Replies

If I only believed that SH was a clear and present danger I'd happily hop on this bandwagon. As for the idea of re-making Iraq in the Western democratic model, I have grave doubts whether we have the needed wisdom, will, power -- or the right. I expect we'll charge about like a bull in a china shop, install a strongman more to our current likeing (as Saddam once was -- remember?), declare victory, and pull out, hoping for the best.

The U.S. military has taken far more care not to injure the innocent than any other army in the history of warfare.

Please. We are not in the same class as the 20th century dictators, and I pray we never will be. But your touching earnestness is risible, in view of the carnage wrought by our righteous might on the innocent of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin. No polity is sinless, and with all its good will and high moral purpose, the US has spilled its share of blood. Beware moral pride.

We are not in the same class as the 20th century dictators, and I pray we never will be. But your touching earnestness is risible, in view of the carnage wrought by our righteous might on the innocent of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin.

I was not referring to WWII, which was the last example of total war in the Clausewitzian paradigm. We were, BTW, completely morally justified in each of those action - But that is a different argument.

However, since the emergence of smart weapons, we have gone to great lengths to minimize non-combatant casualties. Witness Gulf War I, in which the only significant civilian casualty episode came from an Iraqi command and control facility co-located with a civilian bomb shelter.

See the example of Kosovo under American occupation.

Under American/NATO occupation 300 plus churches have been torched and over half a million Non-Muslim Albanians have been forced to flee. All in peacetime, all under the protection of Uncle Sam.

If I was a minority Sunni Arab in Iraq (the current ruling class-as the Serb minority was in Kosovo) I would be afraid to live in an Iraq under American control. Will Americans stop Shite Arabs (the majority Arab group) and the Kurds from exacting revenge and ethnic cleansing of the hated Sunni Arabs from their midst?

If I was a Sunni Arab and wanted recent history to provide an answer I would conclude that under American occupation my life would be in danger.

Beware moral pride indeed.