Stop me if you have heard this one before but there is this government you see. They claim to have evidence of wrong doings by a certain country in the Middle East so they put on a press conference with said evidence. Not so much WMDs but IEDs. Sorta like this other joke from a few years back. Can’t remember the punchline but involved Iraq somehow.
What is amazing is that there seems to be some skepticism this time around.
Deja vu. And the beat goes on.
2 points.
1.Apparently you are talking about the USA supplying and using weapons in Iraq [not to mention troops]?
I thought that was well established.
Oh. Sorry [should read links first] its about the US accusing someone else of doing what the US is doing, albeit in a far more limited fashion.
2.Well deja bloody vu.
I remember the US White Paper of 1965 ["Aggression from the North: The Record of North Vietnam's Campaign to Conquer South Vietnam"] which listed, among other things, Chinese communist arms [as in weapons] found in the south.
But the claims of the paper were ripped to shreds by I.F.Stone.
Same old same old.
I was hoping somebody would bring this up (me being far too lazy to do anything like take initiative).
Attempting to divine the intentions of the White House these days is a bit like Kremlin watching. You can never take anything at face value. It’s all about reading between the lines and monitoring the twitches on Cheney’s face.
On the one hand there are strenuous denials from Washington about plans whatsoever to attack Iran. I mean c’mon, get outta here!
On the other:
1) There are more carrier groups into the gulf,
2) The new theatre chief is an admiral (handy for launching airstrikes from carriers, not so good for infantry command),
3) Recent half-baked attempts to prove that ‘Iran’ (the government, a rogue security service, smugglers, a bloke called Mohammed? We just don’t know), is supplying weapons to the “terrorists” (i.e supporters of the Iraqi government). Why raise this now?
4) Above claims dutifully transcribed on front page of evil liberal New York Times citing anonymous administration sources, and putting no contrary view (why the likes of Coulter and Malkin are so down on the Grey Lady I’ll never fully comprehend)
Look straightforward? Not really, because you’ve now got the GENERALS beating-up on WH claims:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/13/centcom-fallon/
Notwithstanding the fact that if the generals get the order they’ll do as the constitution provides, there is clearly a serious difference of opinion at senior levels of the administration.
Bottomline? We’ll end up with the worst of all possible scenarios.
To paraphrase Withnail And I, “We seem to have gone to war by mistake.”
I hope you are wrong Christine though some pundits have suggested that this is exactly what Bush is trying to do – create some ‘Gulf of Tonkin” type incident as a pretext for military action.
One thing I am not sure on, can Bush authorize military strikes against Iran or does he need Congress to approve?
That seems to be a matter of some debate Shaun. I think the question is whether he can use the original Congressional authorisation for war on Iraq to justify an attack in Iran, presumably on the basis that Iran’s up to no good in Iraq.
Others have a different view. Hillary lays it out: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/02/14/hillary-clinton-if-the-administration-believes-that-any-any-use-of-force-against-iran-is-necessary-the-president-must-come-to-congress-to-seek-that-authority/
Thanks Christine. Wonder if Bush would try to act using the authorization for the Iraq war. Cheney can’t be that crazy.
If Cheney engineers the Tonkin moment just right, then no US Congress that has ever been elected will do anything other than immediately vote thru the appropriate war powers to the WH. They’re like that.
Some of them are talking very smart now in hindsight – but there weren’t many of them who had the guts or principle to stand up to Cheney’s manufacture of the case for the invasion of Iraq.
It’ll be no different this time. It takes significant courage to stand up to a braying pack.
A bit of sad unravelling here.
Nice one anthony. I was wondering though, don’t armaments like this have to carry manufacturers marks and whatnot? Shouldn’t their provenance be relatively easy to trace?
“don’t armaments like this have to carry manufacturers marks and whatnot?”
# I thought it was cut and dried that the serial numbers prove they are Iranian weapons.
The next question to ask is “so what?”
They have already captured Iranian military personel in Iraq. Again, so what?
Iranian weapons and personel would have been in Iraq from about day2 of the occupation. Anyone who didn’t think this was going to happen is a fool.
What is the US going to do about it?
