you might want to look how popular the resistence in falujah seems now. after seeing the pictures of the graveyard in the soccer stadium and all the destroyed homes and the "appearence" of a american retreat the resistence is seen as heros. do not forget that over 600 people died in that siege and to the minds of iraqi's is doesnt matter if they where woman or children or gunmen because they where all iraqi's. i dont buy the whole idea that the resistence in falujah was made up entirely of foreign fighers i believe that is just a excuse to make american feel better because we are denial in accepting the fact that there are a LARGE portion of iraqi's that not only dislike the american occupation but are willing to actively fight it. I have no doubt that some outside forces have come in but i suspect its very small compared to the ammount that is iraqi.

Let American forces leave Fallujah, and not just Fallujah but all of Iraq, and quickly -- but for reasons quite different from those of the hysterical imam. Bringing "democracy" is a quixotic, very likely hopeless task, and one which, even were it to be achieved, would in no way diminish the world-wide Jihad. It might even strengthen Jihadis.

It is very likely hopeless, because despite Bush's insistence that some would "deny the right of people of a different skin color" to democracy, one's skepticism has nothing to do with "skin color" (in this respect, his invoking racism is akin to CAIR's sinister and deliberate policy of claiming that close inspection of Muslims amounts to "racial profiling" -- when clearly it is ideological profiling), Iraq is one of the most unlikely places in the world to bring democracy.

First, democracy requires a strong sense of the individual -- the individual not as subject or slave, but as citizen. That requires a mental set quite different from the tribalism in which most of Iraq is mired. It is absurd to generalize from the handful of amiable, plausible, and completely unrepresentative or misrepresentative, Iraqis -- Kanan Makiya, Ambassador Francke, Ahmad Chalabi -- who have been met with so frequently in Washington. They have all spent decades abroad, and learned to think, and to speak, as Westerners. They have themselves largely forgotten just how crazy, who susceptible to rumor and falsehood, and how impervious to the truth (such as that the Americans really are not there to steal the oil, or that Quday and Uday really did die, or any number of things). Lies are likely to be believed, if they fit the pre-existing hostility to Infidels. Truths are likely to be shrugged off, if they show the Americans in a good light.

Paul Wolfowitz was taken to task by Richard Pipes in a Globe interview some months ago. Wolfowitz, he noted, was a "brilliant weapons systems analyst" but knew little of history, and nothing of the effect of ideology and culture on people. And what's more, those who thought that somehow democracy could be transplanted, like a Cavendish banana or a pretty phalaenopsis of the kind you can now buy cheaply at Costco rather than expensively at White Flower Farm (but do support your local nursery, not the all-in-one giants), show a failure to understand how long and complicated and difficult was the development of democracy in the advanced, non-Muslim world. Those who want "democracy in Iraq" before Ataturkian de-islamization, and want it within 3-4 years, not 3-4 decades, do not understand Iraq, and what's more, do not understand democracy.

To achieve an imporovement in Iraq, it must first be allowed to deal, by itself, with its own historical hells. American soldiers should not be used as a way to unite Sunni and Shi'a in frenzied mobs, nor should they be protecting one group from another. Nor should all those Reservists and National Guardsmen be put at quite foolish risk in keeping at all these "reconstruction" projects which we ought not to be paying for (that money, applied to alternative energy projects, would do far more to crimp the world-wide Jihad), and which the Iraqis, with their whining and complaining and palpable lack of gratitude, have done nothing to deserve.

If Iraq has to endure some period of chaos, and possibly a reappearance of something like the old Ottoman vilayets, that is not a bad thing. If it yields fully to the fissiparous forces that are now held in check only by the Americans (who keep the Arabs from again attacking the Kurds, and whose presence allows Shi'a and Sunni to join in a common hostility). Get those Americans out.

And meanwhile, make sure that no one in the Arab and Muslim world mistakes our leaving Iraq to its own fate, to stew for some years in own juices, for a defeat. No, quite the contrary: by attacking the Arab satellite channels (appeals to the Al-Thani family in Qatar failed -- well, that's their last chance), by putting 5,000 or 10,00 American troops in the southern Sudan to protect the blacks from the Arabs (a move that would be wildly popular both in the United States, and in much of black Africa -- and would cost very little, and could hardly be opposed by Arabs claiming that they have some kind of god-given right to persecute, rape, and murder both Christian and animist blacks, and even non-Arab Muslims in the Darfur region). Stay, in order for the local referendum that will create a new nation, out of the oil-rich, and therefore economically potentially independent, southern Sudan. A good place for an American airfield. A good place from which to shore up the forces of Christianity, everywhere from southern Nigeria to Kenya and Tanzania; a full stop may be put to Arab Muslim da'wa and internal conquest of black Africa.

