In a fascinating article, If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?" Juan Cole transposes the situation in Iraq into American terms:
President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.
What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.
Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.
And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?
What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?
There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities?
What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?
What if all the cities in the US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?
This is a useful way to understand what's going on in Iraq. Read the whole thing, as there are numerous other examples and they're all pretty inventive in mapping the situation in Iraq in American terms.
Of course, there are are some additional what-ifs that Prof. Cole omits from his scenario:
What if up until recently America had been living under a totalitarian dictator - say, a leader of the American Nazi party or the Ku Klux Klan - who for the past 30 years had ruled through murder, torture and secret poice? What if that dictator had already killed upwards of 3.3 million citizens and buried them in mass graves, and imprisoned and tortured others, including children?
What if that dictator had previously attacked both Canada and Mexico, stopped only by a coalition of nations intent on preventing his power base from spreading across all of North America?
What if, 12 years later, a similar coalition led by the same nations returned with the intent of ending the reign of the dictator and his Klansmen? And if the dictator's supporters had melted into the population, joined forces with extremist Christian fanatics to drive off the outsiders and reinstate Klan rule?
What if 2/3 of the United States was already free of the Klan influence and returning to what passes for a normal life elsewhere in the world, but the middle third was still riven by terrorist attacks?
What if our most powerful allies against the Klan were themselves divided over whether they were committed to defeating the enemy? What if public opinion in those countries was asking the question: "Is America worth saving?"
What would our state of mind be? What would we do about it?
I suspect at first we would keep our heads down, until it looked like there would be a sure winner. After all, backing the wrong side could be a fatal mistake. As we saw living conditions improving and terrorist attacks worsening, many of us would be enlisting in the National Guard, police force or military to join the fight to defeat the Klan and their extremist Christan Allies. We would understand that if the terrorists succeeded in defeating the government, we would end up being ruled by a combination of fascists and religious extremists who would not hesitate to commit violence, torture and murder against any who raised their voices.
Those are the stakes, folks. And that is exactly the way that Iraq's Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi laid it out in his address to Congress. If you didn't catch it on CSPAN, NPR, or any of the other outlets that carried it live, you should read his remarks. At least we should all be clear on who we are fighting and why, and what will happen if we falter.
(Hat tip: Electoral-vote.com)
UPDATE: Eric the Unread and Opinionated Bastard express similar thoughts.
(Hat tip: Arthur Chrenkoff)
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