Well, it certainly can’t involve landtrops because they don’t have any to spare. This leaves, as the above commenters have pointed out, a bombing campaign. This would be an overt act of war against Iran thus justifying their pursuit of nuclear weapons. North Korea has just signed up to shut down it’s nuclear reactor. In the event of bombing Iran what do you think they’re gonna do?
Then you gotta ask what bombing Iran would achieve. In terms of good thing: absolutely sweet flux all is the answer to that one. In terms of bad things: hell might just be unleashed.
Maybe Bush has misinterpretted that reality TV show “The biggest loser”. So far he’s lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. Maybe he’s going for a big third?
Agreed harry. They’ve known about these things since 2004, so why make a song and dance about it now? I would imagine there’s all sorts of weaponry flooding in from all over the joint courtesy of your friendly local arms dealer.
Maybe the best thing to do would be to manufacture one of those ever so convenient border incidents that have proven so helpful in the past. Might I suggest an F-15 straying into Iranian airspace?
Christine – Nice innit? Like most comedies, you look for the set-ups to enjoy the gags later. The Agonist has been having some interesting coverage [here], and there’s a nice punchline in the comments by Candy.
harry
Not sure about ‘cut and dried’ From the NYT article
nudge-nudge wink-wink point-point uhuh-uhuh cough-cough allude-allude
Who knows, there are any number of possibilities. Lovers of war are treating it like it’s Colonel Mustard’s poker; it’s not, it’s the baklava in the bunfight.
Given the evident cynicism about the ‘proof’ it looks like the Decider-In-Chief is happy enough to rely on bald assertions. From today’s WaPo http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/14/AR2007021400272.html?nav=rss_nation/special
‘Quds Force’
as deadly as they are unpronounceable.
It’s all part of a quds piece.
What do WMD’s, IED’s, Quds, and IUD’s have in common?
You just know that whenever the Neo-Cons start talking about them someone’s gonna get f***ed.
Along with this ‘fresh’ ordnance info, the US have also been bleating on about Sadr’s little trip to Iran.
The purpose of pumping out this info may well be a tactic to scare the Iranians, or they could be trying to provide a reason for their f*cking up the occupation of Iraq. Scapegoat the Iranians AND the Democrats.
Who knows.
Then again, they bombed Iraq for years (a decade?) prior to invading, so maybe the US is serious. Again.
Either way, like the process for invading Iraq, if they want to do it, they will. Best bet, get your predictions in now so if they do, you can join the ‘I told you so chorus’ once it all turns to mass deaths of civilians.
“It’ll be no different this time. It takes significant courage to stand up to a braying pack.”
I dunno, wbb. I heard a US Congressman on Canadian radio saying the president had to ask congress and that he for one would be telling him to go jump.
The Dem’s are playing politics with de/funding the war in Iraq. They are positioning themselves on that one so they can’t be blamed for the failure of the surge etc due to defunding. So, the Congress is obviously talking about it.
Looking at public opinion I can’t see the public agreeing to Iran. I can’t see the Congress either. Both houses turned to the Dems over Iraq.
“The braying pack” will look like the warmongering douchebags that they are. It will be all to easy to appear as a level-headed responsible rep by opposing a go at Iran.
When my dad came home from Vietnam, he said he had a heard about plan to end the war and solve the problems in Vietnam. I think we could use in the middle east.
He said: “Son, you gather up all the friendlies and you put them in boats out at sea”
“Then, you bomb the country until it’s flat.”
“Then, you sink the boats.”
Say what? I thought it is now very well established that the North set up a sophisticated supplyline — which the Americans dubbed the Ho Chi Minh trail — to pour men and arms (of either Chinese or Soviet origin) into the South.
The mother of all harbingers re Uncle Sammy whacking I-ran.
Man of Steel bounds to his feet in Canberra Parliament, gesticulating wildly and frenziedly blurting out…….” And Mistah Speaker, they’ve even got human shredding machines, Mistah Speaker, HUMAN SHREDDING MACHINES!”
At which point Iranian kiddies would be well advised to get their “Duck and Cover” routines down pat, since the Coalition of the Willing specialise in the indiscriminate slaughter of innocents.
I’m afraid hannah’s disputation of the objective fact of supply lines running from North to South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia, renders the rest of her post, well, I’m not quite sure what exactly.
