A message to you neocons from a fellow warmonger.

[Stonecutter]

Gary Brecher loves war, even more than you guys love war, so maybe you'll listen to him because god knows you never listened to the liberals when we tried to tell you the same thing 13 months ago.

Iraq: the “Duh!” Theory By Gary BrecherA lot of people have been asking me to do a column on what's happening in Iraq. Most of the emails go like, "Why are they shooting at us? We liberated them!"I have to admit, even though I hated the war (and will always hate Bush for making me hate ANY war), I was pretty pissed off at the Iraqis too. The ungrateful bastards, maybe they'd be happier if we brought Saddam back if that's what they want, then they'll smarten up.

But then I went to the 4th of July fireworks show in Lemoore, and driving home I suddenly realized how these ragheads probably feel. See, I always loved 4th of July as a kid. Favorite holiday. Only time of year you could get firecrackers. I'd buy enough to send a few frogs to Heaven early or use as FX in my toy-soldier reenactments. But it wasn't just the explosives, it was pure old love of country. We'd pile into the car, my dad yelling and my mom complaining, my sisters starting trouble in the back seat and blaming me. But when we got there and I heard them play the anthem, I'd get choked up, thinking about my favorite American battles, Jackson in New Orleans, Bastogne, Inchon. Pure glory.

So this week I went to Lemoore to see the fireworks, and it still got me choked up. That surprised me. I'm not a big sentimentalist usually. Nothing to be cheerful about: hate my job, hate my life, hate just about everybody I work with and every face I see on TV. They weren't great fireworks even. And the sponsor was a casino, if you can believe that--sleazy fakes posing as big patriots.

But sitting there in my car I was ready to kill anybody who said anything bad about America. What that showed me is, the way you love your country is way deeper than how you feel about the people running the country. I hate W., the little draftdodging oil-money phony, but if any foreign army tried to "liberate" the US from him, I'd die trying to stop them. I realized how your country is so much to you, even if you hate the ****ers running it, you'd sooner have them than a bunch of foreign troops.

And then there's the wuss factor. Getting liberated means you couldn't handle the situation yourself--you're a *****. I've sat through a lot of action movies, and I didn't want to be the girl who gets rescued, I wanted to be the guy who rescues her. Getting liberated is like getting castrated: maybe it was necessary, but you have a hard time feeling grateful. Like the French when we liberated them from the Nazis. They thanked us, but....

Even when the locals welcome the army at first, they change their mind later on. The Ukrainians cheered the Wehrmacht in 1941, but changed their minds fast. The Catholics in Ulster cheered the British Army in 1969, but changed their minds after the Brits killed 14 demonstrators. And in case you don't remember, US troops killed 18 Iraqis in Fallujah a couple months ago. 18 dead--that's a lot of pissed-off relatives who are going to start digging up the AK-47s they buried in the back yard, looking for some payback. No wonder Fallujah is now the least-pacified city in Iraq.

Occupations always go bad, because armies aren't nice things. They were never meant to be. Armies are scary. Armies are where you dump all the guys you hated in high-school PE, the ones who thought it was so funny when you were too fat to do the rope climb. Or they're the guys who got an option from the judge, "Either you go to the pen or you join the Army." Now you've got 100,000 guys like that marching down Saddam Street. Foreign thugs with guns who don't speak a word of the local language. You really think you'd be cheering?

Right about now I can hear all you angry patriotic types limbering up your typin' fingers to send me messages like, "Saddam was a monster! Any Iraqi who'd rather have Saddam than the US Army is a loser raghead!"

Well, calm down and try to think like an Iraqi for a second. The thing is, Iraq ain't Ohio. THEY AIN'T LIKE US. Why is that so hard for people to get? Saddam probably seemed pretty familiar, pretty natural and cozy to your average Iraqi. Like the editorial-page types love to say, "Democracy is not an Iraqi tradition." So maybe they never saw why Saddam was so horrible. Just like most of you out there don't think it's so weird that a couple hundred oil-billionaires from Bakersfield and Texas own everything in America. Everybody's life feels natural to them, and that goes for Iraqis too.

