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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (54218)	7/14/2004 11:42:07 AM
From: Sam	Respond to of 793917

I do think that striking at AQ should have been the highest American priority in the post-9/11 environment, and I never quite understood why we were pouring such vast resources into a campaign that seemed more likely to help AQ than to hurt them. I still don't quite understand it, but since everybody else has forgotten all about it, I guess it must not be important. LOL. Unhappily. Far more important to "protect marriage" anyway. But neither one has anything to do with domestic electoral politics and pandering to prejudice and/or ignorance, do they?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (54218)	7/14/2004 12:47:29 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

I do think that striking at AQ should have been the highest American priority in the post-9/11 environment, and I never quite understood why we were pouring such vast resources into a campaign that seemed more likely to help AQ than to hurt them I understand that it is received wisdom in many quarters that the campaign in Iraq was helpful to AQ. The reasoning goes along the lines of 'look, now you made them really mad and gave them a target'. Even that leaves open the question of how much incremental room for being madder there was, and whether it is really worse to fight AQ in the Mideast than in the streets of New York. Worse, it forgets why OBL formed AQ in the first place. Why did he do it? Because we had American troops stationed in the holy ground of SA. And why did we have American troops stationed in the holy ground of SA? To contain Saddam. And they sat there for twelve years, to contain Saddam. Twelve years in which AQ grew, formed its alliances all over (including with Saddam), and containment got weaker and weaker. If we hadn't invaded Iraq, it's quite possible that American troops would now be dealing with AQ attacks in Saudi Arabia, and that would be an impossible situation; we could neither fight nor run. So it's hardly like the containment option was either low cost or working, something many quarters like to overlook, since they were not paying the costs.