Can we, like, deal with reality here, or are people now taking a leaf out of Greg Sheridan’s book?
Hannah, the Vietnam war is OT for this thread, but according to Wiki, the North’s supply efforts began in 1959:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_Trail
Regarding your last question, I make no apologies for wishing that South Vietnam had survived. The North had the benefit of some very clever political and military figures, and I respect their strategic prowess and tenacity, which ultimately gave them victory. But for all its many faults, South Vietnam offered a better future for its people (consider the trajectory of South Korea by comparison) and the US was entitled and justified in supporting it.
If you disagree, you might want to ponder when the Communist regime is going to hold those long-awaited free national elections.
Oh yes, Enemy Combatant I feel certain he’s preparing a cracking good speech even as we speak.
Threat to the entire region Mr Speaker!
Acquiring nuclear weapons Mr Speaker!
Fundamentalist terrorists Mr Speaker!
Iranian civilians not deliberately targeted Mr Speaker!
Precision airstrikes Mr Speaker!
Opposition should support our allies Mr Speaker!
Really, it just writes itself doesn’t it?
Regarding the main point of this thread, the Iraqi government and the US presence there are legitimated by UN Security Council Resolution 1546 and the national elections in Iraq.
Whatever one might think about the strategic wisdom or morality of the invasion in the first place, the fact is that the US now has the central role in keeping the country together and preventing civil war and genocide.
That task is not helped by Iraq’s neighbours funneling arms to insurgent groups. One way or another, Iran must stop. Hopefully it can be persuaded by diplomacy, but if it isn’t … well, which is worse — US strikes on Iran, or Iraq descending into civil war? Sometimes the only choices are between the bad and the worse.
And as for the reality of the arms, this is not the same as the pre-war allegations of WMD. Actual equipment and munitions have been produced, and the fact that Iranian intelligence officers are swarming over Shiite areas would leave any informed observer in little doubt about what’s going on.
“Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of War!”
Evidence?
Paulus:
Now which criminals would have provided this “better life” ?
The Diems ? Thieu ? Ky ?
If the US had treated its WW2 ally, Ho Chi Minh, with a modicum of decency when he appealed for help for the Nationalist cause (against the French colonials), then it seems obvious that all Vietnamese would have benefited, rather than having to suffer the ravages of the US inspired war, of “liberation”. The “threat” of a communist Vietnam would never have arisen.
As in Iraq, such a war can never be “won” by an uninvited invader, which lesson, I would have thought was the only benefit of this exercise of deceit and treachery by the US. Apparently not, given the fiasco currently being experienced, and the urging toward yet another criminal act against Iran.
Oh dear the propagandists have won again.
No I dont dispute the existence of a complex set of jungle trails that took stuff south and which the US labelled the Ho trail.
When is the key.
Before, note that, the US alleged [as in Wiki] that troops from the north went south, the US already had troops there and was supplying huge sums and quantities of weapons etc.
Jeez Col.Lansdale was conducting ‘paramilitary’ operations as early as 1954 before Vietnam existed.
It was not until well after the US had introduced troops etc [aka military "advisers] that the north became involved, against their wishes.
It took several years before the number of troops from the north even approached the greater number of American troops.
It seems history has been rewritten.
Here, just as a start try these books that show the US version to be lies.
Oh and none of the 3 qualifies as left radical.
Marvin Gettleman ED. “Vietnam” penguin 1967
The White Paper and Stone’s response is in Gettleman.
Marilyn Young “The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990′ Harper 1991
William Shawcross ‘Sideshow’ Fontana 1980
Blimey its sad to have to go through all this again after 30 years.
I hope that in 30 years time you are not having to inform someone that despite common belief the US actually did have toops in Iraq prior to the invasion of iran in 2008 whatever.
WMDs anyone?
Who do you think is more to blame for the current state of Iraq – the US or Iran?
And do you really believe that the US motive for its belligerence against Iran is motivated by its concern for Iraq? I thought Iran was part of the Axis of Evil. Before March 2003. Name a country that now does not have an interest, players and weapons in Iraq. Hell, even Australia has its token presence. It’s very rich to demand Iran be completely hands off. They are vitally affected by what happens to Iraq.
