September 27, 2002
FIGHT OR FLIGHT?:
Fighting Street to Street (NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, September 27, 2002, NY Times)"The Americans are good at bombing," one Iraqi official mused. "But some day, they will have to come to the ground. And then we'll be waiting. Every Iraqi has a gun in his house, often a Kalashnikov. And every Iraqi has experience in fighting. So let's see how the Americans do when they're fighting in our streets."That could be a nightmare. As the last gulf war showed, a bombing campaign can knock out bridges and barracks, but unless we're incredibly lucky, we won't kill Saddam, trigger a coup or wipe out his Republican Guard forces. We'll have to hunt out Saddam on the ground--which may be just as hard as finding Osama in Afghanistan, and much bloodier.
Our last experience with street-to-street fighting was confronting untrained thugs in Mogadishu, Somalia. This time we're taking on an army with possible bio- and chemical weapons, 400,000 regular army troops and supposedly seven million more in Al Quds militia. [...]
Perhaps the American invasion will be a breeze after all. The Iraqi army is less than half the strength it was when it crumpled in a 100-hour ground war a decade ago, and U.S. forces are much stronger now. But if we're going to invade, we need to prepare for a worst-case scenario involving street-to-street fighting, with farmers like Mr. Khal taking potshots at our troops.
Is America really prepared for hundreds of casualties, even thousands, in an invasion and subsequent occupation that could last many years?
It's probably futile to try to "understand" the mind of a psychopath--as well try to figure out Charles Manson and Helter Skelter as Osama bin Laden and the "jihad". But this much we can know, the street-fighting in Mogadishu looms large in the mind of the terrorists. Here's what bin Laden told John Miller of ABC, in the famous Nightline interview (recounted in the fine new book, The Cell):
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 27, 2002 10:28 AM
It is unfortunate that, for the sake of Japanese feelings, neither American doves nor Arab hotheads can be taken on tours of Iwo Jima.
I've stood on the top of Missionary Ridge and looked down, trying to imagine the boys in blue coming up in 1864. Any Arab with any imagination ought to be very, very frightened right now.
Another point: the idea that Iraqis or any other Arabs are going to put up a house-to-house fight, something akin to what happened in Europe 55 years ago, would be a new thing in history. Arabs can be formidable fighters, in raids and ambushes. There is no example in history that I know of their standing toe-to-toe and slugging it out. After all, Habbaniyeh is in Iraq, and I'm sure that nitwit Kristof has never heard of it.
I agree with most of what's said, but I have a comment on a tangent. Why the note of a "liberal, PROTESTANT, capitalist democracy?" I think the importance of Protestantism in the economic and political development of Europe has been overplayed.
England already had a strong record of liberty embedded in its Common Law and Magna Carta - all when it was Catholic. Likewise, the Church of England was practically the Catholic Church except with Henry VIII instead of the Pope as its head and minus all the lands the King stole.
Being Catholic didn't stop France from being part of Europe's "first tier" of economic development. Neither did it stop Enlightenment thinkers like Montesquieu from articulating a political philosophy more like John Locke than Jean Jacque Rousseau.
Likewise the presence of Catholic merchant and banking families like the Fuggers and Medicis indicate that a lot of proto-captialism occurred in Catholic lands. And even without the Protestants, there was a variety of competing factions within the Catholic Church that would account for the diversity that counteracts central authority. Papal authority alternated between strength and weakness throughout the Middle Ages.
Note that protestant has a small "p". It merely signifies the right to differ with the majority religion without any adverse consequences.
Posted by: oj at September 27, 2002 7:24 PMBTW Chris:
Can you send me an e-mail with your address. You won the drawing for the Ike bio, but I can't find your e-mail address at your site.
Mr Durnell,
What about the doctrine of papal infabillity?
Going back to the post there is a widespread belief that if the going gets tough, America will cut and run like it did in 'Nam and in Somalia and can't maintain the focused determination necessary to combat terrorism.
Though anyone who knows much about the war in the Pacific, the Civil War etc. knows differently.
Mr Durnell,
I think the Catholic thing is tied up with fear of the imperial power of Spain which tried crushing rival Protestant powers (Holland, England - commercial, capitalist, trading nations) wherever it could.
Spain with its despotic, feudal, highly-centralised power structure was not conducive to allowing capitalism to develop while it did in its' rivals.
I think one of the Spanish kings said he'd much rather govern a tired, miserable and quiet country than a rich, turbulent one.
"Every Iraqi has a gun in his house."
Yeah, right. Saddam would really let that happen.
In his earlier column, from southern Iraq,
Kristof said that when the shooting by the
Americans stopped, "Iraqis would kill
Iraqis."
Kristof regards this as a bad thing, although
he seems unaware that it's already happening.
Where does the Times find these nitwits?