And after putting Al-Jazeera out of its hysterical misery (and the technical backwardness of the Arabs reinforced, for all to see -- one more example of the intellectual failure of Islam, which is permanently backward, though OPEC money can buy weaponry, and even finance nuclear programs based on bluepritns stolen by A.Q. Khan and his ilk), and taken southern Sudan in a mission that would be simultaenously anti-Jihad and humanitarian, let America turn its attention to winning back "hearts and minds" in Europe, by providing the kind of subsidized and intelligent help that was so useful in limiting the attractiveness of Communism in post-World War II Europe. There are, all over Europe, people sick at how their own EU, and particular government swithin the EU, have permitted unhindered Muslim immigration. From Palermo to Marseilles, from Cologne to Madrid, Europeans are beside themselves with secret worries and feaars, and no one except the unacceptable Le Pen, Megret, and company articulates the worry about Muslim immigrants. Pim Fortuyn was killed by a weak-minded Dutchman who was not so much an "animal rights activist" as he was offended by Fortuyn's desire to stop further Muslim immigration. All over Europe there are those who need support, who need to buy newspapers, who need to hear ex-Muslims testify at conferences on what Islam is really all about. The United States can help. And it can count on "New Europe," the Europe that contains a historic memory of the Ottoman devshirme, and the destruction of Christian life -- Bulgaria, Rumania, much of the Balkans, even Poland (Sobieski) and Hungary (the Magyars who turned back the Turks). All of this needs to be developed and played upon.

And there is much more that must be done, so that the sensible leave-taking from Iraq -- which is at this point (not before, not in March or April or May or even unto December 2003) has become a gross mis-allocation of men, materiel, money, and political capital.

Sorry, Iraq -- we're leaving now. We tried. We didn't fail. You did. You turned out to be far more unpleasant, ungrateful, and passive than we had any reason to believe. You did virtually nothing to help yourself rebuild, and waited for us to do it for you. You were happy to take what we offered, but there was no real gratitude -- not outside a handful of people. And policy cannot be built on the loyalty or unfiegned gratidue of 1% or 2% or even 5% of the population. It just can't. And we are not going to sacrifice further American lives for you. Oh, and that $18.7 billion you are confidently expecting (and certainly all the crooks, such as Adnan Pachachi, are circling about, hoping some of them is left for them)-- well, it turns out that most of it is now going to tanks and other military supplies we find we need, and also to pay our Reservists and National Guard units a good deal more, now that they have been risking their lives, and also to pay for our new venture in the Sudan, and to put al-Jazeera out of commission, and to start a Radio Free Europe -- beamed not at Eastern Europe, but at all of Europe, with stories just like the stories you find at www.jihadwatch.org, and www.secularislam.org.

Think of it, all you Washington consultants -- you don't have to contemplate some horrible months in horrible Iraq. Pack your bags -- Paris, Rome, Madrid, and London beckon. It will be great -- all you have to do is learn about Islam, and then help Europe help itself, after three decades of Euro-Arab appeasement. Don't you want to be able to visit, in 30 years, the Prado, the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Alte Pinakothek, the Rijksmuseum, the National Gallery -- don't you want to ensure that the statues and paintings are still safely there? Don't you want to ensure that France, Italy, and Holland are not lost to Islam? Don't you want your children and grandchildren to be able to spend those Junior Years Abroad in Europe, and not in part of dar al-Islam? Sure you do, even if you're just a little too lazy to really study Islam. So get with my program, will you?

"We spit and parted, the university and I. I am again a carefree Cossack." That is how Nabokov translated Gogol's lines about leaving his post at the University of St. Petersburg, after his short stint as a professor of universal history (he only performed well the day that Pushkin came to hear his lecture). Well, time for America and Iraq to "spit and part." Not so that we can again be "carefree cowboys," but so that we can with cunning and art, and all the instruments of modern war, propaganda, economic pressure, and moral suasion, deal with the world-wide Jihad the way it must be dealt with.

