Support the Troops reduxe...

[kjkhoo at softhome.net]

At 5:09 PM -0800 22/3/03, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>But, you're hoping for high iraqi casualties because of potential
>long-term political benefits? Steve McGraw
>
>--------
>That's the dilemma isn't? Either the US scores a clean conquest and
>there are fewer Iraqi casualties, or with they mount a resistance to
>the invasion seeking a potential quagmire. They take greater
>casualties, national and international protest rises to a roar.
>
>In the first case Bush and the domestic Right are vindicated, the
>Empire wins, the international and domestic liberal and left are
>discredited for the next decade. In the second case, the Iraqis
>resist, make the invasion a mess, take big losses and the Empire is
>demonstrated to be the vicious hegmonic pig it is. Then the Right
>looses its creditability as an Empire of the Good, has no moral center
>and its domestic power is slowly eroded.
>
>What other choices are there?

It's always been about the post-war dispensation hasn't it? The 
global coalition against the war was largely gathered around this 
concern -- from fears of terrorist attacks to an outright 
anti-imperialist understanding of the meaning of this war. This 
is/was not a popular regime, and there's not about to be a quiet, 
determined popular resistance as with Vietnam. Indeed, it's probable 
that there isn't even the level of popular resistance as in 
Afghanistan which evidently is now re-grouping. [Even if you don't 
like it, that's not to say that it isn't popular]

The terrorist attacks may not materialise, although the hatred of the 
US is probably at its highest point and with considerably less 
tension and ambiguity than previously. The imperialist dispensation I 
take as a foregone event, but also as an imperialist quagmire, 
especially now, with both the unilateralness of the war as well as 
the determination of Washington (to the dismay of Whitehall, 
apparently) to carry on in that unilateral path -- for which we have 
to thank the ideologues.

So, the point is to pay attention to what happens afterwards, and to 
make sure that this is kept in the public eye. Perhaps more than any 
other group of people, Americans are best placed to undertake this 
surveillance and to make this information available.

It's been disheartening to note that Afghanistan has essentially 
fallen out of sight, except for snippets here and there. For 
instance, I picked up a one liner about infant mortality rates there 
being higher in 2002 than in 2001 from a photo caption in the NYT. I 
picked up something else about 'assisted return' in 2002 and the 
impact of that.

It's also to anticipate the next war -- and I think there's little 
doubt there will be another. It's also to monitor the orientation on 
China, for if that came to a war, god help us all; not because 
Beijing wants a fight, but the ideologues in Washington appear to 
view Beijing as the likely challenger, and this war (and Japan's 
craven support for it) will likely boost China's centrality in E Asia.

We are, as the old Chinese phrase has it, living in "interesting 
times", meaning times fraught with danger, but also opportunity.