Occupation highlights superpower limits (Great read)

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FD20Ak01.html

Since the dissolution of the USSR in the early 1990s, the United States has been the world's sole remaining superpower, with the richest economy and the most powerful military. The presidency of the US is the most powerful political office in the world, with direct command of overwhelming force projection capability to all corners of the world on short notice, unhampered by dwindling Congressional restraint, as originally defined by the US constitution.

It is an imperial presidency by all measures. The Bush administration, hijacked by neo-conservatives, embraces a "neo-Reaganite foreign policy of national strength and moral assertiveness abroad", as defined by the editors of The Weekly Standard, mouthpiece of US neo-conservatism. National strength is twisted to mean the indiscriminate application of overwhelming force and moral assertiveness abroad is carried out with coercive regime changes in small nations for narrow dynastic vengeance. It is a policy of national weakness and moral bankruptcy that has left the US divided at home and isolated abroad. It is a policy, as Democratic candidate John Kerry suggests, gridlocked by flawed ideology and misplaced arrogance. It has reduced superpower status to the equivalent of powerlessness towards high purpose. snip

Historical lesson
The historical lesson of the US War of Independence is that a popular militia, armed with passion for independence, sympathy from the people and familiarity with the land, commands insurmountable advantage over a militarily superior foreign occupation force. As American independence fighters learned two centuries ago, popular resistance, melting into the populace like fish in water, could not be contained by British occupational forces without slaughtering innocent civilians. British burnings of American churches with civilians locked inside for sympathizing with the independence struggle failed to stop the insurgents. British general Thomas Cage, in the Battle of Bunker Hill, by labeling the independence movement a loose collection of thugs and tax evaders, much like the way US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld labeled the Iraqi resistance "a handful of thugs", only highlighted the incompetence of his command by his failure to recognize reality, violating the first rule of successful war-making.

Though the British technically won the battle, the high casualties suffered by British forces caused the resignation of Cage. Bunker Hill signaled the futility of British war aims of defeating a popular uprising. The more innocent civilians are slaughtered, the stronger the resistance will be reinforced by such atrocious killings. Such is the natural law against foreign occupation by force. Rumsfeld called the ongoing battles in Iraq "a test of will". The question is which side is fighting for freedom from occupation and which side for occupation of a foreign nation. Or is it a test of will between civilizations? In that case, a century-long occupation will still not win the test. With much of popular will around the world turning against ill-considered US policies of unilateralism, democracy may not turn out to be a friend of the world's superpower gone mad with self-indulgence.

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[bloom]

1. that sums it up pretty well...

I always thought that, also. The home team has something to fight for. We might have all the power. They have the will. The sooner we leave, the better for everybody.

[Miss Authoritiva]

2. "The foolish squandering of superpower resources"

No one would ever consider me to be a student of history, but compared with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld,Wolfowitz, et al I deserve at least an honorary PhD. Just one week's worth of History Channel viewing would reveal that every superpower that preceded us had squandered its resources in pretty much the same way: stupidly, and with much blood-shed.