>I guess some western sympathisers with the Iraqi resistance are hoping
for a
>mounting backlash in the US. But I'm not encouraged by the historical
>precedents on that score, e.g. in spite of the 50,000 US dead, Vietnam
>appears to have had few long-term political effects.
Oh, it did. It inhibited the U.S. from direct military interventions (except cakewalks like Grenada), encouraged the use of proxies (e.g., the contras), ended the draft. Even the Bush admin understands the political math that there are severe limits on the number of casualties the U.S. forces could sustain. Even the present level of casualties is causing him political trouble. They probably thought the invasion of Iraq would turn out to be more like Grenada than it has.
Doug
--I think that is the point I've been trying to focus on, like it or not this resistance was really not anticipated by the war party, whether it ramifies itself in the bush or hitchsonian form. nor is it anticipated that there will be resistance, armed and otherwise, to this illegal occupation in one year and two years time, though of course it will still exist and likely grow. the hope, from what was rather apparent in the early moments of the 'victory' was to march on to Syria and Iran and somehow transplant the experience of peacefully imposing a puppet government of privatizers in these countries. The reality is, for better or worse, that almost nothing in the US or Britain has occurred that is responsible for holding up those plans, and in Iraq, whatever one wants to say about the form of resistance that has emerged, there has occurred activity that has slowed up the Bush-Blair onward march plan.
Steve