SI
SI
discoversearch

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: Jacob Snyder who wrote (106380)7/19/2003 1:42:15 AM
From: Nadine Carroll  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 281500
 
Yes, you are a Realist, not a utopian NeoCon. Problem in Iraq is, America isn't advancing its interests there, not using current methods. With no WMD, there was no threat

This is the crux of the disagreement. You are only looking at the narrow question, was Saddam going to attack us using terrorists? To which the answer was, maybe, maybe not. But after Sept 11th, just waiting around, while we continued to spend billions to starve the Iraqis while Saddam built grandiose palaces and mosques, and we looked weaker and weaker, and the whole Mideast stewed in its own juices, a perfect breeding ground for Al Qaida, ceased to be an option. The Neocons were the first to say so, but the realists joined them - that's how the policy got implemented.

And skip the weaseling of "quantifying" the human suffering will you? You don't "quantify" your statments. An honest debater demands of himself what he asks of others. By any measure - absolute number of dead, percentage of population imprisoned or killed, amount of deliberate starvation inflicted - Saddam was right up there in the major leagues, with Hitler, Stalin and Mao. And he had a much smaller country to work with.