A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
So the sixty four thousand dollar question is: why hasn't Afghanistan fallen apart? Why isn't it splintering apart like a wooden ship against a reef? Why is Iraq having 'ethnic' trouble and not Afghanistan? Once we invaded Afghanistan I was convinced Afghanistan would split into at least four parts (Pashto, Persian, Turkish and Baluchi - if not more). Many experts reached the same conclusion. But Afghanistan has really been a war mainly against the Taliban, with many Pashto siding with the government against their fellow ethnic brethren.

Afghanistan hasn't fallen apart because it has never been knitted strongly together. Even now, you have a central government without much authority outside Kabul, and various local strongmen controlling other provinces. It's fairly clear that Karzai would not be able to hold power if our troops were not there in Kabul, which is just to say that the army is just another militia with fancier uniforms. Because the central government has little power, there's less reason for the provinces to overly break away.

Why has the violence in Iraq been between the Shiites and Sunnis of the same ethnic group, when they have never had a civil war before, and they just overthrew a secular Arab nationalist government?

Religious differences are more salient than ethnic divisions there (see, e.g., Northern Ireland or Israel). Iraq didn't have a civil war when it was under Ottoman rule because it was under Ottoman rule. I think it would be an interesting question to look at the extent to which there was Iraqi nationalism in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Maybe someone has done this. I suspect you'd see that people living then in what is now Iraq did not think of themselves as Iraqis. Then the British came along. It's pretty widely accepted that the British left a state that did not cohere very well. I would surmise that the basic reason you didn't have a civil war from then until now is that you had authoritarian rulers putting a tight lid on dissent, etc. Surely other developments have made things worse, too (the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the rise of Saudi Wahhabism).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
So without changing anything fundamentally about either country it is perfectly reasonable to imagine a situation where Saddam had pulled off something similar to 9-11 . . . .

It's reasonable to imagine anything, especially if you are ghosting a Tom Clancy novel, but there are some good reasons why Saddam never pulled off something similar to 9/11. Saddam didn't inspired many people to kill themselves for his regime. It took a radical strain of Islam for that, and Saddam was pretty secular. Saddam had the resources of a state, but it's hard to imagine that he could have persuaded 19 young Iraqis to deploy themselves in the U.S. under cover for months, and then to kill themselves in a suicide attack. Around the world, most suicide bombers believe that they are resisting the occupation of their homeland. In that regard, 9/11 was quite an outlier.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Why is that dumb? Why do we need an electoral college?

Dumb in the sense that it is 200 and some years too late to be possible. Why does South Dakota get as many senators as California? Who cares you ain't changing it now.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
This quote was the best part of that article. The most accurate succinct description ( in my opinion ) of what is happening politically in this country and Iraq

"So, for those reasons, I would not call what is going on in Iraq a civil war. It seems pretty clear, though, that the present controversy is not the result of any good-faith effort to apply historical norms to the conflict in Iraq, but rather is part of the effort to stampede this country into defeat for partisan political purposes."

I'm not particularly depressed by the ongoing squabble about whether what is going on in Iraq is a "civil war" because it seems to have more to do with defining that term in a way that minimizes what is actually happening there and emphasizes that you don't have two sides dressed in blue and grey.

But it is depressing that you and others have convinced yourself that many Americans would prefer, for partisan reasons, that we lose the war, and that you deploy that idea to close your eyes to the fact that we are losing the war because Bush and Rumsfeld and those waging it cannot figure out how to win it.

The President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense have gotten everything they've asked for to fight this war. They are losing it. They can't blame anyone else for that.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm not particularly depressed by the ongoing squabble about whether what is going on in Iraq is a "civil war" because it seems to have more to do with defining that term in a way that minimizes what is actually happening there and emphasizes that you don't have two sides dressed in blue and grey.

But it is depressing that you and others have convinced yourself that many Americans would prefer, for partisan reasons, that we lose the war, and that you deploy that idea to close your eyes to the fact that we are losing the war because Bush and Rumsfeld and those waging it cannot figure out how to win it.

The President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense have gotten everything they've asked for to fight this war. They are losing it. They can't blame anyone else for that.

The more interesting question is what is a win? In Afghanistan, we have already won by dislodging the Taliban and disrupting the terrorists. If that perpetually unstable land can gain some modicum of stability for a decade, we'll have doubly won.

In Iraq, we certainly dislodged Saddam, but we didn't set out particularly clear goals from the beginning. How do we know what we've accomplished without knowing why we were fighting? Bringing Democracy to Iraq? It's a long term project, one threatened by the current violence. Bringing stability to the Middle East? Another long term project, but our presence in Iraq doesn't seem to be helping. A geopolitical game of projecting US power into the region? Hard to claim a win there until we see what happens over the next two years.

The best current policy we could get from this administration is a clear and realistic deliniation of what, specifically, they hope to accomplish in the next two years. Tell us what we're fighting for.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense have gotten everything they've asked for to fight this war. They are losing it. They can't blame anyone else for that.

