I don’t like writing about politics, especially Iraq. It depresses me.
But Kate Camber took off after Donald Rumsfeld’s latest tortured analogy for Iraq, and I just felt it was time to come back with the truth.
People resist occupation.
This was the lesson of Vietnam. This was the lesson of Afghanistan. This is the lesson of Iraq. If Rumsfeld had a brain he would realize this was the lesson found in defeating Hitler as well. The Resistance was the darling of WWII propaganda films, and in reality it worked well.
Armies cannot occupy territory over popular objections.
Once you become an occupying force, the game is over. The only way to gain and hold territory over the long term is through genocide, ethnic cleansing. Kill ’em all. Deny their humanity and drive them out, then build high walls and be prepared to defend those ramparts forever.
In the end, people will get the government they’re willing to fight for.
The answer to this, as we found through the Cold War, is to wait it out, to depend on the strength of your own system to win the day. It is not to copy the tyrant. Freedom is the answer to tyranny, no matter that tyranny’s source.
America has become fated to Iraq because, at the end of the day, it did not learn this lesson fron Vietnam. The dominant thesis of that time, the thesis of our time, became that it was "them" — the hippies, the press, the Democrats, the back-stabbers — who lost Vietnam.
And so, a generation later, we are testing that theory. We are testing it in blood, we are testing it treasure, we are testing it as the Soviets tested it in Afghanistan, as the British tested it in India, as Belgium tested it in the Congo, as France tested it in Algeria.
The result of that test is that America, as a Great Power, is being destroyed on the altar of her own hubris, just as the Soviet Union was destroyed.
The only remaining question is how long Americans will allow the experiment to go on until they learn the lesson, overthrow the oppressors, and return this nation to the path of its Founders. One year? Three years? And what will be left of this country at the end?
My own hope is one word: wisdom.
I give the administration credit for knowing the occupation would be lengthy, as this was obvious to most people. I had a conversation with a guy at work, before the invasion, who was pro-invasion and he readily agreed with my assessment that if we went in we’d be there for 10 years. He felt it was worth it to remove Saddam (this had nothing to do with any posible 9/11 connections, BTW, just genocides). The truth is that the administration lied about everything having to do with Iraq, as all previous administrations — at least back to Reagan, have done. Some people were fooled and some didn’t need to be fooled (as we saw by the results of the last election). So, I’d say Rumsfeld is no fool, just a horrible liar (but maybe he knows lipservice is all that is required of him. It would be a big mistake to assume that most people put a lot of value in the lives fo people they don’t know.
I give the administration credit for knowing the occupation would be lengthy, as this was obvious to most people. I had a conversation with a guy at work, before the invasion, who was pro-invasion and he readily agreed with my assessment that if we went in we’d be there for 10 years. He felt it was worth it to remove Saddam (this had nothing to do with any posible 9/11 connections, BTW, just genocides). The truth is that the administration lied about everything having to do with Iraq, as all previous administrations — at least back to Reagan, have done. Some people were fooled and some didn’t need to be fooled (as we saw by the results of the last election). So, I’d say Rumsfeld is no fool, just a horrible liar (but maybe he knows lipservice is all that is required of him. It would be a big mistake to assume that most people put a lot of value in the lives fo people they don’t know.