This is all about engineering a special moment so that Bush can get back on the front foot with a little ve war time from 40,000 feet.
You can fool most of the people every time.
I don’t know that anybody really cares all that much. If so I’d suggest starting a separate thread.
Christine, here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KHMJEGYVJLBRNQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/12/wiran12.xml
Note this comment, “The British Army has long believed that Iranian-supplied technology has been used in the construction of roadside bombs.” (Keep in mind that Britain is not in favour of an attack on Iran, so would have little reason to lie about Iranian arms.)
Pterosaur, the North Vietnamese regime were just as much criminals as Southern leaders were, although rather more competent. Why, their propaganda was so good that they’ve evidently got people like you still convinced that they were angels.
You might benefit from checking out this work, a study of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement in the 1950s. It contains numerous excerpts from speeches and policies and newspapers of the revolutionary movement, and, without exception, they are couched in terms of communist revolution. I would defy any objective observer to read these excerpts and conclude that it was merely a ‘nationalist’ movement, notwithstanding what Ho would have liked us to believe.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Other-Means-Liberation-Revolution/dp/004820045X/sr=8-2/qid=1171629785/ref=sr_1_2/002-8815910-5570453?ie=UTF8&s=books
Well we know what the second option is like.
The US were not a party to the Geneva agreement. Why should they honour it? The Geneva agreement had only two parties, France and North Vietnam.
Fine, as long as the Iranian presence in Iraq is a positive one, and not contributing to the pressures threatening to tear the country apart. Would you characterise providing arms to Shiite militias as a positive policy?
And please, wbb, don’t just respond with an attack on the US. I would really like to know: assuming that the assertion of Iranian arms is correct, would you call it a positive contribution to Iraqi security?
Could get a helluva lot worse, Shaun, as I’m sure you appreciate.
Sorry. I should have engaged my brain before making that challenge Paulus. I’ve got no doubt that there are all sorts of people supplying weapons: freelancers, arms dealers, government agencies. As Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has described the situation, “It’s a catastrophuck.”
I don’t find last weekend’s presentation at all convincing, and there’s a pretty good breakdown at Defensetech about three stories down http://www.defensetech.org/ (“Real E.F.P.: Pocket-Sized Tank Killer”). It’s a site far removed from wingnuttery and moonbattery:
It certainly calls into question statements from the Telegraph like “This level of sophistication may point to Iran, as only a state arms company would have the ability to manufacture weapons of this kind.”
But I think the point that people have made earlier here is right.
So what?
This has little to do with actual evidence or facts on the ground, and more to do with a predisposition of some highly placed US officials to bomb first, ask questions later, and just hope that things work out as fantasised.
It also has to do with diverting attention from the original problem of a war that was flawed from the get-go (i.e “Look! Over that way!”)
In fact all the contradictory comments made by the generals and administration officials over the past few days pretty clearly indicate that the issue may not be settled.
The credibility of the US over the question of intelligence is so shot anyway they’d be silly to rely on it. As last weekend’s cock-eyed briefing indicates, their heart’s not really in it.
If the decision is made to launch airstrikes in time for the traditional Spring Offensive season, some sort of crisis will probably be manufactured and things happen fairly quickly.
An agreement that could not bind the State of Vietnam (the South), which was also not a signatory, because France had acknowledged its complete independence prior to signing the agreement, and which could therefore apply only to North Vietnam and France in respect of that part of Vietnam (the north) were France had a vestigal claim to sovereignty. But that story’s been canvassed before.
Just to make sure that the record stays straight
Hannah, it’s probably just me, but you seem intent on re-fighting the Vietnam War. This is a thread about the impending/imaginary attack on Iran.
Just to make things clear, in terms of the present mess/impending victory in the Middle East, Vietnam has been used as a loose analogy for the inability of large external powers with conventional armies to fight wars being waged by various disjointed elements of the invaded/liberated population.
But I’m sure you know that.
It does not mean that Vietnam is being fought again in Iraq. If you want to start a separate thread I suggest you email LP http://larvatusprodeo.net/about-larvatus-prodeo/email-me/ and make your point.
I guarantee you’ll be swamped with debate.
