"I have a bad feeling about this."

[nibot]

``WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — The White House is developing a detailed plan, modeled on the postwar occupation of Japan, to install an American-led military government in Iraq if the United States topples Saddam Hussein, senior administration officials said today.'' -- NY Times

The post-war occupation of Japan may have been successful, but here the situation is not at all the same. This is the Pearl-harbor interpretation of Sept. 11 taken way too far. Sept 11 wasn't perpetrated by any state, and here we are choosing an enemy and applying the same solution as in a different situation a half-century ago. This time there's really no direct provocation, and nobody's asking us to do this. What will this do to the Middle East? How will the Saudis (who already want the American military off their turf) and the Jordanians (who initially supported Iraq's invasion of Kuwait) feel about an American occupation of Iraq? Beirut was a boondoggle, Castro's still in Cuba, it's profitable to be friends with China. The Japanese want the yanks out of Okinawa, Bush has forgotten the Palestinians already, but here we go again.