Truman wrote:…Read a terrific book this past summer. “D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II”, a New York Times #1 Bestseller by Stephen E. Ambrose.
Per Ambrose’s account, Hitler suggested to his General Staff that Western Democracies – specifically, the United States - would not have the “belly” to pursue a prolonged war of attrition against Germany.
Hitler guessed wrong.
I suggest that he was simply 65 years too early with his prediction.
The analogy of the current war to WWII is both correct and incorrect.
The correct part about it is we're fighting a ruthless enemy, far more ruthless than the Nazis in some ways. We -- as in The West -- are also fighting on a worldwide scale against the Islamofascists.
The incorrect part, obviously, is that we're not fighting against a nation state. Hell, we can't even figure out who we're fighting, since the enemy blends into the native population so well, and in some cases is supported on the local level, by it.
That's not to say we are confused about who we're
supposed to be fighting, either.
Saddam was never a
direct threat to this country, at least not any more so than Hamas, Hezbollah, the Syrian regime nor the Saudis or Pakistanis who continue to allow schools of hate to flourish in their countries.
Saddam was a symptom, not the cure, obviously.
Truman, I've posted this before and I'll post it again -- the real reason we went into Iraq was to try to establish a rational, civilized, if not Western-leaning state, in Iraq -- smack dab in the middle of the Middle East.
I had my doubts, as I posted when we (the U.S.) first went in, about the chances of any sort of "democracy" in an Arab country, since they have absolutely ZERO history of it.
But I gave Bush the benefit of the doubt, and I was still optimistic, especially seeing the pictures of the statue coming down.
The weeks and months that followed however ... what a wasted opportunity.
First we enacted a dismantling of any and ALL "Bathists," in Iraq, even though "Bathists" included teachers, civil service workers, street cleaners and a pleathora of others -- the vast majority of whom were "Bathists" because they would be paid more money under Saddam than doing the same job as a nonmember of the party.
Maybe mvscal can correct me here, but ...
Did we do the same in Nazi Germany? From everything I've read, we didn't
completely de-Nazify
everything in Germany, to the point that teachers couldn't teach and civil servants couldn't do their jobs in order to keep basic services up, once we got them up and running. And I don't remember suicide bombs killing dozens of troops a week, three fucking years after we had taken over.
Secondly, we fucked up, Big-Time, by disbandoning the Iraqi military.
All that being said, we're there to stay.
What needs to happen now is the prime minister there has some hard decisions to make, like firing the health minister there who won't release funds for Sunni hospitals. Or the Shia minister who won't provide electricity to Sunni neighborhoods.
The time has come to start carrying a big stick when it comes to the ideals of Democracy and power-sharing in Iraq.
Short of breaking up the country (which carries it's own set of major potential pitfalls), that's our next step in the main front in the war. We do NOT have a choice now.
As a side note, Truman, I haven't read the book you mentioned, but I'd like to, right after "Fiasco," by Thomas Ricks.
I don't know the context of the book you mentioned, but what's disturbing to me is all of the nutjobs on the religious Right in this country ('sup poptart), who are so anxious for Armageddon, so anxious to be "sweep up by Jesus, in the Rapture," they can almost taste it.
from the theater immediately.
