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

To: LindyBill who wrote (24091)	1/12/2004 10:41:59 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793671

Good lord. That analogy is so flawed, and irrelevant to America's best interest, it's breathtaking, imo. If I had a son or daughter die in this war to save us from peril and the mushroom cloud because of those WMD Saddam had, we and congress were told, I think I might feel a little... shall we say 'pique' at your remark. I certain would at the Chief Executive's. I think it's dubious to blame someone's taking exception to the above as holding their position for a less valid reason than you hold yours, but okay. What is the reason for this article published by the Army War College? So antiwar they can't see it your way? A few excerpts: <<<A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat. The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point." It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the "global war on terrorism" and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network. "[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly . . . its parameters should be readjusted," Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security." ... In addition, the essay goes further than many critics in examining the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism. Record's core criticism is that the administration is biting off more than it can chew. He likens the scale of U.S. ambitions in the war on terrorism to Adolf Hitler's overreach in World War II. "A cardinal rule of strategy is to keep your enemies to a manageable number," he writes. "The Germans were defeated in two world wars . . . because their strategic ends outran their available means." ... He also scoffs at the administration's policy, laid out by Bush in a November speech, of seeking to transform and democratize the Middle East. "The potential policy payoff of a democratic and prosperous Middle East, if there is one, almost certainly lies in the very distant future," he writes. "The basis on which this democratic domino theory rests has never been explicated." ...>>> washingtonpost.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (24091)	1/13/2004 6:55:32 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793671

It's like raiding a criminal's house for Drugs, and finding that he has moved them just prior to your raid. Bill, that's not even remotely apt. <<DIANE SAWYER: (You) stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still —>> The difference is not between weapons being stashed in the house or in the neighbor's back yard. The difference is between HAVING something that could kill us all right now or on an incoming UPS truck and having a program in place to get something that could kill us all. That's a huge difference. The former is a justification for war and the latter probably isn't. You are so "anti-war" that you refuse to see it. I will not characterize your refusal to see it. That could be construed as an insult. <g> Re WMD, I think a big part of the problem during the period leading up to the war was the definition of WMD. At some point it changed, at least as the term was used popularly. WMD used to mean nukes. It meant something bigger than the biggest non-nuclear bombs we had, something that could level whole towns or kill thousands and thousands of people. It did not mean killing a dozen people in a subway with saran gas or debilitating troops with mustard gas. It took me a while to figure out that they were now lumping all sorts of things that were no more deadly that a guy on a roof with a machine gun under the label, WMD. I'd be interested in seeing a poll on what people, even now, think that WMD means. I think folks can be forgiven for assuming that when the Prez talked about WMD he meant, at a minimum, some suitcase nukes.