Another thing, invasions do a lot of damage. We knocked out all the power stations in Iraq, so there's no electricity. And it's the middle of summer. That means no air conditioning. The temperature gets up to 125 in Baghdad in the summer, and no AC. That'd be enough to turn me into a suicide bomber. Even more so because from the pictures I see, Iraqis seem pretty fat. And like I said in my last column, heat is a lot worse for fat people.

So the "liberators" have knocked off the power, cratered the roads, blasted the TV stations. Most of the locals hate us already but couldn't do anything about it. In that first phase, the invasaion, there's no way to get at the Americans. They holed up in their tanks and APCs, or blasted you from the sky. But once invaders turn occupiers, they're way, way more vulnerable. There are a couple of privates checking IDs at every streetcorner. Just standing there like targets. Or driving by in Humvees--and if you saw Blackhawk Down, you know what an RPG can do to a Humvee.

So the local hothead blasts a Humvee. The "liberators" get pissed off and start kicking in doors, beating up anybody who looks suspicious. And here's the key: they always get it wrong. They can't help it. They don't speak the language. They can't read people like you can in your own country. So they beat up the wrong people and the real killers sit home laughing. Then the liberators get really pissed and they shoot 18 people at a demonstration. Those were probably the harmless ones, the moderates. But now their relatives want revenge and they don't mean more demonstrations. So the liberators haven't caught the real killers but they have managed to turn everybody else into a radical.

And how hard is it to turn a 17-year-old into a guerrilla? Man, if they'd had that option when I was a senior I never would've had to take another vocational aptitude test. "Guerrilla fighter" would've been my first, second and third choice. Now there are hordes of Iraqi teenagers with no jobs and no money who get the chance to fire at Americans on the streets where the USAF can't swoop down on them. And if they shoot at a GI on sentry duty and miss, they run off down the alley. That leaves the GI with a choice of either just letting the bastard get away to take another shot at him next day, or emptying a full clip at the alley. If he does that, he's likely to hit some pregnant woman or little kid. That means another family instantly radicalized.

The local radicals fix it so the soldiers offend everybody as much as possible. That means storing explosives in the local mosque or in the women's quarters. The US troops get a tip that the mosque is loaded with weapons and smash their way in. Even if they find the goods, it doesn't matter to the locals. All they know is "the Infidels smashed our mosque!" It's what you call a no-win situation. Next the crazies start storing their weapons in the women's quarters. Same routine: US troops get a tip and raid the harem. Maybe they find the weapons, maybe they don't. But either way, all the locals remember is: "They kicked down the door and fondled our women!" From the pix I've seen, no red-blooded GI would touch one of those women even if he just got out of a ten-year stretch in Folsom. But to Iraqi guys, Iraqi women look good, so they really believe GIs were fondling their women.

There was a good BBC story about the rumors running around Iraq about the GIs. Like that their sunglasses are X-ray vision to see underneath the women's clothes. It may sound stupid to us, but they don't know any better. Then there's the rumor that GI's kevlar vests are air-conditioned. If you've ever worn one of these things, you know how ridiculous that is. They're one of the hottest things you'll ever wear. But the locals believe it. The foreigners have these AC vests and meanwhile they cut our power so we have to sweat all day!

The guerrillas spread these rumors as fast as they can. When everybody hates the liberating troops enough, the killings start picking up speed. Every day another GI gets picked off. And the way they do it makes our guys even madder.

I read a quote from a US soldier in Iraq that really got me depressed. He said, "I don't want to say anything bad about these people but the way they attack us is really sneaky." Well, that's the whole idea of guerrilla warfare, the sneakier the better. But to a soldier it seems like murder, cowardly murder. So the soldiers get madder and madder, and eventually, on some hot-as-hell day when the smelly locals have been jeering at them for hours, some half-assed Lt. Calley type loses it and orders his men to fire on the crowd. And in about 20 seconds you've got dead demonstrators and thousands of angry relatives.

