Originally Posted by SVE-KRD

Virgil, do you really mean 'Carrhae', or more like 'Adrianopolis' or 'Manzikert'?

Originally Posted by VKS attempting to come to the aid of Ms. Karen Hughes

Campaigns Attempting Rapid Reforms Helping Asia-Europe

Please feel free to fill in the blanks:


A_____ D______ R_____ I_____ A______ N______ O________ P____ O___ L_____ I_____ S______



or:M_ A_ N_ Z_ I_ K_ E_ R_ T_____________


These are probably beyond my meagre talents. Post here or send on to whitehouse.gov . HTH

I see your point about using 'Carrhae' as an acronym, as opposed to a reference to a battle where the Romans got their @$$ kicked (but good!). However, I assume you recognize the significance of the two battles I referred to?

Originally Posted by SVE-KRD

I see your point about using 'Carrhae' as an acronym, as opposed to a reference to a battle where the Romans got their @$$ kicked (but good!). However, I assume you recognize the significance of the two battles I referred to?

But, aren't you missing your Medes?

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Originally Posted by SVE-KRD

I see your point about using 'Carrhae' as an acronym, as opposed to a reference to a battle where the Romans got their @$$ kicked (but good!). However, I assume you recognize the significance of the two battles I referred to?

But, aren't you missing your Medes?

At Manzikert, I'd say the Seljuk Turks did a sterling job of filling in for the Parthians (Medes). :wink:

(Better than the Parthians themselves, in fact! Within 10 years after Manzikert, the Eastern (Roman) Empire had been completely expelled from what had been it's Anatolian heartland. The Parthians, in contrast, let the Euphrates frontier stand after Carrhae, after a single half-hearted attempt on Syria and Judaea - fifteen years after Carrhae, no less!.)

IRT Adrianopolis, the Sassanids (Medes) were having 'northern barbarian' problems of their own at the time (courtesy of the Huns, no less!), and were consequently way too busy to take advantage of the Visigoths' otherwise decisive victory over the Romans at Adrianopolis. (That's the only reason they failed to do so, as they were ideologically far more committed to the dream of expelling the Romans from Asia and Egypt than the Parthians had ever been!)

Perhaps also


War on Bovinity

War on Cervinity

War on Caprinity....

in addition to the War on Humanity

Democracy's Power Fades as Iraq Panacea

"Brian Jenkins, a terrorism specialist at the RAND Corp. think tank in Santa Monica, said that a cursory look at history shows "there is no guarantee that political progress diminishes political violence." He cited Colombia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Northern Ireland as places where insurgencies have survived for decades in functioning democracies with educated populations."

From the reddest part of the Red Zone . . .

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,615156513,00.html

Iraq isn't like Vietnam — it's much worse
By Lee Benson
Deseret Morning News

I'm tired of hearing the constant comparisons from anti-war activists that the war in Iraq is just like the Vietnam War, a misguided and needless waste of time, life, resources and money. I totally disagree. The war in Iraq is a lot worse.

Vietnam had its problems, starting with the rather corrupt, and therefore undependable, government in South Vietnam — our allies in the fight — and continuing with a U.S. military game plan that was worse than the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII. But for all of that, there was a legitimate reason for America being in Vietnam in the first place. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization called for America's loyalty to its allies in the face of oppressive aggression in Indochina, and I don't think anyone would argue that the communist government of North Vietnam was both aggressive and oppressive.

And while historians may debate whether the SEATO treaty was a loophole America slid through to further the ideological fight against communism, or a binding agreement that gave the United States no other choice, it was a lot better chip to ante into the game than the weapons of mass destruction that never materialized but nonetheless served as our entree into Iraq. Despite an abject absence of WMDs, the invasion of Iraq has been justified on the grounds that freedom and democracy ought to be everywhere. Like most Americans, I'll agree with that to my last breath. But in the same breath I'll also advocate that we can't just force-feed freedom and democracy to every country that doesn't have them. If that's how it is, explain how Iraq managed to jump the queue ahead of Vietnam, a country that, last time I checked, was still lacking both?

