August 29, 2003
Notes on the "Resistance"
Mark Steyn on why Iraq is not the West Bank:
For purposes of comparison, consider two suicide bombings within hours of each other: the Canal Hotel attack in Baghdad, the bus bomb in Jerusalem. The latter was greeted with the traditional Palestinian festivities: proud relatives, neighbours handing out candy, ululating women, dancing in the street, happy days are here again, grey skies are gonna clear up, strap on a happy bomb, etc.Iraq isn't Vietnam, either. By the way. Posted by Michael J. Totten at August 29, 2003 02:15 AMWhen I was in the West Bank in May, I was struck by how almost every humdrum transaction of daily life takes place in the context of overwhelming social acceptance of terrorism: the posters of ‘martyrs’ in the grocery stores, the streets named after them, the competitions about them in the elementary schools. There’s none of that in Iraq. When a suicide bomber blows up the UN, no one passes out candy, there’s no dancing in the street. The dead-enders behind the attacks have no significant public support to draw on.
The West Bank wasn't the West Bank, either, at one point. And then poor, shortsighted policy made it such.
Posted by: Kimmitt at August 29, 2003 02:28 AMI assume, Kimmitt, the poor short-sighted policy you are referring to is in 1967 when the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Jordan participated in a genocidal war to destroy Israel. Right? That's how Israel came to occupy it. To protect themselves from total destruction.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at August 29, 2003 02:37 AMNow Michael, don't go blaming other Arab states for the Palestinians' plight. Are you suggesting that the Palestinians might be victims of criminally incompetent, power hungry, fascist dictators in Amman, Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad (not to mention Riyhad, Tripoli, Tehran, etc)?!
If you believe such a perposterous thing, why, you might even start trying to convince us that the Palestinians were being used by outside forces with their own political agendas. That's inherently silly. If that were true, we couldn't blame the you-know-who. If that we're true, then we couldn't accept that terrorism is not just some natural phenomenon rising from inevitable factors.
Nope, couldn't be.
Posted by: Tokyo Taro at August 29, 2003 04:15 AMGreat; by your logic we can look forward to thirty more years of ever-escalating terrorist attacks in Iraq as we occupy it indefinitely without hope of withdrawal.
Posted by: Kimmitt at August 29, 2003 04:27 AMSo now we're conducting a genocidal war to kill Iraqis?
Posted by: Court at August 29, 2003 07:03 AMThe Palestinian have embraced nihilism. We can argue about how they arrived at their current state all we want but it doesn't change the fact that, as Steyn points out, Palestinians live in a twisted, diseased culture.
Someone needs to point out how Iraqis are turning to the same destructive and sick path the Palestinians are walking down. The population may eventually reject the US in-country presence en masse but to date the evidence seems to indicate that they will take the imperfect, chaotic present over the orderly, fascist past.
Posted by: Greg at August 29, 2003 08:06 AMThe Palestinians are "being used by outside forces with their own political agendas"? If that is so, then why are they being led by the Palestinian Yassir Arafat? Under your scenario, they would be led by an Egyptian or something.
Next thing you know, people will be saying that Abbas was indocrintated in Syria, or Russia or something.
Posted by: Phelps at August 29, 2003 08:29 AMThat's not a very good comparison. A more accurate analogy would be to the Palestinian reaction to, say, the Munich Olympics massacres, or the 1972 Lod airport massacres (which were perpetrated by foreign terrorists supposedly in the cause of Palestinian nationalism). You're comparing a situation which has occurred four months after a war in the middle of immediate post-war chaos to one occuring following 35 years of bitter ethnic conflict.
The terrorists in Iraq have no significant public support right now. That is always the case when terrorism begins; terrorirsts are by defnitintion a radical fringe element. It is their goal to gain public support by provoking a backlash on the larger group in whose name they claim to be acting. Only then can they attract enough followers and support to transform themselves from a terrorist group into a guerrilla army. The terrorists in Iraq do not have vast public support right now. Our actions have the power to determine whether that remains the case.
Posted by: obliw at August 29, 2003 09:35 AMSo, Kimmit, why do you think we'll be occupying Iraq for 35 years?
Aren't we training the Iraqi police and army?
Won't we be holding elections?
Posted by: Joe Schmoe at August 29, 2003 10:02 AMKimmit,
It is important to remember that there is no such thing as Baseball. Americans do not discuss, play, or observe Baseball in any way. We are instead all masters of Shinobijustsu, the art of concealment. All our time is spent secretly screwing over the entire world. If we were guilty for all the ills attributed to us, we would all be engaged working double shifts to inflict corruption, abuse, and squalor on the rest of the world. Right after we graduated from mastering Shinobijutsu, all Americans would be shipped off to a foriegn victim where we would sneak into their sleeping chambers and brainwash them into demanding baksheesh and delivering intolerant abuse. Or some measure of the fault could be in themselves, not in our stars and stripes.
By the way, the Mariners are two games back, or so they would have you believe.
