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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (4135)	1/28/2003 7:40:02 AM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 25898

Getting Saddam atimes.com soon ...

To: Brumar89 who wrote (4135)	1/28/2003 2:16:30 PM
From: MSI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

That puts warmaking in service of broad geopolitical strategy rather than protecting US citizens against immediate threats. That's the flaw in Brzezinski and Perle aggressive insistence on reforming world politics, using the might of the US, overtly, and, worse, covertly. The fundamental issue of making war is for the purpose of defending against 'clear and present danger'. This Constitutional purpose has been hijacked into a range of variously constructed threat assessments and remote violence that can be called "Geopolitical Nintendo". Lots of fun, except for the victims. Leaving aside the slightest regard for human life, if we could somehow ignore millions of flying body parts in Baghdad, it might be an entrepreneurial game worth playing, for the US to use military force to control ownership interests in the ME. Even then, it is neither in the Constitution, nor would a Conservative argue is in the interests of the American people. Those games are better played by private enterprise, under rules of sovereign and international law. Nothing Saddam does, regardless how much oil he owns, can prosper without US purchases, since no other country can replace that portion of world consumption. As far as nuclear blackmail - inspections make sense. It took South Africa two years to complete their inspections. This morning an expert with the nuclear non-Proliferation stated (a)in a country like Iraq under conditions of unfettered inspectors who can go anywhere, anytime, no nuclear development program can proceed further, and (b)there is no way to protect against biowarfare developed in a basement by one or two scientists, even under military occupation. These non-nuclear threats are a local danger, but the nuclear threat is the issue that can change the strategic balance, as your comment suggests. Given all that, the crude and unconstitutional mechanism of war is damaging to the country, except with an actual threat to the domestic security of the US, which has the acknowledged power to vaporize any opponent who gets "frisky". In fact, unnecessary war makes the US world position dramatically worse relative to other Arab countries, other allies, and would-be allies, as well as the domestic economicy. What makes it worse are the various incriminating facts surrounding Iraq in particular - exclusion of other more threatening countries like NK, rush to judgement, flip-flops on policy for dubious reasons, profiteering among Executive Branch cohorts, personal connections in Saudi Arabia, and a political calculus indicating the only way Bush will survive politically is with continuing terrorism and war.