Why America is Losing

Re the article posted yesterday. I don't know how someone can write so dispassionately about the Israeli death machine. GI's returning from America's wars suffer from emotional or psychological problems arising from the suffering they've observed or inflicted. Three generations of Israelis have been guilty of such atrocities, the place has to be a nut house. But enough about them, let's talk about us for awhile.

When did this "asymmetric" term come into vogue? I guess it's an antiseptic way of saying we'll kill a lot of innocent people in the hopes of getting a few combatants, or maybe just out of frustration that we can't even find a few combatants to kill.
But the article makes an interesting point about non-state belligerents. Israel can overrun the Palestinian Authority or Lebanon in a matter of days or weeks just as the US did in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the author points out, that's just the beginning. The conqueror now has to bear the expense of occupation, and "low-level" belligerence. Cost, oh say 100 billion dollars a year. Stupefying, aint it. What catalogue of social ills couldn't be cured. And when we declare victory and go home
the costs will continue. Depleted uranium poisoning will afflict the veterans, as will the psychological problems. For sure the government will not be willing to acknowlege these afflictions but they will ensue and they will be costly. And what will we have conceivably gained?

Do you remember the Morgenthau Plan? Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary advanced the idea as the way to deal with post war Germany. Break it into pieces. Allow neighboring states to annex the regions with the greatest economic resources, and dismantle the remaining infrastructure. Marshall had the sense to propose an alternative which has been enshrined as the masterpiece of US diplomacy in the twentieth century. But the Morgenthau plan has new life, Senator Charles Schumer has dusted it off and proposed the same solution for post-war Iraq.

Iranian influence will certainly prevail in the south, the Kurds will secede with the Mozul and Kirkuk oil fields. But who will the Kurds look to for protection from Turkey and Iran, two neighbors with Kurdish minorities of their own? Ooops; look who's back. It's our Israeli friends.

From Jane's Middle East/Africa News 18 April 2006

"Israel stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein and the threat from the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to possess. But it seems the Israelis have other things in mind.

An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy.

To resume supplies from Mosul to Haifa would require the approval of whatever Iraqi government emerges and presumably the Jordanian government, through whose territory it would be likely to run. Paritzky's ministry was reported to have said on 9 April that it would hold discussions with Jordanian authorities on resuming oil supplies from Mosul, with one source saying the Jordanians were "optimistic". Jordan, aware of the deep political sensitivities involved, immediately denied there were any such talks."

Now I'm back to my world weary state, but at least I'm not stupid.

PS - seeking perspective, I searched all blogs for Israel and Kurds. Came up with very little, not even this post. Does blog-spot filter out unworthy posts?