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Also, in the recent New Yorker, George Packer has an excellent piece ("Planning for Defeat") on the terrible choices confronting us in Iraq. He begins with a very realistic assessment of the dangers of continuing to pursue the Bush folly, but then turns to the problems that await a total withdrawal: essentially, continual and total war between a multitude of factions, much like Afghanistan before the Taliban, since no group is strong enough to control the country. His ideas of what might possibly work are based on bringing in the UN and working with the neighboring countries, reducing and eliminating American military control, and working town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood to strengthen rational forces and undermine warlords, and setting up a huge and realistic refugee resettlement with financial aid to provide a haven for the civic-minded Iraqis who would be killed if they stay but may someday be able to return and create a state that would work--but only after a long time and a lot of outside help. No easy answers.
Vietnam was so much simpler by comparison--just hand it over to Ho and get out. Not well done, many suffered, but it was not a failed state and actually affected the rest of the world very little (the Cambodian masscres came from American errors during the war, according to Packer, not our withdrawal).
LJ will be tracking hits to pages now for some journals. Opt-out instructions are on that link.
Also, in the recent New Yorker, George Packer has an excellent piece ("Planning for Defeat") on the terrible choices confronting us in Iraq. He begins with a very realistic assessment of the dangers of continuing to pursue the Bush folly, but then turns to the problems that await a total withdrawal: essentially, continual and total war between a multitude of factions, much like Afghanistan before the Taliban, since no group is strong enough to control the country. His ideas of what might possibly work are based on bringing in the UN and working with the neighboring countries, reducing and eliminating American military control, and working town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood to strengthen rational forces and undermine warlords, and setting up a huge and realistic refugee resettlement with financial aid to provide a haven for the civic-minded Iraqis who would be killed if they stay but may someday be able to return and create a state that would work--but only after a long time and a lot of outside help. No easy answers.
Vietnam was so much simpler by comparison--just hand it over to Ho and get out. Not well done, many suffered, but it was not a failed state and actually affected the rest of the world very little (the Cambodian masscres came from American errors during the war, according to Packer, not our withdrawal).