Asymmetrical Information

Is it your support for the war you should be reconsidering, or your support for the peace. Mr. Franklin said "We have given you a republic - if you can keep it". The inability of the USA to impose freedom, and a desire to hold on to it, on the Iraqis, or anybody else, is scarcely a unique failing, though the willingness to try may well be. The only alternative to the war was the continuing masquerade of sanctions and 'inspections', or abandonment of the containment of Hussein; the die was cast by the way the first Gulf War was concluded. Now the issue to be decided on is only under what conditions withdrawal will be accomplished. Either there are acceptable local elements capable of taking over - possibly with help in the short run - or there aren't; its an Iraqi problem.

For all interested I suggest www.tacitus.org and Juan Cole's blog.

Remember, we are fighting a war with Generals who had to pass the Hillary test to get their stars.

Yes, if it' not the liberal media's fault it's Hillary's. Or maybe Bill. Or as Peterw implies it's the Iraqi's fault.

So much for the party of responsibility.

Tacitus might be interesting, but too much crap to post.

Ah, so what?

Here in La La land we live with this stuff every day.

Musil is still in stage one, denial.

Others have moved on to anger (although little directed to the Bushies) and the NR has already reached bargaining, asking we 'lower expectations'.

Still, comparing LA with Baghdad requires a quite high level of denial.

I wonder if, as the last copters were leaving Saigon, the Musils of the time were caught sputtering in front of the TV, "But, but, but it's safer than Harlem!".

A new contest:

Comparing Baghdad with Saigon requires quite high level of _________?

AS readers are invited to fill in the blank!

Imaginative concentrations of contolled substances in the blood will receive bonus points.

What, you're going to start advocating that we pull out of a difficult job because it's not going better than can be believed? Are you really reconsidering your support at the first sign of difficulty?

I do hope that I'm misunderstanding you.

Given the speed with which the Iraqi security forces were put together, I can't say I'm surprised. Well, chin up. We've taken a hit, but there's really nothing for it but to try again, taking care to screen better and instill more spirit into the next batch of Iraqi troopers.

Ah...women...how fickle!

Yes. No. Yes. No. Well...maybe.*

This is the sort of thing that happens when one takes the eighth most illiterate nation and tries to impart civilization to it. If we look at history we see that the most successful new governments were established after massive slaughter.

Dresden, a population center of no import, was bombed into a fireball. Hiroshima, a negligible military target, was A-bombed. The slaughter of masses leaves an impression and breaks the will of your opponents. The US is far to civilized for such displays of force now. We fight piecemeal and sacrifice our own lives so that the average irate Iraqi can heap criticism safely and create an environment that fosters resistance.

Illiteracy is a very hard thing to combat. When folks really on word of mouth - and your occupying army must rely often upon the translation ability of friendly locals - one has a problem.

Peter is right. The war went swimmingly. The conversion to a democracy and the securing of the borders was done poorly. It could also be argued there has been no symbolic gestures to convey the seriousness at with which rebels will be treated.

War is an uncivilized act. It is incongruous with civilized behavior. Destroying Fallujah would have sent a message, but is politically undesirable globally.

The UN and Europe are sitting this out awaiting to create new oil contracts with the rebels should they succeed in driving out US forces. It's total EU selfishness alongside our selfless US soldiers dying.

It's too late to pull support for the war. The war is over. Saddam is in jail and the Baathist's leadership has fled or has been captured. We are evolved past the methods of 1943 and 1945. We must now use positive action and influence to replace the negative actions we used before. It's a simple energy equation. A wave form takes the shape of a colliding wave if enough energy is imparted unto it. Iraq will be a success story, just as was Japan and Germany - provided we can accelerate the education of the residents.

What we need to do in the blogging community is to brainstorm solutions - not gripe. I see enough griping and whining from a thousand blogs and not one trying to really think up solutions. We have a voice. We have brains. While others are charged with creating policy and establishing security there are a million and one ways such can be accomplished from a non-military point of view, and from the civilians sitting at home.

