October 1, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:Donald Sensing wants to bring
Donald Sensing wants to bring down Saddaam by, in essence, offering the Iraqis moral support to overthrow him. He argues that even dictatorships have to govern by the will of the people.
Well, kinda. But I don't think propoganda is going to bring Saddaam down.
For one thing, revolutions rarely succeed without outside help -- real outside help, with tanks -- unless there is a power vacuum, or the military is involved. Saddaam has killed all the military leaders who might stage a coup. And a couple of Special Forces platoons are not sufficient to topple even a bad army like Saddaam's. I've heard the suggestion more than once that we just send the SEALs or the Green Berets in there to "take Saddaam out", as if the special forces were a crack team of superheroes. The special forces are very good at what they do, but they can't find a dictator when no one knows who he is, run around a rigidly controlled country looking for him with guns, and then stage a Mission:Impossible style assassination, as some people believe. Unfortunately, on this mission, they won't be able to bring all the special effects guys and stunt doubles that make this sort of thing work in the movies. Those people eat a lot, and they expect to have it catered. And we can't afford to pay union scale.
For another, there's a reason rebel groups hide in the forest. In wide open terrain, it's easy to go looking for them with tanks. They do, after all, have to live somewhere, and that somewhere shows up from the air unless there are trees in the way. As far as I know, Iraq is short on dense jungle for the rebels to fade into.
For a third, Sensing is comparing civil obedience that didn't threaten regimes, such as Danish protests against the Nazis, with a revolution. Yes, if Mothers of War Veterans are protesting on the Plaza, Saddaam's going to tell the Republican Guard to hold their fire. But if they're stormng the palace, they're going to open fire. Guys with machine guns or a couple of tanks can take on a lot of unarmed rebels -- if memory serves, one British machine gun killed 20,000 tribesmen who hurled themselves against it.
Using propaganda, but not military force, implies tha what the Iraqi people are really concerned with is who's going to mop up afterwards. I'm guessing, but I think what they're worried about is probably not the shape of a post-Saddaam state, but whether they and their families will be shot.
Posted by Jane Galt at October 1, 2002 7:37 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links