The real analogy?

A few weeks ago, Tom Friedman of the New York Times came up with a striking image. Imagine a table, with a box, Monty Hall Let's Make a Deal-style.

Inside the box is one of two notes: "Congratulations! You just won the Arab Germany. All it will take is the removal of an atrocious regime, and this country will become peaceful, productive, and happy." -- Or -- "Congratulations! You just won the Arab Yugoslavia. This country is so fractious and divided, no amount of gentle perusasion will rule it successfully, so it has to be led by an iron hand, no matter what ideology they may have." Friedman then pointed out that the only way we'd ever know what was in the box was to open it.

Trouble is... I'm beginning to think there's a third note: "Congratulations! You just won Palestine. Only there's 80 times more land mass, and 9 times more people."

This is all by way of pointing to an article in the Asia Times that Tacitus links to. He mentions it largely because it describes how, "an estimated 5,200 Iraqis have crossed the Jordanian-Iraqi border, going back "to defend their homeland" as they invariably put it." Tacitus thinks this is bad because of these ex-pats forming the core of a future guerilla movement against us if or when we topple Saddam.

My point, as we in the US kick back and forth the question of just how difficult this venture will be, is that the Israelis have put forth a lot of military effort in subduing the Palestinians.

For 50 years.

And, while Israel may be said to have achieved some of its objectives because it does, after all, still exist... Can anyone truly say they have won against the Palestinians?

Further... Just how likely is it, do you think, that the US is willing to exert the same proportional effort against the Iraqis as the Israelis have against the Palestinians? More than that, just how effective would such a move be?

For 50 years.

"Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia."

Great stuff at TPM

Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has a great post with a guest analysis about the war. Any paraphrase of mine will fail to do it justice. Go read it now, if you're interested.

Oh, while it's on my mind:

...just to show I'm not thinking only of Iraq (or the spooky, independent congruence between my posts and Josh Marshall's, as I read them).

Japan just launched its first solely owned spy satellites.

The thing is, Japan is a very close military ally of the US. Or has been. Heck, one could even say (as many did, when Japan was more economically prosperous) that Japan is a military protectorate of the US.

So, um... Why would Japan even want its own satellites?

The answer, reading between the lines: They don't trust us to tell them the truth, and they're pissed off. Some sample quotes:

Japan currently buys commercial satellite photos from the US and France.

North Korea's launch of a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile over Japan... served as a wake-up call.

"It really shocked the Japanese. They realised that they've got to wake up and not be 100% reliant on the US," Victor Cha, professor of government and Asian studies at Washington DC's Georgetown University told BBC News Online.

Mr (Shuichiro) Yamanouchi (president of Japan's National Space Development Agency (Nasda)) admitted earlier this month: "It's a kind of technological independence. Information independence. For the Japanese it's very important."

The quality of the pictures they will produce is said to be inferior to that already bought from Japan by the US.

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North Korea has strongly protested against Japan's plans to launch the satellites, arguing that this is a sign of the country's growing militarism.

Japanese intelligence has indicated that North Korea may respond with a ballistic missile test.

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Let's restate that:

Japan is so concerned the US will not pass along vital satellite intelligence that it is willing to risk a North Korean missile launch... for the sake of inferior pictures.

But pictures which will be all theirs.

What a vote of confidence in their trust of us (and US), eh?

Buried in the last 'graph...

The New York Times has an article where Rumsfeld tries the Reagan Defense -- he can't recall making any statements he has made -- and tries strenuously to hand off the war planning process to Gen. Tommy Franks. So, when the going gets tough, the tough blame their subordinates. (I hope he's just as calm about this when Jorge does the same thing to him.)

But, down at the end of the article, we find this:

Mr. Rumsfeld said that he was not concerned that the United States had yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. He said most of such weapons are believed to be at sites closer to Baghdad, and troops had not yet reached them.

Mind you, this is the same Administration that, until two weeks ago, was saying the weapons were so widely dispersed across the whole territory of Iraq that the UN inspectors could never find them. Now, ever so conveniently, the weapons are concentrated in Baghdad... Where they couldn't have been used for the last 12 years against either the Kurds or the Iranians, or our own troops, no, nowhere as operationally useful as that...

Snark hunt. Soon to be a boojum.

More on Korea

From InstaPundit comes this article from the Baltimore Sun. Lead paragraphs:

BEIJING - For three straight days in recent weeks, something remarkable happened to the oil pipeline running through northeast China to North Korea - the oil stopped flowing, according to diplomatic sources, temporarily cutting off a vital lifeline for North Korea.

The pipeline shutdown, officially ascribed to a technical problem, followed an unusually blunt message delivered by China to its longtime ally in a high-level meeting in Beijing last month, the sources said. Stop your provocations about the possible development of nuclear weapons, China warned its neighbor, or face Chinese support for economic sanctions against the regime.

Good to see someone's willing to face the North Koreans, given the reaction of the Cowardly Lion.