Hi CobaltBlue; Re Jane's and the war in Iraq...
The reason I post on the internet is because I like to prove how smart I am. The way I do that is by picking a topic where the conventional wisdom is wrong, and making predictions that seem insane, compared to the conventional wisdom, but instead turn out to be true.
If you'll look very carefully, you'll notice that I back up my statement with figures and links. If you'll look very carefully, you'll notice that the conventional wisdom is ignoring the simple expedient of, for example, looking up US reserves mobilization.
I'm not one of those people who "knows that I am right". I constantly look at my beliefs and test them against reality. When the recent news came out about the Bamerni airport in Kurdistan, I did not ignore it. I considered that news to be contrary to my understanding of the military and diplomatic facts. So I researched the web and discovered that the Bamerni news was ancient history from 1998. If I had known I was right I would have blown it off, but I have no such mind set. I listen very carefully to both sides of an argument.
I am not a lawyer, who only listens to the pro or con side of a case. I am an engineer. Unlike a lawyer, I must win essentially every case I come up against. I do that not by argument, but by analysis. A good bit of my reputation comes from my ability to figure out why production of some manufactured product isn't working. This is from my having very good intuition about how to separate the insignificant information from the significant. When you are faced with a problem, the amount of information available is incredibly large. Most of it is not important, or is completely bogus. What I have is a gift for figuring out how to dig up the information that is demonstrably not bogus. That is my guide in the Iraqi affair as well.
A lot of the people who argue against an Iraqi invasion on moral grounds were also against the Afghani and Kuwaiti liberations. But I am not one of those stopped clocks that always gives the same time of day. I did not say that the US would not invade Afghanistan, in fact I said that it would be easy. I said that the crowds would cheer us in the streets. I am not some pie-eyed peace lover. What do you think I do for a living, design chewing gum wrappers?
The conventional wisdom was that the Taliban was going to be a difficult foe, and that the US would have problems in the Afghan winter. I disputed this, and I was correct. Given this, why are you bothering to quote the conventional wisdom on Iraq to me? Of course I know what the conventional wisdom was. My history on this conflict beats the crap out of the conventional wisdom.
Don't get me wrong, most of the time the conventional wisdom is correct. That's why it's the conventional wisdom. Of course I know that it is the conventional wisdom that we will begin a massive conventional attack on Iraq. We're not going to do that. Watch and learn.
-- Carl |
