http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EG22Ak05.htm
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The article makes some interesting points, as do so many of these sorts of articles being written now.
But then, just when you've settled in for a comfy ride, the entire thing suddenly hurtles over the falls, from the world of complexity, into the misty realm of "stability".
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[the US cannot 'declare victory and go home' as it did in Vietnam because] "...unlike Vietnam, Iraq is at the heart of the most volatile region in the world today. Israel, an American client state, is completely surrounded by countries that would destroy it if given the opportunity - and a precipitous American departure from Iraq would do nothing but encourage Israel's enemies. Worse, without the military and economic might of the US to prop them up, the Middle East is rife with unstable governments likely to fall with the enthusiastic assistance of al-Qaeda and its Messianic leader, Osama bin Laden."
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Yes, good old stability. How we Americans, and those who love us too well if not too wisely, cherish the idea that our presence (our military presence I should say, to be precise) brings peace and safety to those favored by the gods.
Chalmers Johnson, in his book "Blowback", spends many pages deconstructing this beloved myth of American granted stability.
Now, at this point, some well meaning soul will, despite tremendous evidence pointing in the opposite direction, inform me that there have been sterling instances when American military intervention did, in fact bring about stability and ease the burdens of ordinary people.
To which I say, fair enough. There are almost always exceptions to a rule.
Mostly though, the US, through its clients, has brought the sort of quiet you might observe at the dinner table of a home terrorized by an abusive husband - tense, fragile and maintained through violence or the threat of violence.
The Middle Eastern governments the author fears so much, who, he believes, threaten Isreal with extinction and who also, oddly enough, must be propped up by the US to prevent worse governments from arising (perhaps an Islamic Peoples Republic of Al Qaeda!), are a collective of abusive husbands paid by a sick old man with a lot of cash to keep beating their families.
Now, in the case of Iraq, the old man has decided to replace the hired, punk-ass husband, who turned out to be a bad employee, with his own team of enforcers. Towards what end we can only guess (oil? influence? influence over oil?).
Regardless of the intention, or, to be melodramatic, 'the plan', the result has been and will be chaos and misery. Anyone who observes the present tragedy and concludes that if the mercenaries who brought this into being decide to withdraw 'stability' will be lost, has clearly lost something himself.
Good sense.
DRM
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