--- Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Agreed. There were much more important mistakes made > by Americans after > the war. You know I supported the war, so you can't > make those claims > about me that you made about some others. Just > because I supported the > war, however, doesn't mean that I turn a blind eye > to mistakes. They > can, and could have done better. As many people > predicted, the resources > to rebuild and govern Iraq do not flow nearly as > freely as those to > depose Saddam, and the plan for rebuilding was not > sufficient since the > Administration underestimated the problem (as many > people predicted). > They did great good in deposing Saddam, but they > need to do better in > rebuilding and governing and allocating resources to > Iraq. > > "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
On what curve exactly are you grading, Erik? I mean, come on. This country was devastated by 25 years of brutal government, 12 years of shattering sanctions, and losing three major wars. Despite that, the whole place didn't collapse into civil wars, there haven't been mass famines, anarchy, anything. I am stunned by how well things are going, not how poorly. Would I prefer it if, in a perfect world, we had more troops in Iraq? Certainly. Find them for me. Go pick out which units of the American military are available to deploy to Iraq - and which committments we should abandon in order to fill that need. We are _stretched out_. We've been cutting the size of the military for 13 years now and guess what - this is why that might not have been a great idea. By any reasonable standard of reconstructing a country, this has been an extraordinary performance. Pretty much everywhere outside of Baghdad and Tikrit, things actually seem to be going pretty well. Maybe they will go south in the future - I don't know. But so far, by any standard other than some mythical perfection, things are going remarkably well. Compare Baghdad to Berlin in 1945 and tell me again how poorly the reconstruction is going. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
