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Originally posted by sgtclub
Assuming arguendo that the 150,000 or so troops we had in Iraq post war was an adequate number. How many troops do you think the French and Germans, collectively, would have sent had the UN "run" things? Answer: zero to a deminis amount. It still would have been overwhelmingly US and UK troops doing the lifting. The primary reason why the French (1) opposed the war and (2) wanted the UN control post war efforts, was (A) to limit their debt exposure and complicity with the Saddam regime and (B) further their "we are the balance to the US" foreing policy.
The Germans rationale was a bit different - their opposition to the war was entirely political.
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You are back to the question of opposing the war, while I am still talking about the occupation & rebuilding. If we can't keep that straight, what's the point. I posted any number of links (including one from NRO) about the countries -- including the French and Germans, but also including the UK -- that wanted the UN to run post-war Iraq. You seem to be saying that since we were bound to have a great number of troops in any event, we should get to run things. Your "to the victor go the spoils" outlook is the sort of fucked-up thinking that got us to where we are now, but in any event does not prove your original point, which is that the UN said it wanted control but didn't really. That is all I am arguing about, and it is still wrong. By arguing against red herrings instead of the serious alternative to what we have done, you are just wasting time.
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(1) international radical islam (including but not limited to AQ and (2) the Baathists - in other words, the same people who are shooting at us.
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Our military is found of calling the opposition Ba'athist, to suggest that they are living in the past. I will suggest to you, however, that this is PR, and that whoever is doing the shooting in Iraq probably is rational enough to have some sort of forward-looking plan. Maybe not, but probably.
And they may be shooting at us because we are occupying their country. Americans would do the same, out of patriotism as much as in the name of democracy.
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That's because they essentially have autonomy. Go figure.
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Autonomy, and yet in a democratic Iraq they would not. We are trying to set up the country in a way that protects the rights of the Kurdish minority from the Arab majority. Now can you understand why Arabs might be shooting at us in the name of democracy?
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Sadr is finished. He has lost popular support. In a matter of time and if he's lucky, he will be a footnote in history.
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A poll just taken showed 68% of Iraqis supporting him. (I
posted about this a few days ago, and oddly enough none of the conservatives here had anything to say about it.) That was before the Abu Ghraib, which suggests to me that only mathematics will keep his support in double digits. If this is "losing popular support," what do you have to say about Bush's support? It's a lot lower than that.
Sadr is much more likely to be dead soon.
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And I submit that that you have been watching too much Al Jazeera. Yes, this is the propoganda that the organizers of the insurgency are putting forth. But again, I urge you to read the fucking intercepted letter. This is part of their strategy to win the hearts and minds.
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I don't watch Al Jazeera, but I do assume that Iraqis react in the same way that you or I would if an Arab country occupied us in the name of democracy.
