28th September 2003, 8:02 AM
Quote: First... this cannot be compared to an actual war like the Civil War. Its got to be compared to other occupations... Vietnam? Interesting comparison in some ways, sure... but there there was a stroing organized resistance, an 'enemy' we could fight... here that isn't there.
There was a strong, organized resistance, true. But they were hardly an 'enemy we could fight', if you knew the war. How many hundreds of times were US soldiers killed by villagers and other percieved non-combatants in that war or by ambushes and boobytraps concealed in jungles? The whole problem with Nam was that there were plenty of enemies to fight, it's just that you never knew who they were. Of course, we do face that problem in Iraq today, but on a comparatively microscopic scale. These post-war occupation blues are peanuts compared to that, and they are a natural part of occupation. These sort of things happened in other wars of occupation as well, though only now are they publicized so thoroughly. Silly people think of this as an oversight or a blunder when that's far from the truth. The only reason it looks so bad is that while we've been through this before, this is the first time that the media is constantly informing us of it, so those who don't know do think this is some strange new pitfall. The rest of us know better.
If Iraq were anything even remotely approaching a disaster, it would involve all-out battles against powerful organized resistance. Instead, we kicked Saddam's ass, destroyed his regime in less than a month with one of the lowest casualty counts of any war in human history, and we are in absolutely no danger of losing control of Iraq, there is absolutely no way Saddam could ever hope to regain power. By my standards that qualifies as an unmitigated success.
YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER
WE STAND AT THE DOOR
WE STAND AT THE DOOR