Woody (Woody’s News and Views) has an interesting comment from “a sergeant in a US Army intelligence unit” gleaned from The Belmont Club that deserves your eyeballs. I’d take the sergeant’s argument a little further, though…
Mini-rant (still serious, though)
As I’ve been saying: partition the country along tribal/ethnic/religious lines. But I’d NOT disarm them. I’d leave the Shiites and Sunnis as is and hyper-arm the Kurds. Beef up American presence in the land of the Saracens (the Kurds), tell the Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites (and the damned Turks) to go fish. Establish major presences in oil fields and along pipelines to assure—by killing every unauthorized living thing that wanders into that space—their oil (paid for, of course) flows freely… to us.
Let the Shiites and Sunnis work out their religious differences and even more ancient tribal blood feuds in venerable Kilkenny Cat tradition. When they are well and truly done, let/help the Kurds pick up the pieces, whip the survivors into shape and build a mighty friend of the U.S. in the region–cos they’re the ONLY people in that region, aside from the Israelis–who have any honor and decency at all (as a people).
Heck, when all’s said and done, sell the new Saracens all the weaponry they might want to knock off the evil Saudi regime, if they so desired.
But the neo-jacobian fantasy of building one nation out of peoples with ancient, savage blood feuds and intractable differences between sects of a bloody, savage cult (each following—emulating—and revering The Butcher of Medina) is as stupid today as when the British established Iraq as a nation in the 1920s. The only way it “worked” between then and now was when the savage, brutal, barbaric tribal enmities were placed under the even more savage, brutal, barbaric heel of a murderous dictator.
(And, in fact, that’s the only way those peoples have been successfully ruled within one polity for well over a millenniunm.)
Partition the country and at the very least provide for the security of the oil delivery system and the security of the Kurds. Let the savages beat themselves to death. (While, alas, also bloodying the very few innocents left in that barbaric land.)
“Cradle of civilization.” Yeh, well, it’s not been a civilized land for at least a couple of millennia, except in the very loose definition of “people live in cities there.”
I’d go even further, though.
We HAVE the technical and econmic capabilities NOW to be energy self-sifficient… IF folks would do it. Atomic energy–cheap and abundant, absent assinine, stupid, lying rants by greenies, etc., against it–could easily and economically supply ALL the electricity power needs of the U.S. and even make electric cars a viable alternative.
Nearly every county in the U.S. could support a waste treatment plant that _paid for itself_ by producing… a light crude oil and pure water as products. From sewage, if no other organic matter were supplied. There’s one such plant within 50 miles of my home that’s been in operation for about four years. Quietly making money by converting organic waste into oil and producing pure water as a “by-product”… while also co-generating much of its own power needs as another “by-product” of the process.
Yeh, massive infrastructure investment. So? Surely not more than the $300 billion plus already poured into the sands of Iraq.
Energy independence. Cut off ALL economic. cultural and political ties with everyone except PROVEN allies in the region (by-by, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Egypt and… ). Let them sink.
Start producing pre-fab pebble bed reactors by the hundreds, thousands… for export to countries dependent upon Middle Eastern oil. Do everything in our power to KILL the market for M.E. oil.
Satellite solar power. The technology is almost shelf-assembly level. Sell that (as well as pebble bed reactors and TPR plants) to countries dependent upon M.E. oil.
Make the attacks upon the terrorists both seriously military and economic. Cur off their source of funds by EXPORTING energy ourselves (as the Chinese do now and plan on doing much more of–largely via PBRs–in the future)–around the world.
But especially targeting areas that buy from Middle Eastern oil suppliers. Oh, and Venezuela. AND Mexico. *heh*
Energy independence. Energy EXPORT. Build the damned fence. Beef up the Navy and Coast Guard. Fund ONLY genuine allies (cut Egypt and Turkey and the Saudis dead in the water, for example; make sure the Kurds are first in line for their own PBRs from us, etc.). Go really hi-tech on terrorists asses. Predator’s cool, but I want THOR (see Footfall by Niven and Pournelle for the idea. Heck, even Wikipedia gets this one pretty well.).
Stop playing Mr. Nice Guy. Take the Islamic world by the throat and squeeze. Real hard. Pop that pimple on the butt of the Middle East, cauterize it and move on to bigger and better things.
All this would work except that the U.S. is now bound by short-sighted (and foolish) greed in economic decisions—from supporting WallyWorld’s gutting of American production in favor of supporting China’s economy, etc., to selfish greenie idiocy about atomic energy—and stupid, cowardly politicians.
N.B. Yeh, the post above refers to PBRs and TPR plants, etc. I’ve blogged about each of them before. You have google. Your homework assignment, should you care to accept it, is to find out for yourself how we are burying ourselves under foreign oil for no good reason at all.
