We are about to engage in tremendous undertaking and I fear that we do not have a road map of what we do and do not want beyond removal of Saddam.
Do you think that if that line of reasoning had been around at the time the US joined Europe in its war to stop and remove Hitler, we would have committed to that effort. The cost of World War II in Europe was astronomical for America in terms of dollars and lives. The US, using your logic, would have sat out of the war until Germans were firing on our east cost.
Honestly, do you think that the US has had any idea as to what the cost of entering Europe would be? I don't believe they did, they just knew that doing nothing or waiting only increased the cost.
Had the US waited to enter that war the cost would have been many, many time greater than it actually was. Similarly, waiting to disarm Saddam will only result in increased costs to the region, the US and the world later on.
Sometimes you have to do the right thing even if the costs are high because the cost of doing nothing is even higher.
The weapons inspections are not working. Saddam has made a mockery of the UN resolution to date and the only reason he is pretending to comply now is that 300,000 US troops massed at his border providing a credible threat to his power.
Given time, and left in power, he will further develop WMD and they will be used against his neighbors and the rest of the world to extract vengeance for the 1990s.
If you think weapons inspections will work in the long term, take a look at the US's assinine war on drugs. Look at the parallels:
In the US many, many dollars are spent hunting for drugs, drug producers and dealers in the US and abroad. Despite having Local, State and Federal police numbering in the tens of thousands looking for these drugs, anyone can go and buy their drug of choice in any city in America.
Do you actually think a couple hundred, or thousand for that matter, inspectors are going to find a WMD program in a country the size of Iraq when the dictator doesn't want the program found. Yeah right!
I think the cost of not handling Saddam now vastly outweighs the cost of taking action now. I seriously doubt you will see a bunch a hand waving and back slapping once the war is over. I imagine there will be a multilateral decision as how to best address a post Saddam Iraq just as there was for the post Hitler Germany.
Regards,
JS |
