Semi-Daily Journal

"May our victory be swift. May casualties--on both sides--be light. May blowback be small. And may this administration win the subsequent peace as completely as our military will win the current war."

I'll second that.

Agreed, but I have the sad feeling that this administration is congenitally incapable of winning the peace to follow. God bless.

It's gonna be amusing when they go to the UN and Europe to ask for help in the rebuilding.

Very amusing.

I think you left out "and may this not be start of a long series of similar wars".

Presumably David Thomson does not pay US or UK taxes, given his contempt for what the French, Germans or Canadians might (but now won't) bring to the table.

And why aren't the Russians contemptible, by the way?

DT: Could you possibly say anything new? Even a casual reader of this site has read your same egocentric Europhobic schtick way too often.

But anyway, on your contempt for Europe, the prior posts were noting the irony of the US (likely to run a $400 billion deficit this year alone) seeking financial assistance from European countries. Do you really think that Bush won't try to bully Europe to help pay for reconstruction? I expect him to put out his hand, linking the availability of oil and reconstruction projects from the nominally independent new Iraqi government to European aid. I also expect the Europeans to tell him to go pound sand. So, I finally expect that the US taxpayer will get soaked AGAIN, paying above-market prices for reconstruction projects bid out to Halliburton and other Bush crony firms.

As for this "we Americans" nonsense, try speaking for yourself for once. A lot of Americans disagree profoundly with your Euro-hatred.

As to blowback, history does not support your confidence. Al Qaeda's membership soared (if you can believe anything you read about that organization) after the Gulf War. We won that war, remember? I strongly doubt that all Arabs fit neatly into that "honor/shame" construct that you and the Little Green Footballers bandy about. I expect that some will not collapse into shame and submission to the Almighty US, but instead swear terrible revenge.

I may be wrong. But with very little evidence and with no honest discussion with the American people, the Bush administration has take a terrible gamble with the future of the entire planet. The Soviet Union was contained relatively consistently until it collapsed of its own weight. But our desire for oil (and power) in the Middle East has prevented this country from a consistent policy of containment towards states like Saddam's. Apparently patience is no longer a virtue.

So we are now embarked on this most perilous path toward an uncertain future, with a liar in the White House who has no patience. Brad's concerns are well-stated.

One final point: if you were even halfway honest about your recollection of prior posts about the war, you'd admit that only a minority were about the risk of actually losing the war. Most posts here and at other high-quality sites like daily kos have been concerned about: Process -- if violations of UN resolutions are the casus belli, isn't it up to the UN to decide when its own resolutions have been so ignored that a military response is appropriate; Honesty and integrity -- what have been the WH goals since 9/11? was disarmament ever a legitimate outcome or was invasion a foregone conclusion); and the impacts to US security from having a president who has contempt for process and no honesty or integrity -- despite your protestations to the contrary, many european governments [especially the French, thank you very much] have been tremendously helpful in the intelligence side of the war against Al Q. how much longer can we look for that help if we continue to spit in their faces?

by the way, since you are so assured of the appropriateness of the use of military force, when did you enlist? or are you content to wallow in your righteousness that other Americans should die on your behalf?

I personally will always support our troops wherever they go. But we must also condemn the notion that other people, like Sen. Tom Daschle, should not speak out against the president and even against the war BECAUSE it is somehow unpatriotic or weakens the war effort. Remember that Congressman Abraham Lincoln unopoularly spoke out against the Mexican War DURING the Mexican War. If it's good enough for Abraham Lincoln, it's definitely good enough for the rest of us. And patriotic.

I'm with dsquared on this one. The only remaining question is will this ignite a 30 years war(s) or more pessimistically, a century of warfare. I think we also need to look beyone the present and to wonder about the next war's schedule. Is it going to be Korea or Iran? This action is our last strike as an empire, it will eventually bankrupt us. And if those Euro's won't buy our paper (debt) we're just another broke banana republic. BTW: the Canadians ARE there with us, they just won't officially attack anything without a common European/NATO OR UN consensus. But their ships are performing picket duty now in the Gulf. Get your facts straight about what 'international security' has meant for the last 50 years before mouthing off about those 'mooching' Euro's. The fact that we could not convince either the Mexicans OR the Canadians to go in with us tells us a great deal about the magnitude of diplomatic failure of this administration. Feckless and reckless, and heedless of any concern over anything that will disrupt their messianic views of what is to be. They'd be Caesars, except their not all that rational.

