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

To: michael97123 who wrote (118568)	6/7/2005 11:59:38 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793843

Mike, I'm not sure how I missed the point. It seems that you feel that they can be excused for not "seeing" the twisted and dead end trail they were on until after they botched things in Iraq. I strongly disagree. There were countless experts that they could have listened to who were trying to give them good advice on fighting the war on terror and the near certainty of a debacle if they invaded Iraq. Among those experts was President Bush, not the pup but the old man who'd fought in a war and worked in the CIA instead of leading a lightweight "do you know who my daddy is and that I'm rich" life. As you know, he wrote in his book that although he could have continued into Baghdad to remove Hussein, it would have been costly and foolish to do so. The reasons he listed for not doing it reads like a list of the "problems" we're having now. But Bush the second didn't listen to him, even when he tried to use men like Baker and editorials in major newspapers to warn his son off. The son listens to a "higher" father who presumably believes in the "tough love" approach to making changes in other people's countries. Or he could have listened to experts on the middle east. Failing that, he could have listened to the 5% or so of Vietnam veterans who actually fought face to face with the Vietnamese enemy in the war in Vietnam. Most of them understand the power of little people and how they react to foreigners who arrive with guns and a desire to run their country. But he didn't even listen to Powell, the good soldier who tried to warn him off and then soldiered on when his advice was ignored. Powell should have made a statement by not going along but he's a soldier and not a warrior and he's still soldiering on. All of these things were well understood by thinking people long before we invaded. Those same people understood, and understand, that you cannot "kill" terrorism by killing the few terrorists you are able to identify and by brutalizing the communities that support them. The real solutions require a long and painful examination of the "whys" of terrorism and "do no unnecessary harm" policies of dealing with countries in ways that do not cause resentment and anger among the people that populate such countries. (Can you say "world opinion?) The Bush choices, on the other hand, seem designed to intimidate those same people with "do harm" policies that seem designed to cause resentment and anger among such people and thus strengthen their support for the most radical and violent terrorist movements. But none of this will ever be clear to the Bush people and the worse they do the more they cling to tests of "loyalty." No one gets fired and those who say the "king has no clothes" are run out of town like Shinsecki, Clark and others. Hoping that people who think like that will get smarter is a little like taking the slowest footed kid in town and trying to make a hundred yard dash champion out of him. He might get a little faster but he won't win any races for you. That's the Bush posse, they might get a glimmer but in the end they'll just wait for one more magical moment to fix everything. What's up next; the Saddam trial, the new constitution, another Iraqi city destroyed like Fallujah, or maybe the capture of Bin Ladin? They never understood, and they never understand, that the ideas fueling the support for the terrorists are bigger than the people they kill, and the more people they kill offensively, the bigger the ideas get. And on the other side of the aisle we have .... next to nothing. But then we elected them all, didn't we? Ed