In Iraq, the problem is compounded by the inherent difficulty in spreading freedom and democracy to a country that tends to define those ideals in Islamic terms. Leave Islamic extremists (read: terrorists) out of the equation, even mainstream Mideast Muslims view us in the West as miniskirt-wearing, R-rated-movie-making, Las Vegas-flocking heathens, no matter how many Toby Keith ballads we might know the words to. At least the South Vietnamese majority ostensibly wanted American-style democracy. In Iraq, not only don't they want America, but the south doesn't want what the north wants, the east doesn't want what the west wants, the Sunni Muslims don't want what the Shiite Muslims want and the Kurds just want to be left alone. It is an insurrectionist's perfect storm.

Not to mention completely backward from Vietnam. There, we won a lot of battles but lost the war. In Iraq, we won the war but keep losing battles. And every day, as we hope no more Yankee soldiers die, we pay $186 million in war costs that could be going toward education or curing cancer or paying down the national debt. The longer America's military presence in Iraq continues, the more it makes even Vietnam look sane. Which brings up another difference between the two wars. President Bush didn't fight in Vietnam; as commander-in-chief, he's up to his ears in it in Iraq. On behalf of all of us, he should throw in the towel. The war in Iraq is an American disaster. There is no other way to describe it. I think the president is a good man who tries hard and attempts to follow his conscience. I have to say that. I voted for him twice. I salute Bush as the leader of this nation.

But I don't salute his war.

Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.

Why does Mrs. Thatcher hate America?

About Iraq she said:

"I was a scientist before I was a politician. And as a scientist I know you need facts, evidence and proof - and then you check, recheck and check again."

She added: "The fact was that there were no facts, there was no evidence, and there was no proof. As a politician the most serious decision you can take is to commit your armed services to war from which they may not return."

From Mr. Kevin Drum:

"CIVIL WAR....The underappreciated Tom Lasseter has a chilling story today about the makeup and motivation of the new Iraqi army. Even the best trained units, he says, are largely looking forward to this year's elections as a way of cementing Shiite power in preparation for a bloody civil war. You really need to read the whole thing, but here's a snippet:

The Bush administration's exit strategy for Iraq rests on two pillars: an inclusive, democratic political process that includes all major ethnic groups and a well-trained Iraqi national army. But a week spent eating, sleeping and going on patrol with a crack unit of the Iraqi army — the 4,500-member 1st Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Division — suggests that the strategy is in serious trouble. Instead of rising above the ethnic tension that's tearing their nation apart, the mostly Shiite troops are preparing for, if not already fighting, a civil war against the minority Sunni population.

....American commanders often refer to the 1st Brigade as a template for the future of Iraq's military.... Increasingly, however, they look and operate less like an Iraqi national army unit and more like a Shiite militia.

....[Brig. Gen. Jaleel Khalif] Shwail, the 1st brigade's top officer, regularly reviews important decisions, including troop distribution, with a prominent local Shiite cleric who's closely aligned with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shiite religious figure in Iraq.

.... When they roll through the Shiite neighborhood of Kadhemiya in pickup trucks, the Iraqi troops see men saluting them and yelling, "Heroes! Heroes!" Little children salute and smile.

But as soon as they cross into nearby Sunni neighborhoods, the troops lean out of the trucks with AK-47s and shoot above the cars in front of them to clear traffic.

.... Asked if he worried about possible fighting between his men and the Sunnis at Umm al Qura, the brigade's command sergeant major, Hassan Kadhum, smiled.

"Your country had to have a civil war," he said. "It will be the same here. Everything in this world has its price. In Iraq the price for peace will be blood."

Kadhum thought the matter over for a few more moments.

"There will be a day when we take that mosque and make it an army headquarters," Kadhum said."

