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 (101666)	6/15/2003 11:57:23 PM
From: Sig	Respond to of 281500

<< I don't doubt that Saddam did some blustering on WMDs, but I'd hate to think that decisions in DC were affected by Saddam's blustering. I'd have hoped we had better sources of information. >>> The quantities of WMD's he had on hand in 1998 were measured by the UN Inspectors. The unused and missing 6000 chemical warheads - would Saddam had actually destroyed those? The UN found several of the R-400 (?) chemical warheads or bombs that Saddam had destroyed by burying them . Well burying them in the desert is a fairly good way to preserve them. But I never heard more about that find or whether they were loaded. .The mystery deepens. And why did so many of Saddams henchmen stay in Baghdad or Iraq to get caught as they have.? Did they think Saddam would make a come-back, or that they would not be tried for war crimes? Maybe it just wasn't safe on the home town streets, so turned themselves in. Sig . .

To: Dayuhan who wrote (101666)	6/16/2003 12:06:36 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<< I'd hate to think that decisions in DC were affected by Saddam's blustering. I'd have hoped we had better sources of information.>> My opinion: the decisions weren't so much "affected" by Saddam's bluster, the decision makers used it for their own purposes, i.e., to get rid of him. I heard Bill Kristol say in a radio interview (I think with Terri Gross on Fresh Air) something like, "Wouldn't it have been great if someone could have killed Hitler in the mid-30s, before WWII and the Holocaust even happened?" I believe that he actually thinks that such actions can be profitably and accurately done in this unipolar world. He (and others in the Bush admin) think themselves uncorruptable, discerning judges of what the world needs politically, and don't think about the precedents they are setting. They only consider their own "good" intentions in exercising their judgements and the awesome power of the US military. The world will judge us positively when we win, when we succeed, they believe. They believe themselves to be the coincidence of "philosophy" and "power" that classical philosophers like Plato and Aristotle wrote about but doubted would ever happen, with Bush as their Dionysios. Personally, I think it's hybris. But we'll have to see if the gods have glory or punishment in store for them. Their ambition is certainly something to behold. I wonder if there is a Thucydides somewhere in the administration who is a good, observant writer and is taking good notes. Could be an interesting story if so.