Money is needed. Examples are needed. Friendship is needed. Organizations are needed. Ideas are needed. How can you, Jane Galt, engage an Iraqi village in need? What about Tacitus,Dkos or Atrios? When the average American realizes there are ways they can help - they should. Griping into the web is so unbelievably counter-productive. It is a sign that one does not really comprehend what is necessary to make this work - to help the children of Iraq have a better future and the Middle East have a shining example of western enlightenment. Your hand in friendship, and mine, and the rest of the blogging community need to be extended in a useful manner.

What about it Jane?

Let's (blog)roll!

SDAI-Tech1

*That's just remnants of chauvinism awaiting a humorous opportunity to poke fun at itself. Ignore it.

PS. Don't misconstrue this as a personal attack - it's not. Your blog just drove the point home for me and so this has spilled out here. Let's not let some illiterate thugs influence human history, shall we? Let's show them what humanity is capable of!

Poor Robert. Wrong on so many issues and now this.

Jane, I'd love to read your views on the war but as you can see from the comments the "Nothing to see here" crowd won't take lightly to anyone willing to accept reality.

Buck up, Jane. At least Iraq is a much safer place now and terrorism has been defeated.

Basically what I blogged. Now is not the time to go wobbly.

"There is a lot of hand-wringing and second-guessing going on about the situation in Iraq. It seems like the war is just beginning with violence breaking out all over the country. Some on the Right are starting to call for more troops and criticizing Rumsfeld for a failed post-war strategy. The Left is having a field-day bashing Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld with Haliburton thrown in for good measure. Despite that, Bush is hanging firm on the date for the hand-over of sovereignty. Why he would involve the cowardly, corrupt and hopelessly compromised United Nations in the process is beyond me, unless it is Rovian triangulation designed to weaken Kerry. Be that as it may, the transfer of power to Iraqis will take place on time.

The enemy is desperate to stop that from happening. When an Iraqi government takes over, backed by American military power, the enemy will have lost their only chance to win back Iraq. Their strategy borrows from the Communist strategy that worked so well in Vietnam: win the hearts and minds of the US electorate and victory will be yours. Heck, they even had John Kerrey on their side, spouting Communist propaganda before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The attacks in Iraq have been designed to have maximum political impact in the US during a tight election campaign. The idea is to inflict lots of casualties on the US, and provoke US responses that lead to a lot of civilian casualties. They want the Western and Arab media to convince the world that the US position is precarious and getting worse. To that end they have thrown everything they can into each battle and lost big time, more often than not. The enemy is also deliberately targeting coalition partners in an attempt to split the coalition apart. That strategy has had some success, with Spain, the Dominican Republic and Honduras pulling out, Thailand wavering and Portugal wondering. Each withdrawal supposedly weakens US resolve. The Iraqi police and fledgling army have been infiltrated or attacked to push them out of the picture. That has also been part of the plan of attack.

Just who is the enemy? I'd say it is the terrorist sponsoring states of Iran and Syria and their supporters in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world. They are using Baathist hold-outs, an international collection of Jihadists, and Shi'ite militia to do the dirty work. The attacks of the past few weeks have been co-ordinated and sequenced, indicating an overall strategy.

Will the enemy succeed? Let's put it this way. If Al Gore or John Kerry was Commander-in-Chief, they could. But the Bush team understands what the enemy is trying to do. The Marines and US Army have bottled up the major threats in Fallujah and Najaf, acting firmly enough to restore control, without using so much force that they cause civilian casualties or destroy holy sites. The US will hand sovereignty back to Iraqis to defuse the claim that America's ambitions are imperial. They will also continue hunting down the terrorists who are infiltrating Iraq, while building the case, and the base, for the next stage of the war on terror. By fall the horrors of the past few weeks will have receded into history.

Next up: Saddam's trial"

"Poor Robert. Wrong on so many issues and now this."

"...as you can see from the comments the "Nothing to see here" crowd won't take lightly to anyone willing to accept reality."

pot->kettle

Pat hits the nail firmly and squarely on the head.

I would only add that after the transfer of power, it may still be necessary for a coup or other form of regime change to take place at some time or another if the will of the Iraqi people proves contrary to our overall strategy in the war on terror.

I would also add that if I have one regret about the war, it is that we have not successfully convinced the average Iraqi that it is in our best interests to establish the terrorist "flypaper" in his country.

