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re: With the best of tactics...
Tom Brosz — (archived)

...insurgencies take 10-15 years to put down.

It took seven years before we gave the government of Japan back to them, and there wasn't nearly the violence we are seeing in Iraq. We aren't even up to two years in Iraq yet. Also, I fully expect to see permanent U.S. bases there, even after the violence dies down, similar to the ones all over the world in sovereign nations during the Cold War. As the American military presence allowed Europe to live its life under the shadow of the U.S.S.R., it may be that American troops will keep the peace in Iraq for some time to come, in smaller numbers of course.

So in your informed opinion, what would Zarq. do in that time that would be worse than what we are hip-deep in?

And be sure to count up the Zarq. wannabes and Baathists-turned-insurgents that otherwise would not have existed had we not invaded.

First of all, it isn't Zarqawi I would be worried about, but Saddam and his sons.

I have patiently pointed these facts out like ten times:

- We already know what al Qaeda and people like Zarqawi can do, without being provoked in any significant way. We had no troops in either Iraq or Afghanistan on 9/11.

- There is no rational reason to suppose that the invasion of Iraq infuriated Islamist terrorists any more than the invasion of Afghanistan alone would have. In the latter operation, we decimated al Qaeda itself and demolished the most pro-radical Islamist government in the region.

I defy anyone here to show me why that did not piss off the Islamists far more than toppling Saddam did. I seem to remember being told hundreds of times by the liberals here that Saddam and al Qaeda were mortal enemies.

- The Baathists we are fighting now are not people who suddenly "appeared" when we invaded Iraq. They are remnants of the regime that used to rule the entire country. Not just Fallujah and a few scattered cities. All the cities. All the people. The only difference was they could carry out atrocities in much more formal environments, instead of having to create makeshift torture chambers in old houses. And off the international stage.

Keep in mind who the players are.

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