From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Jun 15 2003 - 17:01:37 MDT
Jeff writes
> Michael Wiik wrote
> >
> > You know, I hear that the US troops occupying Iraq
> > are driving up to towns, and searching house to
> > house for hidden weapons. It appears some Iraqis are
> > signalling their arrival to others by flickering their
> > porch lights. Hmmm, citizens warning their fellows
> > about occupying troops coming to search for guns,
> > using lights.... I seem to have heard something
> > similar to that before somewhere, maybe from
> > elementary school.... help me out here Ron...
>
> To which Lee... responds:
>
> > Doesn't it bother you at all that you would consider
> > the Baathist murderers to be analogous to the U.S.'s
> > original revolutionaries and founders? Those like
> > Saddam Hussein ---criminals against humanity of the
> > first degree--- need to be hunted down after they lose
> > wars!
>
> Which leads us to notice... the missing
> piece of the puzzle: what is the truth about the
> porch-light-flickerers? Are they remnants of the
> Baathist regime, color them criminal, or are they
> Yankee-go-home Iraqis, color them how: troublesome,
> uncooperative, unwise, patriotic? I don't know. I
> guess we'll find out.
The occupying forces have to be asking themselves (and
have asked) the same question. It would be so nice to
know their precise assessment (with no chance of spin).
> What we can hope is that the US actors improve the
> situation rapidly enough so that the Iraqis are won
> over and cooperate by turning in or self-enforcing the
> violently intransigent. I'm not optimistic that the
> Bush crew will achieve so optimal an outcome.
Nor am I. I'm not even optimistic that we can know
if they do: by what criteria are we to distinguish
background criminal behavior from organized resistance?
> By the way, I was conflicted on the war.
I'm impressed.
> There were pros and cons...What finally put me in
> opposition was the combination of three factors:
> the poor US record vis a vis nation building, the
> extreme "degree of difficulty" of such an undertaking
> in Arabistan,
Quite! Most of us share a common though inexact notion
of what it means for things to "work out well" in some
country or other. We are often dismayed by ongoing
processes in nations, processes that seem definitely
worse than processes in our own western nations.
Forgetting all the realpolitik, just how much can you
do to assist others at little cost? The eternal question!
Araby---from Palestinian poverty to Sudan slavery---is
pretty screwed up. Assessing the occupying powers'
success against this backdrop is (no surprise) difficult.
Yep, we can *hope* for few casualties, increased freedom,
and wealth production and increase, but that, of course
is pretty easy to do, safely thousands of miles away living
in comfort.
Does it matter to you whether *our* hands are dirty,
or mainly the total death and destruction?
> and the (to me) seeming implausibility of the notion
> that born-on-second-base-thinks-he-scored-a-triple GB2
> would be up to the task.
> OK. Cheap shot.
;-) Sure---you are entitled to at least one cheap shot
for having been so constructive. As much as I take refuge
in the fact that anyone elected to office today will
probably have the full resources of their large governments
at their disposal, and that the policies will probably be
rational even if not wise, it's still dismaying that evidently
the Administration and the State Department don't agree on
policy.
Lee
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