Link

Originally Posted by Aaron Glantz

There were definite parallels between Iraq and South Korea, in a way that could give hope for the future. After many years of living under military dictatorships supported by America, the South Korean people did succeed in getting democracy. Students demonstrated every year on the anniversary of the massacre at Gwagju and until South Koreans took to the streets for 19 consecutive days in 1987 and forced Ronald Reagan to pull his support for South Korea's military government and join the people of South Korea in supporting free elections. It was not that the U.S. government was opposed to democracy and freedom per se, but that the United States' foreign policy was primarily concerned with U.S. interests and not with those of the other peoples of the world. If Communism is the main enemy, it doesn't matter how many people we hurt fighting it. If Ayatollah Khomeini is the enemy, it doesn't matter how many Iraqis Saddam kills. If terrorism is the enemy, it doesn't matter what our troops do here in Iraq. It is all seen as some kind of collateral damage, a small negative side effect of the great good we are supposedly doing in the world through our main war. But what we don't realize is that each of these countries has real people living in it who suffer horribly when we occupy their country, as in Iraq, or support a military dictatorship, as in South Korea.

This is on page 248 of his book How America Lost Iraq.

Cheap Shots at the Administration

For discussion purposes, and to kick people while they are down...

Originally Posted by Al Kamen of the Washington Post

How Wrong Were They, Dick?

It often takes former senior administration officials -- no matter what administration -- a bit of time to settle some scores. A bit of distance also helps.

So it was no surprise that it took former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage about eight months and a visit to Australia for him to reflect on life here in River City and unload on his pals.

Armitage mentions no names -- not Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice , Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld , former Iraq viceroy L. Paul Bremer and others. "Those who argued at the time that the acceptance of democracy in Iraq would be easy, and who drew on our experience with Japan and Germany, were wrong," Armitage told Australian reporter Maxine McKew in a recent issue of Diplomat magazine. "They were dead wrong."

For one thing, he said, those countries were flattened and willing to do as the United States wished. "The U.S. is dealing with an Iraqi population that is un-shocked and un-awed."

Lawrence of Foggy Bottom

Speaking of Iraq, this e-mail came in Tuesday from the conservative Heritage Foundation:

HL 900 - Lawrence of Arabia and the Perils of State Building Dear Colleagues:

The following Heritage Lecture is now available on line:

"Lawrence of Arabia and the Perils of State Building"

by John Hulsman, Ph.D.

The experience of T. E. Lawrence in the early 20th century teaches that state building should always be approached from the bottom up, never from the top down; local elites must be stakeholders in the process, far more than people in faraway Washington, and policymakers must understand the history and culture of the region.

Why didn't anyone mention this before?

Robert Fisk says anarchy but no civil war.

Jake says mangos, but no kiwis; they look like balls.

Jake doesn't like eating little hairy balls?

Originally Posted by mgibbons19 (71)

Jake doesn't like eating little hairy balls?

They are apparently quite delicious battered and deep fried.

Do Americans realize that the constitution just passed by Iraqis is effectively a blueprint for the end of Iraq as a modern nation state?

Lawrence Kaplan explains:

"...what the constitution prescribes is an extremely loose federation: It allows for the creation of "regions" out of "provinces"--mini-states, in other words--that can establish everything from their own tax policies to their own armed forces. The latter provision has the potential to make the constitution what Iraqi liberal Kanan Makiya calls "a fundamentally destabilizing document," as the Iraqi center is basically left with nothing. This amounts to more than a blow to the Sunni ego. Most of Iraq's oil lies either in the Shia south or the Kurdish north. The constitution is rather vague on this score, pledging to distribute oil revenues "in a way that suits population distribution." But there is no guarantee that future revenues will be distributed on a per-capita basis, nor is it clear how Baghdad can compel the north and south to hand over its proceeds."

He continues to support the presence of American forces in the country but goes on to say:

"...defeating an insurgency is a much narrower, much less exalted enterprise than the democratic transformation of an entire region. This is a different war now, a war worth fighting but a war without ideals."

I continue to wonder if this kind of fragmentation, the erosion of strong central governments, and the breakup of nation states into semi-autonomous regions, won't become a prominent fourth turning theme throughout the world. It is in some sense postmodernism taken to its logical political conclusion.

Originally Posted by The Poster

Do Americans realize that the constitution just passed by Iraqis is effectively a blueprint for the end of Iraq as a modern nation state?