In fact, while I hesitate to "croak" about details, it seems to me that the hearts and minds of a very small minority of Iraqis have not been won by us.

Though not a terrible concern, it is inexcusable that this is so. We should immediately equip all US military personnel with cans of Coca Cola or bags of pork rinds to hand out to any Iraqis they meet. This would go a long way towards winning the aforementioned hearts and minds.

Contractors such as Halliburton are advised to establish similar Coke/pork rind programs.

>The Marines and US Army have bottled up the major threats in Fallujah and Najaf, acting firmly enough to restore control,

Uh uh, the major threat is not these insurrections. It is cut roads, the closing off of activity etc. It is further evidence that we can't mantain control encouraging other flare ups.

Do you have any concepts of the basic strategies of guerilla warfare? We've just hit phase 2 and Fallaja is a small part of it.

I've been in favor of deposing Saddam since 9/11 and I still feel it was the right thing to do. I've always had doubts about how workable Iraqi democracy was going to be, however. I'd hoped that the Iraqis would be so swept up with the excitement of being free of Saddam that, with few exceptions, they would earnestly and with good will work together to forge a real democracy.

I'd hoped that, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be that smooth. And it isn't. Plenty of Iraqis do want a real democracy, but plenty don't. And naturally none of the extremists in the region want a democracy in Iraq either.

It was important that we stop "swatting flies" and playing footsie with Saddam, and show that we are serious about taking the battle to the terrorists and the terrorists' hosts. And we gave an oppressed people a shot at freedom. That's all to the good.

But ultimately we can't fix their society for them. I think the cultural reasons for arab societal failure run too deep for us to be able to "fix" them in the kind of time frame that would be acceptable to the American public.

I feel our government and military have done things just about as well as anyone could in this situation. They toppled Saddam in short order with minimal casualites, and they've responded to the various contingencies that have since arisen with about as much wisdom and speed as real-world human organizations can actually respond. We've certainly done 1000% more than most nations on earth to address the problem. Some seem to think that a few more U.N. resolutions or expressions of solidarity with allies will convince the bad guys to cooperate. Some seem to think that if only France, Germany, and Russia contributed money and troops, that the problems in Iraq could be solved. What magic powers they think those countries have aren't clear to me, but I think we all know that in many cases the primary concern of those opposed to the Iraq invasion was seeing Bush fail, and not beating the terrorists. There's nothing France can do that we're not already doing. I can't see why we need them. They seem to be more trouble than they're worth.

Our remaining task, having accomplished the goal of deposing Saddam and giving the Iraqis a shot at democracy, is to extricate ourselves from Iraq is a timely manner, leaving behind a stock of knowledge, money, and weapons for our friends and wishing them well while they work out the problems that only Iraqis can work out.

OK, Mindles I was being a bit facetious.

But it's hard to take seriously a defense-of-the-iraqi-situation argument that compares the Iraqi security forces to the LAPD.

That's why I originally suggested Tacitus.org. No such silly arguments there and tac is a strong war supporter.

I suspect Jane will find that many war supporters simply don't want to hear that things are not going great in Iraq.

This was always a very risky proposition, but the reason I supported it was that the status quo ante was nearly a guaranteed disaster. I don't have time for a lengthy post to outline why, but it was that nearly guaranteed disaster which made large risks worthwhile. If this war ends in failure it will only mean that what was likely to occur anyways, which is a massively bloody, mostly one-sided conflict, between the U.S. and the countries of the Persian Gulf is still likely to occur.

Sorry GT, but there are plenty of good things going on over there. Read items from people who are there instead of what the media wants to feed you. School openings and improved materinity wards just don't have the same negative-Bush impact as a VERY small percentage of the population in Fallujah.

But if all you want to hear are the negatives, then yes, it is a miserable place and nothing good will come of it.

There are others thought who are willing to accept the bad as well as the good. And those of us see a much better view. Read the letter over at Sullivans. Read IraqTheModel. There's so much good out of this war that gets left behind or hidden mostly out of political agenda.