That won't stop the right from coming up with the latest iteration of the "stab in the back" story once the last neocon talking head stops trying to persuade us that victory, moral or otherwise, is still within our grasp. 20 years from now there'll be someone on a messageboard claiming that the left (i.e., traitors - hi Anne!) sabotaged the Administration's efforts to win the war, which surely would have been won if only our nation had the collective will to win it.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
So if you friend Rory didn't speak Arabic what credentials did he have to inspire them to put him in charge?

Did he intern at the Heritage Foundation?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm not particularly depressed by the ongoing squabble about whether what is going on in Iraq is a "civil war" because it seems to have more to do with defining that term in a way that minimizes what is actually happening there and emphasizes that you don't have two sides dressed in blue and grey.

There was some military official on NPR pointing out that the insurgency isn't particularly interested in doing any thing to government, so that's why it's not a civil war. The insurgency just wants to fuck shit up.

I don't think it really matters what it's called. Clusterfuck, civil war, whatever.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by ironweed
That won't stop the right from coming up with the latest iteration of the "stab in the back" story once the last neocon talking head stops trying to persuade us that victory, moral or otherwise, is still within our grasp. 20 years from now there'll be someone on a messageboard claiming that the left (i.e., traitors - hi Anne!) sabotaged the Administration's efforts to win the war, which surely would have been won if only our nation had the collective will to win it.

Too true. Though I enjoy the magazine, some of the more unreasonable lunatics who soil National Review's pages are still making wild claims that the Left sank us in Vietnam. And believe it or not, there are a load of assholes out there trying to rehab McCarthy as a martyr who would have purified us of socialist leanings if not for the media killing him.

The only revisionist look at appalling world figures/events worth its salt is our long look back at Nixon. He was a brilliant foreign policy president and might even be considered the earliest champion of globalization. The guy's legacy's a mess, but if you look at a lot of his policies, most of which would be considered pragmatic moderate Rockefeller Republicanism, he was a smart motherfucker.

It's funny that Bush runs to comparisons with Reagan and runs away from comparisons to Nixon. He's not worthy to wash either man's jockstrap, but he ought to recognize that, given his record, comparisons to Nixon are something he should foster. Perhaps over time, his handlers can confuse those comparisons, and get people to think they reflect his similarly wise embrace of globalization, rather than the fact that both men lied a lot.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Too true. Though I enjoy the magazine, some of the more unreasonable lunatics who soil National Review's pages are still making wild claims that the Left sank us in Vietnam. And believe it or not, there are a load of assholes out there trying to rehab McCarthy as a martyr who would have purified us of socialist leanings if not for the media killing him.

The only revisionist look at appalling world figures/events worth its salt is our long look back at Nixon. He was a brilliant foreign policy president and might even be considered the earliest champion of globalization. The guy's legacy's a mess, but if you look at a lot of his policies, most of which would be considered pragmatic moderate Rockefeller Republicanism, he was a smart motherfucker.

It's funny that Bush runs to comparisons with Reagan and runs away from comparisons to Nixon. He's not worthy to wash either man's jockstrap, but he ought to recognize that, given his record, comparisons to Nixon are something he ought to foster. Perhaps over time, his handlers can confuse those comparisons, and get people to think they reflect his similarly wise embrace of globalization, rather than the fact that both men lied like a lot.

the thing is most of what people are saying about Bush and Iraq (not details but the alleged crazy war mongering), people said about Reagan. the more i see/hear from back then the more apparent it is.

Bush will come out as a fairly good president in some uncertain waters.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the thing is most of what people are saying about Bush and Iraq (not details but the alleged crazy war mongering), people said about Reagan. the more i see/hear from back then the more apparent it is.

Bush will come out as a fairly good president in some uncertain waters.

How many schools do you think will be named for him?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
This is an interesting question, and I'll give you one very good reason - there was an indigenous movement working against the Taliban that could take on governing after they liberated the country. There clearly are still tensions in Afghanistan, but the fact that the Northern Alliance had already been working together (for the most part), for many of them over several decades, has much to do with it. I'm sure there are other reasons.

That is a fair point. Although the Northern alliance was pushed together and was forced to work together. So it would seem highly probably that when the pressure forcing them together subsided they would fall apart.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy To understand the tensions in Iraq, focus on its very long history as a border region, constantly fought over between Turks, Arabs and Persians. What do you mean never a civil war? There's more than a millenium of watching the country go back and forth between rival powers with local rulers mediating the disputes and building their own bases.

The Ottoman Emprire was there for a while, and then the British took over. In that whole time, in that area there has not been a civil war that I am aware of.


[QUOTE]Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
In more recent times, the pendulum has swung toward a deepening of the religious disputes at the same time the Kurds have strengthened themselves - to a great degree with our help. Over the last thirty years, Iraq has been subject to a continual increasing of the tensions. And, over the last thirty years, the power bases have become increasingly local and decentralized, with no alternative national power structure having been built when we removed Saddam.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I was not aware that the power bases in Iraq under Saddam were becoming regional. I always thought he was centralizing power.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy There's a few notions. Remember, the biggest difference between the two situations is that we didn't put boots on the ground in Afghanistan until the Taliban were already disintigrating, where there was insubstantial armed opposition, outside of the Kurds, to Saddam when we invaded full force.

