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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JSwanson who wrote (68348)	3/7/2003 11:58:27 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

ok, I will not debate the language with you. And like I said, I am not after garnering support for or against the war in this debate. And I agree with you that it would not be possible to precisely formulate the cost/benefits. But whether you are for or against the war, you need some measure to judge its outcome. You can't just let the politicians engage in it and then do some hand waving and pat themselves on the back. Say I am against war. Among other things, I believe that it will have minimal effects on the Palestinian issue (why we should even tie our policies so tightly to Israel is for another debate). Having taken this position, if it turns out that real progress is made next year between Israel and Palestinians based on removal of Saddam, then clearly I have been proven wrong. Similarly, say I am for the war because it will prevent deaths of 5000 Iraqi kids a year (again, I will not discuss alternative means to achieve this). If it turns out that some 50,000 children are dead or orphaned because of the war, then I have prepaid for the next 10 years of damage. To me this would be a failure of the war objective (or at least one of the objectives). Same thing goes for every issue I outlined and you are free to add in your own issues. 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. The administration has to do better. And the public must demand greater clarity. Sun Tzu