The only good thing I think that would come out of a Kerry (or ANY Dem) win this November is all the 'good' news that will start pouring out of Iraq. The news will gush over all the new schools and poo-poo any attacks as minor incidents.

And Jane, maybe you were just having a down day when you posted this, but don't forget to look for bright spots in all this because there are plenty. Also keep in mind how horribly wrong the left was before the war (Arab Street, massive fatalities in the millions, etc). There's no need to give them any more credit now.

Ahh, Rob. The myth of the "Arab Street". Indeed.

The way the leftists painted it, the Arab Street was an actual avenue leading to a bridge in Fallujah.

ya know what I'm tired of? the negative trickle-down effect. bad things happen in war; media outlets, pundits and underdog politicians feed on the bad news, generating bile for public consumption; trying to fight a surgical war sounds good but isn't always practical, so people want to feel "misled" when reality kicks in; wars cannot respond to someone's idea of a "reasonable timetable," distracting the easily confused; nor is it possible to make out what impending victory looks like from a distance - Hitler was considered unstoppable until the Russians got tired of being slaughtered and raped and realized they had to throw everything they had at him, chase him back to the bunkers of Berlin and crush him, along with a lot of combatants and civilians, and Hitler refused to capitulate until they had bombed everything from St Petersburg to the Fuhrer Bunker. that march of a beaten Russian people took a year to complete, but according to the reports of the time it should never have been manageable. security through war is rotten but necessary, and generals can't kowtow to an audience force-fed months and years of negative trickle-down, unless they relinquish their job of working toward victory.

war is hell, and freedom is pricey to maintain. blogging is an elite amusement that sometimes purports to be intellectual and analytical, while getting caught up thinking a moment or an event as a signal that it isn't. we are far from the end for the very reason this war was so important: our enemies are insidious and fanatical, but if their support is not removed, we can expect to accommodate (purposely chosen word, that) regular mass murder in our cities and neighborhoods until chaos overtakes us or we renew our dedication to prevail.

call me a Bush poodle if you want, but I prefer that to being an unnumbered Qaeda/DNC capitulast casualty years from now.

I suspect Jane will find that many war supporters simply don't want to hear that things are not going great in Iraq.

As opposed to the minuscule number of war opposers who don't want to hear about the things that are going well there, no doubt. Right?

Can't say I'm surprised that you'd "love to read" Jane's views of the war now that they've inched closer to yours.

In other words, please do get off your high horse. You're guilty of exactly the same type of behaviour you're accusing war supporters of, just coming from the opposite end of the spectrum.

The primary focus of Jane's post was on the significance - or insignificance - of the narrow report that (1) 10% of the Iraq security forces may have worked against the US and (2) 40% of those forces walked off the job in the face of "intimidation." It's true that Jane also included a note that she is generally reconsidering her support for the Iraq war - but that's not the main focus of the post. It's more than a little odd that so few of the commenters here - especially those hostile to the US Iraq involvement - care to focus on Jane's main point, or even understand that she has one.

Just for clarity: I do not think factors (1) or (2) are any big deal. Certainly they are not significant enough to warrant any pride of place in a reconsideration or reassessment of the wisdom of the US incursion or presence in Iraq.

okay, Musil, given the piece has the title, "Worrying News," and it only has the excerpt covering points one and two, the "no commentary" comment followed by the "reconsidering my support for the war" statement. you say there is a point no one is getting... I say there's no other point, explicit or implicit. just a year of war and war reports, and a great deal of ranting from socialists and anarchists that seems to have worn a (hopefully small) patch in (hopefully resiliant) Jane.

What I find “worrying” is that a nation that sustained 7,000 casualties in 20 minutes in 1864 is now wringing its hands over one tenth as many fallen over more than a year.

At this rate, we’ll be surrendering by next summer simply because its overcast.

The new Iraqi forces are just that: new. Take raw recruits, some with only a few months of training. Set them in heavy fighting and see what happens.

Iraq has a history of brutalizing its own soldiers. Saddam fed them into the Shatt Al Arab like so much cannon fodder – and abandoned them yet again during the Gulf War.

I agree with Musil: the real story is that despite all this, more than half of them stayed at their posts.

