It would be a giant poke in the eye for the varied Islamofascists and America haters in the MidEast if all of a sudden we decided to take in all the Dafor refugees, wouldn't it? Today, despised refugee; tomorrow their grandchildren are in the U.S. Senate, setting MidEast policy ... or otherwise just living out the American Dream while their oppressors are just barely scraping by in the third world.

From what little I've heard, they'd actually make model citizens.

Mitch suggested: "If the UN doesn't have a similar mandate - let a competent, capable nation lead the initial, "hot" operation against the Janjaweed..."

Well that rules out the U.S.

Of course this is what has become of the one UN peacekeeping mission that has worked: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/uns-legacy-of-shame-in-timor/2006/07/21/1153166587803.html?page=fullpage
The part about the goats is illustrative.
As for taking in Sudanese refugees, some have done unbelievably well: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2466635
I'm all for it.

Yes, and where our missions to stabilize countries have done so well by comparison.

Vietnam
Iraq
Somalia
Lebanon

We sure do get the prize for success, the only one that comes to mind that worked is Bosnia, which Mitch of course opposed.

Mitch, I'd be interested to hear your prediction for success in Iraq. Having recently turned the corner again with the establishment of a unity government, and seen daily attacks go from 24 per day average to 34 per day, how long, do you suppose it will be until there is peace? Oh, and would you please enlighten us all on how the situation with the Kurds will turn out, especially please concentrate on telling us how it will be different than the very accurate predictions from the left about how things were going to pan out. Just for the record, they predicted -

a. extensive, long-lasting strife between Sunnis and Shiites
b. long-term destabilizing activity by AQ - a force not present prior to our invasion
c. eventual strife between the Kurds and Turkey

So far, they're pretty much dead on, where the predictions from the right were:

1. We'd be welcome with open arms
2. 150,000 Troops would be plenty
3. They'd be enough to secure weapons stockpiles rather than having those stockpiles used against us
4. We'd have limited, short-term dissent from Saddamists
5. The insurgency would be in its last throws by mid 2004, no 2005, no 2006
6. That fighting AQ in Iraq would suck up all of the resources they had, and we'd exterminate em'.

Considering that track record, do you really have any room to kick sand in the face of people who may fail, but at least aren't pre-emptive tools of empire builders?

Yes, and we really screwed up that whole Japan/Germany stabilizing thing too, and made a complete hash of that freeing hundreds of millions from Communism thing...

Ted, your list is a mish-mash of disimilar situations... We cut and ran in Somalia (adding to the 'paper tiger' label that encouraged UBL to up the ante)... People like John 'Reporting For Duty' Kerry said our withdrawal from Vietnam and Cambodia would only affect a few thousand people. Fair or not our withdrawal from Vietnam is what gives our enemies the idea that if they simply hang in there long enough, maintain a low level insurgency and inflict minimal but steady casualties sooner or later the US press and public will pressure the government to quit. Every time we do this it increases the difficulty of winning the next time.

Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq (and India and Iran and Afghanistan and Indonesia and and and ) are all pitch battles in the same overarching war, a war that is far from over and in which victory is the only result that would allow our values and way of life to continue, but in which victory is far from assured. Every day I have less and less faith that we as a nation have the ability to comprehend the stakes and the collective will to win.

Chriss of course you have "less and less faith that as a nation we have the ability to comprehend the stakes and collective will to win," because, as you said, "a war that is far from over and in which victory is the only result that would allow our values and way of life to continue."

This is a war of ideals and values, so how does the US "win" this war by conventional means?

Chriss,

Apparently you missed the "in the past 50 years" part of Mitch's post.

My comments were confined to that timeframe.

That said, considering the state of mind of the nation during WWII was far more egalitarian, far more dedicated to bringing a lasting peace of equity and development of economies in Japan and Germany based on self-employment, than the current model of dominance and exploitation through the contractor based privatization of the Iraqi economy. The contrast between this and WWII are stark, the comparisons weak. We are inflicting an undesired unity government on the Iraqis. In Japan and Germany they desired to move away from militarism that had destroyed the infrastructure of the countries and lead to millions of deaths. In Germany, virtually an entire male generation had been wiped out. It is a sham to compare that to a country where they had a functioning economy which is now wrecked, where you have enourmous divisions among the population, and where we are seen as anything but liberators.

Whether Vietnam worked, and using it to take a shot at Kerry is an irrelevant sidebar that only serves to make the point, is not a question. Clearly it didn't. The point was that the UN is doing no worse than we are, over the past 50 years.

Fulcrum's point is dead on, how do you win a war by conventional means against mostly civilian- based opposition which believes you are oppressing it, whether that opposition is Vietnamese, Lebanese or Iraqi? Would you recommend nuclear war? How long should we have been willing to absorb casualties in Vietnam to implement a government not of the people's choosing, a style not of the people's choosing? We make the same mistake in Iraq, and Mitch's defense is, "We're better than the UN." Hardly justification, and hardly praise, and hardly true.

What will victory in Iraq be? How will you get there?