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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (40434)	8/28/2002 12:53:12 AM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

>>What if Saddam was cleverer than that, and the trail was not clear? If OBL had had a dirty bomb on 9/11, how long would it have taken us to trace it? Might the political situation prevent us from moving against Saddam, just as it prevents us now from moving against the Saudi princes who funded Al Qaeda? The thing is far from sure. But the benefits Saddam would reap in the Arab world from the mere perception, those are sure. << I suspect Stalin had a nuclear bomb. He was far more threatening to our security and world security, and murdered more inside and outside his country than Hussein ever will, and we were -even the US public- quite willing to nuke him if he tried to use his bomb. Cheney's arguing that the US public can't ever be trusted to defend itself. It's not a very convincing argument.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (40434)	8/28/2002 10:15:06 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, the Saletan argument, as I read it, was that Cheney lacked evidence. And in its place he substituted tried and true spin tactics--moral thunderbolts, change the subject, denounce your opponents, etc. Certainly not a way to persuade folk. I recall listening to a radio interview with Cheney in late March, when my wife and I were driving to the Outer Banks. We were whipping around the Washington Beltway at the time. He was very good, made arguments, offered evidence for arguments. You could, in contrast with Bush, actually argue with Cheney's position in a reasonable way. Bush's rhetoric by contrast has always been "you are for us or against us" and thus not meant as persuasion; just pumping the true believers up. However, after reading the speech with some care--it was, incidentally, I thought a better speech than the newspapers quotes indicated--the basic strategy is a Bush strategy not a Cheney strategy. "You are a guilty of a willfull blindness if you don't agree with us" argument. Your questions in your last paragraph are powerful ones. And they are ones people like me have to consider. But, unfortunately, they leave me in the same place. The costs of attacking, the more than potential negative outcomes, etc. are higher than the benefits. And, frankly, it will take someone with more credibility than Cheney to persuade me. Or a Cheney who elects to take my kinds of questions seriously. Saletan, I repeat, is damn good. The notion of putting Sc and C side by side was brilliant.