They rest will learn from their success. As Nelson said, it takes three years to build a ship, but three hundred to build a new tradition. We are not going to turn Iraqis into Gurkhas or Marines overnight.

If you condition your support on a string of uninterrupted successes, you may as well embrace failure, because that is all you will ever know.

so the answer to my question is that you are spinning Jane.

hey, be analytical all you want. point to the silver lining if you feel obliged. but maybe you should reconsider presenting yourself as objective through obfuscation. you'll be no more dear to the "war support = Bush" crowd, and you appear to be arguing with others.

tee bee-

"I say there's no other point, explicit or implicit. just a year of war and war reports, and a great deal of ranting from socialists and anarchists..."

Whether the Iraq war is going well has to be determined by looking at particular developments that evidence how the war is going. Jane was doing that (I think) in this post by focusing on the recent performance of Iraq security forces. If most of her readers (or at least commenters) refuse to consider those points, but instead insist on taking reports on the war as an kind of undifferentiated, blurred sound-and-light show, that is remarkable. Personally, I view the refusals to consider particulars closely to amount to a policy of insisting that we stop thinking about the Iraq problem so much and just rush around mindlessly instead. Others (not you, tee bee) clearly differ.

In this case, Jane was (I think) clearly indicating that she was giving significance in her reconsideration or reassessment to the recent performance of Iraq security forces. I do not believe that is appropriate, because I do not believe that performance indicates how the overall structure or legitimacy or future of the regime the US is trying to put in place are establishing themselves in Iraq. Similarly, I do not believe that the non-performance of the Los Angeles police department in the 1992 riots indicated that the overall structure or legitimacy or future of Los Angeles was in question - although the liberal media published lots of claptrap to that effect. If one doesn't like the Los Angeles analogy, then I don't think the failure of the Rio de Janeiro police to perform in the face of recent favela turf wars among civil insurgents and drug gangs in that city seriously calls into question the overall structure or legitimacy or future of that city or Brazil, although those turf wars were serious stuff for other reasons, as the FT describes:

A permanent presence of community police who know and are known in the neighbourhood has proved effective in São Paulo's favelas. Officers who rotate to a different neighbourhood every month fear the residents and are themselves feared by them. Rosinha Mateus, who took over as governor of Rio from Anthony Garotinho, her husband - now her secretary for public security - must also tackle rampant corruption in the police department. Some officers are on the payroll of drug and weapons traffickers. In addition, the police need to be equipped to respond with appropriate force when it is necessary. Except for a small elite force, officers sent to Rocinha to face drug gangs toting machine guns and grenades had little more than rusty revolvers and no flak-jackets. But greater use of intelligence and limited pre-emptive strikes would have been far more effective than an all-out occupation of the favela. Government leaders are not listening to sensible ideas that could help improve life in the favelas. When the proposal to build walls was greeted with cynicism and even anger, the government could only suggest that building a fence might be a better.

Yes, we all missed Jane's point.

Then again this comes from someone who thinks that the fact that so many of the security forces that we have been saying will be the ones doing the heavy lifting either did not fight or actually turned against is no big deal.

Remoinds me more and more of The Onion spoof.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3911/pt_the_war_on_iraq.html

Is Robert's real name Bob Sheffer?

Here's a good analysis from someoen who knows the history, has studied the language and lived in the region.

http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108260892465583590

And for a more military view:

http://www.tacitus.org/story/2004/4/19/20298/8268

M, you'd be right in thinking that my point was not about ignoring important developments. it is very much about the spin of these reports and events, and the role public opinion plays in the politics of modern warfare. but the fatigue that even those I count on to help preserve my freedom (fighting men and conservative blogging journalists) has me greatly concerned. there has never been a war fought that did not face significant resistance by appeasers and cowards, even as the battle began and raged. given that, there would have been no American Revolution, slavery would still exist in America and Russia would control most of Europe. not a pretty world, and not conducive to any sort of liberty.

and so every war must be waged as a new war (if not, then nothing was learned since the last war); well educated citizens must know what is at stake, and understand that their part in keeping government accountable doesn't begin and end with banal critiques formulated by the daily paper or this year's political campaign battles.

so in this global world we watch, we talk, we wait and we vote, but we must persevere abroad strategically, creatively, and as humanely as possible. that means not razing towns when we can negotiate; attempting surgical tactics when available; confronting and countering attacks, and the stern resolve to honor what our fallen have paid for in blood: our security, the spread of the seeds of democracy, and an end of violent tyranny in our world, in our time.

