Good post, Jan. No one disputes that the US military has supremacy in arsenal and technical know-how. That's not the point. In fact, I sure hope we have superior firepower considering the money we have spent and are pouring into refurbishing the navy, upgrading coms systems and last but not least, paying our men and women in uniform better and giving them better housing and benefits for their service to us (after years of paying lip service to them during campaigns and then ignoring them for another 4 years). I used to work for a sub consultant to the DOE and even as a lowly admin assistant saw annual reports outlining the super cool stuff we developed at our labs under contract. I am also well aware that defense research dollars take decades to reach the people who will use them. The question is what do we want to do with it? We may in fact be a military empire, a financial empire and a pop culture empire, but we haven't accepted that yet. WE still think of ourselves as Cowboys riding to the rescue. Making the first strike is a novel notion to most of the public. I know some people - especially overseas, cannot believe this, but it's generally true. We can overreach our own military capacity by trying to solve all the worlds' myriad political problems exercising our muscle. Rome's mighty armies fell from stretching itself too far, so did Napoleon's. Of course, ego played a part. The Allies succeeded in WW1 and 2 by cooperating and pooling resources. Should we learn something from this? Diplomacy and international pressure are underused in this administration. It's not surprising. Here's how I would write a fictional scene out of the life of Dubya:
In an overwhelmed moment, Son remembers Father telling him in quiet moments alone that he learned the most and made the best decisions in one-on-one conversations with his top advisors. The Son, however, does not have the experience of his father's wide resume in the UN, the CIA and as ambassador to China to round out his accelerated tutoring taking place on the phone and in private sessions with Dad's trusted loyalists, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice. Brooding at Camp David, desperate to prove himself worthy, and believing all those true-blue supporters who told him they just KNEW God put him in the White House at just this right time, he decides he can bluff his way based on the cliff notes on leadership that Mom snuck to him between rounds of golf, so he'd have something to read while Laura hosted all those wordy authors at the White House. Son, bereft of depth or a compass, marches confidently out of the gym into the mist, the horizon unseen. The New Republic makes a good summary case of 4 reasons to go after SH in a first strike @ http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=ackerman080202 but let me quote from it here: "That leaves just the argument about weapons of mass destruction. Nobody questions--at least, nobody should question--the importance of destroying that arsenal before Saddam uses it to harm us. But some might argue we should stop at just that: eliminating the existing weapons, and leaving the regime in place. The problem with this argument, as Hamza made clear in his testimony, is that leaving Saddam in power means allowing him to build more weapons in the future--with even greater destructive capacity, and with even more opportunities to shield them from our reach. We've had a hard enough time containing Saddam's arsenal construction in the current environment. Why does it seem more realistic to think we could do so in the future, given his obvious determination to acquire these weapons? And if the destruction of Saddam, not just his weapons, is the inevitable endpoint for U.S. policy, why not do it now? War, Hamza testified, "is much easier now at much less cost and less danger to the U.S. ... than after the window closes." As Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, observed at Thursday's hearing, "We have to be prepared for the fact that if we do this, it will in many ways be our first preemptive war. We will not have a clear smoking gun." So, is the window of opportunity closing? Is it the only one? - Karen Subject: RE: Predicting Reaction in the ME > Jan, you made a good point about the Saudis being as dependent upon the > US/West for their defense as we are for their oil and secondly, that Iraq > does not appear AT THIS TIME to have backing of China and/or the Russians. > However, I disagree with you that other Arabs will not at least publicly > rally around Hussein in a US-led invasion, simply because the sociopolitical climate has changed so much in 10 years and there is this deliberately set > call for Islamic Jihad that did not exist before. Today, remote villagers > have access to satellite TV and cell phones, not just radio reports and word of mouth much delayed. Oh but I don't doubt that. Only, what difference will it make if some remote villagers will curse the US and the UK? They may 'support' Saddam but they won't be able to do anything to help him; > Osama bin Laden did nothing less than legitimize for too many extreme > Muslims finding targets for their economic and political repression outside > of their own governments. America and its allies are certainly no angels > when it comes to the ME, but there is the enemy has been portrayed and > evolved differently today than a decade ago. > You may have heard an old adage: If you back someone into a corner with no > escape, don't be surprised if they come out swinging at you"? We will see what happens. I think Saddam will be wiped away clean before any 'swinging' will take place. The superiority of the US arsenal is so overwhelming you have no idea. There is no doubt the Iraqi army will be destroyed if it ever engages in a fight, which I strongly doubt. The problem is afterwards, how to run Iraq? If we target > Saddam for removal without gathering at least a smattering of support for > regime-change, it won't matter how fast some people think the Iraqis will > fall (and I don't think that) because the larger problem will be maintaining > the successor and his certain line of successors in a very unstable country > in a turbulent region. As to the speculation that Iraqis will surrender and > welcome US troops as liberators, I'm applying the 50% rule to that one. The problem is indeed, what will come after? Only, it cannot possibly be a lot worse than Saddam. I think, once his power broken, many will be glad to be rid of him. By the way, all this doesn't mean I am in favor of taking him out. I just figure that has been decided already, and nobody is going to stop it. It's more or less 'karma', with George Bush the younger having to finish what his dad left undone. Europe will bark a bit, the left will shout a bit, but the world will go on without Saddam. > It is still necessary for Bush-Cheney Inc to make the case WHY this gigantic > undertaking is necessary and right at this moment in time. We need a failed > coup d'etat in Baghdad with pleas for help or a SCUD missile attack to level > Jerusalem to override a growing sense of overreaching when it may not be > necessary. I don't think so, but anything is possible. > I guess what I'm saying is that your comments about not supporting Hussein > are based on logic and reveal a Western perception of loyalty; however, we > are talking about different nations that share the same religious fervor and > Hussein is a survivor who will play all the cards he can, including jihad > and a war of civilizations. As a defence expert I can tell you one thing: he doesn't have a chance, once it starts for real. There will be no jihad and much less a war of civilizations. The power of the US and Europe at this time in history just is too great. I also have an idea about the people in power in most ME nations.They are no fools, they are no religious maniacs and they know at least as much as I do about the US superiority on the battlefield. Jihad may be a concept embraced by many poor frustrated powerless people in the streets, but their elites know better. I wouldn't underestimate their sense of reality. > The big question to me is how difficult the Saudis (and others) will make > the military Ops and political maneuvering. We need to pray there is no > assassination in Jordan. > Again, speaking as a baby boomer with an eye on history, I suspect that many > Americans of my generation will be uncomfortable and reluctant to jump into > the role of Empire that these plans make evident. Americans have not > accepted that title, as in Evil Empire, or even a successor to the British > Empire, and the expansion of military strategy in this way this fast this > secretly makes American Empire a valid label. Facts are there. The US is the only real superpower today. They are spending about 60% of all that is being spent on defence in the world on their army. Together with Europe this becomes more than 75%. There never was a stronger military power and a bigger imbalance compared to any other power in the world. That's an empire, whether you like it or not. > It's just too bad that Bush had to be so outspoken from the beginning about > wanting to replace SH. It's been said so many times now that even if > back-room maneuvering, special ops and legitimate sound diplomacy were > making progress, Bush may have put himself into a place where he has no > other choice but to attack. And that would answer the historians' question; > the man made history. Correct. He will finish what his father couldn't, because at the time the Turkish were against it, fearing for a break-up of Turkey, and the Russians didn't like the idea. Today the Kurds in Turkey are better under control and the Russians even more so. Jan > Karen
