Morning Musings on a Monk

The Monk of Miletus commented below, and quite correctly, that the "sacrifice-in-vain" argument for continuing to fight for the unsteady proto-democracy in Iraq is flawed:

". . . To achieve this rather ambiguous result, over 2,000 Americans have died, as well as about 50,000 Iraqis.

You say we cannot withdraw. Well, what about when 3,000 Americans and 75,000 Iraqis have died? Should we withdraw then? Still no? Well then, what about when 4,000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis have died?"

True. Simply citing deaths already incurred is no reason to allow more of them. Yet the Monk provides his own answer earlier on:

"We overthrew a Baathist, Sunni-dominated government and it seems clear that we shall leave an Iranian-style, Shia government in its place."

In the first place, an Iranian-style theocratic government is not inevitable, and becomes more likely if the American troops are withdrawn--a consummation devoutly to be avoided.

Second, yes, any government in Iraq will tilt toward the Shia majority simply by a pure process of democracy. This is a grave flaw in planning--has no-one observed that people who declare themselves the servants of a god don't tend to go a bundle on civil rights, particularly of those who don't follow their creed?

You need look no further than the initiator of Gulf War II, and only a little further, to Cuba, to see this.

The world is full of irony. Many who oppose the war now find themselves supporting the occupation as the alternative to the bloodbath and terrorist state that seem set to follow a pullout. I feel that the wobbly democracy imposed in Iraq, flawed as it is, must be supported wholeheartedly and with boots on the ground.

The alternatives, as the Monk says, are a theocracy or terror state (those two terms are synonymous in my view). Most importantly, the conquerer cannot allow themselves the luxury of retreat from a place where so many are waiting to fill the resulting power vacuum.

George Bush II, having vaccilated on his cover story, finally decided to cover the invasion with the umbrella of the "War on Terror". Ironically, this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. He picked the battleground, and every day, people loyal only to a self-styled cultural version of Islam make their way to Iraq to die gloriously in its service.

"Iraquification" of the war is likely a couple of years away, and would currently work as well as "Vietnamization" did for LBJ. The war is unpopular even with America's staunchest allies. So the boots on the ground will have to be American.

Now all we need to know is what "victory" means.

By the by, here's more irony in action:

"President Bush said Thursday 'that U.S. support is helping to bring AIDS prevention and treatment to hundreds of thousands around the globe, as he marked World AIDS Day,' the Washington Post reports. 'Bush's speech, attended by five Cabinet secretaries and many ambassadors from African nations, came as the world is about to miss by a wide margin the goal of providing AIDS drugs to 3 million people from low-income countries by the end of 2005.'"

And they're going to need those drugs, at least if current dogma-based foreign policy is allowed to continue.

These two items show a common cause: Total failure to consider the world from the other guy's perspective. If you see the world from beneath a Ba'athist bootheel for three decades, courtesy in part of the CIA and George Bush the First, you may well be slightly suspicious when George Bush the Even Lesser rides into town on his white horse, proclaims Pax Americana, and then proposes to leave you to the tender mercies of a thousand simmering internecine feuds.

If you're an African woman, whose culture more often than not supports the husband's right to get sex (both from you and from others), you cannot count on the support of US troops to protect you from infection. Being abstinent and faithful on your part mean $#!+ if your partner is neither. Guess who the newest, highest-rate HIV infection victims are?

I want to jot down some thoughts on the wobbly democracy in Canada, which is about to be (lethargically, I suspect) exercised. But this post is long enough already. See ya.

By the way, the Monk's blog is, in my 'umble, brilliant. Succinct, well-delineated--not at all like my own random ramblings. I'm glad to have heard from him, and even happier about the water on Mars (link courtesy of the Monk).