Top Ten Myths about Iraq
Lefty Professor Juan Cole’s List
I don’t agree with Juan Cole very much, or perhaps at all. Even this list strikes me as mostly the spin he derides in his opening paragraph.
It would be disingenuous to baldly list 2 or 3 of his “debunked myths” that I agree with and trumpet that. So I emphasize that I disagree with most of his list (which my readers can check out at the link), and I am only commenting here on three that I agree with.
3. The guerrillas are winning the war against US forces. The guerrillas are really no more than mosquitos to US forces. The casualties they have inflicted on the US military, of over 2000 dead and some 15,000 wounded, are deeply regrettable and no one should make light of them. But this level of insurgency could never defeat the US military in the field.
My interpretation is that we are not “losing.” Nor is it a “quagmire.” Given the size and resources of the United States and its military, we can sustain our commitment in Iraq indefinitely. Unless internal defeatists undermine our resolve.
5. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, born in Iran in 1930, is close to the Iranian regime in Tehran. Sistani rejects Khomeinism, and would be in jail if he were living in Iran, as a result.
This one is obvious. Even the religiously-oriented Shi’ite parties do not see eye-to-eye with Iran.
8. Iraq is already in a civil war, so it does not matter if the US simply withdraws precipitately, since the situation is as bad as it can get. No, it isn’t. During the course of the guerrilla war, the daily number of dead has fluctuated, between about 20 and about 60. But in a real civil war, it could easily be 10 times that. Some estimates of the number of Afghans killed during their long set of civil wars put the number at 2.5 million, along with 5 million displaced abroad and more millions displaced internally. Iraq is Malibu Beach compared to Afghanistan in its darkest hours. The US has a responsibility to get out of Iraq responsibly and to not allow it to fall into that kind of genocidal civil conflict.
This one really surprised me, coming from Juan Cole. Will someone tell Representative Murtha?
Mark Coffey also agreed with much of the professor’s list.
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