Such smugness, arrogance ...such insufferable moral superiority.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ned


True.

But if you are not willing to do what is necessay to win when the stakes are low, you will eventually lose when the stakes are higher. That is why I referred to Carthage.

What a load of claptrap.

I'm no pacifist. Far from it. But the thought that the US is in danger of annihilation if it runs away from Iraq with its tail between its legs is silly.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


You're falling into the trap of believing that "if only" things would have worked out perfectly.

When you fight a war you take a risk that it's going to turn to ****. This in spite of even the best planning (which was manifestly not present) in a case where the objectives are straightforward (which they were not).

It's a roll of the dice. Every time.

Yes war is a risk, and not going to war can be a risk as well. Thats true in every war. Now you can believe that the mistakes made in this war were about par for the course, and that the outcome is largely the "expected value" rightly viewed as of March 2003. Or you can believe that the right expected value was much better in March 2003. I dont think anyone yet has either the critical distance or the historical knowledge to make that judgement.


Indeed, on not going to war as a risk. Way back in 2003 lots of folks forecast another Viet Nam. I took that quite seriously. I didnt think it could be another Viet Nam, because in VN the insurgency relied on supplies that came down the Ho Chi Minh trail, from North VN (which in turn was supported by China and the USSR) We couldnt cut that supply off, because the only real place to do that was Laos, and the political consequences of a largescale US intervention in Laos were too major. The same for a US ground intervention in North VN. Both Laos and N VN bordering on China.

In Iraq there would be no such sanctuaries. If an insurgency were aided by Syria and Iran, those countries would be dealt with by force.

Yet they have not been. And while the insurgency has been more self sufficient than the VC was, the failure to deal with the sanctuaries has certainly had a major impact. Even if the foreign AQniks have been few in number, they are the ones whove led the suicide campaign against the Shiites, and its the success of that campaign that has made things as bad as they are.

[Ned]

What happened in Vietnam has to be revisited. Johnson had a nobel goal, but his strategy could not achieve it. Merely not losing in the South could not achieve victory in the war. We would have had invade NV and risk a world war in order to win in the South.

Nixon put a lot of flowery words on what became an American surrender. We pulled our troops out and abandoned SV to its fate.

We are about to do the same to the Iraqi's. And they know it.

[Arrian]

Don't you think that any fair reassessment of Vietnam has to start with the US government's spurning of Ho Chi Minh immediately after WWII, backing the French instead?

There's a good chance that our strategy in Vietnam was fundamentally FUBAR from that point on. We lined up in opposition to what was, at its core, an independence movement.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


What a load of claptrap.

I'm no pacifist. Far from it. But the thought that the US is in danger of annihilation if it runs away from Iraq with its tail between its legs is silly.

You are correct, the US wont be annihilated. Based on historical lessons, it will likely improve cuisine here in Greater Washington. First we'll get the Iraqi restaurants, esp the Kurdish ones - I wonder what Kurdish cuisine is like? Then, as our influence in the region recedes, we will get new Lebanese restaurants - plenty of those already, but we could always use a few more. If things really tank, we could get Saudi restaurants, Israeli restaurants, all kinds of yummy foods. And if it effects our credibility in other parts of the world, we stand a good chance of getting some non- ME restaurants as well.

Bon appetit

[KrazyHorse]

Yes war is a risk, and not going to war can be a risk as well. Thats true in every war. Now you can believe that the mistakes made in this war were about par for the course, and that the outcome is largely the "expected value" rightly viewed as of March 2003. Or you can believe that the right expected value was much better in March 2003. I dont think anyone yet has either the critical distance or the historical knowledge to make that judgement.

I knew that Iraq was going to be a long, grinding, bloody struggle with the chance to turn into outright civil war. I don't think anything you've suggested could have prevented that.

It's an ethnic and religious powder keg. It's in the Middle East. It's the US invading it without the support of the Arab world.

Very simple, really.

