LBJ ist übrigens Lyndon B Johnson. Der Mann, unter dem die USA den Vietnamkrieg begann. Und Powell reist schon die ganze zeit durch Europa, um uns mittels Zugeständnissen wieder in das irakische Boot zu bekommen. Und Blair bekommt auch schon so langsam Muffesausen.Your lastest posting raises the question of what is going to happen. You write that we still have to come up with a strategy to protect our troops and complete the mission. Yogi Berra said never to make predictions, especially about the future. But I have had a pretty good track record over the years in predicting the future. (That's the sin of pride, and not a Nostradamus complex.) So, looking into my crystal ball, I do not believe that we will be able to complete the mission on OUR terms, which were to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, overthrow Saddam, and liberate the Iraqi people.
Not only has this not been a cakewalk, the most telling point is that we still have not been able to secure Basra in the Shiite south. That was supposed to be easy. So how we will be able to enter and secure Baghdad, so much larger, so much more populated, so much more Sunni, so much angrier at us (after days and nights of bombing), defended by the toughest of the Republican Guard, and so much more critical to Saddam? Baghdad is the "prize," the center of gravity (in Clausewitz's phrase). Without Baghdad, there is no regime change. And how will we be able to take it without getting bloodied, both militarily and politically? Are we really prepared to bomb the bejeezus out of it (and the people who live there)? Are we prepared to be drawn into urban warfare in such a large place -- a mega-Mogadishu -- when Saddam & Co. already have demonstrated that they are prepared to use every trick in the book to thwart us (irregulars in civilian clothes, terrorism, suicide bombers, human shields, etc.)? And where, as in Vietnam, we cannot distinguish friend from foe?
Holbrooke predicts in a new NY Times story by Johnny Apple as follows:
--"Saddam won't win," said Richard C. Holbrooke, the former United States representative at the United Nations. "Unlike L.B.J. in Vietnam, Bush won't quit. He's a different kind of Texan.(**) He'll escalate and keep escalating. In the end his military strategy will probably succeed in destroying Saddam.
--"But it may result in a Muslim jihad against us and our friends. Achieving our narrow objective of regime change may take so long and trigger so many consequences that it's no victory at all. Our ultimate goal, which is promoting stability in the Middle East, may well prove elusive."
The war obviously is not going to end the way that Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Kristol, etc. all predicted. I see three scenarios:
1. We will hesitate to enter the city for fear of losing large numbers of US casualties in urban warfare. We therefore will have to engage in major bombing in Baghdad, including in civilian areas. To use the Vietnam era phrase, "we had to destroy the village in order to save it." International outrage will be overwhelming, and we will pay the price in the Arab and Muslim worlds for years to come. Operation Iraqi Freedom becomes Operation Iraqi Conquest.
2. Like the Russians against Napoleon and later the Nazis, there is "defense in depth." Let them get deep inside your country, and then start nibbling at them and making their life miserable. It's already happened -- we were rolling to Baghdad with little opposition against our main and heavily-armed forces, and then all hell broke loose against our lighter armed but critical logistics chain that is in the rear. Following this pattern, Saddam eventually will make it "easy" (that's in quotes, because it won't be that easy) for us to enter Baghdad as a ruse, and once we are there, with only 20 to 30K troops inside an unfamiliar and large city of 5 million, his forces will engage in hit and run, guerrilla, terrorist tactics against us. We will have to retreat from the city, bloodied and demoralized -- to borrow your phrase, this is the chickenhawk down scenario. There will be calls from within the US (and certainly from Britain) to pull out of Iraq all together, because the mission has failed. How do you spell "Dunkirk?" We will have to get us forces safely out of the country across 300 miles. (Is that the distance from Baghdad back to Kuwait?) Remember April 1775? The British lost more troops marching back to Boston than they did at Lexington and Concord.
3. This is what I think is the most likely scenario. Cooler heads such as Colin Powell and our senior military leaders will be able to convince Bush that Option 1 and 2 are not "viable," to use a USG phrase. (It will be a tough sell, because Bush personally will prefer Option 1, the stay the course, show the world (and Daddy) how tough and determined and "focused" I am). Our military leaders, already mad at Rummy and company for not giving them the forces they needed to do the job, will simply not want to engage in such butchery or subject their forces to heavy casulaties. Tony Blair will make the same point. But what to do? We will need to surround the city, secure the rest of the country, and then play the game of "political standoff." Somebody will have to blink.
If there is this political standoff (option 3), then others in the world -- the UN, our European allies, responsible NAM members -- will push to eliminate two of our objectives (regime change and liberation) and return to what 1441 was all about, which is inspections and disarmament. With our forces in country, we will have in effect what Jessica Matthews called for before the war started -- "robust inspections." With US military force at hand, UN inspectors should be able to go anywhere they want to outside Baghdad. If Saddam wants the rest of his country back, he would have to agree to robust inspections within the 50 miles radius of Baghdad as well.
After Option 3 goes into play, Bush will need to deflect blame in order to try and save his political skin. He will let Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz know that he wants their resignations. The finger pointing around town will be staggering. Career military officers and CIA/DIA analysts will continue to leak damaging stories of how their concerns were suppressed at "the political level." A number of military officers will resign/retire because the honor of their service and the lives of their men/women were needlessly squandered by an arrogant and deaf political leadership. There will be calls from the talking heads that if Bush wants to be re-elected, he should start to focus on the economy and replace the disgraced Cheney on the ticket in 2004 with Colin Powell. The Democrats will be as ineffectual as ever in taking advantage of all this.
(**) Comment. Right. LBJ's self-doubts about the war are not only in Doris Kearns's biography, but also have been revealed in the transcripts of his phone conversations with Sen. Richard Russell (even in 1964-65). And when he saw that it wasn't working, he halted the bombing and went to the peace table. As for GWB, he is not given to self-doubts, second thoughts, or self-reflection.
IndianaJones schrieb:Daher ja auch dieser "Budenzauber" mit dem WTC
IndianaJones schrieb:frei nach dem Motto mal guggen ob sich die anderen Kameltreiber bekehren lassen, oder ob wir da auch eine Runde "befreien" müssen
DedansLedd schrieb:@Lilith
Ich bin ganz deiner Meinung!!! Und der Grund für die Umfrage war:
Ich wollt sehen wie Menschen auf solch eine direkte Frage reagieren.
Im Fernsehen werden solche Fragen nicht gestellt!!! Da geht man davon aus, dass es richtig sei, dass die Amis den Sadam entwaffnen!!!
Jedoch meiner Meinung nach, ist das das Schlimmste was passieren kann!!!
Und wenn Sadam entwaffnet werden soll ,dann von dem eigenen Volk!!!
Und sagt jetzt bitte nicht, dass sie sich fürchten!!! Wenn Sadam wirklich so schlecht ist, dann würde sich das Volk schon lange wehren (vergleicht franz. Revolution; oder Oktober Revolution in Russland!!!
Wer sich einbisschen mit Sadam befasst hat, weiß, dass er ein Visionär war, der dem arabischen Volk helfen wollte sich gegenüber den Israelis gleichberechtigt zu fühlen!!! Und zum "Bösen Diktator" wurde er von den westlichen Medien gemacht!!!
Ach ja, wer jetzt sagt er hätte Kuwait überfallen, der muss wissen, dass Kuwait ein halbes Jahr vorher mit der Hilfe Amerikas Irakisches Öl unterirdisch unter der Grenze von Irak gesaugt hatte!!!!
Wusstet ihr noch nicht!!!!!! Wundert euch nicht, wir wissen vieles nicht!!!!