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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (70870)	2/6/2011 2:05:35 PM
From: elmatador	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217700

World’s Cheapest Cities for Expensive Living 2010 images.businessweek.com

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (70870)	2/6/2011 3:35:39 PM
From: Maurice Winn	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217700

Hawk, it's surprising that such militarily intelligent people fell for the oldest trick in the book - deception: <your "perception" that Saddam didn't have WMD didn't jibe with the "reality" of his actions and rhetoric. > Correct, I didn't believe that he had WMDs of significant quantity [he might have had a few chemical shells or rockets left over]. The reality of his actions and rhetoric was only a manifestation of his mind, not any actual other reality. In war, or confrontations in general, [and if I recall correctly, the name "Saddam" means confrontation; I read that some years or decades ago], deception can be crucial. The main idea is to get the opposition to think "Oh heck, they look really tough. I think I'll call it quits before I get into big trouble". That's why across the animal world and in the primate realm, there is puffery, display, rockets built of wood and paper [the Red Square parade rockets], lies and rhetoric and action. There are also psychological processes which lead people to claim to have committed crimes which they didn't do. Because somebody confesses to a crime doesn't mean they did it. You know all that but fell for it all the same. That's bias in action. As King George II said, "Get me some good reasons to conquer Saddam. WMDs sound pretty good - near enough for government work. Woohoo... bring on the bang bangs..." If the USA lost, a reasonable war crimes tribunal could hold some hearings. Saddam lived a life of deception and rhetoric from infancy. You should not be surprised he continued to the end. Keeping his own side off balance and in fear was quite important, as Mubarak is finding. Saddam was very well aware that hordes of Iraqis would queue to take him down. I did wonder in the first war whether he had somehow got hold of little nukes and had managed to get the USA to back off rather than invade Iraq. When he fired a bunch of scuds into Israel and they were not WMDs, that showed that he didn't have any because that was his time to use them. Everyone goes on about Iran's nukes, but Pakistan has a good supply and no doubt could move some around wrapped in opium - perhaps right into the USA. Yes, and your high level supreme intelligence "hunch" was wrong: <Hunches are hunches.. they are not facts. > I was right and you were wrong. Heck, my hunch on where to find Saddam was right too. I thought he'd be on the banks of the river nearby Tikrit. Bingo, right there. That was just a hunch, but based on "What would he do to hide until the coast is clear" and having seen a fair bit of information about him over the decades. A river is a good road to travel on, or even under. As TJ has shown over the past decade, one can develop fairly good hunches based on careful observation of events and understanding of what people do and why. The great financial collapse was not a surprise to many people. As you say, Saddam is now the past and there are bigger fish to fry. Weren't you impressed by my gold price "hunches" for the last two years? How about my northern hemisphere winter predictions for the last 3 of them? What do you think of my 2020 foresight prediction for more Little Ice Age in 2020? That one is fairly hunchy but has pretty good odds. It might even be the beginning of actual reglaciation. And how about those sun-spot predictions from 2008? Bang on. We have to wait only another couple of years to see whether the peak of this cycle is as predicted. Personally, I'd be quite annoyed if I was told I was going to get Saddam's WMDs, "We know where they are", and now I am missing a leg, or half a head and there were no WMDs, just a frightened family cowering under their beds with bits of their siblings strewn around [from the softening up attack from a helicopter]. People who are actually not particularly intelligent seem all too often to be particularly keen on getting themselves into positions of power. They also seem light on ethics, which is not surprising since a lust for power over others necessarily conflicts with the idea of ethics. Mqurice