Quote:
Originally posted by Undertoad
The UN can't help and anyone who wants to send them in is posturing, including the President. The UN were the first to pack up and leave at the first sign of difficulty. They could have shown resolve and hardened their facilities but instead they packed up and ran. The UN was responsible for the corrupt oil-for-food program and the average Iraqi does not have a good opinion of the UN right now.
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You don't play every hand in poker. When it becomes clear that there will never be a winning hand - when the Iraqi situation will only get worse if dominated by the George Jr administration, then a smart UN got out. The UN entered on the hope that they would take over. But a George Jr administration treated Iraq as some kind of prize. The UN would contribute, but only as told how by George Jr. The final act - the time to fold and leave the table - is when the UN did leave.
The UN (or remotely possible the Pan-Arab League) is America's only hope to get out of Iraq - short of leaving just like in Somolia. At least in Somolia, we did not create the problem; only tried to fix it. But to get the UN in, the US must make concessions so great as to make the Iraqis feel they have achieved a great victory. Clearly a George Jr who fears to admit to a single mistake in his press conference also cannot admit defeat in Iraq. He must appear to be defeated so that Iraqis will welcome UN assistance or a Pan-Arab rebuilding army. Not even the other Arab nations want to touch the mess that George Jr created. Created even against the advise of virtually every nation in this world.
Its just not going to happen. The president is - bottom line - lying again when he made overtures to UN assistance. But then look at his people. They even entered office this thinking in terms of cold war defense systems. His staff is very introverted. They don't even hire from the outside. More than making a mistake, they most fear anyone who would not be loyal. Especially someone who would put American interests before George Jr administration interests. This comment being made by too many retired military people, too many former White House staffers, and even in secret interviews for the current Bob Woodward book.
Same mentality also found in the Richard Nixon administration.
The UN will not come back to a poker table that has been so poisoned by George Jr. And yes, so poisoned that the US has now closed both major supply highways into Baghdad because virtually every convoy was attacked multiple times AND many bridges are now gone. We did not even give the troops enough men to protect the bridges. Baghdad troops are now on MREs and airlifted water.
BTW, did we mention that Afghanistan was never solved because George Jr also starved that venture of resources to get bin Laden. We sent to Afghanistan less troops than there are police in NYC - and would not even deploy them. No wonder bin Ladne runs free. George Jr let him get away.
The original post was about Athens attack on Syracuse. However latest reports from Iraq sound more like early days of the French as they moved out to occupy Diem Bien Phu. Amazing that an army cannot even defend its own convoys in open desert and flat farmland. This is not even jungle. Still so many locals hate Americans as to routinely attack every single convoy. Where is the light at the end of this tunnel? Notice that I choose not to make the mistakes of VietNam. I continue to cite lessons of history - as Torrere also does with some heavy reading in his original citations.
Kudos to Torrere for his URLs. Best accounting of Syracuse I have ever read. Syracuse marked the end of Athens as a world power. Athens then had to surrender to Sparta and other Greek city states. However what followed after that in Athens are milestones to our history.