FFS
From Slate http://www.slate.com/id/2159925?nav=tap3
I’m not sure how it has happened but please take this convening of the Vietnam War Re-enactment Society elsewhere. Otherwise such comments will attract moderation.
Paulus, the trouble is that it is already worse. It is not a choice between US strikes on Iran or an Iraqi civil war but whether we have strikes on Iran while the Iraqi civil war rages on as it has been for some time now.
As some of us have noted, the ‘intelligence’ concerning Iran is not very convincing. I’m with Christine that the focus in Iran is to divert attention from the blunders of the Bush administration.
They’re refighting the Vietnam War over at Catallaxy, if people want to join in:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=2555
It gets even weirder Shaun, as there does seem to be a convergence of interests betwen the US and Iran, or there should be, at some level.
The Iranian government is just as concerned about a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, and Al Jazeera today reports that a bomb suspected to have been detonated by a Sunni group associated with al-Qaeda killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan province. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/02C939E9-6C20-4E0F-9691-50AFC9ED5ED3.htm
I suspect that what many are forgetting is that, on past form, the US doesn’t need much of an excuse to launch airstrikes (as opposed to a prolonged ground invasion) on anyone.
I’m thinking particularly of the attack on Libya in the 1980s, when it was claimed Gaddafi was responsible for bombing a Berlin nightclub, a claim subsequently proven wrong.
They can do it because they can.
Iran is not being attacked, and not going to be attacked, because itâs not in US interests to do so; and this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. Yet:
Likewise this thread is full of similar “analysis” from people who no doubt think of themselves as having a sophisticated political view of the world. Everyone here that I have read appears to know that a US attack on Iran would be madness; yet they do not reject outright the idea that the Bush administration is gearing up for war with Iran because they have internalized the idea that the Bush administration is mad.
Most people here have in reality ceased analysis and content themselves with abuse and deceptive (even to themselves) behavior. The question âwhat is to be done?â does not ground the majority of the comments.
One regularly sees a comment type on sites like this that portrays the policy position of the Bush Administration as âbarking madâ? and then a subsequent refusal to look further into the issues that are producing such an obviously wrong analysis from the commenter, (more precisely lack of analysis).
There are even regular instances of active sabotage on enquiry and what is passing for âdebateâ; vandalism and wrecking of discussions with idiotic postings and even pictures. Not for these mindless vandals the principle of mind your own business; and if you donât want to debate the issue then go to a thread that your interested in. No these wreckers must protect others from the wicked ideas that they have never even thought through! They must disrupt the debate of others. Having done so, they receive mild âin houseâ rebukes, rather than being firmly denounced and moderated out of such behavior.
Nevertheless the beat goes on, because the issue after 9/11 always was region change, not a sudden desire to nick oil. The beat goes on from Madrid to Palestine and from London to Sydney. The beat goes on because humanity is rightfully involved in what amounts to another world war.
The enemy this time came from the entire region called the Middle East and obviously the politics there had produced the enemy and would continue to do so. Tyrannies in societies essentially stuck in the Middle Ages. History produced the enemy but history canât be changed. The region had to be changed in some way or another. The old US policies that got the result 9/11 had to be dumped. I say they were, and good riddance. Others here wonât properly discuss this.
Why is the enemy that would kill the Iraqi masses in their universities and markets, shoot them for being the wrong religion or try to impose Baathist dictatorship not âourâ enemy? Germans Italians and Japanese were our fathers enemies even though âweâ could have cut a deal or become isolationists. After all the Russians and Chinese and the US carried the real load and would have won without our casualties.
Why would someone who thinks of themselves as progressive not stand up for the issues involved rather than hide behind the time that it is taking? We are about to go into the fifth year but so what. The region is now seething. The Islamic peoples are engaging in the modernity project like never before. Why are people so concerned with ending troop support to the Iraqi government yet have nothing to say about how to stop the Al Qaeda bombers from turning up year in year out from the religious schools throughout the region? Why not admit that they have to be stopped?
Only a few very sad cases on this site refuse to admit that the US deserved support in WW2 and opposition in Vietnam.
On Jan. 15, Mark Daily, US Army, and three others were killed when a roadside bomb detonated beneath his vehicle in Mosul.
