) riches annexed during the colonial era, most colonizers eventually pulled out because the locals were too troublesome. I don't see that anything has particularly changed on that score since the times of the Roman Empire. They, too, could never get a handle on Persia, it seems.

 

[Craig]

I agree, ladelfina. Only strategies that really work for occupying forces / "victors" are to either practice genocide, or give the indigenous people a better life. The latter is obviously our only solution.

A critical part of winning the war against Islamic radicalism / fascism is winning over moderate Muslims ... an area where we can and must do much better.

In the end (and this will be a very long war ... perhaps the rest of many of our lives), the majority of Muslims must decide they want peace, and can live together ... and with us.


Regardless of our mistakes, I still love and admire my country ... the USA is a great nation, built on fine principles, and it is a nation which has accomplished great things and helped many people to a better life. Perhaps if Americans can focus on that truth, and respectfully debate her course, then we'll get through all of this in fine trim.

 

[bosco]

Also, you need to check up on your Hebrew translation. Thou shalt not MURDER. Check out the old testament some time, there is a big difference in killing for the hell of it, and doing so for a richeous purpose.

"Murder is the unlawful and intentional killing of a human being by another. " from Wikipedia.

The war in Iraq is a violation of international law--it is not a UN action nor UN sanctioned, despite what Bush says, and it was an offensive invasion rather than a defensive action. It is a war of resource aquisition and colonialisation, IMO. Therefore, intentionally killed Iraquis were murdered.

Just out of curiosity, what is a "richeous" purpose. Would that be like--oil--something that enriches your coffers?

not a bad in-print Freudian slip on your part, IMO.

 

[samclem]

The war in Iraq is a violation of international law--it is not a UN action nor UN sanctioned, despite what Bush says, and it was an offensive invasion rather than a defensive action.

We're not to the point yet (thank goodness) where a nation needs to wait for a UN vote before they can act in their self interest. "Sorry, we'll need to hold off on the Normandy invasion another decade, the UN is still considering Berlin's claims that Paris was originally taken from Germanic tribes by French tribes in 1015 AD. What is the US doing getting involved in this European war?"

 

[Zipper]

That has to be the most assinine post I've ever read at this forum.

 

[Craig]

I can understand that a Canadian might feel that way. To each his own.

 

[Nords]

That has to be the most assinine post I've ever read at this forum.

... although assertions like this one are in close contention...

 

[samclem]

That has to be the most assinine post I've ever read at this forum.

Woo-hoo! A new high and 2007 has just begun!

As I stand on this podium, I want to thank all the others who have made this award possible. Don't give up, keep posting, "keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars." Zipper, you've made me so happy!

 

[Craig]

I thought it was a rather passifistic comment myself ...

 

[bosco]

We're not to the point yet (thank goodness) where a nation needs to wait for a UN vote before they can act in their self interest.

how was the invasion of Iraq in the US interest? Other than the stolen oil, I mean?

There were no WMDs, no terrorists (until after the invasion....build an imperialist front and they will come), and no credible threat to the US. It was a pure unmitigated invasion of one sovereign nation by another. In fact, I think most Americans would now agree that it emphatically did NOT turn out to be in the US self-interest.

And please, spare me the talk of what a bad man Saddam was. We all know that. So are a lot of other dictators who the US cheerfully ignores, or props up. But they don't have oil so they don't get invaded.

If your argument is that it's ok to conquer for resources, then fine. That has to do with values, and is not really debatable. But spare us the "self-interest" spiel, at least in any ideoligical sense, other than the ideology of greed.

 

[sgeeeee]

. . . Do you think it may work??

Works for me.

 

[vinhmen]

Our country / the U.S., would however be better off if we took Washington's parting advice more to heart ... George Washington's Farewell Address and ... and so on. Quite a speech.

Course, perhaps even George would have some empathy for our dilemma with the rise of radical Islam, and what it means to our republic these days.

As leader of the Colonial insurgency against an occupation army, George Washington understood that time and space were on his side. At Valley Forge, Washington grasped an elemental idea. He did not have to win the war - no matter how many battles the British won it could not sustain control over the countryside unless enlarged tenfold, at a cost the people would not support. Eventually, the British would recognize their impossibly open-ended mission and abandon their North American empire.

No leader in American history understood these lessons better than Washington, who viewed them as manifestations of British imperial arrogance which he described as, "founded equally in malice, absurdity, and error."