So how do you get out of a mess like this? Ask the Israelis. They're the best CI troops in the world, and they haven't figured out a way to back out yet. There are no good ways. The two classic occupations of the last few decades were the Israelis on the West Bank and Gaza, and the British in Ulster. The British came in with the idea they were going to protect the Catholics from the Protestants, but a year after they arrived their troops were getting pelted with rocks every time they went into a Catholic neighborhood. They fought the IRA for 25 years and nobody won. But the British lost, because they had something to lose. The Brits did a "white paper" on the cost of the war in Ulster and figured they lost hundreds of billions of dollars on it. Not from paying the troops but because every time a package came into the UK it had to be searched. Every time a car came into London it got searched. Worst of all, nobody was going to invest in a country that seemed to blow up every week or so. And all for a crummy welfare slum they didn't even want. And they didn't even win.

The Israelis had one advantage: they actually wanted the land they were fighting over. So they fought harder. And after the Holocaust, they had this big moral advantage. Nobody wanted to say anything bad about them for like 30 years. But the Palestinians played it smart in the first Intifada: they lost on purpose, attacking tanks with rocks. After the TV audience saw a few hundred Palestinian kids get blown away for throwing rocks, the Israelis lost the propaganda war, and now it looks like they're finally going to just get the Hell out.

There aren't any good solutions when you occupy a foreign population. There are some techniques that help, but they're cold-blooded stuff that won't make the home folks happpy. For example, you can play tribe against tribe, say Iraqi Shiites or Kurds vs. Sunni. But that takes years, guarantees lots of blood, and doesn't make the "liberators" look too good on the nightly news. Or you can do what Stalin would've done: kill'em all. But we're not Stalin, so we won't do that.

What we'll do is keep losing a man or two a day, running around blasting the wrong people, making the Iraqis feel tough for the first time in history, and wondering "Why, O why, don't they love us?"

Well, I hope I answered that question at least.

Q: Why don't they love us?

A: Cause we invaded them, DUH!

[TheGame]

That is way too big of a read for my short attention span... I read about half, and I got hung up on his relationship between Bush and Saddam being hated but still followed. When bush torchures and kills his own people I'll agree... but that hasn't and will not happen.

I can't think of a good way to visualize what I'm about to say, so I took this one:

I see the Iraqi people as hookers, and Saddam as thier pimp. Saddam kicks there ass and takes all of there money every day, and America steped in to show the "hookers" that they can live a better life... the problem is it backfired, and the hookers are fighting for thier pimp, or at least fighting the help. It was funny when he said maybe they should bring saddam back

[On a side note, it's good to see someone talk about Bakersfield besides myself: "Just like most of you out there don't think it's so weird that a couple hundred oil-billionaires from Bakersfield and Texas own everything in America."]

[Canyarion]

I agree with the smartest guy.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by TheGame

That is way too big of a read for my short attention span... I read about half, and I got hung up on his relationship between Bush and Saddam being hated but still followed. When bush torchures and kills his own people I'll agree... but that hasn't and will not happen.

Death penalty?

Uh oh. I feel a change in the topic coming.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by jeepnut

Death penalty?

That doesn't compare to killing innocent women and children out in the middle of the streets with biological weapons.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

That is way too big of a read for my short attention span... I read about half, and I got hung up on his relationship between Bush and Saddam being hated but still followed. When bush torchures and kills his own people I'll agree... but that hasn't and will not happen.
[/i]]

Same here. He lost me once he made the comparison between G.W. and Saddam. There is absolutely NO comparison between the two, and to even allude that is more humorous than anything.

I'm not a huge fan of Bush myself, but I'm not stupid enough to compare Saddam Friggin' Hussein to George Walker Bush.

So far the worst thing GW has done to his country is send jobs overseas. (Some might feel sending the troops over to Iraq is the worst, but I disagree.)

So far the worst thing that Saddam did to his country was ruthlessly murder 1.5 million of his own people. Even if you think Bush murdered servicemen by sending them over to fight, which is a hilarious stretch of imagination, thats Bush: 800 dead... Saddam: 1.5 million dead.

Logic, people... LOGIC.