Stay the course? Sure. But the "course" is not Iraq; the "course" to stay covers much more than Iraq, and ought to be more cunningly conducted than it is at present. That "course" must be stayed without misallocating resources, and what could be done in Iraq of value -- knocking out an aggressive regime, assuring ourselves of its weaponry, and destroying most of that country's military might -- has been achieved. Leaving Iraq alone now is the best way to bring about the kind of changes -- the Ataturkian changes -- that will make things, from our point of view, better.

The real "course to be stayed" is everywhere, and Iraq is now a diversion, a distraction, a tarbaby. Not a quagmire, but a tarbaby. The "course to stay" is in southern Sudan and the Moluccas and the Moro Islands, in Waziristan and Kashmir, in Madrid and Paris, in Beirut and Riyadh, in Ramallah and Lackawanna and in the airports, on the planes and trains, in the LNG terminals, in the seaports --everywhere in the world, whether currently controlled by the forces of Islam, or still as yet unsubjugated.

Yes, out of Iraq, in order to carefully choose, in each place, the appropriate anti-Jihad instrument, and the means for its most effective application.

Hugh, the better part of me wants to say, "Here, Here!" You made some brilliant points. However, what happens if we leave without stabilizing Iraq? I question the wisdom of allowing the Islamists to take over and control the world's 2nd largest oil supply. Could you imagine how far those revenues would go towards financing the global jihad?

Joseph. Do you feel that our Armed Forces would have the slightest difficulty in flattening not only that city, but the entire nation if it were deemed necessary?

We took out the Iraqi Forces in a matter of a couple of weeks. This is terrorism, ducking, hiding among the innocent, hiding behind women and children. Don't fool yourself about our firepower. We're trying to resolve this peacefully.

Have no illusions, if the Iraqi Generarl can't get the job done, it'll be on. The strategy has changed, but the American objective hasn't.

OH PLEASE, PLEASE COME AND KILLS US

dc not only can our armed forces flatten that city it could flatten probably the majority of the major cities in the world in a 1 hour timeframe if a full scale nuclear assault was ordered on the world. that is not the point. the point is we invaded iraq so they tell us now to bring democracy to the iraqi people and we where welcomed BUT if things do not change soon we will be hated across the entire country excluding the kurds who I feel hate the arab iraqi's as well. and this hate will force the united states out of there country. yes we could bomb and destroy all of there citys and probably kill tens of thousands in the process but i dont view that as bringing democracy and freedom to the people of iraq. when it comes down to it iraq is there country not ours and if popular support in that country shifts to not wanting the united states there then there really is little that we can do. this is the reason why the united states is not in the position to be doing crap like they where at abu gharib or killing large ammounts of people in falujah or raiding peoples homes and putting bags on the heads of there loved ones because these images are very powerful in the minds of the people there and every time there is another its just that much closer to that country rejecting the united states. i dont exspect you to understand that dc. I personally feel that we are now at a turning point if we choose the path of force then it will be over we will lose if we chose the path of restraint and empowering the people there then maybe things will turn out okay.

Linny: I don't want to stabilize Iraq, or Saudi Arabia, or any other Muslim country. I am indifferent to -- no, I would welcome -- their destabilization. Had the Iran-Iraq war gone on forever, that would have been greatly to our advantage. The proxy war in Yemen, between Saudi Arabia's "Royalists" and Nasser's "Republicans," with the Egyptians even using poison gas, was a way of tying down two unpleasant armies.

I want the "war on terrorism" clearly defined as a war of self-defense against the world-wide Jihad. Some will recognize the justice of the description; others will move heaven and earth not to recognize it.

Would not the seizure of the southern Sudan and Darfur be eminently justifiable, and the best possible way to send a message that parts of dar al-Islam where non-Muslims are being murdered will no longer be part of dar al-Islam. Can Kofi Annan, worried about the Oil-for-Food scandal, and knowing full well that it was he who was most responsible for the UN's failure to intervene in the last African genocide, dare to raise his voice, or allow the Islamic infiltrators who have virtually seized control of the UN, to express their own fury at the Americans, when clearly the scenes of starving and terrorized black Africans, flocking to receive food and protection from the American soldiers, will be ungainsayable Too bad for the UN, the Arab League, and the world's Muslims. Very good for the non-Muslim world, and it could be a clear defining issue, not only for Africa's Christians, but for others as well. We need to find, and use to our own advantage, those defining issues. Iraq is a mess, not a quagmire but a mess. If we get out and accompany the withdrawal with several clear aggressive anti-Jihad measures, that will undercut all the crowing in Fallujah. Oh -- and if they crow, that crowing will not last long. Who is going to keep the Sunni and Shi'a from being at each other's throats, beginning with some settling of old scores in and around Sadr City?

