I think the War on Iraq is in the long line of our failures since the

[Veggie Meathead]

Second World War wher our belief in our military might and our short term focus have managed to blind us to the reality of how other people see us.We simply think that our military power will prevali over the primitive societies.In Iraq, the insurgents are fighting for their country against foreign invaders ( that is us) and they are going to fight for ten, twenty, fifty years or however long it takes to expel us.Our focus is on what we will be able to do in the next few weeks.In the end our puppet strong man,Iyad Allawi, will be forced to flee when the people of Iraq prevail. The example of the Shah of Iran should remind us that the megalomaniac Shah despite all the power he had was overthrown when the Ayatollah Khomeini roused his people against us.

This pattern started with our China debacle.There we took the side of Chiang against Mao because we did not beleiev that Mao's ragtag army of guerillas could overthrow the well armed Chiang.This experience was repeated in Korea, Vietnam, Guatemala,Cuba, Chile and now Iraq.

Until we have leaders who understand what our own history teaches us we will go from one quagmire to the other with its attendant costs in lives and money.Who is going to break this vicious cycle?

[yowzayowzayowza]

1. Even among democracies.

Imagine if in '53 we had persued a policy to work with the left-wing democracy in Iran rather than aiding another "interest puppet." There might really be a bastion of democracy in the Islamic workd, but they didn't value their private property the way "we" thought they should. Round and round we go; getting precisely no where.

[pretzel4gore]

2. interesting story about Henry Luce and Harry Truman

after Luce's time/life media organs had relentlessly accused the Truman administration of 'losing' China to the communists, which was nonsense, as the US tried to help the 'nationalists' under Chaing Kai Chek (and this despite contrary state dept. advice) the media mogul met Truman at St Louis airport. Luce approached Truman and tried to shake hands, but Harry refused and told him, in front of large crowd, that "Your job is to inform the American people, but what you do is misinform them!"
some things never change....