But Iraq isn't coherent country to begin with. The following is an interesting NY Times Readers Forum post concerning an NYT oped yesterday by uber-imperialist Niall Ferguson, who fears the US is going to lose in Iraq. The oped, "Cowboys and Indians," is at <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/opinion/24ferguson.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fContributors>:
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tomditto - 2:06 PM ET May 24, 2005 (#2471 of 2506)
Cowboys and Indians
Having instructed us that Iraq is no Vietnam, Niall Ferguson is now back on these pages to further lecture us, saying in essence “Beef up your troops.”
Let’s go back to his earlier lesson. “Iraq is no Vietnam,” True. Following the French into Vietnam, Americans were trying to divide a homogeneous indigenous culture into two separate nations; whereas in Iraq Americans are trying to follow the English by cementing distinct cultures into a single nation.
That is the difference.
However, what both wars have in common is the quagmire. The French couldn’t hold Vietnam apart, and the English couldn’t hold Iraq together without unrelenting military interventions that went on fruitlessly for decades. Oh sure, Michelin got lots of rubber and BP pumped barrels of oil, but in the long run, the locals took back their destinies and their natural resources. ...
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BTW, among its points, Ferguson's oped voices regret that the US hasn't made *effective* use of brutality the way the Brits did back when, i.e.: "The United States ... faces ... other problems that the United Kingdom did not 85 years ago. The British were able to be ruthless: they used air raids and punitive expeditions to inflict harsh collective punishments on villages that supported the insurgents. The United States has not been above brutal methods on occasion in Iraq, yet humiliation and torture of prisoners have not yielded any significant benefits compared with what it has cost the country's reputation."
Also BTW, I'm now reading a book, "Churchill's Folly," about Winston Churchill's role in creating Iraq. I'd been aware that Churchill favored "experimental," as he put it, use of mustard gas on Mesopotamian rebels in 1920. I had not been aware, however, that Churchill -- displaying characteristic British reserve -- favored using the gas to (as he put it in a 8/29/20 letter to Chief of the Air Staff Sir Hugh Trenchard) "inflict punishment on recalcitrant natives *without inflicting grave injury* upon them." (emphasis added)
That's a pretty remarkable comment even for Churchill, history's most acclaimed noisy drunk. Here's some web info on the effects of mustard gas as used in WWI: "Mustard Gas (Yperite) was first used by the German Army in September 1917. The most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war, it was almost odourless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks. The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning. One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote: 'I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke.'" <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWmustard.htm>
Carl