Rob,
Thank you for your polite response. Such is increasingly a rarity on the Net.
For a neocon, the liberation is defensive in nature. That is, we have to reform them, or they will come to us, and flowers of fire will sprout in our major cities. And then we will do a widespread nuking of ‘the usual suspects’ across the Mid-East to get the plausible deniability supplier of these nukes to the terrorists that hit us.
So thats the reason for the change in policy. Rogue nations + WMD + terrorists = millions of dead Americans and hundreds of millions of dead Arabs.
Also, while I like self-determination, it is a fact, I believe, that confident and aggressive tyrannical regimes don’t fade away. After all, the French Revolution occurred when the nobles started to reform. Saddam Hussein was not going anywhere; the Iraqi people lacked the ability to deal with him.
You seem to be saying that if we left now, the country would be able to govern itself just fine. I disagree. It would collapse into true civil war, and millions of dead Iraqi’s would be on our heads, just like the Boat People.
Actually, I think with Japan and Germany we are the best occupiers. And crushing the will of the enemy works fine. However, we haven’t done that. But at the same time the vast majority of Iraqi’s want us there. The problem is the same that was in Bolshevik Russia–a small, perhaps 5% group can force its will on the majority if they are dedicated and ruthless enough.
The question of the hour is this: Do people really want democracy, rule of law, and such, and will they fight for it if given a decent chance to have it? If not, then our enterprise in Iraq is truly hopeless, and we might as well go to Plan B–Nuke them until the bedrock glows.
But, I don’t believe most people will choose tyranny over freedom if given a half-decent chance to have freedom. Perhaps I am wrong. Pray that I am not.
I do not think you support slavery, but that is what your point about Tennessee and the Civil War means. It was either hopeless to reform the South, and the North undertook a fool’s errand to end slavery, or the North resolutely did the right thing in the broad scheme of things. Granted, then as now, there are many areas where the ending of Slavery and the Reconstruction of the South, or the ending of the Rape Rooms and the Reconstruction of Iraq could have been done much better, but as a conservative, I understand that people and government are prone to sin and stupidity.
I am uncertain why the President has not more boldly attacked the enemy. Part of it is the ‘make nice’ approach; part is the unrelenting assault from the Left in a manner with people writing novels about assasinating him, and all sorts of other evils of partisan excess; part is the fact that Reconstruction takes time. We’re still in Germany sixty years later, and they still struggle with neo-nazis.
But, I don’t know why he hasn’t just said ‘You can get hanged for a sheep as well as a goat’ and bombed Iran to provoke a revolution , and had the Saudi’s over for a Texas BBQ with them as the main course. Some people suspect that Saudi money is just so sweet to various officials. Some wonder if the Iranians already have a nuke, say planted in the US, and there’s a quiet blackmail vs. blackmail game going on. Some suspect Bush of not really being that serious about the war on terror.
Two things I can say: 1)I think the man is a bit beaten down. Six years of abuse, there’s not another word for it, is enough to break down even the toughest man, and Bush seems that sort, but there’s only so much one can take. 2)I wonder if he is reverting back to his father’s ways. I remember his father in the election he lost saying that he would come out with a new plan to energize the campaign…if the conservatives would just wait. So we waited. The date got moved back. Wait some more. Repeat, rinse and recycle.
His father struck me as a good manager, not a leader. I think Bush jr. saw these mistakes and vowed not to do them, but that after six years of pounding, he might be going back to his roots.
