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Random commentary and senseless acts of blogging.
The first Republican president once said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can seriously injure the government in the short space of four years." If Mr. Lincoln could see what's happened in these last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement. Blog critics Gryffindor House Slytherin House Ravenclaw House House Elves Beth Jacob Prisoners of Azkaban Muggles
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Monday, March 24, 2003
Glenn pointed a few days ago to a friendly reception for American troops entering the southern Iraq town of Safwan and said, "This is the 'peace' movement's worst nightmare, isn't it?" One day later, another journalist reported (via Tacitus) much more ambiguous support for coalition troops in Safwan - a Shia city that joined the revolt in 1991 and ought to be ecstatic over Saddam's eminent demise. And this account of haterd for Americans in Baghdad, a city of several million that we will have to occupy to end the war, is downright grim.
Along with recent acounts from Nasariyah, this suggests that hopes the Iraqis would throw down weapons and greet American soldiers as liberators look to be wish fulfillment fantasies. Josh Marshall also noticed this, in discussing that we still don't seem to really control Basra:
Basra is in heavily Shi'a southern Iraq. And it's garrisoned by the regime's least reliable troops. So if the regime's military were going to fold quickly or be overwhelmed by restive civilians, you'd expect it to be there. The fact that it hasn't makes it much less likely that that sort of happy outcome will happen in Sunni central Iraq, among the Special Republican Guards, Saddam's Tikriti tribesmen, and others closely associated with the regime. In short, Saddam seems to have a good number of troops who are willing to fight and die for what appears to be a doomed regime.
We doves and doubting hawks may not get much of our 'worst nightmare', Instead, we're likely to get a nasty and bloody war, serious casualties on both sides, and an ugly mess, possibly involving bio/chemical weapons, when we finally go into Baghdad.
Which, oddly enough, really is our worst nightmare.
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