I have over the years enjoyed reading the postings on this website because
it is the only blog I have found on the net with reasonably intelligent right wingers.

What is happening in Iraq? Is it a War Against Terror, or is it a guerrilla war against
an occupying power?

Everything that I have read coming out of Iraq seems to indicate that foreign terrorists
are only a small percentage of the combatants. That in fact, most of the fighters are
native to Iraq.

What would you do if Iraq invaded the United States in order to depose the
dictator Bush, and their soldiers were everywhere in your country? Would you not
take up arms against an occupying power? Even if their neo-conservatives labeled
you as terrorists? You know what you would do. Well why can that not apply to
the people of Iraq?

Guerrilla wars are impossible to win. With one exception, I know of no standing
army which has successfully destroyed a guerrilla army. I challenge anyone on this
board to comb the last 5000 years of world history, and come up with a military case
where a standing army destroyed a guerrilla army. The Roman army successfully
destroyed the Spanish guerrilla army in Spain in the reign of Augustus, but it took them
200 years to do it. The Germans during WWII with the utmost brutality, and savage reprisals failed utterly to destroy any of the guerrilla forces fighting them in the occupied territories. All resistance movements against the German occupation
continued right to the end.

People around the world generally do not like for a foreign army to occupy
their country.

Guerrilla armies exist because the civilian population gives them their
covert support. I believe that a recent poll in Iraq came out with the stunning result
that 60% of the Iraq people say it is ok to kill an American soldier!

Realistically and on pragmatic grounds, I believe that our only option at this point
is to withdraw all military force to protected bases, and to let the Iraq people
fight it out for ultimate control. Well, you might say, that will lead to a blood bath.
And yes, it will, but what is happening now? What is the alternative? You have a blood bath no matter what. We could bring back the draft and increase force levels. But
we had 550,000 soldiers in South Vietnam and we could not destroy the guerrilla army.
Well, you might say, this will only lead to another dictatorship. Yes that is probably
also true. But Western style, liberal democracy is not compatible with Islam, and the
religion of Islam is ALL that matters to the people in Islamic countries. Where is there
a democracy in the Islamic world? Turkey? The best case. Secularism imposed
by the army? Where the people when they vote, elect extreme right wing Islamists
who want to impose strict Islamic religion?

Your choices at this point in Iraq are bad and worse. I don't think there is a "winning"
strategy in the sense of a strong, stable, Western style democracy in Iraq.
A stable dictatorship that is at lease not threatening to our interests is probably
the best that can be hoped for in the current situation.