David Thomson writes:

"The exact opposite is what should have concerned you. We are now a far safer nation for successfully invading Iraq. The "blow back" resulting from appeasing Saddam Hussein would have guaranteed further terrorist activity. Now these jerks will run and hide. Also, you probably already realize this---and that's why you are now shifting the chalk lines to the talk of rebuilding Iraq. Oh well, you have to find something to complain about."

- Are the US now a far safer nation? What are the threats to the US? Saddam's military forces or missiles making their way to the US? - No. That's not a threat, simply because Saddam doesn't have the capacity for this. The threat to the US is terrorist attacks by individuals or certain groups. Are they neutralized by this war? - No. For example, there exists no connection between Iraq and Al Qaida (even though Bush says so). Or at least, that is what all the serious evidence says.

Look at Israel - are they a safer nation today, with the dogmatic Sharon oppresing the Palestinians more than ever? No, they are a target for suicide attacks in a much larger scale than in a long time.

The attack we see now, a violation against international law, will only trigger more terrorists at least attempting similar things like 9/11. Unfortunately, I believe Bush has made the US a far more dangerous place to live in by this attack. (even though the dangers and the panic among average US citizens are vastly exaggerated).

And I understand that you don't care who will assist the Iraqis in building up their country after the war. Texas cowboys like yourself usually don't, but I guess Europe and the UN will have to do most of the work in the deomocratic and peacekeeping activities, as usual...

I usually have a very hard time for French politics (protectionism and patriotism, like Bush that is)...but this time I applaud them.

The "New Europe" - "Old Europe" business makes it easy to tell who is not bothering with intellectual honesty. The polls in eastern and western Europe show roughly equivalent (strong) amount of disapproval of the US attack, if anything, it's stronger in the east. The eastern governments are just more willing to ignore the will of their people, and for pretty obvious reasons: they are poorer and so more easily lured by hints of US aid, and they aren't so good at democracy yet. These are the traits that lead David Thomson admire "New Europe".

Many obsevers says that the future for UN is very dark, since the US has showed it only respects the UN when it more or less does what the US wants. I don't know, I guess partly this is true.

But, after the war White House politicians will come crawling agains, as stated above. When it comes to building up a country after a war, the US has shown extremley incompetent. They haven't been able to do it in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Kosovo; why should they be able to do it in Iraq? They won't, so UN and EU will have to go to work again.

The ideal situation would be that the US pays for this (market solution: pay for what you wreck (or "use"). This is unfortunately not likely though...

David Thomson talks about the militant muslim? Who are they in this case?

Of course the US will win this war (if they get Saddam though, is another matter). The army's stationed in the vicinity of Basra will easily surrender, since they are shia-muslim who don't like Saddam (maybe the militants one DT cowboy talks about)...They tried to fight Saddam in 1991, but since the US betrayed them, Saddam easily crushed them back then.

Well, this dilemma can occur between to non-democratic "elected" leaders I guess. What do the polsciences usually say? Two stable democracies never fight against each other...

ah, yes, the david thompson of the 'this will be over in 72 hours, probably the first 8 hours' fame!

this one is not over, not by a long shot. the right model to have pursued in iraq is what is happening in zimbabwe, what happened in poland and what happened in south africa.

no regime change imposed by outside forces has ever succeeded without tremendous bloodshed(and that includes Germany and Japan)

argue, if you wish, that it is worthwhile to impose regime change in iraq by killing saddamn hussein and a lot of innocnet iraqis - it at least has the merit of intellectual honesty even if it is morally bankrupt.

dt, let me make it official: your enthusiasm for bloody imposition of american order on the rest of the world no matter what the cost in human lives sickens every moral fibre in my body. you are a small minded, despicable man. you belong with your soul mates, the mindless brutes i saw yesterday who complained that tv was 'boring' since they did not see the bombs fall as promised.

you seem to be the kind of amoral man who would smile at the sight of a small iraqi child torn to pieces by a bomb we dropped.

it is ok to support a war; it is indecent and amoral to gloat over a victory that comes with the loss of innocent lives.

where is your humanity? or have you killed it at the sacrificial altar for your 'patriotism'?

brad, sorry for the rant, but i really could not take it any more.

