> "Defence experts have warned up to 12,000 allied forces may be killed in
> the battle for Baghdad." I certainly hope these experts are wrong!
>
>
> http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/printpage/0,5481,6181607,00.html
>
> - -I hope they are right. The evil empire will think twice before
> - -another imperialist adventure if they take so much causalties
> - -(of course, I don´t believe it will happen)
>
> Alexandre Fenelon
I am not a military expert, but I'd say that that is a pretty unrealistic estimate. Though you and I might draw a distinction between government workers, soldiers and civilian Iraqis, I doubt Iraqis do that. I still think the US will win this militarily, but loose it politically. The problem isn't US casualties, the cost of which is probably rather insignificant, or perhaps even beneficial to the political planners - callously so - but Iraqi casualties. This idea of liberating Iraq is a crackpot scheme: to do it, you have to do things which make it virtually certain the Iraqis aren't going to feel liberated.
I suppose that if you throw enough money and aid at them, they might shut up, but would the US feel happy about supporting, to the tune of billions of dollars, an unfriendly and resentful country? I doubt it. And with the wonderful plans to privatize everything in sight, and no doubt to channel Iraqi oil funds towards gringo enterprises, I'd say that the chances of any sort of democracy in Iraq are zero. Then there is the small matter of the tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers who have supposedly 'melted away' (with their small arms)... far out. This is so unbelievably reckless.
It just amazes me how these really elementary lessons of colonial wars of conquest just don't sink in. But maybe, just maybe, the progress of this war is going to make intervention in Iran and Syria less likely, but can you imagine these psychopaths in North Korea???
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