Asymmetrical Information

So true - and we were just talking last night with a fairly fervent anti-war friend who had no idea that this election was "only" for the transitional national assembly. She's an intelligent, engaged person on the left - yet she thought this election was more akin to our Nov. 2004 elections. We disabused her of the notion. (She also had no idea that Iraqi forces at the polling places numbered some 100,000.)

But I have a problem with Kieran's Ireland analogy. (To be fair, he himself says it's "weak.") He cites a decade-long period from the first election in 1922, through a period of stabilization marked, four years later, by the "opposition" leader's giving up his revolutionary stance and taking a seat in Parliament, to the 1932 election in which the opposition actually won a majority, and says this never could have happened with the British military hanging around, then says the same is true of Iraq.

But Iraq JUST had its preliminary election yesterday. It is TERRIBLY premature to talk about withdrawing US troops. Is there anyone out there who really believes the US intends to "occupy" Iraq forever? Of course we plan to get out - but if we started pulling out tomorrow, where would that leave the new assembly? Protection of the candidates and of the constitutional process is going to be vital to the long-term success of this new government, not to mention our commitment to the Iraqi people to help them restore security and rebuild infrastructure... and with more and more of Z-man's lieutenants being rounded up, would a significant pull-out now be stopping just short of the mark?

al-Zarqawi promised a "bloodbath," 400 suicide bombers on election day. He would've been more successful if he'd sent out 400 NON-suicide bombers with guns to shoot ONE voter apiece. May we then conclude that he... ahem... couldn't?

BTW, I loved Kennedy's completely disingenuous call for the immediate pull-out of 12,000 US troops... coincidentally(?) the number of troops held over specifically for the election and already slated to go home afterward. I'll be waiting for his "See? See?? They DO have to listen to us!"

If we intend to get out, why are we building so many military bases?

The explanation for that war that I've always found the most plausible is that we're anticipating losing Saudi Arabia as an allied nation and decided to kill two birds with one stone, removing a troublesome regime and establishing a new base of operations with a single stroke.

"Losing Saudi Arabia as an allied nation" doesn't sound right. I think it would be more accurate to say that we are hoping to move our forces away from Islam's holiest sites, hoping for a resulting reduction in friction (or, at the least, removing one of the excuses for attacking us).

No time to comment adequately until now... We have military bases in Great Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and a whole bunch of other places we're not "in" in any meaningful sense. The Berlin Wall came down fifteen-odd years ago; the need for forward bases that could quickly hit the Soviet Union is manifestly no longer present. But an American military presence in our allies' territory is valuable to us in the event of a need to respond quickly to an event damaging to national security in an away region, and to our allies in that we're there for them too, in case the event is damaging to them but not necessarily, or immediately, us.

Further, if you concede the need to be militarily on-the-spot in a troubled region, a military base allows Americans to live for the most part like Americans while in the middle of a culture than might not entirely approve of the way Americans live. I'm thinking specifically of Muslim nations, though the principle applies everywhere - it's just that uncovered hair on women, for instance, isn't actually illegal in non-(strictly observant-)Muslim nations.

Wow, still no time to comment ADEQUATELY. This is a crummy post. But it had to be said and that's all the time I have to say it!

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