This Mark was as honorable a soldier as ever fought, even though he and I are politically polls apart and were in dispute about historical events.
Time to reconsider what ought to be done. What ought progressives do, now that the war has turned out to be protracted? Who ought we do a peace deal; with. I won’t do a deal with Al Qaeda, nor Baathists, nor Shi death sqauds, because as a ‘progressive’ I want them fought. I also stand with the oppressed peoples of the Middle East.
This coming Anzac Day I will tell children the story of Mark Daily.
Ummmm might want to check out one of these first Patrick.
What interesting language. People who disagree with patrickm are engaged in acts of “sabotage”, “wrecking”, and “vandalism.”
Such a pity we can’t all be hauled up before some sort of People’s Blogocratic Tribunal and “denounced.”
Unreconstructed Maoists who praise the deaths of millions of Chinese and reckon ongoing violent revolution is just the bees knees lecturing people about reality and democracy. This is some sort of joke, right?
Shia people are the largest block of the Iraqi peoples at near 60% and when combined with the Kurds and other minorities 80% of the Iraqi people are accounted for.
It is astounding that the Arab Sunni population of 20% was still lording it over the remainder in much the same way as the whites of South Africa did.
Naturally, being a privileged segment was never going to be sustainable and a war for the liberation of these masses was coming no matter what. The Arab Sunni minority would always have had to adjust despite any fascist superman beliefs of superiority fostered by the Baathists.
Now that the oil issue is effectively dead – because it is being handled by Iraqi political forces in a manner that even Lenin would approve of, we can properly discuss the real war that the Iraqi masses are now waging against Baathism, Jihadists and Shia death squads and develop a serious proposal for an end game.
Nobody, on this site is supporting a victory of any of these three forces, so we do have that degree of unity. I also think that we are mostly in agreement that the US would like to withdraw their armed forces ASAP. In fact, recent documents released via FOI showed that US planning prior to the ‘illegal invasion against the lawful tyranny’ (self evidently a revolutionary liberation), was for only 5,000 troops to still be in Iraq by the end of 2006.
Evidently the three enemies have fought different wars to what the US military thought and have done ‘well’ against a disunited Iraqi population and an inexperienced western military. Similar to the way the Japanese fought well when they attacked the US at Pearl Harbor yet they only awakened a sleeping giant and were strategically stuffed from the beginning. The Iraqi masses are the sleeping giant that’s been awakened in this instance.
The US obviously had to change and adapt to the realities in 1941 when they copped more casualties in 1 day than they have in four full years of the Iraq war. They have had to make changes in 2007 and they have. The complexity of the undertaking in WW2 required an almost total mobilization. The effort in the Middle East ought to be approached in a similar way but the US ruling elite were unaware of this and believed that their powerful military forces would be sufficient in Iraq.
Now we know that these forces were not sufficient and that a regional conflagration is desired by Al Qaeda type Sunni Jihadists. If they were to be successful the scale of the war would match the size of their business card left on 9/11. Such a massive war is a possibility that must be factored into our thinking.
Curiously a site like this will produce a great deal of agreement yet stumble at the final hurdle and run screaming from any responsibility to deal with the issues that arise for any US war cabinet after 9/11.
War was the only proper response. Afghanistan had to be the first front but not the last. Because the whole region was producing the Jihadists the region had to be changed. The beat would have to go on.
Stability for the all the tyrannies was no longer an option. That US policy had failed and things were only going to get worse if left to their own devices.
The mass of the peoples of Iraq were always going to have to go through a struggle against Baathists, Jihadists and Shia death squads. Even if Iraq had been ‘left alone’, war would have broken out eventually and under conditions that would have dragged in the whole region and forced the US to intervene.
When the lawful tyrant died of natural causes and his even more psychopathic sons assumed control of the tyranny there could well have been the break-up required in the Baathist military to the point that the helicopter gunships and tanks and so forth got going.
Iran would have been quickly drawn in if a full blown civil war broke out under conditions that would have the Shia facing the well armed Sunni Bathists.
Saudi Arabia would then be drawn in, after the Shia got the upper hand and commenced the inevitable ethnic cleansing as the Sunni flowed across the borders and destabilized the governments of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and even Syria.
