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

To: Ilaine who wrote (49089)	10/3/2002 4:37:07 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "Carl, you amaze me." Yes. Re: "Congress is putting the finishing touches on a declaration of war against Iraq, the permanent members of the UN security council are dickering over the language of a new resolution which may, or may not, allow the use of force immediately but will definitely force Saddam to allow weapons inspectors into his "palaces," which (I predict) he will not allow willingly, and you're obsessing over the mobilization figures." (1) Your prediction that Saddam will not allow inspectors into his palaces is made note of, LOL. (2) I'm not obsessing over the mobilization figures. I'm merely posting them weekly. I've always posted figures on SI for general benefit. For example, when the Rambus faithful believed that RDRAM was going to become cheaper than DDR SDRAM, I disagreed and began keeping records of the exact prices in order to prove them wrong. ( #reply-18045494 ) They rejected my evidence for months, just like you reject my evidence from the mobilization figures. Being on the "wrong" side of predictions on SI is where I normally am. Many times the conventional wisdom is correct. What I do is pick out the times where it is wrong, and make a lot of noise. I'm always ignored at first, and then finally hated for doing this. This is the fate of Cassandra, LOL, but at least I don't end up being raped. For example, I was telling you people that the stock market was overpriced for 5 years, now I have my revenge. Let me remind you that you were saying that the US was going to attack Iraq with the troops that were sent to Jordan for joint exercises. There was no attack. Instead, those troops left, and where did they go? Did they go to the US? No, they went to Kuwait, also for joint exercises. You updated your theory that the war would start with an attack from Jordan into one where the attack would start with an attack from Kuwait. But in a few weeks the troops will leave Kuwait and go somewhere else to have joint exercises. And then you were going on for weeks about how the fact that the US was hiring foreign merchant vessels to carry munitions was evidence that the US had already employed its mothballed sealift force to its full extent. Now you've come full circle on this. Admit it. You've been expecting war to start with a week for months. Every time you get up in the morning you thought that the news would carry the information that massive attacks had started on Baghdad. When a radar installation gets bombed you immediately conclude that the shooting war has started. You think I'm divorced from reality? You've been wrong essentially continuously for months. The United Nations does not appear to be close to giving Bush a green light. Like I've said before, having a US attack on Iraq out of the blue without UN involvement would be a disaster for US diplomacy and foreign policy, and it simply isn't going to happen. What the administration is doing is simply wagging the dog a bit. If the Iraqi regime could be turned over by 250 special forces and air power, then (1) it would have already been done back in November of last year as Afghanistan used only a small part of America's military force, (2) the military would have signed up for such a plan, and (3) I wouldn't be objecting to an attack. Re: "Kabul fell months ago. Why haven't we sent the boys and girls home?" Uh, we have sent the boys and girls home, some of them at least. The demobilization figures make it clear that mobilized reserves are down by 20,000 from the June peak. Re: "You think this is all some kind of game and after the elections it's all going to blow over?" Yes, though it's not going to blow over instantaneously. I hate to have to break the bad news to you, but politicians do not have motivations that are perfectly honest, nor do they always tell the truth. This is the real world, it is not a patriotic fairy tale. -- Carl