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

To: Ichy Smith who wrote (204616)	9/29/2006 12:44:29 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"You are right you didn't have a war with iran, they made the US look like fools without the US firing a bullet, so did Castro. So you lost prestige, honor and credibility. But those don't matter do they." No Ichy, they do matter but, based on a longer view of the future, every day cost/benefit decisions are made that slightly compromise prestige, honor and credibility. In addition, going to war offers no guarantee that those things will be preserved. Or maybe you missed the torture scandals, the no wmd scandal, the cost overruns and financial corruption scandals, the dead civilians all over Iraq horrors, and the images of getting our asses handed to us by a ragtag bunch of fighters hiding among an Iraqi population that shields them? What has fighting this fool's war in Iraq done to preserve our "honor, prestige and credibility? What I notice is that the never compromise, "proud" people willing to send men and women to kill and die for what they perceive to be their nation's "prestige, honor and credibility" very seldom see the need to gasp out their last minutes on earth spurting blood on the battlefield they're so enamored with. And that's the true test of cost/benefit, isn't it? If the "cause" is valuable enough to send someone else to die for but not quite as compelling when you or your children are doing the dying, then maybe Carter was right, maybe we shouldn't unleash the demons of war based on false pride and emotional impulses? I suspect, Ichy, that if you were in Iraq and you'd just lost the guys on each side of you, the insurgents were closing in and you were running short on ammo, you might ask yourself whether this war was really worth it. That answer would tell us whether "honor, prestige and credibility" were really big enough reasons for YOU to go to war. Ed