If dropped into Baghdad, he would weep at our replication of the same imperial scenario.

-- Joseph Ellis, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of His Excellency, George Washington

 

[Craig]

Well, I guess that nails it ... glad to finally get some unbiased input from President Washington, via Mr. Ellis. Perhaps after we resolve the Iraq debate, we can discuss President Washington's (and his successors') native American / Indian policy at the time ...


[BTW, if you want some fun, Google "Joseph Ellis" and his politics ... : ]

 

[Nords]

Yeah, as I recall Washington was under considerable pressure to win something, anything, before Congress and the French yanked the funding & equipment rugs out from under him. And I'm sure that the Valley Forge survivors deserters troops took great comfort in knowing that they didn't have to win.

Surely that bears no resemblance to current events...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

how was the invasion of Iraq in the US interest? Other than the stolen oil, I mean?

Well, heres a plausible theory, although i'm in no way an apologist or supporter of the whole thing, just explaining. and there were many better ways to accomplish the end goal.

The reason why we didnt whack hussein in the first gulf war is that he provided several very useful functions. Oddly several are at odds with the way we repainted him for the purpose of demonizing the wartime opponent.

Hussein didnt allow terrorists to congregate or operate in his country. One of his greatest fears was an organized armed insurgency overturning his government.

His party opposed and suppressed the hard line muslims in his country and opposed the ones in neighboring Iraq.

Quite simply he made for a nice buffer between "bad" countries and the "good" countries that we get oil from and have strong alliances with.

And he was tough on insurgents, troublemakers and other riff raff in the country. As we've seen, they dont respond well to kid glove treatment. Hell, we have the greatest army ever deployed on earth and we cant contain the mess over there.

He got some wrong signals, grabbed kuwait, wouldnt back out and we had to whack his pee-pee. After that the period of sanctions and military pressure, along with losses during the war, led to him becoming nearly powerless.

As a function of having less strength in his own country, he had to become more savage with the internal trouble makers and try to fake out the neighboring threats by pretending he had WMD's.

Figuring he was going to fall at any time and create a situation of great uncertainty in a region critical to our economic and political interests, we used his WMD BS and a couple of other bits of fabricated horsecrap to move into the region before that happened, probably figuring we'd get an easy win, set up another semi-puppet government based on our democracy, and things would be stable again. Sell it to the US population that we're toppling a monster that was behind 9/11 and had nukes or gas that he planned to use on us and its an easy deal.

Unfortunately we had a lousy plan for the part starting after we "defeated" the nearly defenseless iraqi military and ending with a stable iraqi government, police force and army. Apparently we know a lot about breaking things, but we suck at making an effective government. Which really surprises the hell out of me :

We're lousy students of history. The Persian/Mesopotamian region hasnt changed much in 1000 years, except they have better weapons and hate each other and their neighbors more due to the increased history of mutual death and destruction. Many leaders and invaders have tried to bring order through many different approaches, none particularly successful. Dividing the different groups geographically didnt even work...the romans lost a lot of soldiers just trying to buffer the different geographies.

If it didnt happen that a big chunk of the worlds oil supply was sitting in the middle of this (which may be as much a cause of the problems as a cosmic accident) and had we decided to stick israel in central Pennsylvania instead of the middle of the whole thing, we'd probably be enjoying the tales of ongoing death and destruction and not care one bit.

 

[Nords]

The reason why we didnt whack hussein in the first gulf war is that he provided several very useful functions. Oddly several are at odds with the way we repainted him for the purpose of demonizing the wartime opponent.

As I recall from my reading about the first Gulf War, the Arab portion of the coalition was quite alarmed at the prospect of showing their consitituents how easy regime change could be. They were quite happy to shove Hussein back in his box but they didn't want any of their own people (or military leaders) getting any ideas about the U.S. changing governments.

I suspect that the political pundits (except for Rove, Cheney, & Rumsfeld) felt that there wasn't much support at home for regime change... especially if Americans were killed doing it. Rescuing Kuwait was enough, now get the military home for the holidays.

Except, of course, for you Navy & AF guys flying around to make sure nothing bad happens. That gets old after a few years...

Bin Laden and their support (tacit or otherwise) for training terrorists pretty much ruined that deal for the Saudis & everyone else.

and had we decided to stick israel in central Pennsylvania

Or Canada...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Oy, its too cold up there. Makes the gout act up.