See above for other possibilities: in Europe (identifying, and supporting, those non-Fascists who are worried about Muslim demographic conquest, and prepared to undertake all necessary measures -- including expulsions on a large scale -- to preserve Europe, which despite its decadent and cretinized political class, does not deserve to be jettisoned quite yet.

And if that Al-Jazeera satellite can't be shot down, or put out of commission, there are ways of blocking its transmission.

I forgot to mention that we should, simultaneously with an Iraqi withdrawal, announce a cutoff of all military aid to Egypt and Jordan -- and if they join in the general celebration of America's withdrawal, they will find that all economic aid will also be cut off. That should inhibit their press and television just a bit, no?

And finally, announce a tax on gasoline, and relate that tax directly to the need to deprive "certain groups" of the wherewithal to conduct Jihad, to limit the number of "institutions" that help to produce, and support, Jihads "such as madrasas"(no, do not name "mosques" -- let everyone fill in the blanks. It's so much easier).

And before, during, or perhaps just after Iraq has been left to Iraqi devices, the American airforce should destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. That will cause such upheaval in Iran, and so shake and humiliate the regime that the reformers may be emboldened to take more aggressive steps -- and that will concentrate the world's attention for a while. No, the Muslim Arab world will not be given a chance to gloat or to interpret our studied withdrawal as a defeat, when our every action will show that the anti-Jihad is finally beginning to be articulated, with a many-pronged attack on the military, economic, propagandistic, and demographic instruments of that Jihad.

Sooner or later it will have to come to this. Much better sooner. This isn't turning tail, but turning the tide, and making the world safe for little ataturks.

It was noble yet, in the end, ridiculous to try to change centuries of Muslim slavery and tyranny. Better to destabilize and kill them. Ultimately that will be the choice if our leaders ever wake up (and that is in doubt). I'm at war with Islam. How about you kids?

Joseph, I don't think anything we ever could've done, or ever will do would make a difference in how Arabs feel about us. We've done more charity work for this world than any other nation.

Money, food, protection, it doesn't matter. And for decades, what I just said holds true. Sure, there are the minorities of Arabs that can tolerate us, but no matter what we do, how nice we are, when or where......it doesn't matter to these people, so my opinion is why bother with them. We free Iraq from a sadistic megalomaniac, and they want us to leave.

If we left right now......another psycho would take his place. Sad but true.

Hugh -- do you have your own blog? Comments that long really should be turned into a separate weblog.

hugh sounds like a closet cia spook to me

only thing that could explain his pure wealth of knowledge and his strategys on how to use the middle east to make them fight each other

Hugh

I don't believe we should block aljazeera. We should continue to broadcast an alternative viewpoint.

Cutting support to Egypt is probably a good idea, but Jordan? We would weaken one of the less hostile nations in the region.

Gas taxes are tricky, and could have a big impact on the economy. This is a non-starter politically.

Iran should not be allowed to develop nukes, period. Whatever it takes to stop them is acceptable.

As for joey, these countries don't need help to fight each other. Their feuds are so old and deep they will never stop.

Basil,

Do you really believe that they are interested in another viewpoint? Especially a Western viewpoint?

basil so american propaganda is acceptable they have to do these reforms on there own. we cannot force a american pro western biased news down there throats.
do you guys ever watch mosaic on linktv its really good it shows daily clips from various middle eastern news programs. they really are not as slanted as you think even the one from iran is pretty normal. the only one that is slanted is al manar from lebanon but most of it is just using different words that have a less positive sound to them to explain the israeli situation and iraq. maybe these are just isolated examples but the differences between them and cnn and msnbc etc. are not as great as you like to make out. another point if american bombs accidentaly or even intentionaly blow up a building and there happen to be civilians inside and it killed them how is aljazeera out of line from showing footage of the casualties. other then the pure negative propaganda value for a american interests it did happen so why not cover it. if american media would stop being so afraid to show dead enemey, dead civilians, and dead american soldiers then maybe these stupid wars would never happen because then americans would know first hand the true horrors of war.

