Look at the date this article was published in the Asia Times

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED05Ak01.html

The war that may end the age of superpower

Apr 5, 2003


By Henry C K Liu

The United States, like ancient Rome, is beginning to be plagued by the limits of power. This fact is tactically acknowledged by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard B Myers that the war plan should not be criticized by the press because it has been framed in a diplomatic and political context, not merely pure military considerations in a vacuum. They say that it is the best possible war plan politically, though it may be far from full utilization of US military potential. America's top soldier has criticized the uniformed officer corps for expressing dissent that seriously undermines the war effort. Such criticism is characterized by Myers as "bearing no resemblance to the truth", counterproductive and harmful to US troops in the field.

Only time will tell who will have the last laugh. The US Central Command (Centcom) has announced that the next phase with an additional 120,000 reinforcements will not begin until the end of April. That is three times the duration of the war so far. In Vietnam, the refrain of all is going as planned was heard every few weeks with self-comforting announcements that another 50,000 more troops would finish the job quickly.

There is no doubt the US will prevail over Iraq in the long run. It is merely a question of at what cost in lives, money and time. Thus far, a lot of pre-war estimates have had to be readjusted and a lot of pre-war myths about popular support for US "liberation" within Iraq have had to be re-evaluated. Time is not on America's side, and the cost is not merely financial. America's superpower status is at stake.

This war highlights once again that military power is but a tool for achieving political objectives. The pretense of this war was to disarm Iraq of weapons of massive destruction (WMD), although recent emphasis has shifted to "liberating" the Iraqi people from an alleged oppressive regime. At the end of the war, the US still needs to produce indisputable evidence of Iraqi WMD to justify a war that was not sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. Overwhelming force is counterproductive when applied against popular resistance because it inevitably increases the very resolve of popular resistance it aims to awe into submission.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. The author is right this war is about our status as a superpower

which, ironical enough, we could have possibly sustained through diplomatic means but our use of raw power has set the world against us enough that they will use all their resources to see that we are not the worlds main superpower.

[acmavm]

2. OOPS...

<SNIP>

There is no doubt the US will prevail over Iraq in the long run.

<SNIP>

You really think so???????????????