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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (149274)	10/27/2004 10:58:45 AM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Bravo! As far as our troops go, we now have a professional army and it is classless and committed, our version of the French FL. The screwup is with this backdoor draft of reservists who did not choose this outcome for their service. They were to be part of the more mobile military not the stuck in the sands of iraq version they are being used for. You are right on about Rummy. He pulled bodies out of the pentagon on 9/11, he was successful in afganistan and tried to duplicate that success on a different playing field. It is a natural thing to do, so the real problem is when stuff in iraq started to go wrong, the policy did not adapt very much at all. Grounds for being fired. Truman fired MacArthur. Why was Rummy protected? It would have been a good move for bush both in terms of iraq policy and reelection. Same with cheney as vp if not rummy as he has become a drag on this ticket. Didnt he say yesterday that opponents of the war in iraq were blind to its success? Mike

To: carranza2 who wrote (149274)	10/27/2004 11:20:40 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 281500

C2, I am not in attack mode at all and am sorry you see me as such. My question was natural; you say the real reasons for the invasion could not be articulated to the public. I happen to agree with you. But you seem to think that it is ok to give one answer to the public to lead them to war while the real reasons remain disguised. Regardless of one's belief in democracy, I think war is too big of an issue to be treated as such. So I am just asking for clarifications. Secondly, I am unclear about the reasons and the benefits of that you are alluding to. Take for example Iraq's geostrategic value. What does that mean? Are you suggesting that the US will maintain military bases in Iraq for decades to come with the purpose of projecting power into Iran, Syria, and the rest of the middle east? How would the details of such an arrangement work out? Iraq's neighbors will not like any government that will give US such free reign. This will in turn put pressure on Iraq which means US will have to compensate Iraq for it (and not just through money transfers). This will make the government look like a US puppet in everyone's eyes and diminish internal and external support for it. Sooner or later (most likely very soon) some political party will run on the platform of keeping Iraq friendly with its neighbors and keeping us out. What will US do then? Will we outlaw the party? Rig the elections? What happens when unrests break out against the US friendly Iraqi regime? Will we send in the marines to keep the peace inside Iraq? You will not find very eager Iraqis to protect a regime they deem as owned and operated by US. I go along the same lines on the rest of the benefits you see. You are just too vague to me. Perhaps if you fleshed out the reasons more and showed they have a real chance to be big benefits that outweigh the risks and costs of the war, I'd be swayed to your logic. regards, Sun Tzu

To: carranza2 who wrote (149274)	10/27/2004 11:37:46 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I respect your commitment to an objective discussion. I may disagree with your reasoning or conclusions, but you are consistently free from ideological and partisan hubris and that should be noted and followed as a model for most of us. Thank you for that. On this point: <But you have surely noticed that we have had no domestic terrorism in three years. I'm not ready to say this is cause and effect, but I'm surely not willing to discount such a notion either.> I am willing to discount any connection between the invasion of Iraq and no attacks for three years. You will also note that in the last three years that many thousands of our fine young men and women have been killed or wounded -- the attacks are a daily part of their life. They are offered as cannon fodder with no demonstrated benefit to national security and reason to believe that their efforts are worse the fruitless -- our invasion of Iraq has opened the door to far worse terror at home and abroad. We do not have infinite resources and we are in a race against time, vying for hearts and minds. In every sense, the invasion of Iraq was bungled. The issue with Iraq was to deal with Saddam and sanctions -- a UN matter if there ever was one. We had a golden opportunity but it would have required a different and less beligerent approach. We could not muster the courage to use our resources wisely and now we waste them and accomplish little or nothing. This is sad, and not in our national interest. For those who see their loved ones deployed, wounded or dead, it is more than sad -- it is tragic. This goes beyond Rumsfeld -- a man so thick headed that he cannot see that he has failed. It goes beyond Bush -- a man so simple-minded that he does not care to think about these things. It goes to the heart of a way of thinking that believes that the use of force, so long as it is used aggressively by us, is a sign of our strength and it is the means by which we will control the world. Instead, our unwise and unilateral use of force sows the seeds of our weakness and allows others to build a stronger challenge to our hegemony.

To: carranza2 who wrote (149274)	10/27/2004 2:27:51 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I also respect you because you are at least willing to admit that the reasons for invading Iraq are not the pablum being fed to the masses. If only all the participants in this discussion would elevate their thinking, then a substantive discussion of meaning could take place. Let me make it clear that I think the reasons for the invasion were never fully articulated because they could not be articulated in public. I think they were sound but that their execution has been very poor. Execution is poor, but that isn't the issue at all. And this then is the core of the issue: I think the reasons that "could not be articulated in public" are not sound. Not sound and inherently dangerous.