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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (14830)	11/10/2003 9:23:14 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793717

On the contrary, it was the course of least resistance. It may have been that, but since I never proposed or supported it, I see no reason to defend it. The problem here is the repeated assumption that the only existing options were immediate invasion and complete retreat. This is ridiculous and dishonest: that was simply not the case. It’s a facile technique of argument that is much in vogue wit shallow thinkers on both sides of the political fence: lay out a binary option frame, with a clearly unacceptable option on one side and one’s preferred course of action on the other. It’s not a good argument – a case where only two options exist is almost unimaginable in today’s global political environment – and I don’t see any reason why it deserves attention. TotalFinaElf would have made millions - follow the money Halliburton is making millions right now, and lots of them. If you’re going to follow the money in one case, you should follow it in the other… or do we only follow money when we can follow it in a direction that supports our prejudices? Following the money in either case will lead you to only a very small fraction of an explanation. This is not my argument, btw, it is Ken Pollack's. That is why he considers the Iraq war a least-bad option. Pollack’s postwar writings indicate that he thought the war was pursued in an unnecessarily hasty and unnecessarily unilateral fashion, and that both trends will ultimately damage US objectives. It’s easy to classify your preferred course of action as a “least bad” option if you ignore most of the other options.