i'm a bit alarmed by all the neocon hawks that try to equate opposition to the war with failing to support the troops. this seems like a pretty baseless attack held over from the vietnam era protesters. the majority of people at the rallies and protests i've been to all support the people in uniform, it's the civilian leadership they've got a problem with. unlike in say, turkey, for the most part our military doesn't make policy it just follows orders. the military leadership actually seems to be one of the more responsible actors in bush's war. the white house has consistently given unrealistically low estimates of the costs and number of troops required. (remember laurence lindsey's estimate of $200 billion? odd how he's not around any more eh?). on the few occasion when the military offered estimates that differed from bush's they were rebuked.
i have little doubt or armed forces will be able to prevail in iraq. i think the big unknown will be the casualties. in the first bush's war, all the fighting was done in the open, this time unless sadam just rolls over (unlikely) or iraq's military abandons him (rather possible) we're going to be doing quite a bit more close combat where our technological advantage will be minimized. hence our military's focus on the "shock and awe" hoping to cause a quick surrender.
again, i think we'll have no problem with the fighting itself, what i'm worried about is the aftermath. our allies paid for the majority of desert storm (~$50 of the $60 billion price tag) but at this point we've got, what, five allies? hardly the 26 countries we had on our side in desert storm. we're going to bear the burden of reconstructing iraq and we've got a pretty bad track record. afghanistan isn't doing so well, nor is somalia, and haiti's having a rough time (oh yeah, remember hati?). yugoslavia, which is doing much better, would seem to be the exception, but i'd chalk that up to our and our allies' presence there.
now that it looks like war is a certainty i hope it goes quickly and that there are as few casualties as possible on both sides. i hope we stick around there long enough to set things right but i fear that won't be the case. i imagine in six months bush will have his sights set on iran or north korea, or he'll remember his father's fate and start worrying about the economy. either way the fate of the iraqi people doesn't look so good.
Posted by drewish at March 18, 2003 11:57 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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