Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (57460)	11/16/2002 9:15:00 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What are the costs of deterrence? Steve, I think the chances of deterring this guy are just too risky to take. If we could take out him and his family, and let the dust settle, things might work out. A Saddam heart attack is a thing devoutly to be hoped for! He can just keep screwing up things for us in the ME. But whither this is true or not, I am convinced that the Admin, under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsford guidance, is going to embark on a slum clearance project in the ME. I think they feel that 911 clears the way for them to do a lot of things over there that were not possible before. Taking Iraq gets rid of a major "Bad Guy" in a area that is full of "Bad Guys." We will then have a "Lily Pad" that allows us to pressure the rest of the "Tribal Chiefs" and "Witch Doctors", (Dictators and Mullahs) in the area. If you wanted to give the Middle East an enema, the place to stick it in is the Wahabis in Saudi Araba. They are the ones indoctrinating the Muslims with the "Fundamentalist" poison. It is pretty obvious that the Al Queda base of operation is in Southwest mountains of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. If Bin Ladin is alive, he is there, or in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood types from Egypt have been pretty well suppressed by the Government there. They are still running around attacking us, but they no longer have as good a base of operation. Once we are established in Iraq, we can keep the pressure up on the Terrorists in and area and continue to take them out. I think our CIA and Military are doing a pretty good job of learning how to track down and kill these people. The mistakes made in Afghanistan will not be repeated as much. In the meantime, the shakeout from the Iraq operation will have enormous repercussions on the Palestine situation. It will undoubtedly help the Israelis. It is too soon to say how things will work out, but I think it is obvious that the longer we are in the area fighting Terrorists and doing slum clearance, the more we are going to side with Israel. We are both on the same side to a large degree, and this has to help the Israelis. Sharon is looking more and more like a very good "War Prime Minister" who can keep Israel unified, and get along with Bush. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, Bush has the country behind him now as never before. This last election shows that the left is now out of solutions on Foreign Policy, and will either follow Bush's lead, or engage in meaningless "Protest Marches," where they can try to recapture the glory days of the '60s. I urge everyone to read the excerpts coming up this week from Woodward's new book. I think it is going to give us a very good "inside" look at how the Administration is operating.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (57460)	11/16/2002 10:42:18 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Trying to compare Saddam to the Soviet Union is absurd. The Soviets achieved strategic parity with us, a parity that, if tested, would have destroyed the world This parity cuts both ways. The Soviets had something to lose and it made them cautious. Saddam has little history of caution, and the Islamists are nihilists. We’re not talking about an enemy achieving strategic parity, we’re talking about a shift in the regional balance of power Yes, we are talking about such a shift, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be costly to cede Saddam hegemony of the gulf. He who controls 25% of the global supply of oil has quite a lever. Saddam is a nut case but he’s not in any way suicidal Saddam's propensity to miscalculate is so great that he has been suicidal at several points, in effect if not in intent. Have you read Pollack? he sums up the arguments well. And who knows what will happen when he dies? One son is a known psychopath with a history of clubbing enemies to death at diplomatic functions, the other is an enigma currently running the secret police. There’s a lot we can do to Saddam, short of invasion, that we haven’t done. Number one on the list would be use of military force to enforce sanctions. Ken Pollack also lists the reasons why we cannot get cooperation from Saddams neighbors for perpetual sanctions. Without that cooperation they cannot be enforced, and have essentially dissapated now, despite the continued use of military force. You keep repeating how an attack would "make recruits for Osama". Well what do you think the current situation of no-fly zones, patrols, bombing, sanctions is doing? It's doing it over a long period of time, and rather ineffectually, so we inspire anger but little fear. Definitely a good recruiting combo for OBL, that. What are the costs of deterrence? The apparatus is already in place, we just have to point it in their direction No, containment is breaking down. If we back off to mere deterrence it's unlikely that we can keep up the no-fly zones for long. If we back off to mere deterrence when Saddam gets nukes, we will effectively cede him hegemony of the Gulf as his neighbors move to appease him and cut a deal. That's the cost of deterrence -- if Saddam IS deterrable. If he is not, then it will cost far more. In any event, would the “very great cost” of the Cold War exceed the cost of a war with the Soviet Union? For Americans personally, no. But I wonder what Angolans, or Poles, or Vietnamese, or anybody else who lived behind the Iron Curtain or in a country that had a proxy war would say about the cost?