> Well, what does on call 40,000 more troops? Escalation.
I think he's probably throwing this "40,000" figure around just to show the voters he's a big, tough hombre -- a real veteran, unlike Bush. It's a question of which candidate is more macho; this will happen in every campaign until we get a female candidate, and even then ... Look at Thatcher, for instance.
> What the last post ignores is that a war is likely to be
> reinvigorated after a Kerry election. For one thing, it will no longer
> be the war of Bush or the NeoCons and can be provided with a whole
> bunch of humanitarian rationalizations (As the Clinton Administration
> was good at doing). Further many of those organizations who are
> anti-war now, may back off (or change sides) with a Democrat in the
> White House.
But what you, and a lot others, don't understand is that the U.S. position in Iraq is kaput, just as the U.S. position in Vietnam was kaput after a certain point. You are not looking at the situation in Iraq itself, and the views of the Iraqis. The more the U.S. gov't tries to throw its weight around by putting in 40,000 more troops, or 400,000, the more the Iraqis will resist, and the worse it will look to the U.S. public. I wouldn't be surprised if the situation becomes unsustainable for the U.S.occupation well before Nov. 2. The Bushies have this incredibly naive notion that, now that "Iraqis are in charge of their own country," the resistance will stop. But you and I know that won't happen.
> A Kerry White House would be more likely to reinstitute the
> draft (many of the "progresive" dems in Congress already openly
> support this), with humanitarian and equalitarian rhetoric. This
> would be less likely as long as Rumsfeld is in charge of the Defense
> Department..
The whole draft idea is going nowhere, as was thoroughly discussed a few weeks ago on this list. (Check the archives if you missed that discussion.) The "Defense" Department (always put quotes around "Defense") doesn't want a draft -- the last thing they want is a big crowd of coerced civilians mucking up their training camps. And the kind of wars they are planning to fight in the future don't require large numbers of relatively unskilled cannot fodder charging the enemy, which is mostly what draftees are good for.
> A Kerry Administration is more likely to broaden the war
> by bringing in the Western Europeans in a way that would be
> unthinkable under Bush. This, coupled with the escalation that sending
> in 40,000 more troops is not a pretty picture as far as the Iraqis and
> the draftees who get sent are concerned.
Ah, let's get real! The French and Germans are going to show up in Iraq when hell freezes over, whether Kerry or Bush wins. Do you think their heads are stuffed with cotton candy?
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt