Tim Blair

I can't see how this compares to the attempt to partition and subjugate Vietnam, bomb its cities, drench its forests in Agent Orange, and hand over its southern region to a succession of brutal military proxies.

And you know, the Vietnamese would still have been better off if the "attempt" Hitchens describes had succeeded.

Damn, I thought that in Iraq the opposite of released was shredded.

Vietnam? Kerry's cynical waffling is certainly similar in each case. I think it's in his genes. Fool me once....Fool me always.

Nothing Kerry has said has made any sense at all, so far as I can tell. Dean's disease has not helped him in the least, though I guess it was worth a shot.

A fine by article by Hitchens, very Baliiol-style dignified defence of a lost cause.

Democracy will most likely fail in Iraq, because there is no major party committed on principle to democracy. The major lawful parties in sub-Kurdish Iraq are all committed to nationalism or Islamacism, with the institution of democracy used as a contingent instrument, to be accepted or rejected on purely pragmatic grounds.

The unlawful parties are, of course, committed to the restoration of fundamentalist or fascist norms of political behaviour. But even the lawful parties, with the best will in the world, will have to act in the long-standing traditions of national war-lordism, provincial sectarianism and tribal consanguinity.

The political lesson is to only promote democracy in nations where a democratic movement is already in being, as was the case in S. Arfrica, Poland and the Phillipines. The case of Germamy and Japan are exceptional, given a decade long occupation by the US, pre-existing democratic traditions and pervasive threats from totalitarianism.

Attempting to impose democracy by force on a nation, with no democratic tradition, no hegemonial democratic party and a history of hostility to the West, is a recipe for broken dreams.

We will have to see this thing through, but the best we can hope for is a kind of Lebanon-lite. The worst is an oil-turbo charged Afghanistan. And the ME always teaches us to expect the worst.

I agree with Jack. We should just give up, come home, pull the covers over our head, and pretend bad things don't happen. We should never, ever attempt anything hard, because nothing we've ever tried that was hard has amounted to anything. Before we attempt anything, we should sit down and rate it on a scale of difficulty, from 1-10. Anything rated above a 1 by anyone in the country should not be attempted. Anything rated a 1 by everybody should not be attempted because everybody was too dumb to rate it right. Don't just do something, for God's sake stand there.

"Attempting to impose democracy by force on a nation, with no democratic tradition, no hegemonial democratic party and a history of hostility to the West, is a recipe for broken dreams."

the work has to start sometime, by someone. might as well be now by us, since everyone else is too damn lazy/afraid to bother.

Fraid not, Samkit. It's becoming clear that we are wasting our time with a bunch of people who are loyal to tribe or religion, but treacherous to nation. That lends to a fractious and bitter politics, violent perhaps, but certainly not democratic.

While it was undoubtedly a pleasure to see the back of Saddam (something I was barracking for), it is becoming perfectly clear we might as well be ruling people from another planet. The less we have to do with the Arab world in future, the better. They would probably agree.

The less we have to do with the Arab world in future, the better.

And, after following your prescription, if the Arab world imposes itself on us again a la 9/11, what then?

Questions for Jack Strocchi to ignore:

1. Are things better or worse now for the people of Iraq, versus when Saddam was in power?

2. Are things getting better or worse now?

3a. When the US does pull out, are things going to be better or worse than right now?
b. Better or worse than when Saddam was in power?

Jack-

I'm not trying to be insulting, and I'm not trying to be ignorantly patriotic, either, so I hope you don't read either into this question - are you an American? The reason I ask is that the American attitude is, "The impossible is something that just hasn't been done yet."

No, Iraq doesn't have a democratic tradition. But no nation or culture did. Every democracy in the world started somewhere. England was once ruled by warlords and tribal chieftains also.

I suppose we should have left the German and Japanese after WW2 to their own devices too, because imposing democracy on them was a wasted effort.

People do not remember this, but Germany was not a very pleasant place after the war had ended, in no small part because there WERE diehard Nazi guerillas battling the Allied forces. The fact that the Allies have not (In Iraq) done things like shelling towns and summarily executing guerillas and soldiers in reprisals for attacks (That were done in Germany.), is apparently missing from the thinking of far left and far right thinkers who think we can divorce ourselves from the rest of the world/Arab World/Muslim World, or else think we should operate under the aegis of France/the UN. Multilateralism and Isolationism are like "wanting to make a difference in the world" - there is nothing in those concepts/beliefs that makes them inherently worthwhile or noble to do. And history have not given either concept very good names.

