Re: Bush goes Nuclear!

mmeron_at_cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: 07/14/04 

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 07:25:45 GMT

In article <140720040207116350%jabergeron@earthlink.nettled>, Joe Bergeron <jabergeron@earthlink.nettled> writes:
>In article <hn99f01143li29c7eu0cfufrp0p78iecph@4ax.com>, Dave Typinski
><nospam@nospam.net> wrote:
>
>> >And, evidently, lie about it!
>>
>> They never lied, they obfuscated - and they did so because they had
>> to. The real reasons we invaded Iraq would have been found
>> politically unacceptable to the squeamish laity. Most people do not
>> understand that you have to kill people to prevent deaths in your own
>> country. That's unfortunate, but that's the deal.
>
>So the best thing an American citizen can do is not to bother
>questioning its government, since it will lie, er, "obfuscate", to
>promote any agenda which we are too lily-livered or too dumb to
>understand?
>
>> >
>> >In other words we will do as we damn well please, regardless of what that
>> >nation is doing.
>>
>> Within reason, yes.
>
>If a preemptive, unprovoked invasion of a militarily weak, thoroughly
>beaten nation is "within reason", what is outside of reason?
>
>>
>> This does not, however, mean the U. S. will go about stomping little
>> nations out of existence. That's not our game. Ruining a country
>> doesn't make them more likely to engage in commerce. *That's* what
>> the U. S. is after, ever more commerce and the expansion of free
>> market capitalism.
>>
>> So, to that end, if a nation interferes with global commerce, it will
>> be dealt with appropriately. If it drastically interferes with
>> American commerce, it's government may be removed.
>
>So which is it? Did we invade Iraq because it was a threat to American
>citizens, or because we wanted to buy Iraqi oil only we couldn't get as
>much as we wanted because we had imposed sanctions on Iraq?
>>
And we were the only thing that prevented their removal. So, did the
thought occured to you that, would the Iraqi oil have been the
objective, it would have been incomparably simpler to cut a backroom
deal with Saddam, trading our agreement to end the sanctions for
preferantial access to Iraqi oil. If id didn't occur to you, why not?

And, if it did, do you expect all others to be so dumb as to fall for
the "war for oil" line.

Of course there was, and still is, a threat to American citizens. The

source of this threat is not just Iraq but the whole Arab world, small

fraction of it actively, large by acquiescence. So, you had the
following options:

1) Do nothing and trust that "if we won't move, neither will they"
which seems still to be the belief of many people but which, in light
of 9/11, is stupid beyond imagination.

2) Limit yourself to chasing individual terrorists. In view of the
fact that these can be mass produced by unskilled labor, and they
cannot be deterred since they don't care whether they live or die,
this is a losing proposition. Also, you can't effectively chase them
when there are large areas in which they enjoy the support (be it
overt or covert) of the local authorities).

3) Make an example of one unsavory Arab regime, at the same time
gaining a position from which you may be able to exercise some
leverage on political developments within the Arab world. This also
has the chance of securing the cooperation of some of the regimes
which before supported or turned a blind eye to Muslim extremism.

4) Go on an all out war against the Arab world.

>From these four, the first two are useless or nearly so, the last one
is the Armageddon option which you prefer not to exercise unless
you're fully convinced that there is no other choice. (3) is dicey
but at least it has some chance.

Of course, one could also raise "option (0)" to say "ask them what is
it they want and give it to them. Has been tried by Chamberlain and
company in the 30s, didn't do much good.

>> Y'know, we see a lot of commentary about Bush did this and Bush did
>> that and oh, it was all so unfair, and look at what we've got
>> ourselves into.
>>
>> However, I see very little comment about what we should have done
>> instead. It's all fine to criticize. Such is, after all, a
>> cornerstone of U. S. democracy.
>>
>> That said, it is far more productive to suggest a *better* alternative
>> and then proceed to explain why.
>>
>> I acknowledge that there were plenty of alternatives to invading Iraq.
>> I'm hard pressed to think of one that would achieve the same goals any
>> better.
>>
>> So, may I ask, what do you suggest we ought to have done instead and
>> why?
>
>I suggest we should have kept on doing what we were already doing. We
>had Saddam cooped up, reduced to a helpless pipsqueak with no power
>beyond his own borders. UN weapons inspectors found nothing, and it is
>now apparent that this was not due to their incompetence, but to the
>fact that Saddam had no major weapons. It was a relatively inexpensive
>program of containment that was all but totally safe for our troops,
>and it kept intact America's international reputation. It was all
>working rather well.

Really? And this will do, regarding the topic of Islamic extremism,
what exactly? Ah, yes, we don't have to worry about this, we wiped
them out in Afghanistan and they'll never rise again, right? How many
lives you're willing to gamble on this?

It appears the fashion, in some circles, to consider 9/11 as just an
inconvenient data point which can be ignored. Well, it cannot.

Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"

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