[manasecret]

The piece isn't anti-Bush. He is. But most of what he says about Bush is just a digression from his argument.

So why are y'all hung up on Bush?

[Typhoid]

I think they are (iraq) fighting back is because Saddam was their leader, some liked him some hated him. The ones that hated him, hate America more, so they side with Saddam. America is trying to force its culture and way of life there.

You cant tell someone how to live. Imagine if we were Iraq, and America invaded us, wouldn't you be mad at the country that bombed the crap out of you and is acting like the Communist power? I think Bush is using Iraq to try to get oil, or a colony.

Bush just kind of policed himself in the right to attack Iraq, saying that Saddam is a threat. Saddam wasnt a threat to America, not only did he not have WMD, he wasnt attacking America, Saddam didnt start the war, Bush did.

And Bush better not be planning to do what i heard he is going to do. Something with lowering Oil prices around election time to gain respect and votes.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

And Bush better not be planning to do what i heard he is going to do. Something with lowering Oil prices around election time to gain respect and votes.

And how, pray tell, would he be able to do that?

[GT News]

Originally Posted by jeepnut

And how, pray tell, would he be able to do that?

I am not sure if I can quantify the answer.



I can ask someone about it.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by CamFuBot

I am not sure if I can quantify the answer.



I can ask someone about it.

You go do that...

[Stonecutter]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

Same here. He lost me once he made the comparison between G.W. and Saddam. There is absolutely NO comparison between the two, and to even allude that is more humorous than anything.

I'm not a huge fan of Bush myself, but I'm not stupid enough to compare Saddam Friggin' Hussein to George Walker Bush.

I can't decide if this is a huge case of looking through rose colored glasses or just ignorance.

I was ready to kill anybody who said anything bad about America. What that showed me is, the way you love your country is way deeper than how you feel about the people running the country. I hate W., the little draftdodging oil-money phony, but if any foreign army tried to "liberate" the US from him, I'd die trying to stop them.

That could be Margaret Thatcher and Ho Chi Minh or Vincente Fox and Ariel Sharon have the same context. He's simply comparing two leaders and your comment clearly smacks of the typical "I'm a conservative but I claim not to be a repubican" sidestepping that generally results from all that pent up gulit you feel because you know your wrong

(not unlike the "I'm a liberal but I'm a republican" BS that flows so freely from Bond's gaping maw)

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Stonecutter

I can't decide if this is a huge case of looking through rose colored glasses or just ignorance.

If I'm so ignorant for pointing out how comparing Saddam to Bush is just stupid, please explain it to me Oh Great Enlightened One. To this point all you did was criticize with no clarification (like the contrast I actually provided) as to what was wrong with my point or Bond's, as most liberals tend to do when they try and make a point themselves.

And make sure to try and back it up, because you know I'll be going over it with a fine toothed comb.

Jeepnut, there is a an accusation by Bob Woodward in his new book that Bush made an agreement with Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices. Letys not forget that Woodward basically made these assumptions, which they are and he even admitted as much in a print interview, without actually interviewing anyone he accused. Kind of like when he said that Colin Powell vehemently disagreed with everyone and their mother about Bush's stance on the war, without actually ASKING POWELL.

Typhoid, you're continual accusation that Bush is acting like a COMMUNIST power is NOT helping your credibility. Do a little research on the definition of COMMUNISM and FASCISM (Google could help) and then think about it.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

Jeepnut, there is a an accusation by Bob Woodward in his new book that Bush made an agreement with Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices. Letys not forget that Woodward basically made these assumptions, which they are and he even admitted as much in a print interview, without actually interviewing anyone he accused. Kind of like when he said that Colin Powell vehemently disagreed with everyone and their mother about Bush's stance on the war, without actually ASKING POWELL.

I figured there probably wasn't much truth to it. Common sense just says that that wouldn't be possible. The president just doesn't have that kind of influence.

[Crash]

This read is thought provoking, but i disagree with it.

now if bush was killing my neighbors kids, sure I'd like someone to kick some ass and take him out, but he's not so I dont see how you can compare bush/saddam