Might things be better now? Obviously. But best case scenario you've still lost 1500 US soldiers, maybe 30000 Iraqi civilians and Iraq is just now emerging from the violence as a semi-stable state.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Arrian


You ignored the bit about the USSR. Yes, China intervened in the Korean war and thus we fought China, albeit only within Korea. I wasn't around then, but it is my understanding that our leadership believed that attacking China directly could have drawn the USSR into the war, which obviously nobody wanted.

One hand tied behind our backs... Korea was a limited war, yes, precisely because we did not want to fight a total war. And there were valid reasons for that.

-Arrian

True: a wider war could have turned into a world war. That was a risk. But we don't know for sure.

I believe that documents since discovered have shown that Stalin would have conceded had we attacked China. He did not want to risk losing China as well as NK and possibly the USSR itself.

[Ned]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


What a load of claptrap.

I'm no pacifist. Far from it. But the thought that the US is in danger of annihilation if it runs away from Iraq with its tail between its legs is silly.

No, but soon we will be driven from Afghanistan. Pakistan will soon follow. Israel will fall. Africa will go Muslim. Then Europe. Then...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
Don't you think that any fair reassessment of Vietnam has to start with the US government's spurning of Ho Chi Minh immediately after WWII, backing the French instead?

There's a good chance that our strategy in Vietnam was fundamentally FUBAR from that point on. We lined up in opposition to what was, at its core, an independence movement.

-Arrian

there were lots of third world independence movements that went in different directions. most of french west africa ended up with Francophile regimes. Its not at all clear that the survival of an RVN regime composed of Catholics, collaborators with France, and assorted opponents of the Viet Minh was impossible (though I will admit it was never a good bet) I dont agree with Ned wrt Nixon - the US presence circa 1968 was not sustainable, and was probably slowing down the sino-soviet split. But its not at all clear that the ARVN collapse in 1975 was inevitable.

[Arrian]

True: a wider war could have turned into a world war. That was a risk. But we don't know for sure.

I believe that documents since discovered have shown that Stalin would have conceded had we attacked China. He did not want to risk losing China as well as NK and possibly the USSR itself.

No, we don't know for sure. The problem was that even if the risk of world war was low, *if* it happened, such a war would have been catastrophic. If you have a 10% chance of catastrophe, you have to take that seriously. Perhaps more seriously than a 50% chance of a lesser negative result (say, failure in Iraq).

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Ned


No, but soon we will be driven from Afghanistan. Pakistan will soon follow. Israel will fall. Africa will go Muslim. Then Europe. Then...

Oregon!

Back to the domino theory, I see.

-Arrian

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ned


No, but soon we will be driven from Afghanistan. Pakistan will soon follow. Israel will fall. Africa will go Muslim. Then Europe. Then...

ah -- the much flawed domino theory based on paranoia

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
[
I knew that Iraq was going to be a long, grinding, bloody struggle with the chance to turn into outright civil war.

You knew that Rumsfeld wasnt going to take the steps, either with enough US troops, or with a retained Iraqi force, to maintain basic order in the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, when Iraqi ministries and power plantsetc were looted? You knew that one of the most influential moderate Shiite clerics would be assasinated in the first months of tthe occupation, and that the US would fail to take effective action on that for over a year? You knew that the most effective UN official would be assasinated a few months after the fall of Baghdad, leading the UN to completely withdraw?

Too much of whats happened is the logical consequence of specific things that happened in the first months of the occupation, things that were NOT probable. Heck, if you were writing fiction, theyd barely even be plausible.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

plantsetc

word!

[Arrian]

Bah. KH is right. It was not hard to figure that, given the Sunni/Shiite split and Saddam's role in skewing the power toward the minority Sunnis over the majority Shiites, given the Iraq's general predisposition to be (at the very least) suspicious of Americans, and given the likelyhood of outside intereference, that Iraq was a hugely ambitious project. Led by a moron.

-Arrian