Yes. But there were full scale uprising all over the south in 91. There has been some pundits who said that we should have organized the opposition on the south and then let them finish off the invasion. But I don't think that would have helped the situation (it would have aggravated tensions between the Shia and the Sunni) and I think putting off Bahgdad would have been a mistake.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
How many schools do you think will be named for him?

More than Clinton. Can you imagine sending your daughter William Jefferson Clinton High School?

Ty, do ever think that SS is a guy we plant to plant these softballs?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Afghanistan hasn't fallen apart because it has never been knitted strongly together. Even now, you have a central government without much authority outside Kabul, and various local strongmen controlling other provinces. It's fairly clear that Karzai would not be able to hold power if our troops were not there in Kabul, which is just to say that the army is just another militia with fancier uniforms. Because the central government has little power, there's less reason for the provinces to overly break away.

True - but they have not been fighting at all. And the Pashtuns have accepted a government put together by the Northern Alliance.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Religious differences are more salient than ethnic divisions there (see, e.g., Northern Ireland or Israel). Iraq didn't have a civil war when it was under Ottoman rule because it was under Ottoman rule. I think it would be an interesting question to look at the extent to which there was Iraqi nationalism in the final days of the Ottoman Empire.

I think it was just Arab nationalisim. I think you are right below when you say Iraq was just an artificial construct put together by the British. Prior to that I don't believe anyone considered themselves an Iraqi.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop Maybe someone has done this. I suspect you'd see that people living then in what is now Iraq did not think of themselves as Iraqis. Then the British came along. It's pretty widely accepted that the British left a state that did not cohere very well. I would surmise that the basic reason you didn't have a civil war from then until now is that you had authoritarian rulers putting a tight lid on dissent, etc. Surely other developments have made things worse, too (the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the rise of Saudi Wahhabism).

That is valid.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
OK. Here is a question I posted on the board earlier, and no one had an answer then, but maybe now that we have GGG's expertise on Iraq and Afghanistan he can enlighten us. I don't know why he didn't speak up before when I brought this up, but clearly he read my posts and concluded I had my facts wrong (demonstrating my clear ignorance of the subject) so maybe this time he can explain what I have wrong. Here are the facts as I understand them:

[Long-Ass Broad General Summary Designed to Show that Spanky Knows Stuff, Which Seems Mostly Correct to Me, but Much of Which Wasn't Really Necessary Background to his Questions.]

Damn, Man! Where do you get the time and energy to write this stuff?

So the sixty four thousand dollar question is: why hasn't Afghanistan fallen apart? Why isn't it splintering apart like a wooden ship against a reef? Why is Iraq having 'ethnic' trouble and not Afghanistan? Once we invaded Afghanistan I was convinced Afghanistan would split into at least four parts (Pashto, Persian, Turkish and Baluchi - if not more). Many experts reached the same conclusion. But Afghanistan has really been a war mainly against the Taliban, with many Pashto siding with the government against their fellow ethnic brethren.

My speculation is that the answer for Afghanistan includes some of the following elements not present in Iraq:

(a) A single internal enemy for those various factions and ethnic groups to focus upon -- threatening and yet still marginalized (Taliban). Which enemy group is still allied with foreigners (al Qaeda) and (as a largely Pushtun group) is composed largely of traditional enemies to many of the minority factions.

(b) Tribes within the ethnicities are also very important, AND a key tribe of the majority (?) Pushtuns are empowered in the form of a reasonably strong Afghani leader (Kharzai) from a powerful Pushtun family who helped unite Pushtun opposition to the Taliban and Al Qaeda before the U.S invaded (after his older brother had been killed in the fight). So, the Pushtuns have buy in as well.

(c) A higher foreign troop to population ratio in Afghanistan than Iraq (I think, but haven't run the numbers).

and

(d) Afghanistan is not an urban nation. Which makes it in some respects much easier to fight the enemy once you find them.

Why has the violence in Iraq been between the Shiites and Sunnis of the same ethnic group, when they have never had a civil war before, and they just overthrew a secular Arab nationalist government?

This is a gross oversimplification, but I'd say:

(a) The set-up under Hussein (minority Sunni dominance and a fiercely oppressed Shia population in a harsh authoritarian state), combined with decades of war and deprivation (Iran-Iraq, the Gulf War I, and sanctions) made conditions ripe for a civil war when the central authority is destroyed and not replaced with nearly enough force. (i.e. The Shias want revenge, and the Sunnis are scared as hell.)

(b) Our opponents, at least in Al Qaeda if not in the insurgency, have worked damn hard to make a Civil War happen, by engaging in sectarian terrorist attacks to spark a growing retaliatory cycle of violence from both sides.

(c) The centuries of bloody division between Sunni and Shia are NOT forgotten there -- lots of long group memories.

S_A_M