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Good Advice
Sunday, March 16th, 2003I’ve said that once the war starts, I think liberty-loving people ought to hope for victory. A prolonged quagmire, or chemical/biological assaults on Israel or on our troops would certainly proove many of us correct, but this is one case where I really hope I’m wrong, and where any anti-war advocate who hopes otherwise, I think, ought to lose all respect and credibility.
Along those lines, Tom G. Palmer says that now that war is inevitable, it’s probably time for anti-war folks to stop the fist-shaking, and start thinking about formulating exit strategies, plans for post-war Iraq, and putting forth arguments against talk of a 30 or 40-year occupation.
I think he’s right. The war will happen. Haranguing against it at this point is a waste of time, and risks being interpreted as advocating U.S. defeat. It’s best now to hope for swift, decisive, unbloody victory, and to then begin advocating for post-war policies that don’t require our continued presence in an area of the world where such presence only invites more resentment.
I say: Win. Topple. Get the fuck out.
What, unfortunately, will likely happen: Win. Maybe topple. Invest, heavily, with taxpayer money to salvage world opinion. Impose Tommy Franks as overlord. Attempt to squelch revived conflict between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. Renew investment annually for what might be decades. Eye Iran, North Korea.
Until the bombs start falling, I’ll be no-war.
Once they start falling, the argument is over. We lost.
Let’s move on to, “Support the troops. Win the war. Get out afterward.”
Radley:
Unless we stay around long enough to make sure that Iraq is led by a government that:
> Structurally protects the basic rights of each of its people
> Gives its people representation in its policymaking institutions
> Has limits/checks/balances to prevent another Saddam from hijacking it
we will be doing this again in a few years.
Our biggest foreign policy failures — Vietnam, Iran, the rise of the Taliban — were sealed, not by overstaying our welcome, but by not exercising sufficient resolve to bring the conflicts to decisive resolutions. Our leaders were more interested in politcs and public relations than problem-solving, so they restrained our military to the point of ineffectiveness and/or pulled our resources (military and otherwise) out too soon.
Let us not be so anxious to return to peacetime, that we fail to decisively resolve the problem Iraq poses — it is not enough to remove Saddam; we must make sure that the Iraqi people will not allow another to emulate him.
Been telling you that for two weeks Radley…and it was inevitable probably two months ago. If the world would have stood behind this mess from the get go I am quite sure Saddam would have high tailed it outta there with his hundreds of million$ He had a plane ready 12 years ago, I am sure he has one now.
I think we need to keep this simple and we all hate the French. I have never liked that country anyway.
” it’s probably time for anti-war folks to stop the fist-shaking, and start thinking about formulating exit strategies”
WTF? Shouldn’t the pro-war people have been thinking about exit strategies? Isn’t that their job?
If you really look at what Saddam has been doing to his people, wouldn’t you want to intervene? He has been doing the same things that Hitler did pre-WW2- killing his own people for years and yet we have done nothing about it. Maybe if our president made it clear what kind of damage Saddam has done in comparision to Hitler, then the fist-shakers would shut up and try to understand what we are up against. It’s good to see that the American public is starting to lay down their opinions and start acting like a unified front.
Hey, it only took four comments this time…
The Beginning of the End
I think I mean that in a positive way. Regardless of how one feels about the war, itâs hard not
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