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: Bilow who wrote (127191)	3/26/2004 5:28:00 AM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Carl B, You'll be pleased to know I spent our down time devising new and incredibly painful tortures just for you. I trust you will find it ...frustrating. <Hoo><Haa> CB: Bush never had the mandate of the people to fight in Iraq. The best figures he ever had for agreement with the concept of "war in Iraq, now", was about the time that he declared victory. Before the war, the American public was more inclined to support continued inspections. NO: Couldn't agree more. Democracies seldom appreciate a ghoulish lust for war, and when they see fit to flirt with its temptations they invariably escape the field ASAP. My only point was that Bush, like all Alcibiadesian leaders before him, had all the "mandate" legally and practically required to get the venture off the ground. CB: You just can't expect to fight a war that everyone agrees will be decades long, with a mandate of barely 50% of the public. We didn't go into Vietnam with that kind of mandate, and we've never fought a successful war against a significant foe with those kinds of numbers. NO: Well I suppose this is really the nub of it. Vietnam again. Korea before it. We have heard this before. The truth in it is clear and obvious. I suppose its what makes the dichotomy of repeating history so frustrating. ...Still this lack of unity on the proposition is not an entirely satisfactory response to the question of Iraq and terror. For me a consideration of the differences between the "War on Terror" and the "War in Vietnam" is required. I watched the flip/floppery of the 9/11 Commission this week and couldn't help but note the irony others have mentioned. On the one hand we have the "victims" of 9/11 seeking what can only be described as an indictment against the government because it did not foresee or prevent their injuries. Yet we have our victims' champion, Dick "I could'a done it!" Clarke, a/k/a *"Patton II", lobbing his judgmental grenades for the stated reason that his former boss had the temerity to see and act upon a future threat from Iraq*? Hours were spent bewailing the governments responses to the Cole, responses to embassy bombings, failures to bomb AQ camps at every turn, failure to coordinate, failure to communicate, failure to appropriate, failure to invade Afghanistan, failure to detain members of OBL's family... as though correcting these inadequacies would have been possible, effective and any less damaging to the WTC and our national interests. Certainly its a lively, partisan debate. But the obvious fact is that we don't know what events would have materialized had we acted differently prior to 9/11. And likewise we cannot predict the future conduct of a Saddam/Baathist regime in Iraq had it been allowed to continue. All we know with certainty is that history will pay us more visits. Another bit of historic do-over called to mind during our Vietnam period, was the knowledge that if someone really wants to kill the President, there's no way to stop them. Aside from the obvious concern this presents for Mr. Patton/Scott/Clarke's successors, this fear/experience also highlights the root weakness of the "police problem" solution to Terrorism. In the final analysis, you may save the WTC the first time, but sooner or later a determined Terrorist will come for it, or any of a thousand other such targets, and succeed. Nor will it matter how many civil liberties you revise or revoke. To my eye, this small nuance of human ingenuity removes the Iraq War from the perfect spiral of a Vietnam analogy simply because Uncle Ho never attempted sending suicide bomber/pilots into lower Manhattan. I can only assume that Mr. Patton/Scott/Clarke is of the "Iraq is bad because it misdirects our meager resources and supports the growth of terrorists" camp. The thought being, the enemy is OBL/AQ, go after them and not Iraq. The theory being that once that threat is eliminated, or "sufficiently" reduced as in the case of Abu Nidal(sp?) all will be "good enough" in the world of anti-terror. This may not be a completely unreasonable viewpoint. It does lend itself to a degree of mathematical analysis and is further supported by the history of insular terrorist groups. But it is based upon assumptions about the future whose proofs are often unknown and unknowable. For many people, myself included, simply treating AQ as though it were a more virulent Abu Nidal is not sufficient. It suggests an approach which makes us no more than "hardened targets" for the certain, yet currently unknown, terrorist gangs which the ME will produce next. ...Assuming that is, that AQ itself is amenable to ultimate defeat by means of law enforcement. Perhaps more important to me are the assumptions we think we know. The belief that Terrorists, as the criminal, are a relatively small and finite association of individuals trained in and measured by the combatants who forced Russia out of Afghanistan, or who came out of a prior generation's PLO refugee camps. Or that we know the characteristics of eligible Terrorist candidates from which the next WTC will come. I have yet to hear a debate on the Iraq invasion which considers the accuracy or inaccuracy of our basic strategic assumptions. That those assumptions may be flawed because of our Western view of colonial Europe's drawing of borders and our abject ignorance of Islam seems quite likely to me. We misread Saddam just as badly as we misread Uncle Ho and Castro before him. Can we be reasonably certain that we have OBL or AQ pegged right as criminal/police problems? I don't see why I should believe we have. Moreover, I can't even tell if those favoring either the "police" or the "military" alternatives want to be bothered with such issues. I suspect that the Neocons have in fact reformulated some new assumptions, but only on a tactical level. At least I just don't see any effort to justify Iraq based on anything new strategically. ...Could it be that they have a new strategic view which is "unthinkably" destabilizing? From my perch it looks like the arguments over the existence of WMDs is/was no more than an palatable place holder for arguments that could not be made openly. A "good enough" solution. ...It's either that or everyone in DC is a evil cretin. <vbg> In any case, at least the Terrorists have the very same problem. As best I can tell their strategic assumptions haven't changed since the Mohammed's day.

To: Bilow who wrote (127191)	3/26/2004 6:45:38 AM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This is a nice start... late but nice: dailystar.com.lb But frankly there is no debate if a President isn't involved, and Bush allowed himself to be defined by the WMD issue. 0\|0