The War's Over?

So says this guy.

I made a similar point a long time ago. Back when there was just as much violence as this recent murder-Tet.

Is the war over? It depends on your terms. The "war" is over (and has been for two years) in this sense: The "war" waged by terrorists cannot be "won" in any meaningful fashion.

They can kill and maim and slaughter -- just like Al Qaeda can blow up sunbathers in Bali -- but they cannot achieve any political objectives greater than killing and maming and slaughtering.

Generally, killing is a means in warfare to achieving a geopolitical goal. Al Qaeda must content itself, both in Iraq and elsewhere, to making killing the end sought in and of itself.

Does anyone really expect that, if we departed Iraq tomorrow, Iraqis would just willingly hand Iraq back over to their former Sunni masters and their new/old Al Qaeda compatriots?

Of course not. It's inconceivable that an armed 75% of the country would turn over power to the 25% that has abused and murdered them for 50 years.

Only Europeans could possibly be such pussified cowards.

What would happen, were we to depart and the terrorism to continue, would be the famous Iraqi Civil War we've heard so much about.

And the Sunnis -- and their terrorist allies -- would be slaughtered. And viciously slaughtered, ethnic-cleansing sort of slaughtered, and quite frankly, it would be their fault.

Though the Sunnis don't realize it-- we're in Iraq now chiefly to protect them from the well-deserved mass-butchery they would suffer were they to continue to support the murder of those who refuse to knuckle under their nasty form of minority rule.

I don't support a quick withdrawal because I would like to give Iraq -- and the Sunnis, too -- a chance for a peaceful future.

But in any event, Iraq will have a more peaceful future, whether the Sunnis end their support for terrorism or not. That peaceful future will come either after the Sunnis join the political process and accept their new status as a minority population with as much power as a minority usually has, or after the Kurds and Shi'as begin leveling their cities and neighborhoods with indiscriminate mortar-fire.

The war is over. The carnage continues, because we are dealing with a foe who is not concerned with tangible geopolitical results, but merely slaughter for the sake of slaughter. But while the slaughter continues, the war is over.

And it has been for quite some time.

The Trouble With Exiting Now: We'd have to arm the legitimate Iraqi government with bombers and tanks and artillery and such.

Within a month or so those tanks and bombers and guns would be blowing the living shit out of every restive Sunni city, town, neighborhood, and hamlet.

America would be blamed for "supporting an ally just as bad as Saddam."

We wouldn't be doing anything like that, of course; at some point it does become justified to use the same tactics against your enemy -- indiscriminate slaughter of civilians -- they use against you. Especailly when, unlike the United States, your military is neither powerful enough nor disciplined enough to win without killing lots of innocent civilians.

Still, a PR nightmare.

Are the mounting deaths of US soldiers worth avoiding that nightmare of bad world opinion?

At the present, I guess yes, as there are hopeful signs the Sunnis are turning around and willing to end their terrorist insurgency.

But if this doesn't pan out-- pull out, arm the Kurds and Shi'as to the teeth, and let them do the sorts of nasty things we won't do ourselves. And just take the shrieking from Excitable Andy and his newfound ally Katha Politt.

Loose Shit Gotten Straight: Link should be fixed now.

posted by Ace at 03:32 PM

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