I was opposed to the war. So far, I have not reconsidered. In many ways, I feel vindicated in my early opinions, which--hey--is a good feeling.

BUT...

I generally feel that it is far too early to tell whether or not our invasion of Iraq will succeed or fail.

How do you measure success in a case like this? I presume you look to see if we are safer:
(1) Did removing Saddam prevent him from later developing WMDs and using them to hurt us?

Well, maybe Saddam would've developed WMDs and used them against us. Maybe just the former but not the latter (thanks to deterrence and/or containment, other enemies being a priority, who knows). Maybe neither (given the state of his WMD program according to the Iraq Survey Group's last report). Unclear. If we'd stopped the sanctions, maybe things would have changed.

I think you could argue both sides of this.

(2) Did invading Iraq stir up anti-American sentiment that will lead to future terrorism against us?

Well, it is stirring up sentiment for sure, and Americans are dying. But perhaps we succeed in creating a democracy and the eventual goodwill from this ends up revitalizing the region and making Americans and Iraqis safer.

I don't know. It is too soon to tell.

But I think anyone honest has to agree that the costs of failure are high.

The only question is whether they outweighed the risks of not invading, of going with some alternate strategy like deterrence, or whatever.

That was a big part of the debate all along. The existence of WMDs heightened the risk of not invading, and their absence weakens the argument--but it doesn't eliminate it, because Saddam had money and time and ill-will.

Are we better off with mad militants killing our soldiers daily or with a weaponless Saddam possibly developing nukes in a few years and then becoming the Arab Kim Jong Il? The answer depends in part on whether we succeed in Iraq and stop the militants. It is too soon to tell if we will. But the cost of failure is high.

From the LA Times:

U.S. forces have stepped back from massive military action in the turbulent cities of Fallouja and Najaf, but the overwhelming sense here is that across much of Iraq, the ground is giving way beneath the Americans.

A culture of impunity has taken hold in Iraq. There are few limits to who can be taken hostage or how a hostage might be killed. In this environment, virtually any level of violence is acceptable if it is aimed at the occupation.

The loathing many Fallouja residents have for foreigners, an attitude bred of the Sunni Triangle city's long-standing insularity and 12 months of deadly faceoffs with U.S. forces, has spread. More and more Iraqis who once resented - but tolerated - Americans now refuse to even talk to them.

From the NYTimes:

After suicide car bombs ripped into the relative calm of the southern city of Basra, merchants in a middle-class neighborhood here directed words dripping with venom at the U.S. occupiers.

...

When asked about their thoughts on the recent surge in violence in Iraq, none of the people interviewed mentioned the deadly attacks in Basra on Wednesday that killed at least 73 people, including 23 schoolchildren. Nor did anyone mention that guerrilla fighters were trying to undermine any national stability. And no one talked about the ouster of Saddam Hussein and his brutal dictatorship a year ago.

Instead, several people running businesses along Outer Karada pointed first to Falluja, about 55 kilometers, or 35 miles, to the west, where Marines are trying to rout undisciplined but determined Iraqi fighters. "Frankly, we started to hate the Americans for that," Towfeek Hussein, 36, an electronics salesman, said of the siege of Falluja as he sat behind a desk in his shop.

"The Americans will hit any family. They just don't care. Children used to wave to the American soldiers when their patrols passed by here. Two days ago, the children turned their faces away."

More than anything else, Falluja has become a galvanizing battle, a symbol around which many Iraqis rally their anticolonial sentiments. Some say the fighting there exposes the lie of American justice by showing that the world's sole superpower is ready to avenge the killings and mutilation of four American security contractors by sending Marines to shell and invade a city of 300,000 people.

The situation is beyond bad.

So what? It's not as if the Iraqi police and military stood in harm's way to fight for Saddam either. Except for the thugs that carried out its orders, the previous regime made sure that everyone else was a coward and wouldn't challenge them. A year's time isn't nearly enough to change that mindset.

