Mr. Atkinson of Family Security Matters should consider Ulster.

There have been several posts dealing with the psycho who posted on Family Security Matters that Bush should be a Dictator and Wipe out the Iraqis in order to colonize it with our own people. I found particularly interesting Mr. Atkinson's supposed nationality, the gentleman is British. At this moment it became clear to me where I recoginzed his line of reasoning before: The Ulster Plantation. Atkinson should look a little closer in time to truly appriciate the magnitude of his assertion.

In fairness to Mr. Atkinson, his historical precedents, while appalling are accurate. History has shown that the most effective way to stamp out an insurgency is to totally slaughter the rebellious inhabitants, and replace them with fanatical partisan colonists of one's own, determined to fight to the last. However, as a British citizen, Mr. Atkinson should be more familiar with the implications of such a decision, he need look no further than Ulster. The Ulster plantation was settled during the 17th Century by Protestant Scots, in the interests of exerting better control over Catholic Ireland. The Scots, long inured to border warfare, proved more than able to resist the Irish, but grew to equal them in fanaticism. This would come back to haunt the British in the 20th century, as the independence of the rest of Ireland left the British shackled to a virulently fanatical Ulster, who bitterly oppressed its Catholic minorities, causing continuous embarrassment to their British backers, and eventually forcing the British Army to intervene during the long years of the "Troubles." To this day, Ulster remains a lingering irritation, while relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are friendly and calm, many Ulster Unionists continue to resist any reconciliation with their Catholic neighbors to this day. Forcibly colonizing Iraq would effectively link us to that colony in perpetuity, we could never leave because the colonists there would forever have a claim on our protection, and would complicate our relations with the Middle East far worse than our current support of Israel does.

Middle East. McSame wants to stay a hundred years.

The problem with all of this crap it that eventually, empires run out of juice. The Romans couldn't get any more Romans to go and die for Gaul or Dacia, so they called in the Barbarians, and eventually those Barbarians followed them all the way home, and the Empire was wrecked.

The Brits were somewhat luckier, their empire wasn't totally contiguous, so you didn't end up with the sacking of London. That said, they were still sending troops to keep different Irish factions from ripping eachother apart in the 1980's! The Brits had been dealing with the government in Dublin with few difficulties for over six decades by that point. The point being, if we decide to stay for the long haul, we will be fighting there long after any concievable reason for our being there has passed. Long after our civilization will have ceased to use or even need oil, we would still be stuck fighting not to "lose Iraq."

They have a bunch of rabid fundies set up shop in Iraq, they send Bush the oil($20 trillion worth) and we send them cannon fodder and WMDs.

Permanent occupation made easy- the only issue is that you can't nuke them if you want to send colonists in. Maybe they were thinking about gas chambers?

There is no downside for Bush and Cheney now, the problem is (as is obvious) that the downside for our country is immense.