You know, there is one disadvantage to having moved from Diaryland. When you're bored, looking at your own site to see if anything has changed is even less productive than looking at DLand or LJ to see if anyone has updated.
So now I have journals at both places whose main purpose in life is as a home for my buddy/friend lists. (And, at LJ, so I can write comments without being anonymous, which was actually the main reason I set that one up in the first place. Somehow even if I put my name in the comment, leaving one anonymously always felt as if I were sneaking around stalking someone.)
I'm still not entirely convinced we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq; like Colin Powell, I do think everyone's better off without Sadam Hussain. (Though if I had been Powell, I would probably be feeling my loyalty ebbing away just now.) I am and have always been convinced we shouldn't go into it the cowboy lone-gun way we did, and if this war has taught me one thing it's that you should never ever ever go in without a plan for getting out.
On the other hand, once you are in, you can't just up and leave or you end up with a country that's basically a giant refugee camp with no help from outside and no central leader. You really do have to do it right: set up a new authority, preferably one that the whole country can respect, help that authority consolidate its power, and help the country rebuild from the ravages of war. You move very quickly from telling people what to do to only doing what you're asked, even if you have to whisper out of the side of your mouth to tell the new President what to ask you to do. You let him (or her) be the force that holds things up while you just help a little with the balance -- like teaching a kid to walk or ride a bike. The more of the work they do, the sooner they can run off on their own.
All of us who have forces changing regimes in other countries need to get out as quickly as is possible consistent without letting the whole new government come crashing now. Just pulling out without doing that is abrogating a responsibility we've voluntarily assumed, and I don't think much of anyone who would do that.
After the 2000 election I was willing to give Bush a chance to see if he could pull this country back together after that balls-up. He didn't and my respect for him has declined ever since, reaching a new low with all the reports from Bob Woodward's new book. (I may have to actually read that, but since I have heard interviews with Woodward himself I'm fairly confident that what they're reporting he said really is what he said.) However, my respect for Spain and Honduras right now is even lower.
They have every right to decide they shouldn't have gone in, but they are in now, and whether the war was right or wrong is was/is still a war, with large-scale death and destruction, and they were part of that. If they feel they cannot honorably fight, then they should turn troops to rebuilding or driving ambulances, or replace them with doctors and teachers.
Posted by dichroic at April 20, 2004 01:51 PMRE: spain and honduras
"They have every right to decide they shouldn't have gone in, but they are in now, and whether the war was right or wrong is was/is still a war, with large-scale death and destruction, and they were part of that. If they feel they cannot honorably fight, then they should turn troops to rebuilding or driving ambulances, or replace them with doctors and teachers."
i suspect that they've decided that the price of american 'friendship' may be more than they're willing to endure.
don't forget, spain sent troops despite major opposition of their populace. and honduras is a major recipient of american military aid.
speaking of doctors, the cubans are having problems getting the doctors in their medical mission to venezuela to come home.
(having a friendly and sympathetic populace is a big difference)
I dunno.
I mean, this was all but pre-ordained when the mandate of the Spanish people showed through in that country's election.
And really; Honduras had 370 troops in Iraq. That's less than one-fortieth the number of mercenaries (that is, "contractors" paid by private military companies like Halliburton, Blackwater U.S.A., and the approximately twenty or thirty other private military firms [often referred to as "security consultants"] doing business in Iraq [a list is at http://travel.state.gov/iraq_securitycompanies.html but it is by no means complete] who together make up the second-largest force in the "Coalition of the Willing.") in-country right now.
As you might suspect, I have grave reservations about the whole morasse. I'm happy that Hussein is out of power and imprisoned, but we're creating another Iran, just as we did when we forced the Shah to take over secular power from Mossadegh when he tried to nationalize BP in the Fifties. And for all that I despise the men, the Dulles brothers then were a lot more follow-through in their (admittedly foolish) thinking than the current crop of empire-builders.
The sad truth is, no American not named George Marshall or Douglas MacArthur has been any damned good at nation-building. Our only success with a nation that hadn't previously been economically and culturally strong is Korea (you could argue for Israel, but I don't know that that could really be called a result of American nation-building).
We've put a convicted embezzler in charge in Iraq, we've set up a figurehead in Afghanistan who defers to the American ambassador before he makes any decisions, we've blithely ignored the cultural animosities between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds--and while cozying up to the leaders of the larger oil-producing states like Bandar of Sudi Arabia while all but uniting the hoi polloi of the Arab world against us.
I could go on for hours, and have already gone on too long here, but the situation, no matter what we do next, has been custom-built as a clusterfuck.
And I don't know what's worse: To think that we've done this all based on impulse and stupidity, or the thought which the conspiracy-putz in my head keeps whispering: That this was done purposefully, so that a continued and perhaps continual war footing will give our government the power to shuck off several of the checks and balances which have been in place for nigh on two and a half centuries.
Yes, I'm angry--but I'm scared, my Dichroic sister; I'm scared that we may have flown high into dark clouds in a plane with no landing gear and no parachutes.
Posted by: Alex Jay Berman at April 21, 2004 01:17 AM