Letters to the Editor
ondelette
Published Letters: 1957 Editor's Choice: 19
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What about Northern Ireland?
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]L.W.M., you are assuming they have to lose in order not to win. That isn't true. They can become political, they can fade away. The occupation can end in compromise without bloodshed...sometimes. But there has to be a turn away from war. This is why I keep mentioning Petraeus. Listen to what he's said in the past, to what the counterinsurgency people believe. They generally advocate something much closer to a combination of police work, treating insurgents as criminals not enemies, diplomacy, living in the community, walking beats, learning the local languages and customs. It isn't quite like police work, because the violence level is initially much higher, but it more highly resembles the Lord Goldsmith solution to international terrorism than the Cheney/Wolfowitz one.
If the Democrats can turn towards fighting terror as a fight against criminal activity, and away from a war, they might be able to get him to spill his mind in September, and with that they can forge a policy that answers the bloodbath question. Without that, as my Dad told me when I was a child (early '60s) no politician will ever do anything but back an increase in Defense. Otherwise they can be accused. Even if "this is wrong" is a strong enough position to end a war, it'd start the next one (hint: Iraq is the next one).
Just some random thinking I did since my morning post--I can't stop thinking about it.
Maybe the answer to the question Why should we be the world's policemen that's been asked for 60 years is Because we shouldn't be it's emperors. It's just a thought.
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@L.W.M.
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's quite possible it's too late for that. The point is that the Dems need a solution that doesn't equal a bloodbath. If the solution were a souped up form of police work, as part of a grand conversion of the GWOT into (eventually) the capture and prosecution of all terrorists, all the time, they'd have a bloodbath solution. You can argue we might not be the best people to carry it out in Iraq, but you can't just leave a gaping hole -- a trustworthy force agreeable to all parties, maybe. It isn't so different from what the generals already know. The solution is, in a paraphrase of the Taoists, to do not fighting.
You also have to worry about the seeds of the next war. After World War I, the disgruntled got together in groups and griped, and the griping became a movement, and they ascended to power, and used a combination of fear of foreigners and nationalism to unleash military might and show the world. After Vietnam, the disgruntled got together in groups and griped, and the griping became a movement, and they ascended to power, and used a combination of fear of foreigners and nationalism to unleash military might and show the world.
We just don't see it because we thought we learned that the disgruntled were always the enemy, and the solution was always a Marshall Plan.
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@Michael Harold
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people to give their country back. The problem is, I don't think we intend to.
But hasn't this been our problem all along?
I like the peacekeeping force thing. I think we need to bring Iran in, they won this one, and they cooperate with us until we recognize it. I also think we need to shift gears to bringing people like al Qaeda to justice. Probably we need to back the ICC to do that properly. As I go through the list, everything is something the Bush people have always opposed. I think your second sentence says it all.
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I fought a losing battle on this the last time, too...
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but I still think it's worth it. Exactly what do I have to do to get you guys to at least speculate on solving the bloodbath problem? I understand everything you're saying, I tried to stop this war before it started, too. By the world's policemen, I don't mean white man's burden, I mean not the world's imperial armies. I mean solving the problems one digruntled soul at a time, instead of marching off to confront them once they've raised an army.
Guys like Ramadi are fighting to stop the bloodbath -- that means that whether you think it's possible or not, you have to come up with a solution to the bloodbath if you want his support.
You end this one with a lot of disgruntled souls and mark my words you aren't going to like the next one. Because instead of religion, oil and terrorism, after the thirty year cycle goes through, it'll be food, water, and tribe.
Come on, there are a lot of physics and math types out there, do the words Rayleigh-Benard cells, Turing instabilities, phase changes mean anything to you? When you turn your bread baskets into deserts, and your deserts into quicksand, melt your glaciers and dry your mountain streams, after all the starvation and thirst starts, the rising sea level is going to be the least of your worries, someplace to cool your toes in between wars.
So it doesn't matter whether you think the bloodbath isn't solvable, you have to try (and I did say try, I didn't say stay the course).
Off soapbox sorry for the outburst
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And?
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are 4 million refugees from Iraq, 600,000 dead, 70% unemployment, factional fighting, neighbors backing militias, violence that has been increasing since day one. If I say there has to be more to it than turning on your heel and walking away, I'm a colonel in the British Raj. Sweet.