Good plan and when a hardline, fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship takes
over Iraq we'll all give ourselves a pat on the back for a job well done.
No, the power vaccum has been created and now has to be filled with
something that is reasonably decent, more importantly it has to be able to
resist future attempts at destabilisation. The problem I see is that even if
a elected goevernment is established in Iraq and a well function police and
military force is in place, what is to stop some tribal warlord getting
together with some military and police leaders and overthrow the government
the day after the coalition forces leave Iraq?
The only way I see of ever solving the mess is to change the culture from
tribalism to political dialouge. This will take decades and the sooner we
face up to it the sooner we can start working towards that goal. We can't
change human nature and it's desire for power but we can build a system
strong enough to counter this.
Far as Vietnam goes, no we didn't mean well, it was a ideological
battelground which was lost because we didn't mean well. We did not give a
rats bum about the Vietnamese people, all that was worried about was
stopping the nasty communists. If Ho Chi Mhin was a right wing type
dictator, then there is a srong possibility that the west would never have
lifted a finger to help the South Vietnamese stop Ho Chi Mhin and more
likely would have been, that the west would have supported Ho Chi Minh.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Werner Fehlauer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Mercedes Discussion List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 7:51 AM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: New Euro terror alerts
Rich - there is little alternative but to see the mess through.
In hindsight, assuming that the decision to go in and get rid of Saddam
Hussein was taken, the next step should have been a systematic pull back
of
Western forces from the urban areas, as quickly as possible. We did not
then, and still won't have, enough troops on the ground to occupy and
attempt to pacify the country. We have to really push the existing
government to establish some control of their own people. That is what
we're doing right now, and let's hope that it works.
IMO, we still need to carefully get our troops out of harm's way, and let
the local people settle their own issues as they are used to doing.
Staying
there until "democracy" takes hold has the probability of our youth
getting
shot at for many years, if not forever.
The situation in Iraq is more and more getting to look like the early 70's
in Vietnam, where we meant well but 1) didn't have a strong government to
support; 2) were in the middle of a civil war; and 3) lost the public
support of the taxpayers at home. Oh, and both of those countries were
somewhat arbitrarily set up a long time ago by colonial powers - the
French
in Indochina, and the Brits and French in the middle East. And the good
old
USA jumped in to help, decades later.
Enough politics - let's get back to something we can do - work with our
favorite cars!
Werner