Lawrence Kaplan explains:

"...what the constitution prescribes is an extremely loose federation: It allows for the creation of "regions" out of "provinces"--mini-states, in other words--that can establish everything from their own tax policies to their own armed forces. The latter provision has the potential to make the constitution what Iraqi liberal Kanan Makiya calls "a fundamentally destabilizing document," as the Iraqi center is basically left with nothing. This amounts to more than a blow to the Sunni ego. Most of Iraq's oil lies either in the Shia south or the Kurdish north. The constitution is rather vague on this score, pledging to distribute oil revenues "in a way that suits population distribution." But there is no guarantee that future revenues will be distributed on a per-capita basis, nor is it clear how Baghdad can compel the north and south to hand over its proceeds."

He continues to support the presence of American forces in the country but goes on to say:

"...defeating an insurgency is a much narrower, much less exalted enterprise than the democratic transformation of an entire region. This is a different war now, a war worth fighting but a war without ideals."

I continue to wonder if this kind of fragmentation, the erosion of strong central governments, and the breakup of nation states into semi-autonomous regions, won't become a prominent fourth turning theme throughout the world. It is in some sense postmodernism taken to its logical political conclusion.

I am a fan not only of the S&H "Cycles of History" model, but also of Toffler's "Waves of Civilizations" and Toynbee's & Harrington's "Clash of Civilizations" model. Cycles give one a feel for the timing and mechanisms of change. Waves give one a feel for how technology drives social change, and for the basic structure of societies at a given level of technology. Civilizations warn one to look how groups sharing language, religion and religious ties tend to bond together for common interest.

Bush might have one believe in the Wave model, with Second Wave democracy being the solution to First Wave autocratic dictatorship. Al Qaeda seems to prefer a Clash of Civilization model, with Islamic civilization attempting to cast off the imperialistic West. At a lower level, there might not be any such thing as Islamic civilization, as the Shiite, Sunni and Kurd identities are too diverse to be lumped together under a single blanket.

Meanwhile, the word "postmodernism" is interesting in itself. Toffler argues for a Third Wave civilization, distinct from the Agricultural First Wave and Industrial Second Wave. "Postmodern" might be considered another way of saying "Third Wave." It might remind us that we can't just imitate Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR. We might well have to do some original thinking. Just what forces ought to shape global capitalist democracy, and even consider if global capitalist democracy is truly the Next Great Thing.

And is Cycle theory clearly focused in the Middle East? Did Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution reflect an awakening mood? If so, is the United States entering a crisis mode while Bin Ladin reflects a dying awakening movement? Is Iraq caught between two foreign activist moods, while the locals are in an unraveling "lets talk and argue endlessly without solving anything" mood? While the American NeoCons and Al Qaeda are pushing conflicting idealistic visions, are the locals ready to embrace either?

And, yes, when France and Great Britain drew the map of the Middle East back around 1900, they ignored tribal distinctions such as Sunni, Shiite and Kurd. When the Czar of Russia decided to expand his Empire south, he didn't care about clashes between Orthodox and Islamic civilizations. At one level, would it make sense to give each culture autonomy? Or would this be a destabilizing influence. If Iraq divided into ethnic rivals, would not each rival draw in other members of their ethnic groups from neighboring states? If Russia and China released troubled areas to self rule, would other ethnic groups within borders inflated during the age of imperialism seek self rule?

In short, people, we have a big muddled mess. Clinging too tightly to any one perspective invites a poor understanding. Even bouncing between three conflicting models implies one is fitting a foreign abstract perspective on problems which are at core local and unique. In applying high level abstractions, one is apt to be loosing the true essence of what the locals are fighting for.

Is it all clear now?

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson



Mr. Brent Scowcroft

Just so you know 6 vets of the current Iraq War are returning to run for office in 2006 as Democrats. What a bunch of turncoats, eh? Traitors. So pathetic. I mean Sheesh. I wonder what your FDR would think about that?

President Bush's Plan to End the War in Iraq


PRESS RELEASE -- WASHINGTON D.C., President Bush has announced his plan to end the war in Iraq.

• 1. Declare an open border with Syria
  
  2. Amnesty for all insurgents/terrorists
  
  3. A guest bomber program

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Via Andrew Sullivan, sad.

Does anyone still think the war in Iraq is the next Good War?