As for not ready to democracy - you have to start somewhere, or else that would have justified never giving people any freedom anywhere in the world, at any time. I guess if you believe in Hobbes, that would make sense. But I tend to place more weight on John Locke than the guy who wrote _The Leviathan_.

C.T.

(via Command Post)

ABC is reporting that al Sadr's aide was released after five hours, not questioned, and received apologies from the US troops. He also announced that he would be holding a press conference.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1086681.htm

I'm somewhat puzzled by all of this, myself... Even if there's no warrant for his arrest, I would have thought that the fighting would have demanded his detention for at least the meantime.

Look, I'm prepared to concede the Vietnam War (and the Spanish Civil War too, for that matter) to "lefties mugged by reality" if it helps them reconcile their ragged-eared Carried Card to their revulsion at having to argue that leaving Saddam/ Uday/ Qusay in power would have been preferable to the current imbroglio. Vietnam is 29 years in the past. Just nod "Yes, yes, Agent Orange was a bad idea" (which seems true enough to me) and get on with pointing Christopher Hitchens, Albert Langer, Doug Kirsow, and co in the right (no pun int'd) direction today, when it matters. Otherwise it'd be like arguing the rights and wrongs of Henry V with de Gaulle in 1944.

I usually find the "Yes, the Americans should have been more careful with their firepower, should not have used conscripts, and should have insist the Republic of Vietnam itself liberalise and democratise while they defended it" is enough to achieve mutual co-existence with the more sensible left-wingers. (The others will never regard the partition of Vietnam as anything but a crime crying out to heaven... but aren't these the same people who want to split Quebec from Canada, Bouganville from PNG, Basque lands from Spain, etc etc?)

Steve Edwards wrote: "It's becoming clear that we are wasting our time with a bunch of people who are loyal to tribe or religion, but treacherous to nation. That lends to a fractious and bitter politics, violent perhaps, but certainly not democratic."

Gosh, Steve, aren't you being a little hard on Teddy Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and the other Democrats?

"Don't just do something, for God's sake stand there." - JorgXMcKie

That's a classic. It should be the UN motto.

I thought it was.

I'll reply in reverse order.

JBD wrote: "Gosh, Steve, aren't you being a little hard on Teddy Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and the other Democrats?"

While these people may be loyal to tribe (however disloyal they are to female companions and blacks), they are mostly secular humanists. That leaves "nation", for which they tend to seek nuclear freezes when they're not deliberately conceding ground to the Chinese.

Uncle Milk wrote:

"I usually find the "Yes, the Americans should have been more careful with their firepower, should not have used conscripts, and should have insist the Republic of Vietnam itself liberalise and democratise while they defended it" is enough to achieve mutual co-existence with the more sensible left-wingers."

Once they chose partition (which, arguably was unnecessary if you believe Ho could have been a Tito if cultivated in the mid 40s), they should have invaded the North and drawn the focus of guerilla activities off Diem, Thieu, et al. Ronald Reagan said as much, and if it's good enough for the Gipper, it's good enough for me.

In reply to my comment: "The less we have to do with the Arab world in future, the better"

Brian Swisher wrote:

"And, after following your prescription, if the Arab world imposes itself on us again a la 9/11, what then?"

My prescription is to move the balance of power away from the Arab world and towards Africa. This involves fostering stable regimes in oil rich areas, whacking a few warlords here and there, and so on. Equatorial Guinea has been referred to as the "next Kuwait", but there is plenty more where that came from.

Nearer the east coast, the Sudanese peace process is under way. If the North doesn't comply, it may not matter as new pipelines are being routed away from Port Sudan and through emerging markets such as Kenya. Once that infrastructure is in place, there will be a brilliant opportunity to smack the north, support Southern secession with air cover and deal a humiliating blow to political Islamism, while ending the worst genocide in the world.

And that's before we even get to the topic of the Caspian.

Hence new energy alternatives are opening up. In the long run, I support Arab disengagement. We have nothing in common with these people, and it is a sick joke that we are still on cordial terms with the Saudis. Disgraceful. In response to Brian's question "what if they cause another 9/11?".

One word: Afghanistan. Don't take shit from people. But don't think you're going to change them either.