"Nope, it just tells us that Mexico's so-called intellectual class is very Liberal. Has anyone seen the movie about Frida Kahlo?"

Thank you, DT, for providing us with an example of how our diplomacy is being botched around the world. You think the ruling class of Mexico--Mexico!--is liberal, citing a recent movie about a long-dead half-Mexican artist who was Trotsky's girlfriend. Makes about as much sense as concluding that the rulers of Germany in the 20th Century were all communists, because Marx and Engels were German. If we would take a little more trouble to learn about the countries we deal with, our efforts to get them to do what we want might be more successful.

"you seem to be the kind of amoral man who would smile at the sight of a small iraqi child torn to pieces by a bomb we dropped."

We will save thousands of lives by taking over Iraq. This is what occurred in Afghanistan. Also, Saddam Hussein has tortured children in front of their parents. I’m sure that the Iraqis are going to praise the allied troops as liberators. I will make another prediction: Iraq will soon become an advanced Muslim nation similar to Turkey.

"ah, yes, the david thompson of the 'this will be over in 72 hours, probably the first 8 hours' fame!"

President Bush has opted to go a bit slower to save lives in Iraq---or this war would have been completely over in the first hour! We are only in a mopping up operation. The war for all practical reasons has already been won.

"By the way, the war in Iraq is now in the mop up stage."

David, don't you even watch the news on TV? of course the war in Iraq is not in it's mop-up stage--it's just getting under way. I sure hope--hell, most of the world hopes--that everything proceeds quickly, easily and with few casualties. Anyone who is not a fool, however, knows that things can go seriously wrong in war. Your attitude reminds me of the British at Isandhlwana, or the Americans at Little Bighorn--I hope it is not shared by the leaders of our military.

DT:

Do you honestly try to argue that Turkey is a democratic state that respects minoroties and so forth?

There's a diffrence between being a open tolerant and democratics state, and an intolerant discriminating state that happens to have a friendlier attitude towards the US.

"Do you honestly try to argue that Turkey is a democratic state that respects minoroties and so forth?"

Yup, for the most part Turkey is a democratic and secular state. Is it perfect? No, but it's vastly better than the other Muslim nations in the Mid East. Thank God that Ataturk pushed Turkey into the modrn era. Oh by the way, Turkish women have had equal rights for about eighty years.

"David, don't you even watch the news on TV? of course the war in Iraq is not in it's mop-up stage--it's just getting under way."

Nope, it's in the mopping up stage. Our troops, as I earlier predicted have met with little resistance. How did I know that his would be the likely outcome? I strongly advise everyone to read Victor Davis Hanson’s fantastic “Carnage and Culture.” He strongly contends that a democratic nation will usually have the odds in its favor over a dictatorship.

Lastly, everyone needs to read Bernard Lewis’ 1990 article in The Atlantic concerning the rage of the Muslim world. It will help you considerably in understanding the thinking behind the terrorist attacks. Here is the available link:

http://middleeastinfo.org/article1681.html

SAFWAN, Iraq (CNN) -- Videotape shot by Kuwaiti TV crews Friday showed about a dozen villagers, most of them adult men, warmly welcoming American soldiers who arrived and briefly took up positions in the village of Safwan.

The men, a few children, and one woman spoke to at least three soldiers who got out of their vehicles. Many shook the soldiers' hands or embraced them, and some kissed the soldiers' cheeks.

"God bless you, thank you very much," said some of the villagers, according to translations by Kuwaiti TV.

"We do not want the oil. Take it. Take it. But build the country. We want to live, we want to travel, we want to walk. It cannot always be the pressure of war, war, destruction, destruction," one villager said. "Enough, enough. We are fed up, fed up. Long live the soldiers."

It's too bad that corpses buried under the rubble in downtown Baghdad will be unable to thank the Bush adm. for delivering them from Saddam Hussein. Let's just hope that the Iraquis are given a decent government after he is gone.