[lit-ideas] Re: A Genuinely Useful Thought
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 01:23:28 -0800
Andreas: I went all through this misunderstanding with Irene. I said the
Baathist were Militant Islamics. They are Militant and they are Islamics.
The threat isn't just from religious Militants. Baathism was intended to
achieve Pan-Arabism, bringing all the Arab nations under one head. It was
begun by Nassar who was assassinated. Saddam liked the idea as well. He
was just as much of a threat with his Pan-Arabism as Khomeini was with his
religious revolution. They both wanted the same thing, and then they
fought.
Well yes Militant Islam is a threat and no we don't need to leave a viable
successful government in Iraq. The alternative to a viable successful
government in Iraq isn't Chaos, it is three viable successful governments,
or perhaps only two, the Kurds and the Shias. The Sunnis better give up
messing around if they want to retain anything in Iraq.
Pulled into war? Were any nations pulled into war when Iran and Iraq fought
for eight years? No.
As to needing oil. We don't need that oil. Europe, China, Japan etc needs
it. We probably need to make sure those nations get their oil and those
nations count on us to keep the flow going, but we can do that. We are the
only nation in the world that can project an army-sized fighting force any
place in the world. Perhaps Britain is next but they are getting rid of
their navy. . . .
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've already told us how evil Bush is, but you don't
appreciate how evil Saddam was and what a danger he represented with his
Baathist Pan-Arab aggressive plans. We would not have been better of
leaving him to his own devices.
No, our army isn't broken. We could fight another Saddam-Hussein-sized Army
next month if we needed to. What we couldn't do is spend another three
years or perhaps even three months trying to rebuild an Iraq-sized nation.
It is the latter thing we can't do not the former.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 11:59 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: A Genuinely Useful Thought
From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> I see our goal as combating Militant Islam. Baathism, especially Saddam's
variation was a
> variety of it is included.
The Baathist were secular. They were NOT an Islamic party, in fact, that was
one of the
reasons al-Qaeda called for the overthrow of the Baathist regime.
Militant Islam isn't the issue in Iraq. That's a false threat, like WMDs,
etc.
The problem in Iraq is the several dozen militia who are fighting each other
for control of
the country.
> Is it utterly necessary that we leave a viable successful government in
Iraq
> after we leave?
Yes. It's utterly necessary.
If we leave and the country collapses into war, the neighboring countries
will be pulled
into the war (the Saudi to protect their ally Sunni and keep Iran's Shiites
from getting too
powerful; the Turks to keep the Kurds from getting too powerful; and Iran to
protect their
Shiite allies). That starts a large-scale regional war (Read abou the
Iran-Irak War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War . That's the size of wars they
can fight.)
Why do we care? Because something like 80% of the world's oil is in Iran,
Iraq, Saudi
Arabia, and Kuwait. If a regional war starts, it will have extremely serious
and negative
effects on the global economy.
That's the problem: Bush got the USA into a war that it now can't quit. This
is far worse
than Vietnam. In Vietnam, we just walked away. Nothing really mattered. But
the economy is
globalized now.
The most likely outcome of the next year or so: the USA will move its
military into the
bordering countries, esp. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The US will try to
convince Syria, Iran,
Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to not fuel the civil war. All of these countries,
incl. the USA,
are in a Mexican standoff: everyone has their guns out and whomever starts
shooting will
start a free-for-all.
Items to consider: the US military is broken. There are only 9,000 more
soldiers. How the US
would fight a large land war is a good question. Furthermore, this is too
complex for the
American population. Without general support, the war is unfightable.
It's pretty bad.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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