Originally Posted by Mr. Leon Hadar

Most of the policy intellectuals I met over the weekend are still relatively
young and are marketing their ideas as part of a strategy to win professional
benefits, and challenging the conventional wisdom on Iraq ("stay the course")
and other issues wouldn't help advance that goal.

The notion that the U.S. has the right and the obligation to promote American-style
freedom and democracy not only in the Middle East but worldwide seems to be
a dominant view among Washington's policy wonks.

Ahh, the smell of romantic idealism is in the Potomac miasma, :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:


Meanwhile it's Boeotians than will carry out that romance. :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Anatomy of a Disaster

Originally Posted by Mr. Alan Bock

The commentary he {George Packer} does provide is restrained but insistent: "Because the Iraq War began in ideas, it always suffered from abstraction. But long after those ideas took actual shape in Kevlar and C-4 and shrapnel, the war's most conspicuous proponents and detractors continued to see it and speak of it in the French historian Marc Bloch's 'large abstract terms.' The key terms in Iraq were 'imperialism,' 'democracy,' 'unilateralism,' 'internationalization,' 'weapons of mass destruction,' 'preemption,' 'terrorism,' 'totalitarianism,' 'neoconservatism,' 'appeasement.' One month after he survived the bombing in Baghdad, I met Ghasser Salame, Sergio Vieira de Mello's political adviser, in the lobby of the UN headquarters in New York. Looking a little wan, Salame said, 'Iraq needs to be liberated-- liberated from big plans. Every time people mentioned it in the last few years, it was to connect it to big ideas: the war against WMDs, solving the Arab-Israeli conflict, more recently the war against terrorism and a model of democracy. That's why all these mistakes are made. They're made because Iraq is always in someone's mind the first step to something else.'"

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Good intentions detached from prudential considerations can easily lead to enormous mischief, both practical and moral.

Good-bye Romance.

Originally Posted by Mr. Andrew J. Bacevich

Not surprisingly, the realist prizes stability, recognizing that the alternative is likely to be chaos. This does not provide an excuse for inaction and passivity in the face of distant evils. Rather it counsels modesty of purpose and an acute sensitivity to the prospect of unintended consequences. For realists, the notion that globalization (according to Bill Clinton, channeling the neoliberal New York Times columnist Tom Friedman) will produce global harmony or that American assertiveness (according to George W. Bush, channeling Bill Kristol, editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard) will ''transform'' the Greater Middle East is pure folly. Americans, wrote Niebuhr in his book ''The Irony of American History'' (1952), fancy themselves to be ''tutors of mankind in its pilgrimage to perfection.'' But the human condition does not admit perfection. ''We could bring calamity upon ourselves and the world,'' he warned, ''by forgetting that even the most powerful nations...remain themselves creatures as well as creators of the historical process.''


Realists likewise refuse to don rose-colored glasses when considering the United States itself. As a consequence, they understand that ''American exceptionalism'' is a snare. Realists reject claims of American innocence-the conviction, as Niebuhr wrote in the same book, that ''our society is so essentially virtuous that only malice could prompt criticism of our actions.''

The silent president at war.

Church: Anti-war sermon imperils tax status

Originally Posted by AP & CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service has warned a prominent liberal church it could lose its tax-exempt status because of an anti-war sermon a guest preacher gave on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, church officials say.

The Rev. George F. Regas did not urge parishioners at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena to support either President Bush or John Kerry, but he was critical of the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts.

The IRS warned the church in June that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy because such organizations are prohibited from intervening in political campaigns and elections...

The IRS has revoked a church's charitable designation at least once.

A church in Binghamton, New York, lost its status after running advertisements against Bill Clinton's candidacy before the 1992 presidential election.

I wouldn't think isolating religion from politics this way would be pushed during a Republican administration. I could possibly see a ban on spending religious charity money on candidate centered adds, but trying to censor what is being said from the pulpit on moral issues sounds funky. Churches can't resist war? If the Democrats take the White House, could they use the IRS to prevent sermons on the Right to Choose?

I don't like seeing the IRS getting into the censorship business. If they do start threatening tax status of churches who preach on politicized issues, I would certainly hope the issues censored do not become associated with the party line of whomever is in power.