I've been wanting to write something to counter the myth that Osama Bin Laden is an example of blowback from US support for the mujahideen who took up arms against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Luckily, someone else has beaten me to it, with this excellent article.
Also, it seems that my position on the status of US citizens held as enemy combatants by the US has been confirmed by a US Federal appeals court. One more small victory against Islamo-fascism & its Western sympathizers.
Swann's basically right about the upcoming Gulf War II, except that it will work. Speaking of Iraq, a while ago I asked Billy Beck what to read about Gulf War I. In addition to recommending Clancy's "Into the Storm," and "Every Man A Tiger," and Gordon & Trainor's "The Generals' War," he said that the PhD thesis had yet to have been written about the prospects for Gulf War II. Since then, I've found that it has, in Kenneth Pollack's "The Threatening Storm." Pollack was a CIA specialist in analyzing Iraq, and if the Bushies are getting and taking advice from people of his level of understanding of Iraqi affairs - and every indication is that they are - then we're in good hands. Pollack has an excellent understanding of Iraqi military capability and internal security, and does a wonderful job of showing why a full-scale US ground invasion of Iraq, preceded by strategic aerial bombing, of course, is the most humane option for the Iraqi people and Iraq's regional neighbors. Better than sanctions, better than lifting the sanctions but hoping to deter Saddam, and better than leaving him to his own devices.
One of Pollack's main points is that Saddam believes that once he becomes a nuclear power he will be able to deter the US from resisting his drive toward regional hegemony. This is not true, but he has never been one to let truth get in the way of his fantasies. So, he is determined to get nukes & other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and once he has them he will again aggress against his neighbors. In the meantime, the Iraqi people suffer under a regime which he has consciously modeled on those of Hitler and Stalin, except for the Kurds who are protected by US and British airpower.
Pollack's critique of the anti-sanctions brigade is especially devastating. To put it simply, Saddam doesn't even sell as much oil as allowed to under the oil-for-food UN regime, and doesn't buy food or medical supplies for the Iraqi people with it. He buys food & medicines, then smuggles them out of the country to re-sell them on the black market for weapons & other supplies for his military and secret police services. He bribes neighboring countries like Syria into going along with this, so the sanctions are already leaking like the proverbial sieve and will only become more so over time if they're not enforced.
Of course, once Saddam is overthrown, the sanctions can be lifted and the oil can be sold to provide food, medicine, & other supplies needed by the Iraqi people, without fear that the proceeds will further Saddam's pursuit of WMD and regional aggression. Then there will be no more need for US troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia.
Pollack's analysis of what it will take to rebuild Iraq after Gulf War II is especially good, as he understands the dynamics of the Shi'ite majority, the Sunni minority ruling class, the Kurdish minority, the interests of Iraq's neighbors (which he says are all privately in favor of a US invasion of Iraq, as long as it's quick), the Iraqi exile groups (of which he doesn't have a very high opinion, having tried to help them come up with a plan for overthrowing Saddam via covert operations with US support and given up in frustration), etc.
No one on either side of the debate about whether the US ought to invade Iraq or not can competently discuss the issue without being familiar with the arguments in Pollack's book. It also has the virtue of being quite readable.
