Going in is easy. How about going out

Submitted by yuval Brandstetter MD (Israel), Sep 12, 2005 at 12:54

There is no question that Saddam had it coming. That is not the issue. The issue is, how do you introduce a totally foreign concept (democracy) to a population which is dead set against it, unready for it, and has not been totally subjugated so it has no choice.
America keeps going in, without realizing what it is up against. Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, now Iraq. Without realizing that a society built on terror, cannot be ruled with good intentions. Germany was razed to the ground, it was then rebuilt. Japan was never a terrorist society, still it was subdued only by the Atomic Bomb, then introduced to Democracy. You cannot frighten 40 million Iraqis who are used to a rein of terror with 140,000 well meaning soldiers! Israel, which is still the demographic majority West of the Jordan has just admitted defeat and scampered out of Gaza, and Iraq is a hundred times worse than Gaza.

It is time for America to declare victory and leave the Iraqis to their own devices. The goal of the war was to reduce a megalomaniac regime to its constituent pieces so they can weaken each other. Should another megalomaniac seize hold, then, by all means, dismantle him. But trying to make Arabs democratic? ... The sooner America pulls out the better. The money spent on the rebuilding of Iraq will be better spent on the development of non-oil energy.

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