A Little History Can Be a Dangerous Thing

[richlevy]

Originally posted by Undertoad


Israel hasn't yet been attacked. They initiated force. If they had not, they would have lost the war and there would be, in all likelihood, no Israel today.

Wrong of them to do?

In the late 70s Iraq built a nuclear reactor, with French selling it tech, with which they intended to fortify nuclear materials for a bomb. Israel fighters went and blew it up in 1981. If they hadn't, Hussein probably would have had nukes in 1991 with which to back up his use of force at that time. This would have complicated things nightily, needless to say. Or, perhaps the Iraqi initiation of force against the WTC in 1993 would have had a stronger bomb to load in the Ryder.

Wrong of the Israelis to do?

And in neither case did the Israelis move on to attempt to overthrow any of these countries. Also, many conservatives point to our intervention in Kosovo as a justification for the current war. But that argument works against them. Because we also had evidence of genocide and atrocities in Kosovo and we still did not attempt to overthrow the aggressor.

Besides skirmishes and raids, there is a reason most countries do not attempt to overthrow stable regimes, no matter how brutal. Unless a country is in the midst of massive civil unrest, most citizens prefer the government they have to invaders, or else they would have revolted in the first place.

Even the most savage dictators eventually fall, as Ceaucescu and his wife found out in Romania. The only way that an invading force would be welcome would be to convince the citizens that the invasion is in their behalf. Noone is stupid enough to believe this. Even most Americans do not believe that we are doing this for some purely altruistic reason.

I am not a big fan of our current utra-conservative gun-toting leadership, but that does not mean I would welcome an invading army of Dutch liberals bent on reforming our barbaric laws by banning capital punishment and making drugs and prostitution legal.

Rumsfeld and our current planners were idiots to believe that the Iraqis who surrendered in Kuwait were going to do the same when we drove up to their doorstep. We decided to go it alone and took on a harder job with less equipment and international support than in the first Gulf War, underestimating the enemy's will to fight.

One problem with Bush hiring a Vietnam-Era staff is that these guys are the living embodiment of history repeating itself. It's Vietnam all over again, except this time without the trees. At least the poor SOBs on the ground don't have to worry about Agent Orange this time.

IMHO, Rumsfeld is a micromanaging idiot, and Perle is rabid flake who wants to try out his own version of the Domino Theory in the middle east, except this time in reverse. Here we push over the dominoes and take Iraq and then Saudi Arabia.

My son is 17 years old. At the rate we are sending troops over, and with the possibility of a much larger than anticipated occupation force, there may be a draft in 2-3 years. For the first time in 20 years, there is a measurable chance that in the next 5 years I might be laying flowers in front of my son's name on some granite wall in Washington.

How did we get here?