[lit-ideas] Re: Punitive Expeditions
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 09:26:59 -0400
Forget it Omar. Lawrence is like the Nazi on a show called Laugh In here in
the U.S. in the 60's, except that he was fighting WWI 20 years after it ended.
Lawrence is fighting it 60 years later. He hasn't caught on that WWII ended
and not only can we not save anybody/everybody in the world, we can't even save
ourselves out of Iraq. You're wasting your time Omar. Go for it, Lawrence,
tell us how it's done. Tell us about Fukuyama and how we're going to make the
world safe for democracy by blowing it, and us along with it, away.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 5/8/2006 2:41:30 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Punitive Expeditions
Omar,
Nevertheless, being American and therefore not intimidated by the prospect of
being insulted, I continue to believe that Peters holds a valid position in
regard to Punitive Expeditions. If we need to invade a rogue nation but know
in advance that occupation will only stir up the people who support the rogue
leader or rogue situation (e.g. WMDs), then occupation should be considered
counter-productive. If the occupation of Iraq fails to produce a viable
peaceful nation, that failure will be a data point we won?t be able to ignore.
It will be hard to overcome the argument that future occupations of future
rogue nations will probably be equally unproductive.
This seems clear to me. If the Iraqi people, and not just the Baathist Sunni
insurgents, were to turn violent, this would surely indicate that our efforts
in support of exporting democracy to Iraq had failed. They haven?t failed yet
and I haven?t seen any evidence that suggests to me they will fail, but you
guys are talking as though you believe our efforts to export democracy to Iraq
will fail and I am responding to that hypothesis ? your prediction of failure.
You guys quote polls you feel mean Iraqis hate us and want to throw us out. I
don?t read the polls that way but, if that turned out to be true, it would
indicate that our chief motive for occupation, exporting democracy to Iraq had
failed.
Two years pass and Iraq is now largely fundamentalist, anti-American and bosom
buddies with Ahmadinajad who is even more powerful. We learn that Iran?s first
nuclear weapon is only weeks, perhaps days, away from production. We continue
to believe it is unacceptable for Iran to have nukes. What shall we do?
?Hey,? someone from State argues, ?let?s invade and maybe we can turn Iran into
a Democracy. Don?t forget, if we break it we own it.?
?Forget that,? the new Defense Secretary says. ?We learned our lesson in Iraq.
We get in and out and that?s it. We will have one task in Iran, taking out
their nuke production.?
?What about their army, Air Force, Navy etc??
?Unless someone has a plan whereby we can take out their nukes without dealing
with Iran?s military we will have to take that out to get at the Nukes.?
?Works for me.?
Lawrence
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