HUMOR: WHAT COUNTRY SHOULD WE INVADE NEXT?
By Steve Clifford
CrossCut
flip-side/19575/
Feb 18 2010
Our next target ought to be as different from Afghanistan as possible.
One country perfectly fits the template.
George Santayana famously warned, "Those who do not remember the past
are condemned to repeat it." With that in mind, I turn to the pressing
question: What countries should America invade in the future? How
should we wage war and govern them after a swift victory? Let us
apply the lesson we learned form the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan.
What Country To Invade?
1. Invade a homogeneous country. In Iraq we got caught up in the
Sunni-Shea-Kurd nonsense. Who knew they couldn’t get along? In
Afghanistan we discovered that the Pashtunen don’t like the Uzbeks,
Hazara, Baluch, Aimaq, Kirghiz, Wakhi, Fariwan, Nuristani, Brahui,
Tajik, Turkmen, Oizilbasj, and Kabuli. This is should be no surprise
because in Afghanistan nobody likes anybody outside of their own
extended family.
By contrast, we enjoyed great success invading homogeneous countries
such as Germany, Japan, and Grenada. There are many homogeneous
countries to choose from: France, Italy, and the Scandinavian nations
immediately spring to mind.
2. Avoid religion. No more fanatically suicide bombers from the
Taliban and Al Qaeda: Let’s stick with countries that play by
the rules. Our next invasion must be a country that does not take
religion seriously. By many measures, France, Scandinavia, and the
Baltic Republics are the least religious countries in the world today.
3. Be sure they have WMD’s. You cannot trust the CIA when they tell
you what you have instructed them to tell you. To be sure of finding
WMD’s we should invade one of the known members of the nuclear club:
Russia, China, Britain, France, India, or Pakistan.
4. Fight in a temperate climate. US Armed Forces have been trained to
fight in temperate climates. Why make war elsewhere? Iraq experiences
some of the highest temperatures in the world. Scorching heat is
often augmented by an irritating dusty wind, the shamal, causing heat
exhaustion and heatstroke.
Afghanistan rivals Houston for the worst climate in the world. In
a single day temperatures can go from freezing at dawn to the 90s
at noon. Annually, The Mountains receive more than 40 inches of
precipitation, mostly as snow. Frontal winds sweep in from the west
bringing large sandstorms or dust storms, while the strong solar
heating of the ground raises large local whirlwinds.
France, with its generally temperate climate, homogeneous population,
and absence of religion, appears to be the perfect country to invade.
According to the CIA, we will be greeted as liberators by the
disaffected Monarchists, Vichyites, Jacobins, Girondists, Orleanists,
and Bonapartists.
How to Wage War and Govern After Victory.
1. Have powerful allies. In Afghanistan and Iraq we lack powerful
and committed allies. In Iraq "the coalition of the willing," aka
"coalition of the bribed," comprised Armenia, Moldova, Iceland, and
the Gambino Family. All withdrew troops by 2005 except for the Gambino
Family, who began operating under the name Blackwater. In Afghanistan,
NATO nations have supplied cheerleading.
Were we to invade France, we could count on support from her
traditional enemies — Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Canada. The
military plan is already in place. Germany could replay the 1914
Schlieffen plan while the US, Britain, and Canada land on the beaches
of Normandy. Sensing opportunity, Italy could repeat its invasion of
1940. It would be a race to see who surrenders first.
2. Have a compelling doctrine. In Iraq we employed Bush doctrine —
Piss me off and I’ll unilaterally kick your ass and then send in a
bunch of twenty-something Bible School graduates to privatize social
security, outlaw stem cell research, and preach abstinence-only sex
education. This doctrine failed to resonate.
Afghanistan witnessed the evolution of the more nuanced Obama Doctrine
— Send enough troops to keep it really close for 18 months until
you pull them out. This has also failed to resonate.
Our war fighting doctrine should be: Win, but not too fast. Bush told
Time magazine in 2004, "Had we to do it over again, we would look
at the consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful,
so fast, that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in,
escaped and lived to fight another day." To avoid winning too fast,
we should invade France during the short window where the French Army
is not engaged in contract negotiations, job actions, or strikes.
3. Quickly establish a competent government to win the hearts and
minds of the people. In Iraq, de-Bathification ousted all competent
government employees. In Afghanistan we backed a corrupt tribal
faction.
Today, only French cabinet ministers change when a new government is
formed. Therefore, we can rely on a competent staff of civil servant
to implement our new policies. We will not need to engage in nation
building. We already know how to fix most of France’s problems —
economic slowdowns, banking crisis, immigration, political gridlock,
and health care costs.
4. Have an idealistic and moralistic purpose that all Americans
can embrace. The biggest problem with the French is that they are
Un-American. The women are well dressed, svelte, and know how to tie
scarves. The men prefer intellectual theorizing to NASCAR. France
coddles their citizens with universal health care, long vacations,
and job security. They think food is more important than Tea Parties.
Think what would happen if we installed US-style free-market capitalism
there. This could be a real game changer, transforming the entire
European Union. Think of France with long work weeks and short
vacations, a fifth of the nation lacking health insurance, little
job security, lousy food, obesity, and the top 1 percent having more
income than the bottom 95 percent. France then would look a lot like
the France of 1788. We could even bring back Louis XXVII.