Trouble in River City

We don’t get it! War is changing and the traditional powers are trailing the lesser lights in understanding how to cope with the new paradigm. We sent 500,000 troops (at a time) to Vietnam and could not defeat a poorly armed but highly motivated insurgency. We send more than 130,000 troops (at a time) to Iraq and we cannot stamp out groups intent on killing other Iraqis and Americans.

According to the New Yorker Magazine’s Seymour Hirsch, Israel and the United States had seen the provocation from Hezbollah coming in Lebanon for a long time and had decided to stamp them out at the sign of a convenient border incident. Both countries were confident that Hezbollah could be destroyed in short order and that the techniques used would be transferable to Iran where the U.S. was contemplating taking out the nuclear program under development.

After a month of heavy fighting and tremendous air attacks on Lebanese infrastructure and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, the Israelis were unable to put Hezbollah out of business. A heavy propaganda war intended to make Hezbollah the bad guy among non-Shiite Lebanese and other Arabs also fizzled, and the U.S. and Israel are wearing the black hats across the Islamic world - and in European countries.

I have no idea if Hirsch is right, but he has a solid track record for unearthing such intelligence. All in all, the neocons do not seem to realize there is a limit to American power, especially if it is used unilaterally or nearly thus.

This is extremely unfortunate as it appears that Iran is indeed highly dangerous and clearly has a connection with at least one world terrorist organization, Hezbollah. But this administration has shunned talking with Tehran, perhaps with good reason in the halls of American power. But failing to talk with a nation because we don’t agree with it can be counterproductive.

The administration manipulated intelligence to topple Saddam. There were no WMD and no working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. But here with Iran we have a larger more powerful opponent that admits to working on advanced nuclear technology, but not on nuclear weapons. In a few weeks, the United Nations is going to have an answer to its demands for Tehran to stop its so called `peaceful program’, and if they won’t who’s going to do what?

The neocon spear appears blunted, but we have a problem. Are the unilateralists going to cry uncle for once and actually try to negotiate? We were perceived as stalling in New York while the Israelis knocked out Hezbollah but got caught in an embarrassing situation when they successfully held out against the modern military force.

In the face of Vietnam, Iraq, Lebanon and other insurgencies, will we attack again? This time it appears that a menace to us and our allies is truly out there, but Bush and the neocons have lost the support of the vast majority of Americans for wild adventurism. We’re lower than whale manure with the U.N., and many competitors and rivals want to use it to check us.

We’ve sunk so low, that we’ve had to deal with France to help us save face in Lebanon. No wonder the president felt the need to provide back rubs at the last G-8 Meeting.

Folks, there’s trouble in River City and it ain’t pool. The scariest part is that these guys and gals ain’t up to dealing with it.

Had enough? Vote Democrat?

Blog on!

Wild Bill