If I was an Iraqi, I wouldn't fight on our side either. There's still too high a probablility that we'll cut and run, leaving those Iraqis who fought with us marked men. It's silly to expect them to stick their neck out when the future is so uncertain.

For the record, I have always been opposed to the war in Iraq, simply because war is a tool used by a nation when they are being threatened, and Iraq was never a threat (yes, yes, Saddam was a very bad man. However, I believe that it was up to the Iraqi people to decide to overthrow him or not. Proof that Saddam was no threat to us: the war went very fast, with very little resistance to US forces).

That being said, we're there now, and I suspect it will turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes in our countries history. Why? We're kidding ourselves about democracy in Iraq.

Remember folks, we've only had one really good episode with bringing democracy to a country: Western Europe after WWII. Say what you will, but we occupied Europe close to FORTY YEARS following WWII. Call it what you want to call it, but we were an occupying force, all the way until the end of the 1980's. This in an area where cultures and values were very similar to ours in the first place.

What do we honestly believe we can accomplish in Iraq? Who are we really kidding?

I love this country. My experience growing up the son of a career military man taught me the value of honor, duty, and respect, as well as the lesson that there are no rights without responsibility. In Viet Nam, my father came back with a bronze star and five purple hearts. The day the doctor said he was fit for military experience, he re-enlisted.

I believe that my father (and his father before him) bled for something better than this.

Remember folks, we've only had one really good episode with bringing democracy to a country: Western Europe after WWII.

Move your hand, Wayne — you're blocking one side of the World map. See? There's a country in the North Pacific called "Japan." It wasn't Western, nor did it have any tradition of democratic or egalitarian living. At the end of the Second World War, it was a military dictatorship papered over a slightly modernized empire. In seven years, it was democratized by a partially internationalized force led by the United States; today, it is an incredible cultural exporter, a good model for individual liberties and the second largest economy in the world.

Every man and woman can handle freedom, given the proper tools and protection. Not just white folk.

It's funny, but the kind of defeatism heard in the late Forties and early Fifties sounds an awful lot like the condescending hopelessness we're hearing now. It was ridiculous last year, crossing into bigotry now. I'm not sure whether this killjoy crowd doesn't know about the many headlines about popular democratic dissent from Iran to Syria to Egypt, much of it having occurred after Saddam's fall, or whether they simply ignore it all. Arabs not worth our time? Terrorism and dictatorship just a coincidence? Want to just get back to Britney and NFL Sunday? Well, go ahead and say it can't be done. Iraqis and those of us who will continue to support their emancipation will be chuckling within the decade.

Gee, this reminds me of a Presidential candidate. I was actually for the war before I was against it.
I'm amazed at the comments by otherwise clear thinking people I've seen lately. The fact that people think the US can in one year change the behavior of people who were suppressed for at least 30 years is mind boggling. People who have been trained not to trust each other, in fact, trained to report on each other are not going to change because we say things should be different.
I read an article a couple of months ago somewhere in the blogosphere about the experience of the US military trying to train members of the Egyptian military. It was not an easy nor rewarding experience because of the Egyptians lack of trust in each other and their desire to hoard knowledge to themselves. 'Cause in their country knowledge is power!
I've a feeling that training Iraqis may be similiar. I have no personal knowledge of this. I will say, however, that because of the info gained from reading this article I'm impressed that 50% of the Iraqis held together and with us.
I believe we are right in trying to build a democratic Iraq and also believe that we are going to make many mistakes along the way but am ready to hang in there and hope for the best. Once George wins big in November, he will have more opportunity to pursue policies without worrying about the NYT and other news organs spreading consistantly negative propaganda.

You're assuming that there will be an Iraq left by then, Carol dear. A dangerous assumption.

Personally, the best strategy I've seen to try to pull as many of our chestnuts out of this disastrous fire as we possibly can at this point -- and also the single best article I've seen on the Iraq war anytime, by anyone -- is Peter Galbraith's ( www.nybooks.com/articles/17103 ). A refinement of Leslie Gelb's "partioning" scheme.

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