As in WW1 country after country would be tumbled into it and you would have a full blown regional war. After all 80% of the people were never from the privileged Sunni Arabs and only a small number of the privileged Sunni were from the ruling clan etc so eventually they were going to strike out for their freedoms.
Fortunately these mass murdering enemies of all progressives do not have any tanks and helicopters and mass formation armies with rows of artillery pieces. When they did have just a few years ago they killed over a million people by invading Iran and then later Kuwait.
But anyhow that tyrant has been hanged and his sons are long dead. Baathists are not coming back to power! The war to liberate the Iraqi masses has been ended over a year ago. Iraqi political forces now run Iraq.
Al Qaeda is killing people as ruthlessly as they have done in Madrid and Istanbul and everywhere else but now even the anti-war masses in the west know in their gut that they have to be fought.
Obviously the actual US plan was to overturn Sunni domination. The US suppressed the Baath party and armed forces completely. So the outcome had to be a new society.
That must be a comfort for Marxist supporters of the Iraq War
Larry Diamond, writing at the beginning of 2006:
Well at least they won’t have to worry about slaughtering the bourgeoisie, as most have already fled. Wouldn’t want to be one of those evil ‘rich’ peasants though, or whatever the local equivalent is.
Mark and Christine Keeler you have confused me with my evil twin brother.
If you go back over my two previous posts you will see that no Marxist, Leninist, or Maoist reasoning is evident in the posts. True I could have specifically said ‘that bastard Lenin’, in order to show the difference between us. But I thought that as my position was so clearly a mainstream ‘rights of man’ progressive opinion, that it was not necessary to denounce the communists on every occasion.
So now stop shooting the messenger, at least long enough to realize the difference between me and my evil twisted twin. (My parents were truly wicked in naming identical twins the same! Imagine the confusion I have lived with all my life! Stop pitying yourself for your current confusion that has you shooting every messenger that turns up and have some sympathy for me!!)
Now that you know there are two of us I hope we can be pals because I have had to deal with his evil and twisted communist mind (spit) much longer than you have and I could really use some help.
For example I could never convince him that the Tyrant ought to have been left alone; (after all he believes in the overthrow of tyrants and the struggle for what he calls New Democracy) but I know that this does not matter because that’s all behind us, and what we liberals and mainstream leftists are now dealing with is the issue of how to help the Iraqi peoples in the here and now.
It is years after it became apparent that Iraq was going to have a system of free and fair elections in a society with a vibrant free mass media. This is not something Roosevelt would have had any problem living with. The only issues are to do with the war that all democratic forces would rather be ended (all the economic and cultural issues can be rapidly addressed in peace conditions given that Iraq is so fundamentally wealthy with its own oil resource).
Nevertheless as FDR demonstrates, in personally not living to see the end of WW2, only the defeat of the enemy can bring our ‘wishes’, turned to plans, to fruition.
An FDR war cabinet member would address how to turn the wishes into realistic plans. Mark shamefully and blatantly fails to emulate his hero who shouldered just those tasks till the burden exhausted him. FDR died knowing that peace was coming but that the enemy was still killing.
Are we democrats and liberals not in a similar situation all these years later? Is it not plain that what my evil twin would call ‘the US ruling elite’ wants to get the troops home ASAP? Self evidently they can’t do so in defeat to Baathists, Jihadists nor Shia death squads. Self evidently setting a date would be wrong as the enemy would make use of that date. ‘Loose lips sink ships’ is the simple truth in times of war.
FDR had to overcome America First thinking. He was called a war monger. He had to tell lies to get war material to the British, while the US population, were still largely deluded in their thinking. Yet the delusion was firmly planted in the reality of the disgraceful WW1 and the economic devastation of the depression.
The disgraceful Vietnam war has played the same role in confusing the masses in this century. Pearl Harbor cleared the thinking in 1941 (15 months after the British had been forced into fighting the Nazis). One wonders, from the stance of a garden variety liberal ‘bourgeois’ democrat, what is required to clear the thinking for our war?
The Iraqi government must be both helped and held to account. University bombers must be fought by us good liberals even if the communists (spit) insist this is true as well.