Posted by: Patrick Lasswell at August 29, 2003 12:04 PM> The Palestinians are "being used by outside forces
> with their own political agendas"? If that is so,
> then why are they being led by the Palestinian
> Yassir Arafat? Under your scenario, they would be
> led by an Egyptian or something.
Now, that's really funny. Arafat is, in fact, an Egyptian, born August 24, 1929, in Cairo.
> Next thing you know, people will be saying that
> Abbas was indocrintated in Syria, or Russia or
> something.
Abbas went to Syria during the 1948-49 war that created the Jewish state.
After helping found Fatah in 1965, Abbas managed finances for the movement, which became the core of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He distanced himself from the group's terror activities and remained in Syria when the PLO moved its base to Lebanon in the 1970s.
So yes, Syria: hit. Indoctrination: dubious.
Posted by: alphasheep at August 29, 2003 12:12 PMSome rather grim developments in Najaf today, fellas. I supported the war, but can we admit now, after today's events, that maybe, just maybe everything is not going wonderfully in Iraq?
I'm sure the calls for more American troops are already being heard. Troops we don't really have in reserve, by the way. NATO and UN nations would have to be out of their _____ minds to send troops to Iraq.
Even Rumsfield's boy Chalabi blamed the Najaf bombing on . . . who else? . . . the Americans, for not providing adequate security.
Posted by: Pug at August 29, 2003 01:40 PM"Dead-enders". That's rich, Michael. Where'd you hear that one?
Look, Rummy and the boys have miscalculated. Iraq isn't Vietnam, but it ain't paradise either. It's a huge problem and no amount of chin-out stick-to-it-iveness is going to change that.
We're in deep shit, boys. What are we gonna do? I'm not anti-Bush, anti-war or anti-Rummy. But this is getting damn serious. It ain't the way they said it would be.
Posted by: Pug at August 29, 2003 01:44 PMPug,
Well, it is a war. Of course it isn't going perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect, clean, or painless war.
War is hell, and we seem to have forgotten that.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at August 29, 2003 01:45 PMPhelps asks:
>"If that is so, then why are they being led by the Palestinian Yassir Arafat?"
Please remember that before 1948-49, there were no such thing as "Palestinians." They were "Egyptian Arabs" or "Jordanian Arabs," or "Syrian Arabs," and were related culturally and linguistically. It was the British Mandate that divided the common culture into its existing states today.
Only when the Arab states needed a pawn to help their failure to destroy Israel and kill more Jews was there a group called "Palestinians." Instead of treating them like war refugees (which they were) and relocating them (as was done to the Jews in the Jordan, Syria, and Egypt during the war), J. S. and E. left them to rot and even now tries to use them as leverage against Israel.
-Blah
Posted by: Blah at August 29, 2003 03:13 PMMy point was that if we follow the same paradigm in occupying Iraq that the Israelis followed in occupying the West Bank, we will reap the same results; when the Bush Administration cancels elections, disbands neighborhood councils, and presents the face of conquest rather than interim occupation, we run the risk of turning Iraq into the West Bank. In 1968, the West Bank did not have pictures of martyrs in grocery stores, streets named after them, or competetitions about them in elementary schools. Those things came about because of a specific set of social conditions which we would do well to avoid replicating.
Of course, doing so would require admitting that Israel might conceivably have a tiny bit of responsibility for the results of their actions, which I understand must be avoided at all costs.
Posted by: Kimmitt at August 29, 2003 03:20 PMPug, MJT,
Nobody is seriously arguing that things are going just fine in Iraq: not even the Bush administration. Yes, there were miscalculations. And yes, some of Rumsfeld's smugness is wearing thin.
The trick here folks is to be informed by the past without becoming a prisoner of the past.
Posted by: lewy14 at August 29, 2003 04:51 PMPug,
Who is calling for more US troops in Iraq?
One person conspicuously not calling for more troops is General Sanchez. Another is Robert Andrews, former spec-ops policy maker for the SecDef.
The Andrews quote can be found here under the heading "Iraq Strategy".
The Sanchez quote is here.
I blogged these quotes here.
Posted by: Cedar Bristol at August 31, 2003 02:59 AMCedar,
Well, McCain, for one:Security remains a serious problem in Iraq partly because, contrary to administration assurances, our military force levels are obviously inadequate. A visitor quickly learns in conversations with U.S. military personnel that we need to deploy at least another division.Everyone has some kind of agenda. You could argue McCain's making political hay. I don't buy that; I believe his reporting on what he is finding is pretty accurate. Posted by: lewy14 at September 1, 2003 02:53 AM
I stated before this war began that it would be occupation that showed the limits of American Power, not the conquest.
Is it not obvious why GWB in his campaign stated he was against US efforts to nation build.
While I supported this war I never felt terribly good about it as it seemed so much could go wrong.
We need to get some kind of Iraqi government going quickly while protecting Iraq's borders, train some kind of army, and then get out ASAP, even if the results are far from perfect but better that before.
Once many of the Iraqi people turn against us, and it looks like many of the Shia are getting there, we can only make things worse by staying.
Even if things turn out OK, it is clear we cannot afford too many of these wars.
Posted by: tallan at September 2, 2003 09:25 PM