Oh wien wien okay here is the answer we pull all our fighters home and nuke the whole middle east they hate us anyway and we have the means to do it we will find another sorce of fuel We can drill right here in this country. we Have always done what needed to be done. at one time we used whale fat we can do anything we want to do who is to stop us? if the muslums don't like it in this country well remember when japan attacked our grandfathers rounded them up we will do the same if they don't get on the right side! you wieny babys get with it the muslum world was slinet while Saddam killed over 300,000 people and the UN is a rip off and needs to get out of the USA we are done paying

But the Baathis Party's cold-blooded murder of more than one million innocent people was OK? This is the message being sent across the Muslim world. Indeed,here is more proof that Islam is an ancient human sacrifice cult updated in the sixth century to destroy democracy in order to continue the practice of feeding human flesh to allah.

Joey,

Read my comment. I said we should not block aljazeera. Pay attention.

cheers

I'm inclined to agree with Hugh, you get some inkling of the mindset we're dealing with if you remember during the gulf war, the arabs in Gaza were out on the streets cheering when Saddam managed to drop a couple of Scuds into Israel, despite the fact that the missiles actually fell on them in Gaza! To virtually any other member of the human race that would be insane, but to them it's something to celebrate! How exactly can anyone else relate to this way of thinking?

i appreciate Hugh's comments on here ,,even if i dont agree totaly with every thing he say's ,,i learn much from his post's ,,also DCWATSON ,and others

Mark ,in Phoenix

"Oh wien wien okay here is the answer we pull all our fighters home and nuke the whole middle east they hate us anyway and we have the means to do it we will find another sorce of fuel"

and you wonder why we hate the US

what did muslims do to the US to start this massacre? 9 11 is beyond muslims to organize and execute, and i dont believe any Muslim group has enough power to do it. Even if a radical muslim group called al Qaida did it, and three thousand innocent civilians were killed, which i am extremely sorry for, how many were killed because of it? How did saddam hussein threaten the national security of the US? Is the US gonna start "liberalizing" the people of the middle east by killing this many people?

thanks

"9 11 is beyond muslims to organize and execute, and i dont believe any Muslim group has enough power to do it".

I always find this to be a peculiar claim from muslims. Often the same people who claim to have invented medicine, algebra, and the renaissance, claim that muslims are incapable of flying planes into buildings. This, despite all the facts, evidence, even despite Zacharias Moussaui, an admitted al Queda and student pilot. One of the strangest defenses I have ever heard. Tarek, haven't you ever been in a plane piloted by a muslim? Of course they can do it.

basil

by the way, it took a lot more than a muslim flying a plane to get through something like this. The people who did this had to have an agent working for them in the security forces, as there was no reaction to the first bombing but utter disbeleif, until the second one hit. Also, the WTC was built to withstand the impact with the plane, as u must know already. The hijackers got therough the airport security with weapons and 3 of the four planes hit target.

I think it takes a lot of organisation and authority to do something lke that.

thanks

I say it might be the best thing in the world to just pull ALL our forces out of ALL other countires and place them on the borders between Mexico and Canada and let no one in.

If the Islamic community in the world (what a concept considering they are uncivilized) wants to kill each other off so be it. Tell them to go ahead and do so but if there is ANYTHING done in this country that can be traced to Islam in any way, then the Islamic community will cease to exist.

Tarek
what did the muslums do to the USA well we have just in the last deacad we have 1991 Invade Kawiat Was our freind. 1993 they bombed the WTC in 1995 bombed our embssy in Saudi in 1996 Bombed our Marines in Saudi in 1998 Bombed our two embssy's in Africa and in 2000 Bombed our ship in Yeman and in 2001 bombed the two world trade towers and the pentagon and tried to bomb something else but some brave Americans stopped them at the cost of their lifes. and the muslum world through the UN has been ripping the USA tax payers off for the oil for food I would say we have had enough

Catherine

Why do you insist that these are muslims, not just terrorists. I frequently said that Islam is a religion of peace, understanding and mutual respect, and the emphasis in the world media on them being muslims is unfair.

Next point, even though Israel is bombing and murdering our friends in Palestine, why do you think we dont go to war with Israeli (actually im egyptian). People dont go to war with each other because of their friends, so that was a really stupid comment. The truth is that the US wanted to exist in the middle east and to have have bases and armies. If they are existing currently in kuwait for protection, what are they doing now in the middle east? Who is going to hit kuwait or any of the gulf countries?
Think about what i have just said

Thanks