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

To: LindyBill who wrote (15248)	11/5/2003 11:21:05 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793617

OK. I have been down this road before with those who disagree on liberating Iraq. And I realize that we are going to have to agree to disagree on this issue. Yes, we are going to have to agree to disagree. You know, I have not been trying to persuade you to come over to my POV. I hope you understand that. If I'm trying to influence you at all it is simply to get you to recognize that everyone who disagrees with "liberating" Iraq isn't a weakling or a pacifist or an appeaser or unpatriotic. If I can get that far in this sound-bite, partisan, and superficial world, I'm happy. But maybe we can make some progress on the "What do we do now" issue. Although I doubt it. :>) I will be happy to engage you on that. I live to discuss. <g> Even if I didn't, I would accommodate your subject of interest in exchange for your accommodating mine. And I promise to accommodate yours in a subsequent post. First, I'm going to finish trying to make my point. I haven't given up the notion that you can "get" it. If we're going to agree to disagree, we should at least recognize what it we're disagreeing about. I don't think we are in sync on that. The arguments you have been giving me about WMD and Saddam the monster and terrorist training camps, etc. are from the list of arguments made by the WH to justify invading Iraq. Let me repeat that. They are from a justification for going after Saddam by invading Iraq. Just to make my point, and as a show of good will, I will stipulate for the purpose of this discussion that the WH's justification was adequate, that we did, in fact, have the right and a solid basis for taking that action. Howzat? I am doing that to emphasize that I am not arguing with you about whether attacking Iraq was justified. Betcha you thought I was... OK. The WH provided a justification for doing Iraq. That's what they gave us. That's what it was. What it WASN'T is what I'm trying to emphasize. It was NOT a cost/benefit analysis. There was nothing about what we're going to accomplish, how it will solve the problem, and how it will be an effective use of our resources to that end. There wasn't even an estimate of the cost-they acknowledged that they didn't know. Not only was it NOT a cost/benefit analysis, it offered no comparison of alternatives. None. I can understand why they didn't estimate cost effectiveness. Lotsa unknowns, hard to estimate. But why was there no analysis of objectives and alternative approaches to meeting those objectives? Were they also thinking binary--that we either invade Iraq or roll over? How exactly was invading Iraq going to be more effective in protecting us from terrorists than whatever else we could be doing with our resources? Nada, zip, zilch about that! This is not how critical decisions should be made and communicated. There needs to be some explanation of why this is the best approach to meeting the objectives. Let me give you an analogy. This morning I went to Kohl's. Yesterday I heard a commercial on TV that they were having a big sale including half price decorator pillows. I had been looking at their pillows on the internet a while back so it seemed like this might be a good day to take a ride and pick some up. There, I justified going to Kohl's this morning. Nothing to it. I had a thought to go and was able to come up with a rationale. What I didn't do was consider what my objectives were, whether having some more pillows on my sofa would accomplish them, presumably make me happy, presumably make me forty or fifty dollars worth of happy, consider whether there would be a problem getting stuck in rush hour traffic, whether those were quality pillows. A couple of hours of my time and a few bucks is trivial. No need to do more than have a notion, justify it, and go. No need to think about what else I could do with that time and money that might make me happier. Maybe I could have gotten ice cream instead. Or had a workout. Or helped out at the soup kitchen or given them the money. I didn't think about any of those things nor about what would make me most happy for my expenditure of time and money. Because tomorrow is another day and I can do one of those other things tomorrow if I get the notion. OTOH, say I had the notion of enrolling for a doctorate. I'd think long and hard about how happy that would make me before I committed all that money and a couple of years to that. I would carefully evaluate whether that would give me the best return on my time and money in terms of happiness. As compared to maybe moving to Waikiki. Or opening an animal shelter. Or studying Japanese. We're investing a lot in Iraq. I use the word, investing, loosely. I don't know whether the return on that will be proportionate to the investment. I don't know whether some alternative investment, and I've mentioned a couple of them in previous posts, would better secure us from terrorists. Why is the Iraq initiative the best bet among alternatives? Doesn't that interest you?

To: LindyBill who wrote (15248)	11/5/2003 11:29:38 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793617

But maybe we can make some progress on the "What do we do now" issue. Although I doubt it. :>) I'm not sure how to approach this. I'm tempted to say "you go first." It's entirely possible that we will be pretty much in agreement. I recognize that Iraq is water over the dam or under the bridge or wherever it is that the water goes. (Hopefully, some of it to reclaim the marsh lands in southern Iraq.) Anyway, we're in Iraq now so what do we do? I'm already on record here that we must stay the course so you can't be expecting an argument from me on that. I think that, since we've done this and we're stuck with it, we need to do it right, whatever that takes. Early on I thought it was important to get out as soon as possible to avoid the imperialist charge and to avoid aggravating them any more than we have to. Now I'm not so sure. I don't think they will hate us any less if we leave soon than if we stay longer so I'd rather stay longer and do it right. Is that good enough for a start?